Are Skif's kits any good? I'm interested in getting their MT-LB, Strela 10m, and T80ud kits, and I was wandering if anybody had any experience with them?

I saw a Strela kit already built and it looked nice , dunno how hard it is for building

HastyP brought this up almost a week ago: Skif Models. There may be some useful discussion there. Out of the 3 kits you list, I have the T-80UD. Detail is rather soft, but overall it looks like a T-80 to me.

Thanks Sabot

well, SKIF is a real mixed bag.

First, their T-55 is pretty much a wash. Coming from me, that is harsh criticism. Sabot is/was actually working on the nasty beasty, you will have to get the horror story from him on that!

I have almost all the other SKIF kits and because of my work with SP Designs, http://saammodels.tripod.com , I probably know more than I should (Sergej has connections with the factory reps in the Ukraine)

First, Sergej says that SKIF kits, to him, are toys you build! Ha! He thinks they are too softly detialed to really be called scale models. I think Sergej is a BIT too harsh. If nothing else, the SKif kits are very good starting points. In particular, I like the D-30. Also, the T-80U is the better of the SKIF/DML kits.

Second, Sergej says that SKIF's "Eyes are bigger than its stomach." For instance, he just told me yesterday the rep said a all new tooled T-84 is coming out soon. Sergej wonders if it will actually be retooled and if it will ever really come at all. Apparently, when SKIF started out they had designs to make all the variants in the MTLB, BMD, and T-80 series vehicles, but only have a handfull of kits to show for it. To be honest the high prices in the USA don't help (the T-80U, for example, sells for $10 over there vs $36.00 here.)

I would say that if the price seems good to you for the kit you are going to buy, you will do ok.

Just watch out for that T-55.

Jacques' right. I was working on it and actually found the PE sets for both the interior and exterior on eBay real cheap (like $5 a piece). I am going to build the T-55 using those two AM prouducts, but not going to do anything to correct or accurize the kit beyond replacing the kti parts with the PE I already own.

It is a model, and I am a model builder. If I could go back in time, I would have saved my money and bought the Tamiya kit. But since I own it and it looks like it will fit OK and build into a Cold War era Soviet style tank, I will just build it. I don't really care enough about the tank's accuracy to want to do anything more with it. I do have an Esci T-55 that I plan on building as the movie tank in "The Beast".

I'm working on Skif's BMP-3 right now, and it's no walk in the park. Tons of sink holes, ejector pin marks, and levels of detail and fit varying from great to terrible. Small parts quite thick and over-scale.
On the plus side, my puttying and sanding technique has improved tenfold!

It'll make a good-looking BMP-3, but it's sure gonna take a lotta time and work. It's the only Skif kit I've ever built, so I don't know if this level of quality is prevalent in all their products.

Skif's OT-133 Flamethrower tank in 1:72 seems to be a good kit with several variants in the same kit and a sheet of PE parts. Lots of details that coincide with the one ref photo that I could find. Continuous rubber band tracks, though.

In the summer I built SKIF's MB-LT which was my first excursion into 1:35 scale,I also got bought some ICM figures to accompany it.I can't really comment on how it compares to other makes but I would refer you to www.armouredengineer.force9.co.uk in which there is an excellent piece by John Tapsall.This features a conversion to a Swedish version[Pansarbandvagn 401],it is an excellent article on how to get the best out of this particular kit.Personally I thoughly enjoyed this making this model and was pleased with the results. At present I am trying to build a suitable base to display the disembarking Russian team[however an ACE kit from Xmas is devouring/fustrating my waking life]

Welcome to Armorama, October! Which ACE kit are you working on? I've been struggling with their older BRDM-1 w/ the plastic wheels for weeks now. It's been quite the patience tester I must say! #:-)

Thanks for the welcome Tony, I am working on the BMP-1U 'Shkval' . To be fair some of the problems are of my own making,in the sense I missed how the hull and top deck joined but I still think the instructions could be a little more detailed/broken down,although I hope its going to work out in the end,at the moment cleaning up the tracks is wearing a little thin especially after all the effort of the turret assembly/filling/ sanding.I hope your own project works out, all the best October.