I picked both of these up. I have the Eduard PE for both. How bad are they? I know they are ex Russian molds but I belive they are the only games in town. Referance on both are limited to say the best. Any built either? I assume they are buildable but I was wondering how accurate they are?

Scott,
They are a bit chuncky but with a little work are buildable. I've attached pic's of one I did a few years ago. The fit was actually not bad as I recall.

Sorry I'm just being a tease here but I didn't bookmark it. There was a great build article using the Russian molded kit that I read recently, almost certainly here or at Armourama. If my memory is serving me well, it should be a quick search.
There is an eduard PE set too IIRC from that article.

Borrow money from pessimists -- they don't expect it back.
S.Wright

...on converting a Canadian producton in Soviet service.

Borrow money from pessimists -- they don't expect it back.
S.Wright

I'm away from home so I can't tell you the issue number but it covered the Valentine kit in its VM/Maquette guise in a pretty comprehensive fashion. It's mainly detail work - one thing I recall is tat he mentions the three circular cover plates on the lower hull rear plate which they and every other plastic kit manufacturer copied from an error on his own Bellona drawings from many years ago. They are completely bogus and need to be removed.

Hi Scott,

Phil Dyer's article is in Military Modelling Vol.28 No.12 1998. There are also two articles here on building the kit, one by Peter Brown:
http://www.missing-lynx.com/articles/britain/pbval/pbval.htm
and the other by JP Morgan on converting it in to a Canadian Mk.III in Soviet service:
http://www.missing-lynx.com/articles/russia/jpmval/jpmval.htm

At present I am slowly converting a Bishop into a Mk.V as used by NZ in the Pacific, using a turret from Accurate Armour. On the whole the kits are buildable as is, but with a little extra work they make up into a nice little vehicle. I found the track not to be the best and have replaced it with Friulmodel track.

As for the access plates they are not totally bogus, I suspect that they only appear on diesel engined versions.
http://www.primeportal.net/tanks/de_craecker/mk9_walk_3.htm

cheers
David

I was merely quoting from memory (always dodgy) from Phil's article. Evidently the circular plates did appear on at least some real Valentines, unless they copied the plan and kits!

No doubt the manual would confirm but I don't have one.

I built an Accurate Armour MkV a couple years ago painted up for Operation Squarepeg. I'd be interested to see your take on it.

-Hans

The Dragon boxings also benefit from better tracks, as apparently Dragon didn't find VM's track parts acceptable, so they tooled their own.

With some TLC, new tracks, and barrel they are okay. There are HUGE sink marks in the suspension components and the overall scale size of the smaller parts are clunky and benefit from scratch replacements. These kits are a lot of work if one is accustomed to building, say, newer Dragon or Tamiya kits but - that said - they look the business when completed.

The Valentine is certainly ripe for a new tool iteration. Heres hoping Bronco, Dragon or Tasca will take them on.

I've built two and plan to build a couple more. Biggest issue on mine--the road wheels don't always line up. Also, the huge sink holes in some parts. I built the original kits--so I used the original plastic tracks. See my model posted on my club web site. This is the Russian lend lease Valentine XI.

http://public.fotki.com/midmichiganmodelmakers/members_models/brian_francis/dscn2563.html

http://public.fotki.com/midmichiganmodelmakers/members_models/brian_francis/dscn2564.html

Brian Francis
Midland Michigan