@BringupthePIAT this may be of some help to you. Do the build in a manner that makes sense to you.
When building the churchill i start by building the hull first and add some styrene rod to support it.
This automatically makes it level and then everything else can be added.
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I can see by that one photo why the dude is having problems with that particular kit. That hull piece cries out for slight flexing, which is definitely not a good thing.
Thats why i do it this way
Night is bit warped but when you add the sponsons and front plates it squares everything up just fine. But I like @Chris_Bryan solution
I couldn’t do it that way because I am scratching the entire interior but I would probably do it his way when I do another Churchill
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I think AFV Club kits are a wild card. I always want to see what I’m buying before buying it with AFV Club. Had a couple of early bad experiences.
Long ago I purchased AFV Club’s new releases 1) M35A2 2.5-Ton Cargo Truck and 2) M1A1 155mm Cannon “Long Tom”. Both seemed quite promising until the parts trees were carefully examined.
Both kits were riddled with approximately 30 to 40 sink marks on each tree. Given how many kit parts were badly deformed and how little I enjoy fixing low quality molding issues, both kits were tossed into raffles for disposal. However AFV did address the issues and improve their overall molding quality.
So with that said, my impression is AFV Club kit quality greatly improved over time. The last couple of kits by AFV Club I purchased, I’m happy owning.
So true. That can be said for just about all model companies. Early Tamiya kits sucked, early Trumpeter kits (K1A1), early Meng (ZU-23-2), the stories I could tell you about Dragon (or DML as they were known - which allegedly stood for Does not Match panel Lines).
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@Armor_Buff @Gary_Kato . I agree whole heartedly with yalls statements.
The only bad experience i ever had with afv though was the early release of the Nancy gun truck.
It was one that required some fixing.
For me I applaud the gentleman who stated, “it’s a hobby and supposed to be fun”. It also MAY be connected to age… Tose of us from 50 million BC, remember kits that were horribly thick, Tamiya’s original Panzer III. or any renwall kit. I gave up commercial kits, for the reason of a challenge, I scratch build only in an "off’ scale. But I honestly do think that there could be some “old” versus “new” going on.
For the money I always thought Esci was the most fragile…
I’ve got their 251/22 70% built and in the box for the foreseeable future. The rubber tracks are far too loose, the shields on the gun don’t fit and the whole upper body is too short, which is just ridiculous if you ask me.
I’ve got a couple of their other kits but generally I think they’re just not great value for money (vinyl tracks, not much PE)
Sink marks are due to the same reason as short moulding, air in the mould. The fix is venting out to atmosphere. This should be picked up at the test moulding and it’s comparatively easy to fix. The other possible reason is running the moulds too hot, trying to up production. If this is the case, there is usually excess “flash” as well.
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I purchased/built the recent M110 SP Howitzer, and this kit comes with decent one-piece tracks. Well, decent until you first try to fit them and find they are too long. AFV Club put out their kit # AF 35332 tracks for this kit as an after-market item, single-link tracks with separate track pads. So, I purchased a set, figuring this would solve the too-long issue.
There are 75 shoes for one side, 76 for the other. About five extra shoes included in total. These are snap-together items.
I have had to clear flash from every individual track shoe, testing my own vision as well as my optivisors’. The tracks seem to resemble those from really dated molds that are wearing out, allowing flash to form in some hard-to-remove places. Coupled with the odd type of plastic that AFV Club uses, the resulting clean-up efforts took me three days of frustrating work.
I used a set from Spade-Ace on my Tamiya/Italeri M107 kit, which were much easier to work with. Thought the after-market tracks from the same company that made this kit would have been easier to assemble, being a year old.
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I’m back to the hobby after a 40 year plus break…back in the 80’s I was a Tamiya guy, and thats mostly what i’ve built in the last year. Im starting the Hummel, and thought i’d get some workable tracks. I bought a set of AFV Club workable plastic tracks, impossibly small, with just enough nearly invisible flash to make assembly impossible.
I’m 61, good hands & good eyes, but these tracks have the best of me. On and off for a couple of days, and I have about 2" done. I am done with them, back in the box, and on the shelf for an undetermined amount of time.
Ive built a Meng GT40, have a Ryefield Sheridan, and a Meng Bradley, along with the new Tam Hellcat in the stash.
I am glad others have better luck with these, maybe they are just a step or two over my pay grade!
Cheers,
Andy
Sometimes, and I stress sometimes, if flash is minimal enough I’ve hit it with liquid cement and made it go away. Sounds like it may work in your case as you can disguise any resultant blobs as mud.
Welcome to the forum by the way.
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I can second that: I bought these Marder tracks:
Impossibly small to handle. Went with supplied rubber band tracks.
I can’t recall how much flash the parts had, it was a ling time ago. However, the two terrible AFV Club kits, I mentioned tossing in the raffle were both worse than any 1970’s vintage Tamiya, Italeri or 1990’s era DML kits I’ve seen or built.
I’d be interested in hearing what issues there are with the Nancy guntruck please.
The big issue i had was the elevation gears for the quad 50 were 2 left side . It should have been a left and a right .
It was corrected soon after the initial release
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hmmm i hope i have the corrected version in my stash.
Its a easy fix . You probably have the corrected one
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The only AFV Club kit I’ve ever built was their Nashorn.
It was generally alright, but I do seem to remember that for some strange reason, the main gun’s periscope sight was made up of several clear plastic pieces. It was almost impossible to orientate them properly as you could quite literally see through them. Completely unecessary.
I also avoided their shocking tracks and went with a Fruil set (back when Fruil tracks needed an absolute minimum of clean up/prep).
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