hello,this is going to be my first attempt at armor and i just bought a bradley off of ebay for 20 with shipping ,since i have been looking at buying one i think this was a good deal! (maybe not i don’t know).but i’m looking for some very cheap extras for it since it was a basic model.so if anyone might know of a website that i can get the goodies at the best price i would greatly appreciate any and all help.actually if any of y’all have built a bradley before and have any extra parts that would be great.i’m not asking for any hand outs as i will pay you for them but i was laid off from work the day after thanksgiving and money is pretty tight right now.so you might be asking yourself ,if money is tight why is he spending money on a model kit? well thats basically all that i do since i don’t go to the bar and i don’t have girlfriend right now,i just sit at home and build what i can.so i think it’s actually the cheapest past time besides laying on the couch all day doing nothing.but anywho i’d appreciate any advice thanks in advance.
I don’t know what era of bradley you are trying to build, but cheapest accessories for it is actually Tamiya Modern gear (?) set that comes with back packs, ID panels and so on and it goes for about $10 or so.
Otherwise, you’ll have to spend close to $30 on Resin products such as Verlinden or even Legend production accessories.
By the way, which bradley kit did you get?
Good luck and happy holidays!
Most of that gear excpet for the sleeping bags and sleeping pads will work for the Bradley’s entire service career. The rucks, cots, and duffle bags certainly. MRE cases and sleeping gear has changed since the early 80s.
There really isn’t much AM stuff out there for the Bradley anyways. Mainly there are a few overpriced gear sets form Legends and Verlinden. There are a couple sets of the ERA blocks seen in Iraq from Verlinden and Blast (Blasts’ set is much better). There are various PE sets from all the usual PE makers too. Eduard has a PE turret interior set that is pretty nice too. There is also the very nice AFV Club indi-link plastic track set.
There are a few sets that I don’t think are necessary, but they are out there. These include Fruil metal tracks; a full running gear set to include roadwheels, shocks, etc. from Blast; and various metal barrels. That is about it.
Also, could you add some capitals and spacing to your posts? It is hard to read the way you have typed.
Thank you all for the info,and I do apologize for the poor typing. I promise it will get better.the kit I bought was the tamiya m2 bradley that’s all of the info I have on it ,since it’s not on the tamiya page. I’m going for the Iraq or current desert style Bradley.Here is a pic from the ebay page.
You have the original M2A0 Bradley. It is a pretty good kit straight OOB. With a little TLC, it can look great. It represents the original Bradley from the early '80s till about '89.
Good luck on it.
Funny, that’s the one I just posted pictures of. Weird, man.
Jesse
dude, thats the one im building
Well i geuss it’s a pretty popular kit!!! Has anyone ever noticed that tamiya’s website sucks.To me it seems that they almost don’t want people to see all the kits they have. Myself,I would have an extensive listing of everything that my company sells. Maybe it’s just me!!![sigh]
Are you going to www.tamiyausa.com ? I went there, typed “Bradley” in the search box and got this: http://www.tamiyausa.com/product/item.php?product-id=35132
That’s a better description of a model than on most sites.
-Jesse
Hay I’m working on a M2 on the Modern GB. Want to hear some thing funny I’m using athe PE set for the Tamiya kit on an Academy kit an some of the fit is right on if your thinking of using the PE set I got it from squadron for $20.66 M-2A2 bradley IFV Detail Set [EU35781]
Now as for my Bradley I got it on sale for 11.95. An I’m using the same Equipment set from Tamiya [TM35266]-$9.46 an all so one from Legend Us Amy back pack set [LF1115]-$11.96 All my stuff come’s from Squadron. If you need to see any of the items I posted just go over to http://www.squadron.com/ an click search an put in the numbers I put up to see if any of them are on sale. I can’t wat to see your work.
Oh an here’s alink to my Album:
There isn’t anything particularly unusual about that. The Academy M2 kit is an almost exact clone of the Tamiya M2 kit. You can interchange parts bewtween the two and not notice any difference.
The M2A2 variants produced by Tamiya and Academy are different though, (but still based on their respective earlier kits)
That would be the site. What i really meant was not all of their current kits are listed,photogaphed or even described. It also seems to me that the majority of listings are discontinued. I like to go to a manufacturers site and research whatever it is before I buy something. Now with that said the listings that are there are great.
Phil’s right. In the old days, Academy armor kits were almost exact duplicates of Tamiya kits, even down to the decals. It was in the early 90s that they went away from exact copies and started to make slightly different copies. Like when they copied Tamiya’s original M1 Abrams, they made theirs an M1A1 or when they copied Tamiya’s LVTP7A1, they made theirs and LVTP7.
Have to admit though Academy makes some GREAT copies, the not really discernable quality deficit is for outweighed by the price difference in my opinion. The Academy is not quite as crisp, as the originals, however Tamiya in my opinion has beyond exceptional crispness it’s moldings. Iw ould say the crispness of Academy’s copies are on par with the standard releases of other manufacturers that are known to be of high quality. Which speaks well of Academy’s abilities. I bought a copy of a Tamiya kit by some other manufacturer, and the thing is garbage. I’ve pretty much just tossed it in a bag after some work. I may find uses for some of the parts. Since some of the wheels on my M2 seem to be missing and the wheels on this other kit are identical, I’ll probably use some of them. After some heavy weathering won’t even see the difference.
I think that I have some modern parts laying around, packs, boxes, tarps, and mri boxes. IF I can find them they are yours free of charge. Just email me at mnrdunck at gmail.com (just replace at with @)
Best Regards,
Mark
Patriae,
I lost your email, I accidently erased it. Email me again with your name, address, etc and I will get some parts out to you.
Happy Holidays,
Mark
prowannab,
Thats a pretty cool kit oob. If you can find a copy of the squadron/signal in action book of the M2/M3 that would be a great start. It has alot of interior pictures that will help in detailing the interior of your kit. I remember Eduard having a external detail set but it might be out of production.
Get some 1/35 DML armor figures and have fun with it!
Jose