Yes, most of us who have been around the block a time or two know how horrid these kits were. A few recent threads have reminded me of them. I will probably have nightmares tonight,
But as bad as they were, some of us muddled through and managed to create something that might have been mistaken for the vehicle it was supposed to represent. If you are one of those unfortunate people, show us what you did. I know there’s at least one current build of a Mack transporter. I’ll start us off. This is the only pic I could find but I can post more later:
Everyone likes to bash AEF Designs. Maybe they weren’t all that great, but they were not the worst, by any means. I’ve had some Verlinden stuff that was really bad, and their instructions all sucked.
My worst experience with a resin kit, that I finished at least, was a conversion kit to build the fake Tiger tank from Kelly’s Heroes, made by RZM productions. Inaccurate, crappy detail, badly molded, and the resin had so many air bubbles in it, that it looked like foam rubber.
I would have been better off just using a Tiger and T-34 kit and scratching the rest. I ended up replacing most of the detail parts anyway, and rebuilding much of the front end.
But I still made it work in the end:
I did some work for Tony who I met at the ipms show in Miami Florida back in the 90’s he seemed to be a really nice guy, but seems was all I got after that it was hell trying to get him to fulfill our agreement and all I got from him were rejected pours that even he wouldn’t try to sell.
His lack of motivation to improve his work was his major downfall. And when he tried to sell off his company everyone I knew only wanted the masters and nothing else but his Price was higher then Cheech and Chong in their hay day.
As I suspected it might, this thread has been relatively thin. It seems most of the kits that were actually built were done by Tony himself. In the very early 90’s every issue of Fine Scale Modeler featured an ad with one of his builds, which looked nice, judging from just one photo.
I was one of them, but I wasn’t into pressure casting at the time so I didn’t give it serious thought. Looking back I wish I had. His masters were usually quite good - you could see potential within those blobs of resin. Notable exceptions were his IDF battering ram and CLAMS unit, both of which were dimensionally off on top of being total garbage castings.
Similarly, when Mouse House offered up their masters I no longer had the desire to fool with someone else’s problem. And now Verlinden…
I did not do an interior in my IDF M109’s, but did so in a few US versions. Had I known AEF did one I’d have still passed. I’m aware of two other aftermarket interiors, and would still choose mine.
I found a better shot of my Sho’t Kal, so I won’t have to dig it out. I tossed out a lot of the AEF parts and simply scratched what I needed, including the barrel.
The fifty is a little out of whack as it’s just pinned on to its mount.
Ah, and I incorrectly used the original kit hatch because the Tal hatch from AEF was unusable. Never got around to replacing it.
this was advertised as an M113 detail set I believe. Swim vane floatation pod, fire extinguisher pull handle cover, exhaust, new fuel tank, and fuel tank access cover.
I am not an IDF guy, so most of his products weren´t of interest back in the day. All I had was his M1 A1 Abrams turret. I found it great executed, he even managed to cast the turret stowage box handle in place.
Not my auction, but it shows how bad the kit really was. Photos from Worthpoint of someone’s auction.
I managed to salvage mine and use a 1/24 Revell 1950s roadster car to rebuild the suspension and to make everything work. 1/24 scale! I took photos of my completed build for StarshipModeler but the photos have since been lost, unfortunately.
