I just found the one you are talking about on Scalemates. I am going to look for it state side. That is a great looking kit. I have been keeping my eye on the Wespe at Scalehobbyist.com and got it for a great price.
Gotta love something with a giant gun on it (as long as the business end is pointed at the bad guy…)
I was looking at the AFV Club kit. From what i can tell, the Brit version only differed from the US one in colour and markings. Might have to look into that.
Always better to see the rounds going out than coming in [:D]
I was able to make a proper start on the AS90 at the start of the week. After getting the larger parts of the kit together, most of the build has been adding the AM. Most of the kit has found its way into the spares box.
I’l start off with an update, and then i’ll do a mini review of the kit and AM.
Starting with the hull, this involved adding resin and PE parts to the front.
Note one of thge light guards is mising. This seems to have gone AWOL so i am going to attempt to scratchbuild a replacment from styrene rod.
And a few bits of PE on the back.
And more resin parts on the turret. Also removed the 3 molded on ammo box frames.
And then just carried on flitting between hul and turret.
This has gone together a lot faster than i thought it would. The kit on its own could quite easily be built up in a few days. I only have a couple more days work before it will be ready for primer. This will be helped by the fact that all the hatches will be shut. The AM hatches all have some very nice detail on the insides and it comes with 2 stacks of shells to place inside the back door. But the rest of the interiour is absent, so it will be very apparent there is nothing in there unless you want to scratchbuild it. And goosd luck with that.
I had planned on leaving the re-door slightly ajar, but thyen i notice while it has mouting brackets, several items are not include, one of which is the most important bit of kit carried by any British armoured vehcile.
The kettle.
I was not going to embarrass myself by having the back door open and the BV missing, so i will have it shut.
So, now my impression of the kit and the AM.
Accurate Armour call this a badly designed kit. I would say thats a tad exaggeration. It certainly is not baxdly designed. It fits together very well and all the parts are there. Sure, detail is not Dragon standard, but then neither is the price. My only previous experiance of Trump kits is the E-100 Jagd and i said at the time it reminded me of Italeri. So does this, or maybe older Tamiya. For a 15 year old kit costing around £20, its good value and certainly not the worst kit in the world.
As far as accuracy goes, for those whom it bothers, there are a few issues, but not many. yes, one of these is a bit one, the gun barrel.
But an easy fix with an RB barrel.
Another exmple is the gun travel lock, which as i mentioned is the one for the 52 Cal gun, but easy to modify.
But theres no issues that can’t be solved by some minor surgery or a much smaller outlay. Such as the driver periscope. This is positioned to far forward, as can be seen by the filed in holes.
Of course, this can be done with the kit part.
As for the AA resin set, yes, it does correct the issues. But for the most part it does what most resin sets do. It give you parts that have nice detail than what plastic parts give you, especially of this age.
A couple of examples.
And the AA instructions are not the most helpful. All the parts have numbers on the casting blocks, but these numbers are not all on the instructions. many parts you have to match the part with the image. And the 5 large bins on the side of the turret are not what they seem. they all look the same but one, the bin on the front left, is narrower then the other 4. The instructions do tell you this but don’t give the numbers. So if your not paying attention its easy to mix them up.
And in case your woundering, yes, i was not concentrating and yes i mixed them up by putting a wide one where the narrow one should be. But i was able to get it of and out it in the right place.
I will say that the resin is caste very nicely. The casting blocks are only attached along a thin edge so there not of the major surgery needed to remove excess that you often get.
So in conclusion, its not a bad kit for the age and price. lacking some detail has some accuracy issues, but fits well and simple enough to build for a kit this side. Seems typical of Trump armour if past experiance with a more recent kit is anything to go by.
As for the AM, it gives better detail and corrects the errors, but at a price, and of course, most people looking at it would probably not notice.
Could i recommend it, no, not at £53. In the mid 30’s maybe.
Do i regret buying it, no. I like resin and despite the issues i am already planning on buying their Challenger 2 sets for the Trump kit.
But, if you plan on buying the Trump AS90 and want some recomendatiosn of which AM to get, this would be my suggestion.
-
RB barrel, a must have. Not sure what you can do for the longer barreled 52Cal gun, but then i would think most people would buld the production vehicle.
-
Eduard PE. This will give some nice detail parts and correct some errors such as the smoke grenade launchers…
The above 2 with some minor surgery to the kit and relocation of a few parts wilkl give a very nice build.
