Cruiser133

This is the argument I used when I first heard of that price. If I am going to pay Tamiya money, then it will have Tamiya on the box. Sorry, I appreciate the options of new tanks, but that price is ridiculous.

RichJohnson

I got the Lee kit today. The tranny cover should fit right on the HL once the HL gear boxes are out. It has nice screw mounting tabs in OEM placement. The kit plastic is very tough, very different from the white urethane we are all used to working with in cottage industry hobbies. The castigs are good quality and fair detail especially for this tank.
There is one spot back right corner where the turret barbet spash ring is slightly straightened causing the turret not to fit, a dremmel and some fine grinding is necessary there.

edoubleaz

My Feedback: (1)

nice Rich. Expect many interested peeps at the DDAY El Monte event!

Rex Ross

You say --- the kit plastic is very tough? The original posting says the kit is resin. Which is it?
rex

Max-U52

Rich, why are your pictures always upside down, Bro? Have you offended the RC Tank Gods, or somethin'?

The small turret does rotate, right?

MAUS45

Fixed them for you Gary!!! This is a nice mod kit. Looks like it will take just a little clean up. Have you got your Humphry Bogart Commander yet???

Max-U52

You're the best, Rich! I was getting funny looks for having my computer monitor turned upside down.

So the small turret does rotate, right? Do you think there's room for a ring gear and a continuous rotation servo in there? Can you give us some pics of the underside of the upper hull and turret? Bitte?

I think I might have to get one of these before they disappear. Right after the TBU.

bowlman

Its up on E-Bay now $169.00 .
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-16-convers...item3aaa47b7de

Thanks
Jimmy

RichJohnson

Stupid Ipad. Thats why the pictures are upside down. When I click on them on here they come rightside up.

i cant log in again from my PC. I tred the forum reset and it justshuts down the webiste address on on PC. When i got it workinglast time I had restarted my laptop. Then it worked for about a week till it glitched again. So annoying.

yes the turret comes off and will rotate once fitted properly.

i do think this is some kind of resin casting, not stryene injection, but it is tougher plastic than we are used to with the white urethane we all know.

Max-U52

They jumped 50 bucks, from $120 to $170? And then another 60 bucks for shipping? They just lost my business. It was a stretch at $120, there's absolutely no way I'll pay $170 for that.

YHR

All metal, 2,4 ghz hobby grade radio, servo recoil, Clark electronics etc, RTR,, I don't think a $700-800 price is ridicuous. IMO I think it offers a challenge to Tamiya.

RichJohnson

The all metal tanks are only a challange to tamiya if they are the same quality, or if Tamiya doesnt offer that tank model.
from the reviews ive seen, the gear boxes on the mato are almost as good as a tamiya, the detail is nice, they seem quite robust.
But then there is that massive weight issue and the fact you cant mod that metal stuff very well.

Ex_Pat_Tanker

That's not far off what I paid for most of my other turret and hull kits, both from US vendors like Firenick and EU ones like Profiline and PanzerParts, so I think its actually quite a reasonable price - especially as the hull casting is quite a bit taller than a Sherman, and will take a lot of latex to make the mold (and I'm told the mold is the expensive peice of the process).

RichJohnson

Doing lots of casting myself, i can assure you that his mould for this hull is at least several hundred bucks.
I dont think what I spent was at all out of line with our hobby competitors.

Max-U52

What did you pay, Rich? $120 or $170? It's the $50 jump that ticked me off. If you're selling them for $120 and suddenly jump $50 soon after the product comes out that's just greed.

Ex_Pat_Tanker

Perhaps his mold wore out faster than he had anticipated when he announced the price before starting production? If, for example, he's found out that he's only getting 7 usable castings when he had anticipated 10 or 12 before the molds had to be replaced, then that would make a huge difference to the piece price... There's no need to be throwing accusations around just because you personally are experiencing sticker shock.

RichJohnson

I never saw them fir sale for 120. I was quoted $150 euro several weeks ago. I tracked him down as soon as it popped up on face book. Rmember with the conversion and shipping, this was nearly 200 bucks. But hey, i was thinking of scratching this thing two months ago right when it came up. Lucky me. Its not a bad price if you want something different.

Max-U52

What's the deal, Martin? This guy a friend of yours or something? I don't really care what the reason is, the price jumped $50 in 48 hours and the shipping went up by more than $20. Don't tell me the price of shipping has anything to do with molds wearing out.

