Hey folks I just wanted to know if anyone else has started their SEPs’ and had any issues with them.
I started mine last night and everything was going great, I had all of my road wheels together, but then I started on the hull and noticed how warped it was. I was able to at least hold it under water for a while and get it back to a respectable shape, but overall it still held an odd shape and was far from perfect. Then my next issue was with the sprockets. Now Dragon gives you little key slots on the hull where the key on the sprocket should fit in place, only problem was when I dry fit them all on, I noticed that the right side sprockets were completely higher then the other side. So if I was to put my wheels on it becomes lopsided

I guess I'm ranting a bit, but I was a little disappointed with a kit I pegged to be near perfect although I guess I should not assume perfection, things happen. Maybe it was just a bad batch I got? I know with the AIM one I did last fall I had none of those issues and it went together smoothly.

Jim

Bad sample - maybe it was exposed to extensive heat somewhere between the factory and your home?
I have two productions samples plus several test shots with no warping whatsoever (well, ok - minimal warping of upper hull is present, but nothing on lower hull tub and upper hull streightens nicely once glued to lower hull).

Also there were no changes in the design of sprockets from AIM kit to SEP, so I'm not sure what you mean by keys on sprockets?!... There are no keys on sprockets... Maybe you mean suspension arms? Or ?...

Pawel

Vodnik, that's what I meant. The suspension arms and not the sprockets duh Yea it was real odd, one side was just lower.

Let me ask you this, do you use or make some type of jig to keep the suspension arms even or just go with the slots that they made and eyeball it?

I did see your one article and that will definitly help once I get to that point!

James, I just checked my SEP kit, doing a quick test fit of the lower and upper hulls and as Pawel said you might have unfortunately gotten a dud or something similiar. Everything on my kit fit very nicely and there wasn't any warpage (is that a word?? ). As for the road wheels, I would dry fit the front and rear wheels on both sides then sit the assembly on a level surface to make sure the suspension arms are level. Glue those four in place and then just be sure all the rest are in the same slots, again checking as you go to be sure the road wheels all touch the surface.

Mike

No problem with mine either.

Also, it is an M1A2 SEP.

They must have stuck me with a lemon then!

Either way, nothing that a little modifying won't fix...

And yes Gino M1A2

Vodnik,

I had posted previously but got no response - The orginal M1A1 AIM kit had some issues with the instructions on the location of photoetch parts on the side skirts (and I believe) the engine decks. Do you know if the instructions on the new SEP kit have been corrected for these parts?

Also, as a small gripe, why do the kit decals all represent earlier 2003-2004 circa tanks? I'd like my kit to have the latest hardware (hawker batteries and extended bustle rack) but none of the decals are applicable. Any reason why they could not have included at least one decal option for a current SEP tank? My choices now are to use inaccurate kit decals or to hope that an aftermarket decal set for a later version SEP is released.

That small gripe being said, I just wanted to thank you for an outstanding effort on this one. When are you going to start working on a new M2A3 Bradely with reactive armor?

So everybody building theirs?

Still waiting to start mine.

I started putting a SEP together last week - the bottom turret part was severly warped. The plastic tree containing the turret halves on the new M-1 kits is the same for the AIM and SEP - I had a one of these trees from an AIM kit that had parts of the turret storage bins that were not fully formed. I borrowed the undamaged turret bottom from the AIM to keep my build going and will see if Dragon Care can send out a replacement tree for the damaged parts. I hear they are pretty good about fixing things.

I think the decal drawings just left the BREs off. 4ID and 1 CAV had the BREs in '03-'04 as well. The markings are pretty current too. 4ID was in Iraq from Nov '05 - Oct '06. 1 CAV replaced them and is there now. They will return in Jan-Feb '08. 4 ID returns to replace 1 CAV beginning in Dec of this year. Both divisions have taken their M1A2 SEPs over and 4ID will again. The markings are still the same now as it shows on the decal sheet.

I think the only problem with location of PE parts on side skirts was that it was not clearly shown and unfortunately it's still the same in SEP instructions (M1 Panther II kit had much clearer diagram). Also one of side skirt PE strips was wrong length for the plastic part - this error was corrected and all parts should fit properly (if attached in correct place, which as I wrote above is not always clear). Error with placement of PE engine mesh screens was corrected in SEP instructions.



Because Hawker battery modification was very fresh thing when the kit was in development and at that moment we still were not able to obtain complete set of markings for any such modified tank - we only had a set of close-up shots of new hull panels on freshly modified tank. So our choices were: not include Hawker setup parts in the kit at all, or include them, but without corresponding markings. Was it a wrong decision that we selected the second option?
And BRE? Well, it's in the kit, because I wanted to have it there to use it with various Abrams projects - not necessarily M1A2SEP. That's it. It would probably be there even if no M1A2SEP tanks carried it at all. You can consider it a bonus part from me



Probably never... In fact some two years ago DML briefly considered releasing new Bradley kits in 1/35 and I even started collecting reference materials (Pete Becerra can confirm), but the idea was quickly abandoned for various reasons before any design work was done. Instead they focused on 1/72 scale Bradleys.

Pawel

I have the kits it looks very good so far. As far asmarkings would have to agreee with Gino. The 3ACR also has the latest version of SEPS