- If you must have resin, don’t mind the high cost and less then perfect instructions and after all this know most people will not notice, then get the AA set.
no kettle, no kettle! who ever desinged that AM kit has no knowledge of British armor what so ever lol. It’s looking very nice they might of well has made the entire thing in resin as much of it is getting replaced.
I know. Accurate Armour do make a resin BV set along with plenty of other British kit, but i wasn’t going to buy a set this side of Xmas just for one.
They did used to make a resin kit, thats where much of this update set comes from. But i guess after the release of the plastic one, there was not much call for a kit which no doubt cost up of £100. They also used to make resin kits of the Challenger tank and FV 432, but these to have now been cut after the release of plastic kit
I see where you already talked about that now yeah probably wouldn’t be much of a market for it now
Bish,
Besides the little hurdles that you have over come…the resin and PE look amazing. You may have mentioned it, but how old is this kit? The difference between the barrels is significant that’s for sure. Great job thus far Bish.
No, i can’t see many people going for the resin one. But they still do some nice resin kits, mostly British vehicles that are highly unlikely to come out in plastic. There are a couple i am planning on getting, especially ones used in Ulster during the troubles.
Thanks Hunter. The Trump kit dates from 2002. It was reboxed the following year by Hobby Craft in Op Telic colours.
Hobby Craft, is that a chain in the UK? I have heard of them but have never seen one of their kits. Again, great job on your build.
Hobbycraft is a Canadian Company. They have some molds of their own, some molds from other companies, and a few of their molds have even ended up under other company labels. They are hit or miss on quality, but they do make some subjects that nobody else touches.
Thanks Stik, i didn’t realise they were Canadian. I thought they were one of Trumpeters labels.
There is a chain of stores in the UK called Hobbycraft, but i am sure they don’t have links to the model company.
Trumpeter and Hobbyboss are owned by the same folks. And they have some relation to Banner and Mini Hobbies, but I am not clear on what.
She’s coming along great Bish!!!
BTW: I haven’t seen a Hobbycraft kit in so long Hobbyboss first popped up in my mind at the name when I first heard it.
I knew Trumpeter were linked to otehr companies, such as merit. Its get rather confusing with these companies all being owned by the same group.
Thanks G. No, i have not seen any of there kits either, they don’t seem to make it this side of the pond.
Blimey, can’t believe its been 2 weeks. But, being that time of year, i have had a few evenings away from the bench, so haven’t got quite as far as i had hoped. But at least the paint is on and the weathering is underway.
So i got the last bits of resin added, minus the tools, ammo cans and MG. One thing i like about the AA resin is that the attachment points to the excess resin is on edges rather than over a large area. But this was a problem on the side skirts where the attachment was along the top and it broke away in a few places. I’ll have to fix that with a few splashes of mud [;)]
And the turret also got its last pieces, including the barrel. The trick with this is to make sure the recoil cover is the right way.
Then time for some paint. I have seen a number of discussions on different sights concerning the green used on modern British armour. No one seems to know the exact name for the real thing. I have seen several different greens mentioned, including Tamiya NATO Green, but we don’t use the NATO colours. Personaly, i think the Xtracolour Mid Bronze Green is pretty spot on. So thats what i used, followed by Humbrol black.
I then got a bit carried away and aded the decals and did the dry brushing. I had done the black free hand and had some overspray. I was going to clean it up but thoguh i would dry brush first and that prety much sorted it.
For markings, i wanted a vehicle from 19 Regt RA as they were the artilery for 19 mech Brigade during the late 90’s early 2000’s, and thats the Brigade my battalion belonged to. But while Trump provide markings for several vehicles, they do not ID any of them, and i can see why. I found it really hard to place a certain vehicle with a specific Regt. So i just picked a set of VRN decals and used the 19 Regt Scottish flag that came with the decals.
I was realy pleased with the dry brushing which i did all over and gave a good start to the weathering to come.
Thats it for now. I applied a couple of coats of Alclad Aqua gloss and have started some dot filtering. I am hoping i can get this done by the end of the year so i can add it to my 2017 completions rather than carry it over. So i’ll need to get a couple of good sessions in.
Thanks for looking.
Good to see you back at it Bish. I would of just thought it would be a Nato color but I know nothing about modern armor.