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Forums - Research / Post-WW2 |
This Post WW2 forum is intended for asking and discussing reference or historical related issues pertaining to any time after WW2 (1945+) subjects. |
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| Messages | 5045 |
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| Subject: | Re: Question for Marcel Jussen. |  |
| Date: | Apr 12, 2001 |
| From: | Marcel Jussen | |
Christophe,
Every Elite kit I have build was a serious piece of hard work. Quality is
indeed marginal in some areas.
I have build the following kits:
- Leopard Bergepanzer 2A2 (based on the Leopard 1 chassis)
- Biber AVLB (AVLB based on the Leopard 1 chassis)
- Leopard Bergepanzer 3 (based on the Leopard 2 chassis, not on TL gallery)
and right now I am finishing the Elite Keiler kit which is the german mine
clearence vehicle based on the M48 chassis.
Quality issues I have encountered with EVERY kit where:
An awfull lot of bubbles everywhere!. Big pieces (hull parts etc...) where
not so "infected", but small and particularly thin parts are full of them.
Since it is almost impossible to get some modern German AFV crew I bought 2
sets of Elite 1/35 modern German crewmen about a year ago. I am still
shocked by the bubbles that where on all of these figures.
Detail in some areas is poor or even plain bad. Although accuracy of the
overall model is good, some detail could be a lot better. The Keiler suffers
heavily with lack of detail. Some parts are so badly casted that some detail
is completely lost. Elite kits are no 'multi-media' kits. They do not ship
any PE as far as I am aware. That's a shame because it would improve quality
bigtime. One thing I encountered on my Keiler: The hull top is full with
scratches!! After my first paint layer I discovered that the flat hull top
of the Keiler not only has poor detail but some 'extra' scratches as well.
No how did they get there..??
Construction plans are very complete but not always that clear. In some
cases I found that the number of a part was shown on the plan but no pointer
to where
it should go on the model!
Do not ever use the resin tracks that come with any Elite kit. You can
attach the resin track to the kit but overall quality of the tracks is poor
(bubbles!). At the time I constructed the Leopard models the HKCW tracks
where not available. I have seen a modeler who even used the Italeri Leopard
2a4 tracks on his Leo Bpz 3 kit just to avoid the Elite tracks!! The Keiler
uses the typical M48/M60 tracks which are easily replaced with workable
tracks. Thank God for that!
Resin is prone to warping and bending. It all comes down to casting and
resin quality when warping is to be avoided. To give you some idea: The
bridge parts of my Leopard AVLB where great to look at, but after
construction I found myself with bridge parts that where impossible to put
together because of excessive warping. Every single bridge piece was about
30cm (1 foot) long but was warped about 8 mm outwards!! It seemed impossible
to connect them together. It took a lot of work the correct this and it
still isn't really great.
I have done some resin conversions and full resin kit constructions from
other companies as well, but Elite does not come close to any of them. It's
just a matter of quality. Are Elite kits awfully bad then? Well.....yes and
no. If you like a full resin kit which is easy to construct then I recommend
Accurate Armour. If your not affraid of a serious challange and you don't
want to pay AA prices then Elite can be just as much 'fun'. It just takes
more work......
I hope this helps,
Marcel Jussen |
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