Hilarious!
2 Likes
Cannot recall which kit it ended with but many Tamiya Sherman’s have an open sponson. The skirts in that kit would do a good job of hiding them if missing. There is/was aftermarket options or light scratch building to block off.
3 Likes
IIRC there are two accuracy issues with the kit; how important they are depending on the builder & what you would tolerate.
The driver’s hoods & front hull welds are actually for an M4A4 IIRC, not an M4. The hoods would have to be beefed up a bit, & reshaped to get some “typical” hoods, depending on the prototype manufacturer, as well as detail changed with the periscope wells. The welds were different depending on which factory made the model.
The other issue is not an accuracy issue per se (other than the artifacts left over from borrowing parts from a 40yo kit). The kit re-uses the suspension from the M4A3 kit, with upswept return rollers. While not inaccurate per se, it is also unlikely, given the 3pc bolted transmission cover.
But it is also a kit I would absolutely with no reservations, recommend to a new modeler. They can have a nice-looking model OOTB without any headaches.
Damon.
4 Likes
Damon, thank you.
Those items would be very serious issues to me on a Pz IV or Panther kit. The Sherman kit will be treated with equal fidelity in it’s review. The accuracy rating has been adjusted from 5 to 2.
2 Likes
Correct, and the same applies to the antenna mount base (the round thing on the right side of the glacis plate) — in essence, Tamiya stuck the front of an M4A4 to the rear of an M4. Also, for suspension accuracy, the wheels are too narrow on all of the Tamiya Sherman kits that use the 1980s M4A3 as a base. However, I concur with Wade that this is a good kit for a new modeller or for anyone who just wants “a Sherman” instead of “a mid-1942–production PSC M4” or whatever.
3 Likes
Tamiya Early Tiger 1 #35056
My review of the ~1970 release 1/35 Tamiya early Tiger 1 kit build in today’s model building landscape.
1 Price ~$35 (fleabay + shipping). Not that many years go this kit wouldn’t sell at model contest for $5. However, it’s old enough to be rare now and commands a respectable price if you can find one. The kit was purchased for a Kitmaker Campaign build.
5 Instructions - very nice vintage Tamiya
3 Molding Quality - flash, sink marks but decent considering the history and age. I think my kit was a ~1980’s re-pop.
2 Plastic Quality - hard & brittle, guess this kit had heat exposure at some point in a storage unit etc.
3 Parts Clean Up - usable parts, easy to clean
2 Ease of Build - out box 5, very easy but the tweaks needed are excessive and complicates to bring the build up to ~2000’s level detail.
3 Accuracy - main gun way too big, wrong number of wheels, cupola no vision slits etc, would be zero but that bird bath recess around the loaders hatch is sweet and many newer kits don’t have that option. So +1 point for the old girl. Main parts like hull, turret aren’t too bad on a very basic inspection. The bones are decent.
Later, I learned the bird bath was unique to a small number of Tiger’s with snorkel. The Bovington Tiger 131 has the recess.
4 Fit - All of the kit parts fit together surprisingly well.
0 Doesn’t Require Aftermarket - every part needs help by today’s standards
0 Details built Out of the Box - very weak here
23 points out of 50 possible
23/50 => 46%
Generally Not Recommended, far too many newer kits with better everything out of the box. Kit still occasionally has a place as a nostalgia build, Campaign challenge build or test bed.
Definitely a favor once wrapped.
7 Likes
Tamiya #35146, Late Tiger 1, from 1989
I’ve built the kit twice previously and this makes the third one.
3 Price ~$51 Sprue Brothers (paid ~$20, vendor wanted it gone)
5 Instructions while the location of Zimmerit has some questionable accuracy on the front glacis, overall the instructions are clear and concise.
5 Molding Quality crisp but dated, no sink marks, no short shots, no flash, zero complaints from me
5 Plastic Quality higher quality plastic than the competition, slightly hard but cleans up well
3 Parts Clean Up lots of punch marks to fix, exterior faces of some road wheels, internal face of muffler guards, side of jack, 4 punch markers per track link, 100 links per track plus spares so ~800+ punch marks for inside face of the individual link tracks. Tow cables & track cable unfortunately there’s a lot of mold seams to remove.
3 Ease of Build would be 5 but the model needs a zimmerit coating that complicates construction, lot of RAW openings to fix, four where engine deck grates are located, drivers visor and air intake. If not boarded up with sheet styrene the empty internals can be see from various angles. Likewise massive punch marks to fix (800+) on kit tracks or an aftermarket solution which complicates the build. Likewise finding appropriate engine deck screens separately.
