These Emhar kits of the WWI Male/Female and Whippet tanks - what’s the real deal on them?
Are they as truly horrible as I’ve heard, or just merely troublesome? I’m curious because I’d like to build one or two of them but I don’t want to buy a box of bad engineering, poor fits and bad parts.
If you have built up any of these- what specific issues, if any, did you encounter? Oh, and are they plastic or resin?
While not the greatest of kits, they can be made into a decent build with some work. And they are the only kits available
I guess it depends on your definition of horrible vs. troublesome. I built the MK-IV Male last year, and while the kit compared less than favorable to my usual fare of early 1970’s Tamiya armor, I think it built up into a decent looking rendition of the tank without my having to kill myself to do it.
You can see the rest of the pictures here.
The parts are not brilliantly molded and if you’re a real rivet counter this one is missing many. The quality and detail of the parts is such that the kit will never stand up to magnifing glass scrutiny. On the other hand, it doesn’t look bad, and the fit is decent. The worst parts were the rails on which the unditching beam would ride. Overly thick and uterly devoid of detail, I thought that adding would hurt the appearance of the tank more than help, so I left them off. Based on the photographs I could find, although more MK-IV’s seemed to have them than did not, it’s certainly not incorrect leave them off. On the plus side the tracks are gluable.
The kit is injection molded plastic and is rather soft. As I mentioned before, there is a plenty of missing or simplified detail. For the most part, I ignored that and accepted the fact.
I fixed or improved only a couple of items. The the machine guns were terrible, simply being styrene logs with no detail on the end of the barrel/water jacket. I drilled out the end of the water jacket, and then drilled a small hole into the center of it into which I glued som 0.025 rod as a barrel. Unfortunately the only construction photo of it is rather blurry, but ultimately they came out pretty good.
The other major item was the main gun and its armored shields. They main shield is designed by Emhar to fit vertically within the opening of the sponson whereas it should fit behind it, and as a result the gap or seam between the shield and shelf and overhead on the sponson appears in the wrong place. The vertical seams at the edges allowed far too much clearance as well. Lastly, they didn’t include the filling piece in the vertical slot between slot and the shield that actually rides with the cannon. I felt all of those items would contribute to an overly sloppy fit in and around the gun with large gaps.
One could easily fix or improve most of those items with filler, particularly if you are willing to accept fixed gun positions. On the othe hand, since I enjoy scratch building, I re-engineered (possibly over engineered [:-^]) the gun mounts so that they are fully posable while maintaining properly tight gaps on between the pieces. As with the Lewis guns, the construction photos are unfortunately blurry, but do at least give some idea as to what I am talking about.
The only other real issue was that the tracks are quite stiff and difficult to form around the end sprockets. I used my razor saw to back cut the the thick blocking on the back of the treads, and once I did that, they worked fine.
Overall, they’re the only game in town for British WWI armor, and as long you can accept the fact that they will never match the latest Dragon offerings in detail and accuracy, they’ll build into decent looking models.
Andy
If you’re prepared to put a bit of work in, Emhar WW1 tanks are perfectly fine. Sure, they’re not Dragon Uberkits or 2000s Tamiya over-simplified shake&bake, very much some modelling skills required. Some years ago (hence no photos - they’re in boxes in the garage), I built both the Mk.IV Male and the Whippet, and they both turned out OK, with the help of quite a lot of filler. Also, the tracks are a bit stiff. I believe that aftermarket replacements - for the Mk.IV at least - are available, but if you scribe gently between the track links, this sorts the problem. It also stops the track links over the drive sprockets/ idlers from taking on a curved look.
The rails on the Mk.IV are a tricky fit, but if you persevere with superglue and accelerator, they work out OK. I made a couple of fascines for mine, using twigs from the garden, and tied in place with model ship anchor chain and rigging thread. They hide some areas which didn’t turn out quite as I wanted! On the Mk.IV, I would also add some weight forward (some stones from the garden, superglued in place, worked fine) to stop the model from leaning backwards. On the Whippet, I painted the red-and-white stripes, and didn’t use the decals provided for these.
In any case, if you want WW1 British stuff in 1/35, what’s the alternative?
Remember, with WW1 subjects, you can always cover up anything that didn’t work out quite right with mud!
Cheers,
Chris.
It’s already been said, but I can’t help but agree.
Construction isn’t bad, and they build into nice display pieces. They aren’t very accurate or detailed, and the machine guns stink. The flip side is that they always get a second look in modeling circles. There’s something unique about them. Of all the machines on my shelf, people are immediately drawn to the Mark IV. It’s old, not well constructed, painted or detailed, but people want to know more about it. I highly recommend getting one.
I will add (since we’re talking about WWI tanks) Tauro’s A7V is a nightmare. I couldn’t finish mine. I cringe when I see the box in my stash.
Semper Fi,
Chris
Thanks for the feedback, guys- the comments are pretty much what I expected. Ridleusmc- thanks for the note on the A7V- that’s another WWI kit that I’ve had my mind on…
I figure that it’s a niche market (WWI), but I wonder why no one else makes these tanks?
By contrast, Emhar’s 1/72 A7V (seen here with Revell Germany’s 1/72 Tiger I and Tiger II just to show how big it was) is an easy build, reasonably accurate and fun to paint:
Cheers,
Chris.
Emhar’s kits are on sale on this month’s Squadron catalog…
I am sure down the road (some years) once I have a lot more experience I will tackle them, who else has non-resin WWI models??
In 1/35, Tauro and, IIRC, Heller. In 1/76, Airfix and Matchbox/ Revell Germany (their Renault FT-17 can be converted into a WW1 version without too much effort).
Cheers,
Chris.
RPM has a fairly extensive line on FT-17 based kits in both 1/72 and 1/35 scale. Tricky builds, but not bad kits. They run from $5-20 based on kit and scale.
Like the others have said they’re ok and worth building (there’s virtually nothing else around anyway) but the main thing I think they’re lacking is decent tracks, i.e. individual plastic links or link and length.
I used Model Cellars individual links on mine and whilst they’re far from perfect they look much better than the rubber/vinyl bands supplied with the kit.
Chris- if you hadn’t mentioned that the A7V is in 1/72, I’d have never known it by the comparison between the two Tigers… by Zeus’ beard, that’s a big tank! Your picture shows exactly why I want a couple of WWI armor kits- to have a visual timeline of tank designs from the first to the latest.
Rob & Chris,
Thanks for the info
I found a Tauro A7V build up article in the Tamiya MMI issue 132, Oct 06
