Eduard have released a neat set of etched extras to add even more detail to Mirage''s excellent Karaś. The review also takes a look at the accompanying paining masks.

Link to Item

If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

I think that Polish producer "Part" has much more interesting offer. In PART S48140 etched parts for PZL-23 Karas you got four pices with approximately 150 parts. The price is about 25USD, but it is worth to buy!

The link to shop is: PART S48140

The URL of product is: screenshots

Hi Marek

Thank you for the hint!

while you are surely right when talking about super detailing, I am glad the Eduard has not so much parts. I have the WMC Karas and I think the eduard is the right amount of extra detail (maybe already to much as I plan to build the model with the figures)

Best wishes

Steffen

BTW you Polish modelles (together with the Czech) seem to have a faible for super detailling ... I just cannot get over this:

Bf 109 Super detail .. the hard way

Eduard have two sets, cockpit only or cockpit and internal details. Part also have two sets, internal and external. Probably Techmod will produce a resin engine eventually. The cost of both Part sets is probably double the price of the kit! For the average modeller the Eduard set is better. It is also pre-coloured. For the instrument dials I would use the kit decals as they have the correct coloured faces. Part are great if you want a very highly detailed model but for many I suspect it is too much. For the P.11c half of their PE is only worth using if you open up all the panels so you can see it. Sometimes their instructions don't make clear where the parts go. I still cannot work out where component 'X' on the PZL P.37 goes!

Agama make authenic Polish colours. They are available only from the Jadar Shop www.jadar.com.pl

I have found that their version of Polish Khaki is an exact match for Humbrol H155 Olive Drab (FS34088).

I cannot find an exact match for the blue-grey colour of the undersurfaces. Humbrol H65 is too blue but Tamiya XF23 is a close match. Possibly Xtracolour X127 would do if you like enamel paints. Here is a translation from the kit intructions on Polish Khaki.

"Preserved fragments of PZL P23s seem to prove the theory that the PZL factory at first used a khaki paint composed of FS20122 and FS30108. Later, the PZL factory changed the khaki colour to a greener shade - FS 34087. The colour used earlier most likely bleached quickly and in doing so lost its camouflaging properties and (probably) this is why the recipe for mixing the pigments in the paint was changed. The new khaki colour was most likely used for painting export aircraft and new types such as the PZL P37 Los or the PZL P43. This seems to confirm the colour photographs taken by the Germans at Okecie in 1939. We managed to get hold of a fragment of paint from a PZL P37B Los and on the basis of this sample, we selected a mixture of Vallejo paints. The new khaki colour was most likely used on the late-series Karas B and most likely also on refurbished Karas As, and other aircraft repainted as the need arose. As of this moment, we've not been able to discover what colour the interior of the Karas was painted. No information on this subject has survived, we've not been able to find any artefacts. Studying photos, we can make out that the interior is painted in some dark colour, and neither silver nor light blue. The fragments of the P.23 interior exhibited from time to time at the Aviation Museum in Kraków were painted a dark greyish blue. Summing up, the prototypes and early production examples were probably painted silver. Later production machines were probably painted dark greyish-blue or khaki green. The 'shelves' between crew members were pained khaki green. The most likely variant: walls painted dark greyish-blue, the floor black. All equipment, such as the camera, radio, bomb sight, were left in the colours that they were when they left the factories from which they originally came. Stencils (lit. 'utilisation lettering') (on the decal sheet nos. 20, 21, 22, 23) were probably not painted on Karas As; we've left them on the sheet as they might well have been applied when the aircraft were being refurbished. An example might be the inscription "NIE DEPTAC" (do not tread) which can be seen on a/c no. 44.30."

The Vallejo colours are 950 - black, 953 - Flat Yellow, 968 - Flat Green, 970 - Deep Green, 982 Cavalry Brown.
I have tried these mixtures and all I get is three slightly different shades of dark chocolate brown. FS34087 is USAAF Dark Olive Drab 41 (NB not the same as H155 which is FS34088). This is a surprisingly difficult colour to come by. White Ensign do a version www.whiteensignmodels.com

If you do not want to buy the Vallejo paints than you can try the following Humbrol substitutes (same order as above) H33, H154, H131, H2, H133. I have matched these by eye. The brown is not perfect but the greens are pretty close. In my opinion some of the matches given in Vallejo's X-ref chart are just plain wrong.

If you want know anything about FS Numbers visit ipmsstockholm.org