I purchased this beast earlier in the year when I started formulating a plan to conduct a Swedish-Soviet wargaming event at French Wargame Holidays, this lead to our Cold War “Whisky on the Rocks” campaign event being organized for May 3-7th 2024. https://www.lhoteldeherce.fr/team-1
This also means I need to build some Swedish Army vehicles for my Cold War Collection. Soft skins are a bit of a challenge, particularly the Volvo series of vehicles. So whilst perusing the web I stumbled upon the Gecko offering and duly purchased it along with a few other Swedish specific pieces.
On first glance the kit is well cast in soft grey resin with two parts in clear resin. Removal from the sprue was done with ease for the grey parts however the clear was a tough job and I had to use my saw blade to remove the sprue from the main body.
Assembly required hot water to straighten some pieces, the frame and suspension required quite a bit of work to straighten before I glued the frame. The clear resin is very disappointing and I cannot in anyway say that it is satisfactory, I think I shall paint the entire vehicle then add glass effect rather than mask it up and hope that it is translucent.
Positives the kit looks like the vehicle but lacks fine finish detail for such a pricey kit €22 from Panzerfux. The instructions are basic with no images, but simple enough to work out. The solid resin body was problematic fitting and cutting, taking more than an hour of clean up. I do note that this was Gecko Industries earliest model and the later kits have separate clear parts.
Overall a 7 out of ten kit. I plan to get some paint on it next week.
Cheers
Matt
VOLVO C303 TBG11 - GECKO Heavy Industries KIT REVIEW
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VOLVO C303 TBG11 - GECKO Heavy Industries KIT REVIEW
“Wargaming history in 20mm from ww2 to Cold War”
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