Next project - Bronoco M-24 Chaffee - Early Production.
This is my 4th tank and a big step up in complexity. There are no rubber band tracks and the part count is significantly higher. In fact, I would say that this kit is way over-engineered and not in a particularly good way. For example the headlight guards are 4 small pieces - seriously! And the suspension system is a nightmare of small parts and tiny attachment points which makes me doubt the overall stability of the drive train, but here we go anyway.
Box and instructions
The instructions look detailed and are in a very nice glossy book but that is deceptive. The attachment points are sometimes guesses and there are no pictures showing how the completed part is supposed to look. Sigh.
The tub is started and went together without issue.
However, the suspension was a pain. I did one side according to the instructions, which was a bad idea. My recommendation would be to glue in the pins on each part (they say not too but good luck with that) and then do the assembly on the body, not beforehand or you are going to have alignment issues. At least I did.
The second side went in better.
More to come. Remember, I still consider myself a novice with armor and all this could be the norm, but it is very different from the other 3 kits I put together. If this all aligns well, it will be a minor miracle! But I am having fun with it.
Nice subject and off to a good start. From reading your comments, it sounds like its not just the figures they have taken from Dragon.Seems like they have taken on Dragon engineering and instructions as well.
I did this one a couple of years ago, and yeah; it was a pain at times. You’re right that the suspension is a little unstable and delicate. Those little pins molded as bolts are details taken to the extreme, imho. The tracks take awhile but seem to work real nice in the end. This was my first one with PE, and I did a lot of complaining on this forum about it. I didn’t even attempt the PE headlight guards and went with the plastic ones instead. I never could get the latches for the driver and bog hatches in their respective spots. I’m sure you’ll do fine with this, but it does take some patience. Good luck with it.
As I’m currently trying to finish a Bronco MPCV I understand your trepidation, it is well warranted. In my case it was over-reach, I’m watching to see a better builder than myself tackle one of their kits,go to it.
I didn’t get much done this week and what I did was an exercise in frustration. There is such a thing a over-engineering where parts are created solely for the purpose of saying there are tons of parts. That’s not good design. For instance the hull has one piece where the turret goes but then the remainder of the hull is divided into 6 small parts. There is no reason for this and it makes for a weak upper hull. Crazy, but I’m working with it.
The hull fits inside the bottom tub. Not exactly great since the fit is very, very tight and you have to stretch the hull apart and pry the top in. However, the instructions had you put all kinds of tiny bits on BEFORE. Ouch. Not a good combo. Also, try putting in 3 pieces that stretch across the hull with no good attachment points. Wow. Challenging. I have 3 more to go.
So, I spent a good amount of time trying to fit the upper hull in, re-gluing some small tiny bits that fell off during the process, making parts that got lost to the great carpet monster we all dread, and filling in gaps and elevation misalignments. It’s a good learning experience. I think it will be one of those kits that after you finish, you will want to buy another to do it right now that you know all the pitfalls.
Notice the green part that was frabricated from a “spare” part. It’s not perfect, but not all that bad either.
Good to see you sticking with it. It does sound like they have taken Dragons worst bits and taken them a few steps further. One thing that annoys me is when you have a loads of parts for the running gear, such as bump stops, axel arms etc and then slap great big road wheels in front of them.
I think your right, its just so they can use the parts count as a selling point.
Looks good Alan, again my hat’s off to you for actually building this. I’ve got serveral Bronco kits but now that I think about it haven’t built any of them.
One of my pet peaves on instructions. They show a part with an arrow leading to who knows where or who knows how it is to be placed or the direction it is to be placed in. Without detailed books or tech manuals sometimes you just have to guess.
That’s a shame, honestly. I hate models that are engineered like that. I agree that it’s all a “parts count” marketing scheme. What a shame. Well, from your review of the build here, I know I won’t be getting one. Give me the old Italeri kit and some aftermarket tracks, and I’ll be good to go.
Sorry, I didn’t get much done on the Chaffee last week. My free time was spent with taxes - ick. Since that unpleasant task is over, I hope to make some progress this week.
Again, thanks for all the comments and suggestions. I plan to push through to the end; although there have been times I felt like the great trash can monster was calling.
I really do understand your frustrations with the Chaffee. Several times, I considered putting my kit in the trash also, but kept at it anyway. Those separate panels for the rear deck used up several hours of my time as I filed and sanded them to fit. You’ve already done better than I did with with some of those PE pieces, so kudos to you there. Once I got it painted ( to cover a myriad of mistakes) it looked much better. Hang in there!
Well, I made some progress this week. The upper hull is done complete with all the little bits. What is strange is that there was no PE for the big grate but there was for the little ones. As can be seen, filler was needed. I used a combination of Tamiya Extra thin with plastic sprue dissolved in it and some putty. I still need to do some sanding and take of some super glue and finger prints.
This was a real pain to put together. My suggestion is to NOT follow the directions and to place all the main pieces on the upper hull and then all the small bits or you are going to lose a lot of them. Also because of the instructions not showing the proper angle for the grab holds on the hatches, it looks like they may need to re replaced since they may interfere with the turret. Sigh.
I didn’t put on a lot of the small PE bits. I just don’t have the patience or the hands to do it. I’m not happy with the PE but it may end up being fine with a coat of primer and some weathering, which covers a multitude of sins. The back rack is off. I’m debating ripping out one side and trying again. There were no fold marks so it was a bit of guessing.
Now for the good news. The tracks are wonderful. Yes, they are a bit of a pain to clean-up but they fit like a glove and they will be workable, if I want.
As always, thanks for all the kind remarks and suggestions.
Your troubles with this kit remind me of a project which gets farmed out to a bunch of suits while the actual engineers are left out of the decision-making processes! It seems like a lot of non-modelers sat around saying something like “Well based upon what we read on forum X, this would be a cool feature to use. It would be a great marketing trick to break down this piece into five subassemblies…”
Good on ya for your persistence. I"m just curious what you’re going to tackle next as a tonic for the frustration that this kit has put you through?!
It does seem that way. Plus some of the PE is broken down in such a way that doesn’t make sense. Four separate pieces for the headlamp guard! I don’t see any way to really assemble that nicely without solder. (Then again, some people do wonders with PE. I’m just not one of them.) Same breakdown with the plastic and no way to assembly that without doing it on the tank but the instructions show you doing it by itself - really! Good luck with that.
I have a nice Tamiya M4A3E8 Sherman Easy Eight looking at me right now. That should be a relaxing build.
