Hi folks here is my review of the trumpeter 1/35 kriegslocomotive, ok on first look at the box it is big and deep it hold all the parts that build a kit bthat measures nearly 1 metre in length. The kit comes in at a hefty £100.00 but it is worth every penny the box contains 710 pieces which are in molded light grey styrene all of which are very well protected bags, There are also two boxes one which contains the track and road sections and one which contains a small spruce of PE and clear parts, and 1 pack of rubber pipes,there is a 30 page instruction booklet and 1 colour paint chart with two colour schemes on it.
As with all kits it is advisable to grab a hot drink and sit down and thoroughly read the instruction booklet in the case of this kit it is doubley advisable. Before the build wash all the parts and dry them off, the first job will be to take your filler and go around all the spruce's and fill all the injection mold holes, this took me a full day so be thorough, next we are ready for the primer. After your primer is dry paint all the cab components first and whilst they are drying you can start with the track sections, my suggestion is don't glue the road and track together yet just clip it together since all you need it for right now is to sit the loco's framework on.
Now we come to the frame work, once you have pieced this together ensure it is on a flat level surface as any deviation in the framework at this point will cause you problems later in the build. Now time to build the wheels at this stage and once done dry fit them and sit the whole frame on the tracks to ensure all the wheels are sitting on the tracks straight and level, leave this to dry and continue with the boiler and cab. Now as part of the boiler assembly you have to deal with some black rubber pipe sections, these fit onto plastic mounts, my tip here is drill into the bottom of the plastic mounts and the peirce the top on each rubber pipe an attatch a small length of copper wire, this is time consuming so go slow and when done will join with each other much easier.
All that you have done so far is the easy bit, now time to go back to that frame work and the wheels glue them in place at this stage then you can start to add all the detailing..... a warning here this is the most fiddely and time consuming part of the build, so slow and easy wins the race as they say dry fit each section 3 times before glueing them in place. If you are not precise here and fit things in the wrong place or order you can end up in a mess. All these parts are clean and don't require much sanding or filling and the fit between parts is almost Tamiya like, soafter you have done the wheels and joind the boilr and cab to the wheels and framework you finish off by adding the details such as piping, steps PE section etc and the loco is done. Don't be fooled it took me 8 days working 8 hrs per day to complete the locomotive but what an impressive kit you end up with.
So now the loco is complete we turn to the coal tender, this is a straight forward build with no surprises, but it took me a full 6 hours of work to completely build, so again take your time be patient and methodical and you will end up with a very impressive kit indeed. The detail throughout this kit in my view is second to none it is also a very accurate kit for all you accuracy nuts out there, However i only have two main gripes about this kit and they are small compared to some of the others i have built in my time and they are these
1 Trumpeter seem to make therekits with far too many injection mold holes, i have a few kits from trumpeter and the are all alike in this, this is something i think that they need to address at factory level as it seems uneccessary to me. It can be time consuming filling them all.
2 I found that in certain areas the plastic has been quite thin and could pose a problem if you are heavy handed.
These are the onlt two points in the whole kit, the plus points are the overall size of the kit that you get at the end of the build also the amount of detail in my view is outstanding. The pieces fit together extremely well with very very little or no filling or cleaning required, the track section can be fitted into the road sections as instructed or be seperated and put into a seperate dioramma. The total length of the loco and tender is just under 1 metre long, however this can be increased when you add a few wagons and a railway gun and you could be exceedind 3 metres long. All in all i highly rate this kit and it would recive 91/2 out of 10, this is due to the two points i have already raised, i hope this is useful to those of you who have this kit or for those considering purchasing it.
scott:foodfight:
As with all kits it is advisable to grab a hot drink and sit down and thoroughly read the instruction booklet in the case of this kit it is doubley advisable. Before the build wash all the parts and dry them off, the first job will be to take your filler and go around all the spruce's and fill all the injection mold holes, this took me a full day so be thorough, next we are ready for the primer. After your primer is dry paint all the cab components first and whilst they are drying you can start with the track sections, my suggestion is don't glue the road and track together yet just clip it together since all you need it for right now is to sit the loco's framework on.
Now we come to the frame work, once you have pieced this together ensure it is on a flat level surface as any deviation in the framework at this point will cause you problems later in the build. Now time to build the wheels at this stage and once done dry fit them and sit the whole frame on the tracks to ensure all the wheels are sitting on the tracks straight and level, leave this to dry and continue with the boiler and cab. Now as part of the boiler assembly you have to deal with some black rubber pipe sections, these fit onto plastic mounts, my tip here is drill into the bottom of the plastic mounts and the peirce the top on each rubber pipe an attatch a small length of copper wire, this is time consuming so go slow and when done will join with each other much easier.
All that you have done so far is the easy bit, now time to go back to that frame work and the wheels glue them in place at this stage then you can start to add all the detailing..... a warning here this is the most fiddely and time consuming part of the build, so slow and easy wins the race as they say dry fit each section 3 times before glueing them in place. If you are not precise here and fit things in the wrong place or order you can end up in a mess. All these parts are clean and don't require much sanding or filling and the fit between parts is almost Tamiya like, soafter you have done the wheels and joind the boilr and cab to the wheels and framework you finish off by adding the details such as piping, steps PE section etc and the loco is done. Don't be fooled it took me 8 days working 8 hrs per day to complete the locomotive but what an impressive kit you end up with.
So now the loco is complete we turn to the coal tender, this is a straight forward build with no surprises, but it took me a full 6 hours of work to completely build, so again take your time be patient and methodical and you will end up with a very impressive kit indeed. The detail throughout this kit in my view is second to none it is also a very accurate kit for all you accuracy nuts out there, However i only have two main gripes about this kit and they are small compared to some of the others i have built in my time and they are these
1 Trumpeter seem to make therekits with far too many injection mold holes, i have a few kits from trumpeter and the are all alike in this, this is something i think that they need to address at factory level as it seems uneccessary to me. It can be time consuming filling them all.
2 I found that in certain areas the plastic has been quite thin and could pose a problem if you are heavy handed.
These are the onlt two points in the whole kit, the plus points are the overall size of the kit that you get at the end of the build also the amount of detail in my view is outstanding. The pieces fit together extremely well with very very little or no filling or cleaning required, the track section can be fitted into the road sections as instructed or be seperated and put into a seperate dioramma. The total length of the loco and tender is just under 1 metre long, however this can be increased when you add a few wagons and a railway gun and you could be exceedind 3 metres long. All in all i highly rate this kit and it would recive 91/2 out of 10, this is due to the two points i have already raised, i hope this is useful to those of you who have this kit or for those considering purchasing it.
scott:foodfight:
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