I’ve the Zvezda Kamaz 5350 kit to build, and might I say before I go any further, it is a beauty, too.
The plastic is crisp, and there is plenty of it in the box. I’m impressed at the execution of the kit, which looks to be complex, with a few options. The doors can be open, there is detail on the inside edge, there is a top hatch, this can be open, too, and the entire cab can be modelled tilted forward, showing off a fairly complete engine.
The rear bed comes with a nicely textured tilt, and complete seating for troops, if you wish. Of course, these seats can be left off and the bed of the truck filled with a cargo of your choice. Given the layout of the bed being separate from the chassis, there may be other versions coming.
The instructions run to several pages, and numerous steps. These are busy, and consist of numbered line drawings. Nothing fancy here.
The decals are for a couple of green vehicles, and there are stickers for the mirrors, which I don’t mind, having used them on the Zvezda Bumerang to good effect.
If you’re looking for camo options, and this is being used today, here are a couple of options I’ve found…
I intend to add Miniarm wheels and “air filter box”, and 3D decals from Quinta Studios, which are amazing. Truely amazing. The relief is difficult to show in images, but it’s there.
Zvezda have really raised their quality level and are on a par with many of the major companies. The instructions can be tricky and require a thorough reading before starting the assembly. But you get cost effective models.
I’ve done up to step 12A and 12B, which is the engine complete, and the winch… the string was a real challenge getting through the feed rollers. I ended up trimming the rollers back a bit. Did anyone notice?
In the first pic it appears a mold line is showing where the transmission parts come together and in the second pic the support bracket that is perpendicular, the angle seems off. Don’t know if it’s supposed to be that way, a funky image thing but it might impact seating the engine later.
This consists of two rails with numerous cross members that need to be correctly located for the chassis to be square. I started at the top, the front front bumper and worked my way down, making sure all points seated correctly.
I had looked at adding the wiring, but need to balance that with finishing it this year against an exercise in madness… plus, I’d need to find reliable references, too. The detail is good enough that the nipples and junctions are there to add the wiring to, if you know where the wires go.
Joining H31 to H19 onto subassembly 15 worked a treat. Sure, it required a bit of pushing before the glue cured, but nothing too difficult. And it looks great.
The red arrow shows a gap from poor fit that I can confidently put down to operator error, maybe. No, really. The same fitting on the other side is near perfect, which is pretty good considering this represents several subassemblies that build on each other to reach this point.
