It's always exiting to examine a product from a manufacturer I've not previously come across, so I was delighted to be offered the chance to review this resin set from the Canadian company Kazan Model Dynamics.

Designed for Eduard's superb re-tooled 1:48 Bf 109G, the set provides a replacement main undercarriage and wheels for the Bf 109G-5 and later (basically, any Gustav with the early-style wing bulges before the introduction of a strengthened gear with fatter tyres demanded much larger bulges).

The parts arrive in quite a classy-looking cardboard box and the sample set was well protected for the journey in a small zip-lock bag packed in plenty of bubble wrap.

Everything reached me in perfect condition and the casting of the grey resin parts is exceptionally good, up there on a par with the best current producers.

The set comprises 8 parts - the gear legs complete with brake lines, separate oleo scissors, wheels and outer hubs.

Casting attachments have been kept as small as possible, so it's really only the hubs that will take longer than a few moments to remove from their blocks. There's a faint casting line at a couple of points on the gear legs, and a wisp of flash to clean out of the loops in the brake lines, but clean-up promises to be quick and very straightforward.

One thing I really like is that the gear legs are cast around a stainless steel core. Not only does this guarantee that the parts will be very strong, but the polished metal is exposed where the compression oleos are. So, all you need to do is mask these off and you won't need to paint them.

And, in case you’re wondering if the steel core extends down into the casting block and will require some tricky cleaning up… fear not, it doesn’t - I sliced one leg off the block and it came away perfectly cleanly with no sign of the metal. Very impressive!

The detail is crisp and beautifully done throughout. The wheels attach with rectangular lugs, so they align automatically on the legs. The tyres are cast “unweighted” - which is probably no bad thing with the Bf 109, because there’s some quite complex geometry in the angle of the tyre to the ground, so sanding small “flats” once you’ve got the undercarriage alignment set and the “sit” of the model established is arguably the best approach anyway if you like to depict weighted wheels.

Accompanying the set is a clearly written and illustrated A4 sheet of instructions. The parts are direct replacements for the Eduard originals, so no surgery will be required.

Conclusion

Kazan Model Dynamics are a new name to me but I’m really impressed - and, judging by the quality of this set, this is a manufacturer that deserves to enjoy great success. The upgrade promises a significant improvement over the standard styrene parts in Eduard's Gustavs, so I’ll certainly be using this undercarriage on my next one.

The company’s website is still in development at the time of writing this review, so I don’t know the price of the set, but judged purely in terms of quality I can thoroughly recommend checking it out.

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