2 Accuracy - looks fairly accurate at first but don’t look too hard at the turret. Armorama Archive - Tamiya Tiger Turret , shape? main gun placement? Tiger Model Design makes replacement turrets to address this issue.
5 Fit - meticulously cleaning parts of attachment points and burrs works wonders. Test fitting is also helpful.
0 Doesn’t Require Aftermarket - the kit really deserve a negative score because so much benefits from being replaced with aftermarket or enhanced by aftermarket. This was true in 1989 when the kit was a new release. It’s very easy to drop $100 in upgrades and that just covers the basics!
Tracks, main gun, turret, MG’s, engine deck screens, tool clasps, track cable, tow cables, periscopes for the cupola…the list keeps going…
0 Details built Out of the Box - built out of the box the lack of fidelity to the appearance of a Late Tiger 1 is striking. If fidelity to identity matters to the modeler this kit shouldn’t be built OOTB. This was true in 1989 and with today’s rising standards of kit excellence hasn’t changed.
31 points out of 50
31/50 => 62%
Not recommended 
This once stellar must buy kit has been surpassed by many other kits that cost roughly the same or less. Likewise cost will spiral quickly acquiring aftermarket upgrades to improve this kit.
If one has the kit in the the stash, it’s a nice nostalgia build and can use up a lot of old dated aftermarket parts on the storage shelf.
Despite my objective opinion this kit is light years past it’s prime, it’s still a fun build. The kit builds very nicely. There another Tamiya Late Tiger kit in the stash plus two very similar mid models. In time all will probably see the work bench.
7 Likes
Wade I am laughing so hard my side hurts. VBG I have bunch of Tamiya Sherman’s in my stash.
Love the reviews
2 Likes
Wade. Did anybody know about the asymmetric turret prior the the early to mid 90’s?
2 Likes
To think I never finished that Tiger 1 kit. But I have several of the new ones made by others in the stash. VBG.
2 Likes
Randy,
At Wade’s World the executive committee (me, myself & I) voted to suspended all humor, attempts at humor, practice of anti-humor, Monty Python memes & puns in our reviews after a disgruntled reader complained he/she/they/them/etc took uber offense 
at the silliness.
However, it seems our editor, Kali-Kat who’s a practical joker…
…threaten to deposit a hot steaming IED directly in front of this thing and test out how smart it really is at detecting $#it…
…if we tampered with “her editorial control of content”…so blame the cat if the humor is flat…
@M70 , my word smything is probably a little unorthodox due to being from Nawf Kerliner and being exposed to the MidWest or the Aspergers or just plain ignorance, I wouldn’t rule out anything 
@BillyBoy59 , I’m uncertain when the awareness of the Tamiya Late Tiger’s turret issues first occurred.
In 1995, I became aware of it from a friend who was tight with Chesapeake Model Design.
My friend had suspected a potential issue with the turret since the kit released in 1989.
In ~1990, with the release of PZ.KPFW.VI TIGER, SD.KFZ.181, PICTORIAL BOOK, STURM AND DRANG #1 he became convinced there was an issue.
There was also a strong suspicion
the steel wheels were off by 2 scale inches or ~ 1.5 mm’s.
The Chesapeake Model Design group were on excellent terms with Mr. Jentz, per same friend. Later, information from Jentz, actual measurement and factory schematics confirmed the asymmetrical nature of the Tiger 1 turret.
That’s what my friend said who (unlike myself) was very passionate about research.
More precisely that’s what I understood and remember, he may said said it slightly differently. I was busy fuming the whole discussion that my just completed Tamiya Late Tiger 1 with scratch built interior just finished in 1995…was wrong, totally wrong, jacked up turret wrong, screwed up wheels wrong…and not listening all that closely…
7 Likes
I remember there being an article in Military Modelling 30 or so years ago that laid it out. But now to find that article again … I want to say that it’s called “That Tiger turret” but I’m not sure it actually is.
25 minutes later: I’ve looked at all the old MilMod issues I could find in the various places around the house where I keep them, and at the table of contents of those of the approximate era, but I haven’t found the article 
Either I must have some more issues somewhere, or I missed it. It did make me realise that maybe I should make room to have them all together, though, and sort them in chronological order.
4 Likes
Panzer IV F1-F2-G by Italaerei, No. 217
The basis of this review and comments come from vintage-italeri-pz-iv-build-kit-bash.
