C-47 & DC-3 Corrected Nose
for Esci Kits

Red Roo Models, 1/72 scale

Reviewed by Mark Davies

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The two best C-47 and DC-3 kits in 1/72-scale have until now been by Esci and Italeri. The recent release of the Li-2 by A-Model may change things a bit for those willing to do some conversion work, but for many, it is the Italian kits that spring to mind. AMT re-boxed the Esci kits, whilst Revell, Tetsors and Airfix have offered the Italeri’s kits. Esci’s DC-3 and C-47 kits are far less common than Italeri’s, and these days are mainly available second-hand. From what I have read in Scale Models Magazine (Dec 85 & Dec 96) it seems that Esci has the best shape overall by a reasonable margin. However, both kits also have an excessive and rather heavy recessed panel lines; in fact, the recessed lines seem to fall wherever rivets lines were.

However, the Esci kit does have some slight shape and dimension issues with its nose. Scale models considered it to be a scale 5 ½ inches short from the leading edge to nose-tip, too flat a line above the cockpit, and too the cockpit windows are too small. Red Roo offers a replacement nose for either the Esci DC-3 or C-47 kits that addresses these issues.

The Contents

The single resin piece comes in a plastic bag with the simple instruction to cut the kit nose off and fit the replacement. It is left to the modeller to determine just where to do so, which is easy enough. Some adjustment of the kit’s flight deck may be needed to make it fit as the walls of the resin than kit’s; or the resin could be ground away to accept the plastic interior detail. I think that very little will be visible either way. The nose has individual window frames cast in place, and some may favour liquid glazing products for this area, but I do not. I would remove the frames instead and fit flat panes of clear styrene or acetate, and then paint the frame lines in place.

The resin casting is provides the basic shape needed and little else. There are a few pits and scratches evident, but these can be easily filled and fixed. The outline of small door on the lower port side is a little vague in places, and needs some re-scribing. The nose is also devoid of panel lines. These will need careful scribing once the resin nose is in place on the plastic fuselage. The discarded parts can serve as a pattern for scribing the nose as the original kit has many panel lines in this area. The other more radical solution would be to fill all of the kit panel lines to match the nose and build a smoothy.

I assume that Red Roo left the panel lines off their resin nose master as the size of resin castings can vary slightly despite coming from the same mould. Perhaps this meant that Red Roo could not guarantee that cast panel lines would align with the kit ones, and so left them for the modeller to finish.

This replacement nose is basic, but it meets the aim of correcting nose shape of the Esci C-47 and DC-3 kits. However, it is not a plug and play item as a lot of finishing is needed. This includes fixing small blemishes and quite a bit of awkward scribing around compound curves. The glazing is perhaps one of the easier task associated with the nose if you just use a liquid clear product; although I think that glazing with clear plastic would look better but this means much more work.

This replacement nose could be the answer you are looking for if the shape of the one on your Esci C-47 or DC-3 concerns you; but with the proviso that you need to be capable of doing a good job of scribing the panel lines into the resin. If you are scribe-ably challenged (how’s that for PC?), and you do not want to build a smoothy; then learn to live with the kit nose, or correct the aspects that most concern you with plastic surgery.

I feel that this fix is for outline perfectionists who are disinclined to do their own plastic surgery. I recommend Red Roo’s nose to talented scribers within this group of people.

Thanks to Red Roo Models for the review sample.

Review Text Copyright © 2012 by Mark Davies
Page Created 20 September, 2012
Last updated 20 September, 2012

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