Review of Armour Workshop workable Tiger I treads in 1/48th

Modeling Subjects Armor
1

After waiting for two months or so, I finally received the 1/48th scale treads for the Tamiya Tiger I from Armour Workshop and these are an absolutely terrible product.

Here is the PMMS review, which I can tell you is a completely inaccurate description of the product I received:

http://www.perthmilitarymodelling.com/reviews/48/armourworkshop/aw48000.htm

The links are small and cast in flimsy, crumbly resin. They are poorly molded and have lots of flash and irregularities where the teeth are supposed to join, and when you try to excavate the resin out, the link breaks, or the teeth break off as you manhandle the tiny link.

If you get the link cleaned up so it fits, and it’s not warped (another distinct possibility), and you go in to get the thick resin flash out of the teeth, the tooth is almost guaranteed to break off.

The pins generally fit very poorly, although occasionally you get the odd well-cast link and the pin slides in ok. These are outnumbered by the links that break, or that are warped so that it’s functionally impossible to slip the pin through.

Look at it this way. It took me an hour to put four links together. At this rate it will take me about forty hours to put all 200 or so together for two lengths. Part of this was working on a link, cleaning it out, cleaning out the connection points, only, if it has not broken in the meantime, to have the pin not fit through, or have a tooth break off as I handle the link. I broke more than I connected in that hour.

Also keep this in mind. It took me an hour to build two full lengths of WWII Productions resin Panzer 38t treads, which though 35th scale are much smaller and more delicate than these, but a well cast and quality product.

It’s not worth it. My recommendation is to avoid these at all costs. I doubled the cost of the kit for a product I cannot use. I find it very hard to believe that my set of 220 links is somehow a fluke and not representative of the general products produced with this company. And now the process of getting my money back. I wonder how much luck I’ll have.

2

Thanks for sharing! I guess buyer beware!

Glenn

3

Maybe you should contact the company and see if they will offer you a replacement. It;s wortha shot. SOrry about the bad tracks. Bill

4

Hi Larry,

As I said on the other forum where you posted this, I can assure everyone the review IS an accurate description of the tracks I received.

One of the things with resin sets, all resin sets is they can vary in quality. I have seen two different examples of the same set (not this one) and there are differences due to shrinkage, casting quality and other factors.

If you have a problem with the set it’s probably best to take this up with Armour Workshop?

I have had problems assembling other AW tracks due to the very fine tolerances when inserting the pins and their fragility but the Tiger I tracks were quite okay, again I emphasise this is based on the set I received to review, if there are other quality control problems then that is another question.

Regards
Terry A

5

I’ve got to agree with Terry about the quality. The two sets I have are going together flawlessly, with little or no clean up necessary. If the items you have are as bad as you say then surely you should take this up with the manufacturer first instead of posting your greivance on several forums.

6

I, for one, appreciate the alert, Larry. I had planned to purchase a set myself; but now consider myself warned. Surely we can appreciate your disappointment. Quality control is a manufacturers responsibility. How they could package up a product so obviously flawed is difficult to condone. Indeed you should address the issue with Armour Workshop( though I’m sure you have). Please give us a follow-up when they respond favorably to your grievance (really, why would they not?).

7

Larry, thanks for the heads up. And as stated above I love to hear about the customer service you recive from the company.

8

Well, you will often see me linking your site here with news and reviews of kits, so it should be clear that I never intended to suggest that your site was being dishonest. That’s why I said that your review was completely different from what I got.

If someone else here had gotten a set that was as bad as the one I got, I’d certainly hope they’d say so. I’ve never gotten a bad set from World War 2 Productions, despite the fact that I have most of their sets. So if the quality is variable, that should be known by the consumer.

Part of this is how large your site looms in this industry, because it is such a great site (no flattery intended here). If you get a good set, and rave, people will assume that the sets are great, period. The set I got was garbage. People should be aware of that. My own opinion, which I’ve posted here and on Missing Lynx, will just be a drop in the bucket by comparison.

9

Couldn’t disagree more. They will perhaps send me a good set, but continue sending out crap sets to other customers, who may or may not complain. People should know upfront that bad sets are being sent out.

10

Hi Larry,

No problem mate, I just posted my reply as some could have read that your message was saying the review was wrong but it is good you point out problems.

I have since heard from others with similar problems so it does seem AW have some sort of quality control problem which hopefully they will address for you as it will be in their best interest to do so.

Coincidentally I just posted reviews of two other AW track sets which I had major problems fitting together, the resin seemed okay on these sets.

Thanks also for the review links you post, appreciate that.

Regards
Terry Ashley