Eduard 1/32 F-100D Super Sabre Interior Detail Set First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

Eduard from the Czech Republic is easily the most prolific producer of aftermarket details. Period. Their series of photo-etched detail sets have brought additional fidelity to otherwise bland subjects, and have taken even the best-produced models and kicked them up a notch or two with details that cannot be produced with injection-molded plastic.

When Eduard first introduced the acetate-printed instrument faces that go behind their photo-etched instrument panels, this raised the bar on model cockpit reality as you could almostread the time on the aircraft clock. How could they top that?

It took a number of years, but the answer is color photo-etch. Somehow Eduard has developed a process for printing color directly on their photo-etched parts such that now you not only can read the instrument faces, you can now see the color warning arcs around airspeed indicators and color reference circles around Luftwaffe flight and engine instruments. They didn't stop there...

One of the other challenges working with small photo-etched parts was getting them placed using cyano without excess glue spewing out from one (or more) edges. Eduard tackled this problem as well by introducing their self-adhesive line. Now these parts are a simple 'drop-in fit' for installation.

This set provides a complete transformation of the Trumpeter kit cockpit from the floorboard up. The detail set replaces virtually all of the molded-on details with photo-etch, with the key areas like instrument panel, side consoles, and quarter panels all pre-printed in color. Care will be required with this set as there are numerous small parts used in the reconstruction of this cockpit, many of them representing small control knobs in full scale.

As mentioned above, the first fret of photo-etch is not only color-printed, it is also self-adhesive, eliminating the potential disaster of attemting to use cyano adhesives in laminating the multiple layers of photoetch that make up that beautiful instrument panel.

One of the nice advantages of using photo-etch in this project is that it is virtually impossible to recreate much of the finer details in injection-molded styrene, not that Trumpeter didn't do a good job with their tooling. Details like brackets, structural stringers, mechanical guides, etc., cannot be captured in styrene effectively. Eduard has really gone to the extreme here and provided some stunning detail enhancements. These include:

• New instrument panel and quarter panels
• New side console surfaces
• New cockpit floor with details
• New canopy sill and rear deck with lots of details
• New details on the canopy and interior of the windscreen,
• Nice new North American rudder pedals

The instrument panel layout appears to capture the instrument layout of the F-100D in its early configuration. If you look over the instrument layouts on our F-100 reference site, you can add a blanking plate here and there to replicate the layout of the later-life F-100Ds should you be modeling a Vietnam era bird or the late-life Air National Guard aircraft.

You should be able to find this detail set at your local hobby retailer or one of the many online hobby shops. Trust me, this is worth looking for!

My sincere thanks to Eduard for this review sample!