Here are the 2 APC's I got. One was a lot worse than the other. I started assembly on these and then once I saw the tires, abandoned them and just put them in a box.

Here is the gap between the armor over the wheels and the main body. It took an enormous amount of water/heat retreatment just to get them "this good":

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I'd guess the gap is 3-4mm. One of the top panels had a pretty significant chunk missing due to an air bubble.

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That's one of the air bubbles, which leaves a lot of detail that needs to be reconstructed. Note also that the little individual hatches are all one piece, when the preview image on the website indicates they are individual panels:

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Size reference for that missing chunk:

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another air bubble.

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Here's what the hatch one on one of them looked like.

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Here's what the hatch should look like. Fair warning, even the picture on the main site looks pretty rouch once you know what to look for.


So, these are all pretty annoying, but none of them are really "problems". Filling the gaps between the panel lines is not super hard. Wrapping some wire around a rod to fix the hatch is annoying, but not hard. Reconstructing that one missing chunk on the top hatch is a little difficult but not super hard, although it's super dishonestly advertised.



... And then we come to the wheels.




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The wheels on this APC are what kill the whole kit. They are poorly cast and conceptually flawed beyond repair. The way they are designed, molded, and cast simply cannot produce a usable product. I'm not sure that just posting these pictures will adequately convey the difficulties they present in assembly, but it is essentially impossible to assemble these wheels in a way that looks good.

First, there is an enormous gate which is attacked very far up on the wheels. It is probably impossible to remove this much resin without using a dremel tool, and if you use a dremel tool, it's probably impossible to keep the surfaces of the wheel totally flat. Keep in mind each wheel is split, so you will need to repeat this 12 times per model. Even if you do a totally perfect job, they still don't line up quite right.

Here's how they come in the package:

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Some of my wheels were fused together:

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Note the paper thin casting on one of the wheels. About half of them are like that.


After you trim off the gate, you're left with something that looks like this:

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Those raised ridges on the reverse side? I have no idea what function they are supposed to serve. On first glace, it looks like they are intended to be used to fit the halves together, but they're too long. The wheels will not fit together unless you trim them.

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Once you get those pieces snipped so they fit, you probably wind up with something like this:

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The wheels are not fit for sale, and if you have an APC, the wheels are half the vehicle. I think I can reasonably say this is the worst kit I've ever bought, quality wise.

Is it worth the money? Well, you tell me. When I bought them I paid $55USD shipped. At that price, I could surely have gotten 2 new in box Chimeras off Ebay. You also have to factor in the cost of replacing the wheels, because the ones it comes with cannot be assembled in a way that makes them look good. I thought the kits were sort of unique looking, but there are other companies who make APC's that won't take a fraction of the work to make usable.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

ingtaer wrote:
Nice job on those Ouze, I am still not brave enough to buy any though! You say it took you 15 months to complete, could you hazard a guess as to how many hours it took?