Panther G

No it doesnt offer a challenge to Tamiya. If anything it re affirms Tamiya's superior quality in it's manufacturing and components. anything HL based is not going to warrant a 7 or 8 hundred dollar price tag. There simply is not enough quality in any part of an HL based kit, model or otherwise. Yeah i have an HL tiger that wound up costing more than a Tamiya tiger ever would have and it is a beast but ittook so much work and trial and error to get it to that point it was nuts. One upgrade after another and so much custom work. There is no way I will ever pay that kind of money for anything other than a Tamiya, Tiagen included.

manchu9inf

This looks to be fairly decent. I wonder if it could work on the tamiya lower and Mato VVSS?

YHR

Mato's new tanks are not fashioned after Heng long in anyway. I also understand all Mato metal tanks now come with bearings, servo recoil and Clark electronics with a 2.4 ghZ hobby radio. ( When sold as RTR) So they are in fact another animal

Re lee

I know what I have paid for Resin before and this offering is inline with what I paid for those. It looks like a nice casting and is the easist way to get a Lee unless you want to spend weeks scratch building your own.

Shipping with insurance is expensive on an item this size. You can't expect people to sell things and lose money. Could be the guy got a shock at the post office when he shipped the first one, and just recalibrated his price. Although wasn't the original shipping price quoted at 40 Euros. I am not sure of the chronological order in which things went down, but at the end of it you get a Lee for under $400 with a donor chassis included. Seems inline to me if I really wanted a Lee..

Free market economy I guess. IF you don't like the price on this Lee I guess you can buy one somewhere else.

Max-U52

One more time, it's NOT the price, it's the sudden increase that ticked me off. If he didn't calculate his mold life properly, or didn't bother to find out true shipping costs before advertising, then he's a major amateur and I still don't want to do business with him. The original post on FB, in German, said $120 for the kit and EUR 40 for shipping. 48 hours later the price has increased by 30% and the shipping increased by 35%. I don't mind paying for the things I want, I have over $900 in a freakin' HL Jagdpanther, and it's not "sticker shock", it's an aversion to being ripped off! In the US if you do this it's called "bait and switch".

And that's all I have to say about that.

ausf

Max, raising prices isn't ripping off. The term implies he's dishonest.

I don't know this guy and have zero interest in the kit, but it's his and he's allowed to price however he wants. You just missed a great price. At roughly $15 a pound for silicone and a kit that size will eat up at least 20 lbs by a good mold maker, you do the math. Good resin is $90 a gallon. Not having the kit in front of me to measure, I'd guess he'd be getting less than 10 per gallon. And a bubble can ruin your day. A bubble in $300 worth of silicone can ruin your week.

There can be a thousand reasons to raise prices from initial offering. Maybe he had 10 sets @ $120 and blew through them. Heck, when I was making those tools, every production run got more expensive, the most laughable was a part we paid $1.25 for the first 100 pieces went to over $8 a month later. Same place, same material, just a ridiculous change. What happened in a month? The laser didn't get more expensive, I doubt the operator's salary increased 6 times, we gave them the steel sheet, dropped off and picked up. You think the end user could give a rat's arse about that when the price went up?

You can say he's too expensive, you can say you won't buy it, but not that he's dishonest.

Max-U52

My apologies to any of my fellow forum members that I may have offended with my opinions and statements in this matter. I feel the way I feel and that's it. You guys should know by now what a jerk I am and not be too surprised. In the end, as Dan said, it's a free market economy and I choose not to market, and I also choose to whine about it. Ain't free speech a great thing? Again, my intention was not to offend or irritate any of my fellow forum members (even though I probably did). I don't know if this guy is honest or not and I'm not saying one way or another. I'm just very unhappy about it and I FEEL as though it's a rip off. Please don't interpret that as an accusation or insult, as it is what it is, my personal feelings and opinions. I like to think you guys already know how I am and find me useful anyway. If I were a Brit I'd demand a royal title and from here on in you would all be required to address me as "Your Assholieness" (sp?). Have a nice day.

YHR

LOL. WE know how small this market is. Not diasgreeing with your opinion, I just wanted t give the guy the benefit of the doubt. Cut out all the amateurs in this hobby, and the supplies of material would drop by 70%. We need to give these cottage industries a break as long as they are not ripping us off.