Wade’s World Review: Tasca Sherman Firefly w/cheek armor #35011
TL:DR summary
Opening the box in 2009, this caused flashbacks to seeing *Star Trek The Motion Picture * in the theater in 1979. Decent enough but failed to live up to the hype. ST:TMP, spawned several loved sequels. After building the kit I find much to admire in Tasca’s accomplishments from the early 2000’s despite #35011’s atrocious instructions.
4 Price Previously paid $62 retail in 2009, available online now for $45.
2 Instructions Tasca has nice innovation with numbered assembly sequence in a few steps but this kit didn’t get a dedicated instruction sheet. What’s provided is a supplemental sheet to jump back and forth with factored by which of four possible vehicles is selected as the build.
That jumbled mess severely detracted from my build experience with the kit. For someone familiar with Tasca builds and Shermans this would likely be less of a factor.
YMMV
4 Mold Quality Looked very good in the box until I started fixing sink marks and shallow mold depressions, sometimes multiple ones on the same part. Flash isn’t too bad. Majority of molding is crisp, defect free and parts are laid out in an intelligent manner for minimal clean up. The brilliant parts layout helped this rating.
4 Plastic Quality The plastic is excellent. However, the very dark color made seeing and working on the model more difficult. I constantly adjusted light sources due to the dark plastic. Zero issues with several prior builds under same lighting conditions.
The plastic sands and cleans easily enough. Testor’s Liquid Cement & Tamiya Quick Set work well with the plastic.
5 Ease of Build The model is brilliantly designed for easy and quick building. Easily the best overall layout of parts for hassle free construction I’ve seen to date. However, this excellence was severely undermined (cut off at the knees) by the jumbled confusing instructions.
5 Accuracy Sherman Sheriff’s seem to like the kit. Enough said.
Based on photos, for build #2 F50 & F51 might be positioned differently.
4 Fit Very good, not Rolex perfect in my limited experience of building one kit. With basic care any issues can be pushed to hidden areas if issues occur.
5 Doesn’t Require Aftermarket A very nice model can be build with included parts. Clear periscopes & lens, appropriate PE, slide molded MG’s etc. Tracks are usable. The two piece main gun is nice enough but fixing seams in side muzzle brakes can be annoying so I went aftermarket.
The PE periscopes guards are flat and one might desire to replace them. Sadly plastic alternatives are not provided in the kit. Asuka sells aftermarket plastic guards for ~$12
5 Details Built Out of The Box the kit has strong out of the box potential for contests.
43 point raw score out of of 50
Special Assessment, aka Wade’s World manufacturer Stupidity Tariff
-1 point must be applied for $hitty absolutely 
percent worthless box art. While probably no one else on planet earth these days cares to use box art as inspiration & fast reference, I still do on occasion.
For subject matter, one is unfamiliar with the box art can be a useful fast reference. While far from perfect reference decent artwork can be helpful to modelers not deeply interested in a given subject that have only a passing interest.
YMMV
42 points out of 50
42/50 => 84%
Recommended, probably best to be Sherman literate before under taking this specific kit. I wouldn’t hesitate to build other Tasca/Asuka kits. They’ll have better instructions.
However, I wouldn’t buy this kit these days for $45, based on my preferences the newer Ryefield kits (and probably others) that have surpassed this 2008 Firefly release based on the realitive prices.
In closing, I’m favorably impressed by Tasca/Asuka but less than impressed by this specific kit.
Periscope guards, idler & tracks Order with the water bottle pop headache with filth Kelly.
