Kit Review: 1/72 Einheitsdiesel & 37mm Flak, Zebrano

I bought this kit from TAS Models at On Track in Folkestone, earlier this year. I chose to use it as the kit I take to the Wisbech IPMS, on their fortnightly get together. Progress has been painfully slow. Chiefly on account of the appalling almost illegible instructions, and the missing or damaged parts.

Such issues can actually make a build quite fun, in a perverse sado-masochistic way, by creating challenges to be overcome. And that's really been the best thing about this kit; overcoming the arseache of each new problem, as it arose.

The kit itself looks like it's one that's been issued by other companies in the past. And it also looks like it's one of those Eastern European short-run jobbies, in the Ace Models type line. For example, moulding is a little coarse, with plenty o' flash, malformed parts, and several different colours of styrene.

Making mudguards from plastic card.

I put little 'tabs' on the cab wheel arches, for attaching the mudguards.

Early in the build I had to fabricate part of a malformed suspension element. I discovered fairly late in the build that one rather major/essential component, a section that includes both front mudguards, was missing entirely. I tried to fabricate my own from plastic card, but they looked pretty shite, and weren't quite large enough. So I pillaged some from a PSC set of German trucks (a Mercedes variant). 

Amongst the many issues that plagued this build were problems getting the final three major components of the truck properly aligned. By this point the model as a whole really doesn't look too bad, in fairness. I'm not sure how the flak gun is supposed to be mounted, as it won't sit in the rear as supplied; the two-footed part of the guns' tripod sits up on the benches, whilst the single leg wants to rest on the floor... Hmmm!?

Ok, so my scratch-built mudguards were a bit crap.

So I cut some off a PSC Mercedes truck.

I guess they're a bit high. But they do look better.

Pretty much everything in place. Looking quite good.

Totally unpainted. Why the black rear wheels!?

Sitting on the couch watching Lethal Weapon 2. The model is more or less finished, assembly wise. The 37mm AA gun is done as well. But I don't know how I'm young to combine the two models. In fact I might not bother, and simply use this as a truck. I've ended up enjoying the build, overall. And it's a decent enough looking model of a great vehicle.

But I couldn't really recommend this kit as it came to me in such a ooor state. There were damaged and missing pieces, and the instructions are utter rubbish, printed almost illegibly and nigh on impossible to decipher.

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I'm thinking I'll paint this in early/mid-war grey, and try my hand at improving my  shading/weathering, etc.

Misc: Wisbech IPMS, etc.

This evening I did something most unlike me, and went along to a kind of club... Wisbech IPMS, to be precise. They hold their fortnightly meetings in The Community Room at the Wisbech Tesco. It's a soulless room, alas. But it's free, and there's even free tea, coffee, biscuits and wifi.

I was a bit anxious about meeting fellow modellers. From my experiences of going to model shops and shows over the years, I know we can be a funny mixed old bunch. And so it proved to be. There were even some women present. Women!? That was something I really wasn't expecting, and something that's decidedly rare and unusual, in my experience of both modelmaking and wargame figure collecting, etc.

A pretty friendly bunch, I was able to get on with my model - I'd been advised that everyone brought along models to work on - and occasionally engage in conversation with various other modellers. Once about eight or nine of us had arrived (quite a lot, they told me), there was a kind of semi formal 'everyone takes turns to introduce themselves and their model' round-robin thing.

It's funny how hard I find it to share my interests socially. It's a trait I've always had, with all my interests. Despite everyone there being modelmakers, I find that unless their modelling interests intersect with mine... well, how to put it? Erm... I'm really not very interested. I think that can change, and occasionally does, albeit very slowly. As, for example, when my buddy Paul's interest in plane models helped me get into the aviation side of 1/72 modelling.

I'm pretty useless at remembering names, so I'm not going to even try! One guy is very into modern civilian planes, another favours nautical subjects. One of the ladies was building an RAF ground crew set, which I can relate to (it's a set I'd like to build myself). But another was making a sabre-toothed tiger, which I find harder to be excited about. But there were enough WWII era models and topics of conversation to keep me reasonably happy.

The anorak/nerd vibe in the room was, as one might anticipate, way up into the red. As a Tesco member of staff unlocked the room for us, one of the guy's joked with him about this. I kind of wish he hadn't! Modelmakers shouldn't apologise for themselves or run themselves down. I know I've done it myself often enough. Hearing someone else do it made me realise I/we really shouldn't.

I hadn't realised that the show and tell portion could/should include a more developed project. But I got around that by showing a picture of my three Elefant tanks on my iPad. The kit I'd taken with me proved to have some damaged parts, and these were parts that I was meant to start with. So I spent most of the 7-10pm session scratchbuilding replacement parts! In the end I completed very little of the kit. But I probably worked at much the same speed I would've done had I been at home.

Overall I did enjoy going. Although I did, as I feared I might, find the socialising aspect the hardest most challenging part. And I think I will go again, though when exactly and how often, I'm less sure of. I'll probably go to the next one, and continue the kit I worked on tonight then. It's not a great kit, to be honest. But I think in a way that makes it more suitable to such an occasion, as it doesn't matter too much if my attention is divided whilst I work on it.