Happy New Year

I hope everyone had a good New Year and also for the forthcoming Chinese New Year of the Dragon on January 23.

Sorry for the lack of site updates recently but I have had to deal with a rather debilitating illness, still not 100% but one must move on. Thanks to those who sent personal messages and sorry I haven’t been able to reply to each but they were appreciated as were the public comments which were a little embarrassing at times as I am just one person and there are other modelling sites about.

But being indisposed does give one time to ponder on the overall scheme of things and I must confess there are times when I wonder if it’s worth all the effort? I spend large amounts of time and more importantly substantial sums of money buying stuff for the site content, the site sponsors help with this but apart from a few private donations for which I am most grateful the majority of site visitors contribute nothing and seem to just expect it to be there with the resulting comments at times when updates are interrupted due to life getting in the way.

A lot of people visit PMMS each month and if just half those visitor were to make a small contribution towards the site costs it would go a long way to easing the burden on my pocket as well as showing they value the resource. But maybe they don’t that much and I may be being a little presumptuous there? If interested you don’t actually need a Paypal account as CC donations can be done via the Paypal site to my account: pmms@westnet.com.au. I’m not taking large donations, even a few $ a couple of times a year (the cost of tin/bottle of paint for example) all adds up but I’ll leave that out there for people to ponder.

Just to explain the $ outlay a bit more, when doing a full build and even more so with a comparison review is will buy 2 or 3 kits of each subject, this is so I can build one and have another “virgin” kit should I need to take further photos or make comparisons of parts after the bits have been assembled. If doing a build review of an aftermarket detail sets this often involves buying another kit to use with the review. Even if a company supplies a sample kit I will inevitably buy additional kits for the above reasons, the same goes for aftermarket update sets and the big hidden cost of reference books.

Every time a new kit subject is announced I will buy additional reference material which is not cheap so I can hopefully provide a review with sound facts both in relation to the kit parts but also in identifying variants and the subtle detail differences. The cost of the reference material is often twice; three times as much as the kit and all of this come out of my pocket. BTW bandwidth and hosting costs are lot less these days compared to the past with the majority of costs being the kits/reference as mentioned.

Moving on:
Over the year we have seen a steady stream of excellent quality kits from the likes of AFV Club, Bronco, DML, Miniart and Tasca and some where the quality definitely varies between releases such as with Trumpeter/HobbyBoss as well as those with slightly lesser quality but still interesting subjects such as IBG, ICM, Masterbox and Zvezda and the emergence of some promising new players such as Vision Model, Vulcan Model and Meng Model who’s latest Minenräumer kit all bodes well for the future.

While off line there were dozens of new kits released and I had partly done some reviews but these are now quite old in terms of “hot of the press” kit and I was wondering I you guys would want me to try and catch up with some of these kits or just start afresh with the latest releases, please let me know your thoughts.

One of those said reviews was to be the NeubauFahrzeug Comparison and I’ve done all the images but still need to finish the text, I might just post it with only brief comments for the images and not the full blown review. I can tell you my conclusions anyway, that is the Amusing Hobby kit is by far and away the more accurate and better detailed of the three kits by a long way actually. The only concerns with the kit is the softer grey plastic used that needs some care when cleaning up the sprue attachment burs and the turret cupola appears a little too small in diameter, other than that the level of detail is streets ahead not only in there being more detail included but it correctly depicts detail that is just wrong or missing in the other two kits.

Of the other two, the DML has some nice surface detail on the main hull but is over simplified in some areas and the level of detail is not there, it is though the quickest and easiest build of the three kits if that is your main criteria? With the Trumpeter kit it’s just not in the ball park with the overall level of detail rather poor in comparison with many errors and omissions, for example the suspension bogie spring units are fixed at an angle and should be vertical like in the other two kits. Assembly is fairly straightforward but it’s the lack of detail on the parts and detail errors that leaves it at the bottom of the pile.

Others built but the review text still to be done from before are the Trumpeter Sd.Kfz.8 DB10 Gepanzerte 12t, the Tasca 1:24 Zündapp KS750 with Sidecar and a few update and resin sets.
Anyway let me know if you want these finished and posted abate with briefer text than would normally be the case.

And so on with the New Year, oh and the award for the first kit to arrive on the doorstep for 2012 goes to the Pit Road IJA Type98 4t Prime Mover "Shi-Ke". Nice clean mouldings, quite well detailed overall, the front radiator louvers are moulded open and it's just a smidgin bigger than a Jeep.

 Cheers.