My kit was an initial pressing from 1974 according to the vendor I purchased it from in 1989. I’d looked for nearly two years trying to find an Italeri Pz IV since they were rumored to be the best Pz IV at that time. In late 2020, the model went on the workbench…
4 Price ~$32 flea bay now (paid ~$7 in 1989 or $18 in 2025 inflation adjusted $$$)
4 Instructions - old and dusty but easy to follow.
4 Molding Quality - High quality, I don’t recall any short shots, sink marks or warped parts or any quality control issues with this kit.
5 Plastic Quality - Like butter, this kit stayed in climate controlled environment and was like new quality plastic, 10x times better than that garbage Italeri Panther kit.
3 Parts Clean Up - punch marks on the rear exterior tail plate are pretty terrible. They are very hard to fix and I used parts from another kit plus scratch building
2 Ease of Build - out of the box 5 as it’s very simple but realistically if this kit sees the workbench it’s going to get modifications with aftermarket, kit bashing or scratch building or all three techniques.
1 Accuracy - It was marketed as 3 n 1 but doesn’t have the appropriate parts and details for the three different Ausf’s. It’s representative in general but not accurate. Likewise, the rear of the turret was flagrantly wrong on the early kit. I believe this was revised later. See build thread for details and modifications etc. The fenders in the kit are laughable if you’ve seen a picture of a Pz IV. If you’ve had the pleasure of climbing all over a Pz IV, you’ll want to revise nearly everything in the kit.
5 Fit That’s right and here’s why…
All of the Italeri parts fit well.
All of the Model-Kasten wheels & tracks fit well.
All of the stolen Dragon parts fit well with a few tweaks.
All of the black market Tamiya parts fit well with a few tweaks.
All of the Tiger Model Design parts fit
In my opinion, that could only happen because the bones and basic design of the kit was correct or very close.
0 Doesn’t Require Aftermarket
The kit needs tracks, tools, main gun, MG’s and Dragon fenders at the very least. Plus a lot of PE brass etc.
0 Details built Out of the Box
The punch mark riddled exterior rear plate just about wrecks out of the box potential. It can be fixed but I’ve seen it correctly fixed so the punch marks are undetectable only a handful of times. With the age of the kit, potential upside is limited these days.
28 points out of 50
28/50 => 56%
Recommended for a nostalgia themed campaign or group builds. Otherwise, not recommended.
With that said, I found this kit to be a very enjoyable build because of it’s high quality plastic and quality plastic parts that were free of manufacturing defects, like short shots, sinkmarks & warpage.
6 Likes
Make them into PDFs Jakko, just take a coupe of years with the scanner, no worries, and save you a room 
3 Likes
On the Italeri Pz IV, you comment on the excellent parts quality, so why not give it a 5 instead of a 4?
Ken
2 Likes
Because it’s Italeri…(j/k)
The moldings aren’t crisp. Everything is just a little too soft or too rounded to rate a 5 in Wade’s World despite the overall excellence otherwise.
BTW - per other thread and comment,
Now I’m going to have to build that suck-taclular ICM Panther D instead of tossing that POS in a raffle to find out if ICM sucks harder than Italeri on Panther kits.
A duel to death from the bottom feeders. Maybe have a camo by a Tamiya Panther A to keep it interesting. Single digit scores?
4 Likes
If I wanted to be rid of the physical magazines (which would be highly unlikely 
) and had those couple of years I cared to devote to it, sure … As it is, I’m already not scanning stuff I really want to/should be because I’m close to having had enough of that for the time being …
4 Likes
Have you considered Magazine Binders?
3 Likes
@Armor_Buff perdon por el castellano, pero tardo mucho en escribir en inglés. Excelente este hilo! Me divertí mucho leyéndolo. Coincido en que muchas veces un kit al que actualmente no le daríamos un gran puntaje puede aportarnos una gran diversión.Y no sólo al agregarle decenas de detalles de la caja de recuerdos. Hace poco le armé a un cliente un Panther de las primeras épocas de Tamiya OOB y realmente disfrute el aire despreocupado!
Un volver a mi infancia modelística por decirlo de algún modo que me bajó 10 velocidades y me permitió disfrutar sin preocupaciones (eso si, rezando por que la banda elástica de las orugas no arrancara alguna de las ruedas tensora o tractora!!!)
Espero mas de tus reviews y estoy totalmente de acuerdo con el posible canal de Youtube, un abrazo desde Argentina!
3 Likes
That would take up even more room that I don’t really have Not to mention make it harder to read them because you have to take out that huge binder.
3 Likes