Eduard has released some new 1/48th “Brassin” range MG 17 machine guns to match your early war German fighters like the Bf 109 and Fw-190A’s or even as a self-defence gun on your Luftwaffe bombers – anywhere you want to show the detail off I suppose! We thought we would have a look at them and see what the quality was like in our review...
Kit no: 648 063
Scale: 1/48th
Material: 2 parts of “Brassin” Resin
Available from: Eduard’s
Webstore
Eduard seem to have their fingers on the trigger –
they have released a bunch of accessories recently which not only compliment but
improve their kit pieces in their latest line called “Brassin”
This line of resin and sometimes photo-etched parts
to achieve the best in detailing sets has seen the release this month of an
update to your MG 17 machine gun – used most popularly in you new 1/48th
Bf 109E and Fw-190 kits as well as in other aircraft like the Ju-87.88, He
111 families as self-defence weapon. This
is sure to be a popular addition to a lot of people after just that little more
finesse in their end product.
This MG 17 gun was made by the Rheinmetall-Borsig factory throughout
the war and was used mostly as a fixed position machine gun in fighters until it
was replaced by increasingly higher calibre guns later in the war. I suspect
these sets will be finding themselves into many of the new Bf 109e kits the
company has just released. Below we have a picture of the kit guns – not too
shabby at all – but where there is an aftermarket is there also any room for improvement? Let’s
look a little harder at these guns.
The guns are 2 pieces of resin, with the gun body,
barrel with its cooling tube and the gun accessories are moulded in one piece.Now for one i can say they are tiny! I am a larger scale modeller of armour and
aircraft usually – and going to a smaller scale really is a different world –
and at first glance you really cannot tell much in the difference to – just say
the latest kit MG 17s of the Royal class Bf-109E kit – though look harder I did
and I did see a large difference!
The 1/48th Bf-109E guns from Eduard- not bad...
The Brassin guns - better still
The “Brassin” kit comes in two parts and can pretty
much slot straight into your kit after a bit of careful carving. You must
remove the resin from its casting block which took me all of a careful five
minutes. I must say about the resin it is cast very neatly and there are no bubbles
or release residue of any kind. This really is a high end product and the
packaging – with neat instructions and the guns displayed in clear packaging
very neatly emphasises this.
Instructions were easy to follow and the removal from casting blocks has "risk free" if you know what I mean..
The guns are neatly presented and putting them next
to the kit part you can see the cooling jacket on the Brassin guns is on
another level. On closer inspection of the kit part there is a seam line all the way down the barrel which is a delicate thing to remove without removing detail. This isn't present on the Brassin gun. As well as the gun’s surfaces being more accurate in that they
are the actual shapes of the gun and not 90% correct like the kit guns.
You can see the true scale of these and the fine work involved when compared to a coin of the realm. (The tan gun is the kit gun)
I am not
saying the kit guns are bad AT ALL – I am saying that under scrutiny these are
so much better. these are certainly the best crafted 1/48th Mg 17s I have seen. The only thing I think the Eduard kit guns have over the Brassin guns is that they have ready made hollow ends.
Again the kit gun is tan, the Brassin gun is the grey - you can see the seam on the kit and the more detailed cooling jacket of the Brassin kit here to good effect.
Compared to the real thing you can see the likeness
Eduard have achieved.
Now many people would say do you need them? The answer
is no – but the other question is do you WANT them? I would answer yes – and I'll
definitely be including them in my Bf-109E build when it comes in the queue.
Well done on such a delicate piece of casting Eduard!
Adam
Norenberg
Thanks
to Eduard for this Kit. It is
available at the link in the banner below.
