Warren D

I had purchased several kits from Hobby Link before building my first one. I'll not do that again. QC issues seem to be rampant with these, warped parts, soft, sticky "resin" in spite of being 3D printed. They do provide extras for the small parts but the larger ones always are the worst. The frame had a noticable twist which was helped by a relief cut. Before and after pics below. It's not what it should be, but it's better.

Thanks Charles, the base truck for this is an M54A2 5 ton cargo truck. It's not big enough for these old eyes and shakey fingers!!

Nicely done, looks great!

Got the primer on this morning, along with the finish coat on the soft-top and the yellow for the nose as this will be an 8GP truck. I still have some Pollyscale acrylics left and I find they work very good for priming resin and 3D stuff. I rarely use greens in my commercial truck builds so I have a few jars of OD left to use for the primer. I added a little black to my home-brew FS24087 so it should be closer than the last one.

The bed seemed cured but there was some soft/gooey stuff inside the bottom beams when I cut. I thought about getting a cure lamp, Amazon has one for under $20 but it seems to have a narrow wavelength. I have an old UV bulb from back in the blacklight days but all it seemed to do was make the pieces softer.

While there certainly is a lot more available, the quality seems to be a bigger issue. Maybe I got spoiled with high quality from folks like Dave at AITM and Karl at Global......

It's ok now, the deck still has a little turn-up at the nose end but considering what it looked like, it'll have to do.

1/35 as is most of the military stuff. I do wish it was 1/25, not only easier to work with but it would fit in better with the rest of my fleet.

I tried logging out and back in and it seems to work now.

Ok, not sure why but it worked this time. (I did log out and back in). I thought I could fix the warped parts with the old hairdryer/quench method and it seemed to work until I noticed all the warps were back a few days later. The outer boom section was the worst and I had to remove 1/2" from the inner end to get it to slide into the base section. The deck was shaped like a banana but a couple of relief cuts, squeezed together and set with superglue got it as straight as it will get.

After searching the internet for Vietnam Gun truck stuff, I came across a conversion kit for an M543 wrecker. I decided why not, as I like wreckers. The base kit is the AFV Club M54A2 and the conversion is from Hobby Link, a 3D resin print. Quality isn't good on the resin, large parts are warped and many of the parts feel sticky. No sun here in a week so hard to say if it's just not cured. I'll post more later but had trouble posting this so keeping it short for now.

Yet it let me do this one, not sure why. Original issue is with WIP Big Rigs

Got everything typed out, hit post and get a screen saying page can't be found.

Not sure what the original problem was, I think the cooling system was inadequate.

Just be careful, those things were notorious for overheating!!!

Thanks! Thank you Thanks!

Thanks Thank you

Thanks, they can be addicting. So much more out there than there was 15 years ago....

Pics of my M37 tribute truck are here: https://pbase.com/baywing/m37 Early morning light so the pics are a bit on the warm side for color balance.

A few more issues with the instructions but calling it done:

Calling this one done. Once I got the frame issue resolved, it turned out well. I'm getting the hang of the AFV Club kits, you need to study the instructions and test fit everything. You also have to look for mis-numbered parts but for someone who has built many an AMT kit, this is nothing new! Color is my own mix and is a lot closer to the FS 24087 than anything available in hobby paint.

Calling it done:

Calling this one done, though I still don't like the color. Kit is AFV Club's 1/35 scale. I added the cargo box that sits on the tailgate, otherwise it's box stock. Paint is Mission Model's FS 24087 (so they claim) but it looks more like the newer version of 24087 than the Vietnam time period. I researched 24087 extensively when I built my 1:1 M37 Vietnam tribute guntruck and this looks like the FS from a later period.

The replacement parts arrived today, thanks to AFV Club for standing behind their products.

Yup, but the problem is they can't drop much below level so if the enemy is below the truck and/or very close, the 50's aren't effective.