1:100 Dassault "Mercure"

Some weeks ago I built and painted the 1:100 Avions Marcel Dassault "Mercure" passenger jet made by the German modelkit manufacturer Master Modell. I made a minireview about this kit some time ago

Building the model took a lot of efford. I had to use a huge amount of putty to hide some big seamlines followed by extensive sanding. This was the worst kit I ever constucted, the only good thing was that the plane would become a scenery piece that I could be a little sloppier than usual.

When it was finally built, the result was not attracting me. But anyway, I cleaned it from any dirt and residue, and gave it a coat of white primer, pretty thin but I thought the following white paint would cover the plane properly.

I almost gave up, first I messed up most of my white paint. Then, the first coats of (the now rare) white paint did not really start to cover the massive amount of putty which was used to fix all big gaps, but eventually the whole surface of the primed plane got its coat of white. The fact that my airbrush pistol was jamming the whole time did not rise the level of fun. 

What is mostly annoying to me, when I have to comletely clean the airbrush while I am in the process of painting, but I had to and after that I applied some glosscoat to prepare the Mercure for its decals.

I absolutely followed these intructions, they are a variation of the basic text which comes with all decals, but my mate Olli noted that I should take a closer look at this, and fact, the last sentence says "Do not apply at frost".
I was glad that I, even when did not know this, followed that advice.

The decals were, hmm, meh (?), the small decals were applied without any issues, while their medium sized counterparts did not stick to the surface. Everytime they seemed dry and sitting, a minimal touch moved them.

Then came the biggest decals, and, just look for yourself:

This thing not only stretched, before I even touched it, there are no holes for the windows. Since they are sunken in and the surface is not flat, the final look is horrible. Luckily this kit will be an absolute exception, I will stay mainly with groundvehicles.

Some parts of the thin red line of the decal just disappeared what almost crossed my red line. But I repainted them by hand just as the black front of the plane and a lot of the blue parts.

Finally it was sealed with matte varnish, sloppy but this kit will get its very final coat of sealing  when it serves its designation.

(Sure, a modeller with skills could make a nice model from this box, but not me, and I continued to work on this.)

The next step felt like some kind of liberation, I prepared all parts for building a nice scenery piece using them. At the next Montagsmaler meeting I will start to build this and I am going to try to include some LEDs.

What I did not mention in my closer look at this kit, was the fact that I got this kit twice for various reasons (I should not have done this) and the second kit was not even better to build, this text would fit on it too. In a future post the second Mercure will be shown, if that thing has not been flown into the wall right beside my workbench before.

1:100 Master Modell Avions Marcel Dassault "Mercure"

A closer look at the 1:100 Avions Marcel Dassault "Mercure" made by the German modelkit manufacturer Master Modell.

Initially released in 1975 by the East German Plasticart Zschopau, this kit was re-released from 1989 to 1991 by Master Modell. These and many more informations about this long gone manufacturer can be found on this homepage.

This is not the usual stuff on which I take a closer look, but when I saw a picture* of a scenery piece with a crashed passenger jet, I felt pretty inspired. I checked various sources to get the cheapest 1:100 civil airliner kit which I could find, to build a scenery piece for "TANKS The Modern Age".

I found this kit, even when I did find almost no informations about it. The linked homepage was the highlight from the search but the rest I got was pretty bad. This is a good reason for this mini review. 

Let us take a look at the parts which are included:

The main parts are moulded in white plastic, which is pretty sturdy and hard. If you are a regular reader of my blog, you may know that I am absolutely no aviation expert, but even I see the simplicity of this kit.

There are not much details, only some raised panel lines. I did not expect the quality of a modern Dragon or Revell kit, but building this as desired will take more efford than I tought.

The next sprue comes in a silverish grey plastic, not as hard as the white parts. It contains more parts to finish this model, among some others, the landing gear and the engines can be found. The grade of detail is low and most of the panel lines are raised just as on the other parts.

The next sprue comes in black plastic and contains all wheels for the landing gear. The detail is simple but at least they are round.

The final sprue includes all clear parts for the model. I am positively surprised by its quality, they are pretty clear, especially since today I unboxed another kit with many clear parts which are pretty milky.

Seems that there are some more closer looks incoming.

Beside the plastic there is a big decal sheet included. According to the Wikipedia article about the Dassault Mercure, it was used by only one airline (Air Inter) for which this sheet is included.

I can not say anything about the quality of East German decals, but to be honest, I do not expect much from them but I will see.

All in all, this is an old kit, compared to "west" modelkits from this time, I think this was never a great kit. On the other side, it is a relict from the past, made from a company in a country who both do not exist anymore.

I think with some work it will make a great scenery piece, combined with the planned new battlefield, this will not only be a fun to make but also an impressing piece of decoration.

This weekend I will continue my closer looking at French tank expansions for "TANKS The Modern Age", it took a little longer to prepare, I had to resupply my French forces, but there will be some "bonuscontent" included.

(* The picture which inspired me can be found in this video at Youtube at 15:30 right after the Boxer.)