I received my MBR-2bis a couple of days ago; it really is very good. It's too bad the company who originated it (Dnieper Model Group, or something like that) only produced this one kit and then went out of business.
Waiting for delivery of the MBR-2 must have turned my attention to Russian flying boats - something made me dig out my copy of the RPM 1/72 Beriev KOR-2/Be-4, and start building it. I really don't agree with the attitude of "Let's have a good laugh at this Soviet-era lump of plastic" - someone cared enough to attempt to produce a kit of this aircraft, and the end result is the reality we have to deal with. Yes, it has lots of flash on it, some of the small parts are crude, and the panel lines are very faint in places. Overall, though, the shapes are generally accurate, and it could be made into a good model of a very attractive aircraft. One problem I have found (and I hope this is limited to a very few examples of the kit) is that, on mine, at least, the white plastic from which the kit is molded has a strange dark-grey swirl mixed into it. This kind of appearance is not unusual on some limited-run kits (Skybirds86 comes to mind) and can be the result of using more than one colour of styrene without complete mixing before feeding the material into the molds. It isn't a problem in that case; however, once I started sanding, I discovered that the grey swirl isn't just a different colour of styrene, it's actually some kind of foreign material (grease? graphite?) mixed right into the styrene which causes the plastic to flake or shred wherever it's exposed. This will require some experimenting to find out how to get a good surface finish before painting, assuming I get that far. Anyway, I
like this kit!!!
(Considering Amodel's enthusiasm for Russian GPW-era flying boats, I'm surprised they haven't done the Be-4, by the way. Maybe they will as soon as I finish the RPM one...
)
John