1:72 Ta 152C-0/H-1 Undercarriage Bays Mask Hasegawa/Dragon

Masking the bays of the Ta 152 C-0 and H-1 in a small scale

The Focke-Wulf Ta 152 is among the machines on which small details on the underside tell to the eye, and the space for the retracted landing gear is exactly such a place. This set closes its openings temporarily and thus replaces cutting covering by hand. In the consignment you will find covering pieces, not a kit of the aircraft.

The last fighter of Kurt Tank

The Ta 152 came about as the completion of a development line that began with the Fw 190 and continued through the D version with a V engine. The designer Kurt Tank lent the type his own name for the first time with it. The H-1 sub-version was a high-altitude interceptor with a conspicuously lengthened wing and with a Junkers Jumo 213 E engine, whose two-stage supercharger secured it exceptional performance at great altitudes. The C series, by contrast, built on the Daimler-Benz DB 603 V12 and aimed rather at medium altitudes. Only the H-1 sub-version got into the air in larger numbers, and part of Jagdgeschwader 301 received it in the first months of 1945; combat units practically never saw the pre-production machines of the C series. Surviving photographs are therefore scarce and every model of this type tends to be a piece of research.

A procedure that has proved itself

With so late a type it pays to start with a light base inside the bays and only then to cover them. Before you press a mask down, make sure the area is degreased and free of sanding dust, otherwise paint seeps under the edge. Lay on rather two light coats than one generous one; the transition then stays thin and will not strike the eye in seventy-second scale.

Who it is for

• For collectors of late German types from the very close of the Second World War
• For modelers who finish the view from below in small scales
• For those who want the outline of a bay defined exactly, not by eye
• For builders who like combining an ordinary kit with accessories