Manufacturer: Classic Airframes, P.O. Box 577580, Chicago, IL 60657-7580, 773-588-5161.
Kit: No. 416
Scale: 1/48
Price: $29.95
Comments: Multimedia, 66 parts (29 injection-molded plastic, 35 resin, 2 vacuum-formed windshields), decals.
Pros: Good detail, excellent resin parts, excellent decals, interesting subject.
Cons: Assembly drawings vague on parts locations, struts too long, wings too thick, some parts must be made from scratch.

The Boeing P-12E (along with its naval counterpart, the F4B-3/4) was a colorful, agile biplane fighter of the 1930s. The only previous 1/48 scale plastic version was the old Aurora kit. Classic Airframes’ kit is appealingly presented with good box art and excellent decals for two aircraft, one in the typical olive drab and chrome yellow scheme and the other in an unusual silver fuselage scheme. The large parts are produced in injection-molded styrene, while the excellent engine and cockpit detail parts are cast in resin. A pair of vacuum-formed windshields are supplied.

The recessed surface detail of the light gray plastic parts is good. Typical of limited run injection kits, there are no alignment pins and the wing leading edges are too thick. The instruction sheet shows exploded drawings for a guide in assembly, but the exact location of parts is not clear from these drawings.

To complete this kit you need good references. I found my previously built 1/32 scale Hasegawa P-12E to be most helpful when building this smaller one. Most parts had to be filed and fitted, but two major challenges loomed. The first was building the 26-part resin engine. I goofed and cut the resin cylinders too far up from the pour stub, and when I attached them to the resin engine block, the diameter of the engine was too small to hold the cowl ring. I ended up finding a suitable engine in my spares box and modifying it to fit the kit. If you are more successful with the kit engine, you’ll also have to cut 18 push rods from wire or stretched sprue.

The second major challenge was assembling the wings and landing gear to the fuselage with struts that are too long and that have unbeveled ends. I considered making a jig to hold things in position while I test fitted and glued the struts in place. Instead, I assembled the fuselage, lower wings and tail, then drilled holes for small brass wires in the wings and fuselage.

At this point I painted the model with PollyScale Olive Drab and USAAC Orange Yellow and applied the decals. They were as good as any I have used.

Now I could work on the struts. First the interplane struts were super glued to the lower wing, then the cabane struts to the fuselage, keeping angles and distances correct by measuring with dividers. The model was then inverted and placed on the upper wing for alignment and gluing. The fin helped keep the angle of the wings correct. The landing gear struts also required trimming, fitting, and pinning with brass wire. I had to make an Army-style gunsight and horizontal stabilizer support struts from stretched sprue.

The finished model measures about six scale inches too long in both span and length, but the contours look right. Even after modifying the struts, however, the distance between the two wings is too great.

Good references on the P-12 are the old Profile (No. 2 – if you can find it) and Squadron/Signal’s F-12/F4B in Action.

I spent about 40 hours on this model, more than I would normally spend on a biplane. It’s colorful and attractive, but I recommend it only to experienced builders who can handle the intricacies of biplane construction.