1952

Arrivals For the Week Ending December 6,  2025 –

December 7, 2025

Soviet Motor Torpedo Boat

 by Gil Gonsoulin

The G5 Soviet  Motor Torpedo Boat was designed by Andrei Tupolev. It looked like a large float that would be used on a float plane.

The boat was constructed of duralumin which made the boat light. However, duralumin is highly susceptible to galvanic corrosion when used in salt water.

During the summer the boat could only be kept in the water for 5-7 days. In the winter it could be increased to 10-15 days. After that they would have to be removed  from the water and the hull would need to be treated with anti-corrosion measures.

The boats were fast with a top speed of 52 MPH. But the minimum speed of 21 mph created a problem when mooring. They carried two torpedoes and a variety of machine guns and/or rocket launchers.

The kit is from Merit. It is well molded with good details. No interior is supplied , which leaves some very large gaping holes looking all the way through to the bottom of the boat.

I could not find any pictures of the interior. So you have to use your imagination and make the interior from your parts box. Since no figures are provided, it’s another trip back to the parts box.

The model was painted with Tamiya and Floquil paints and weathered with Model Master and Ak paints. Water effects were done using various Liquitex products.

November 12, 2025

Tony

by Scott Scalfani

This is a Hasegawa’s 1/48 scale Kawasaki Ki61  Hien (Tony). To get the authentic looking Japanese camouflage, I first sprayed the entire model with Alclad Silver.

After letting it dry for 3 days, I over-sprayed it with Japanese Army Green using the Paasche airbrush with an H-1 tip. This was followed by a thinned Japanese Green with a little white mixed in. The aircraft was than washed with artist oil paint to bring out the panel lines and to blend it together.

For reference material, I used a photo of 244 Sendai found on Okinawa. This unit had red tails, except for this one. For some reason it was overpainted, but I left some patches with the red showing through.

The kit comes with a one piece windscreen. I slit it with an Xacto #11 to open it up. Contrary to what some think, the yellow ID line on the leading edge did not have hard edges, so I feathered it.

Rosebud

Hub Hobby’s original building on Broad St in New Orleans has been demolished. Word of it being torn down spread like wildfire.

One of our customers, Jim Letten, was emailed by his friend Martin about the demolition of their childhood hang-out.

The subject line was: ROSEBUD

“Rosebud” was the dying word spoken by Orson Welles in the movie Citizen Kane: a reference to his childhood sled – the symbol of memories of youthful innocence.

Read it here