I am building my first armour for over 30 years. In the old days I did virtually all Tamiya and some Italiari armour but when I visited Bovington recently was tempted by an AFV Club Centurion V.
This, of course, is very different from the 32 scale WW2 aircraft I tend to prefer but it is nice to have a change now and again...
This kit has a lot going for it, a nice metal gun barrel for one thing.... But the engineering is some of the worse I have ever found.
Take the track rollers. Logic would suggest a line of pins over which you can position the rollers, simple, but not in this kit. There are two rollers to fix together with just a short pin that fits the first roller. The second roller glues to the first in the centre only where the pin would go through if it were a sensible arrnangement. There are some very small location tabs that don't fit and the only way to glue them together securely is to file the pins flat, drill holes into the 16 rollers, fit metal pins and glue. I could not be bothered with that and have just glued them together, not a very secure fit but fingers crossed.... A bonkers bit of engineering. The poor engineering extends elsewhere too, some engine louvres with very vague positioning and nearly none existent location tabs that again need filing off cos they don't fit....
Is this typical for AFV Club? Its a pity that they cannot just apply a little more though and detail into the engineering.
This, of course, is very different from the 32 scale WW2 aircraft I tend to prefer but it is nice to have a change now and again...
This kit has a lot going for it, a nice metal gun barrel for one thing.... But the engineering is some of the worse I have ever found.
Take the track rollers. Logic would suggest a line of pins over which you can position the rollers, simple, but not in this kit. There are two rollers to fix together with just a short pin that fits the first roller. The second roller glues to the first in the centre only where the pin would go through if it were a sensible arrnangement. There are some very small location tabs that don't fit and the only way to glue them together securely is to file the pins flat, drill holes into the 16 rollers, fit metal pins and glue. I could not be bothered with that and have just glued them together, not a very secure fit but fingers crossed.... A bonkers bit of engineering. The poor engineering extends elsewhere too, some engine louvres with very vague positioning and nearly none existent location tabs that again need filing off cos they don't fit....
Is this typical for AFV Club? Its a pity that they cannot just apply a little more though and detail into the engineering.
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