Friend gave me a model from Tristar. I havent opened it yet. It’s just a little 20mm flak 38.
Never worked with Tristar. How is their overall quality? Par for the course? Avoid like the plague? Either way I’ll build the kit I was just curious befor I dig in or even browse more of their products.
For that matter what makes do you feel have higher quality kits? Not AM just old standbys. Lookin for what brands to avoid.
Tristar is a quality company, though they have pretty few releases to date. They are coming out with a gorgeous Marder III H, and their Pz 38 (t) is the best on the market.
As for quality brands:
Ones to be careful of:
It should be noted that even the best have their dogs. If it’s a fairly recent release, then your odds improve greatly. For instance Tamiya still releases kits from the early 70’s.
Tristar is one of the best – constantly giving DML, AFV Club and Tamiya a run for their money. For some reviews, look here
http://www.perthmilitarymodelling.com/reviews/vehicles/tristar/tristar.htm
I haven’t built any of their armor kits but I do have 2 packages of their Flak 38 crew and they are just about the same quality as their Dragon counterparts and it would be interesting to compare the Tamiya Flak 38 with the Dragon Flak 38 and the TriStar Flak 38.
LOL I also forgot to meantion Italieri’s Flak 38 as well
I have several of their kits, the 38t, PzKpfw I A, PzKpfw IV D, but have not built any of them yet. Easily some of the nicest kits around, but they are expensive and Dragon releases a much cheaper kit of the exact same model. It cuts into their sales so you don’t see a lot of their stuff on the shelves.
Be very cautious about purchasing kits from Maquette unless they are dirt cheap.
I just finished Tristar’s new Convertible kit version of the Panzer 1. It was very nice. Everything fit pretty much where it needed to after cleaning up the parts. Very complete kit, although I did have some questions about the color call outs. My only real complaint was how soft the plastic was. It was very easy to damage it while removing mold lines, etc. Otherwise, I’d recommend Tristar for armor alongside Dragon, Tamiya, etc.
Yea, like the one I’m currently building
/forums/770773/ShowPost.aspx
Larry
I’ve built both the Tristar and DML Flak 38 kits and found that the DML kit had a slight edge in the detail quality department vs. the Tristar, but both built up easily and without any major problems.