# Matchbox Skyknight - oldie but goodie Out of Box review



## Faust (Dec 1, 2012)

If it’s one thing I love, it’s a two seater, especially if it’s an awkwardly-styled side-by-side two seater! If it just happens to be a Matchbox too, then I’m probably going to get really excited about it! That’s exactly what happened when I came across the old Matchbox F3D Skyknight in a shop a while ago! 

I know there’s a newer Sword kit of the venerable F3D, but really, you have to give Matchbox credit for bothering to kit the rather pedestrian Skyknight in the first place. I don’t know how popular a kit it was, but it’s a nice one to have if you like early night fighters or Korean War stuff.

I thought I’d share this one as an out of box review, so please, take a look at the old chestnut at the link below! 

https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/model-kits/out-of-box-reviews/172-matchbox-f3d-2-skyknight-oob/


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## djnick66 (May 2, 2008)

The Matchbox kit was one of Matchboxes better kits from their second or third generation of offerings. I think it came out around the same time as the Meteor NF and T2C Buckeye. Matchbox did some real pioneering kits back then, albeit of rather lackluster detailing.


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## Faust (Dec 1, 2012)

I have both the Buckeye (sadly, the Revell Germay reissue - I love originals) and the NF Meteor, and both are, as you say, good but spartan on the details.

Still, I've discovered I'd rather have a somewhat minimalist kit that looks right than one with all the fancy little picky bits that takes so much more time and trouble to make, only to end up more fragile. 

Let's face it, you can do a good job on a Matchbox in a pretty moderate amount of time, and when you're done, that thing is solid. It's tough to break a properly built Matchbox kit!


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## Xenodyssey (Aug 27, 2008)

I made my Matchbox Skyknight recently and only added some detail to the cockpit and wheelwells. I was pretty happy with the result...And yes, Matchbox kits were sparse on detail but pretty solid.


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## djnick66 (May 2, 2008)

The weird thing with Matchbox is that their kits could be very good or total crap and very little in between. And its not like they got better... they were always that way. Some of their very first kits were the Siskin, Fury, Boeing P-12 and Bf 109E. They were actually really really nice for the time, and still hold up well today. Yet the P-40, Brewster Buffalo, P-51D released at around the same time were total crap. I still have their B-17G in the stash pile and, aside from either heavy detail or no detail, its really very well done and the best shaped B-17 kit until recently. Weird. 

I could never understand their multi colored plastic either. Even as a kid at age 10 I thought it was dumb. only one or two kits actually had colors that made sense. I think the P-12 came molded in OD with yellow wings and tail parts, and that was realistic for US Army Air Corps planes of that time. But then you get something like a P-51 molded in bright blue and white.


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

I had a friend in high school who referred to whoever designed Matchbox's too-heavy recessed panel lines as "The trench digger". :lol:


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## Owen E Oulton (Jan 6, 2012)

I remember that the panel lines in their F-104 kit were larger (at 1/72 scale) than they were on the full-sized aircraft. Can you imagine if the Matchbox Trench-Digger had a love child with the Airfix Riveter?


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## Faust (Dec 1, 2012)

Now there is a terrifying thought! I guess the two would cancel out. The trench digging would give the head-sized rivets somewhere to hide!

While a lot of Mboxes are iffy, or dog like, if you re-etch the panel lines and then sand the kit down a bit, you can really get rid of the "trenches" and get a not-bad looking kit out if one. 

I did it on the Hunter and Mirage III, and they don't look too bad, I don't think.


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## djnick66 (May 2, 2008)

Sadly the Matchbox trench digger was hired by Revell... their new B-17G would be the best B-17 yet in 1/72 but the surface detail is actually WORSE than Matchbox.... just horrible. The fuselage looks like it is made out of bricks.


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## crazy mike (Aug 26, 1999)

Just an FYI. There's a 1/1 F3D in the Navy paint hanger at Avra Valley airport in Az. Their going with glossy grey overall with a bright green tail. It's something different than a standard dark blue.


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

I had a Revell 1/72 P-47 once with rivets that would have stuck out about 2" to scale. :freak:


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## djnick66 (May 2, 2008)

John P said:


> I had a Revell 1/72 P-47 once with rivets that would have stuck out about 2" to scale. :freak:


The funny thing is a lot of WW2 planes actually do have huge rivets. The SBD has some giant ones. So do the engine nascelles of the B-25. The rivets there are about like half golfballs.


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## Faust (Dec 1, 2012)

Good point about the old rivets. it seems to have been a thing on a lot of transports and bombers, for sure. Maybe not in the numbers Airfix tended to use them, but the point is well made.

As for how Matchbox decided to go with trenches on some kits and fine raised detail on others (or heck, both on one kit!) I'll never really understand. I get it even less because their armour is very, very nicely detailed! I wouldn't even know they were Matchboxes!


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## hal9001 (May 28, 2008)

It's an oldie and moldy, you know...._just like us_....

Slap on a good paint job and put it on a shelf 10ft away and you'll still have a nice display of the Skyknight!

Good luck,
Carl-


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## Faust (Dec 1, 2012)

Yeah, I guess that's true!

The good thing about the Skyknight is that, in its black guise, the lack of detail won't really be all that noticeable!

Just out of curiosity, how much external difference is there between this kit and an EF-10 from 'Nam? I don't know much about EF-10s at all...


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## Milton Fox Racing (May 27, 2014)

First off, I didnt even know Matchbox did model kits...and the only thing I know about an EF-10 it that it is probably a plane. :thumbsup:

...going googleing!


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## Owen E Oulton (Jan 6, 2012)

Faust said:


> Good point about the old rivets. it seems to have been a thing on a lot of transports and bombers, for sure. Maybe not in the numbers Airfix tended to use them, but the point is well made.
> 
> As for how Matchbox decided to go with trenches on some kits and fine raised detail on others (or heck, both on one kit!) I'll never really understand. I get it even less because their armour is very, very nicely detailed! I wouldn't even know they were Matchboxes!


I used to have nightmares about the Matchbox ditch-digger producing a kit with the Airfix rivetter... :surprise:


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## Faust (Dec 1, 2012)

Owen E Oulton said:


> I used to have nightmares about the Matchbox ditch-digger producing a kit with the Airfix rivetter... :surprise:


It's like the worst of all possible worlds, isn't it? At the same time, though, some sanding and re-scribing can correct both problems, it would just be a daunting task! There's got to be a kit out there somewhere like this. Some short-run ball of sprue-phlegm that isn't worth the odd Russian Plastic it took to build it.... Maybe an earily A-Model kit would fit the bill. Some of them are hyper-terrible. 

Oh, as for the EF-10, that was the Marines EW version of the Skyknight. It was used in 'Nam primarily, before the EA-3 and other jammers showed up. I think it was in use before that, too, including the Cuban Missile Crisis.


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