So this happened today........
First impressions
Some parts came loose from the tank during shipment. They were lying around the box. One corner radar and Trophy unit was actually found inside the tank. It worked its way in through the back door, literally.
I have never seen this much detail on a ready to run tank or model ever. This is not a toy, its a model of the highest quality.
It is super robust, metal pan with plastic overlay, metal upper hull support deck system inside.
Stock IR system... will test that later.
Wheels have bushings in them. The hub caps are glued on, so trying to get them off to change out to bearings wont be easy, will it be necessary? Probably not.
Lots of parts are coming loose as I handle it. I think they went very sparingly with the glue when they tacked them on.
Still there are a few initial problems I have already found, so far all are easy fixes.
The biggest is the front under hull plastic overlay of the metal hull, it fell off in my hand, it was super glued to metal hull and it failed and cracked and came off. I will use tough rubber cement to fix and get photos later.
Also, it looks like they added some sheet styrene under the front fenders, they didnt realize this but it caused a fitting issue and a gap at the nose where the hull meets the upper.
I will elaborate more on all these later. Its late and I just wanted to get it out there that I got the model I preordered, basically on time and its quite well worth what they are charging. Its robustness and detail is way beyond henglong. Im going to say, it is right up there close to Tamiya quality so far.
Though, I believe the suspension arms are plastic, and if you break one, you probably wont be able to get a spare part. Im not saying they will break, but things happen. Somebody that is 3d smart will design heavy duty replacements and put them on shapeways.
All the plastic feels like that hard white urethane they are using alot of now in China for detail castings. Even the hull and turret seem to be this stuff. I know its brittle, so dont ram anything with the tank, I suspect thats how they came to add the styrene reinforcement plates under the front fender, I did the exact same thing to my DKLM M60a3 to support the upper hull which feels like almost the same material. So I dont think any metling type plastic glue will work on this. I notice they used super glue and brown rubber cement on all the parts, and hot glue inside.... sigh... they glued the TCB in LOL.
