is there any improvement of Miniart's plastic material? I found there plastic so brittle. particularly the german tramcar.no matter how careful I am, it just snap.

Richard,
from my personal experience- yes.
MiniArt did post an online appology quite a while back about the issues with the quality of the plastic in some kits. IIRC the "culprit" wasa change of supplier, but that has now been addressed.

HTH
Paul

IIRC any of their kits produced after September last year will be in the better plastic they used before the Crimean annexation.

I got one of their "new" Harleys...same problem.
Touch it...snap it...especially small parts like wheel forks, steering bar. The kind of stuff that makes a motorcycle a motorcycle.

Maybe this box was put together with old stock, if not it says something about improvements.

H.

Built the SU76, the T-44, the D-7 dozer, and they are all fine. The plastic is not as good a Dragon's, but it's almost as good. Thin parts do snap, but thin parts snap everywhere. I think sometimes they are just overly optimistic about how thin plastic parts you can manufacture.

never had any issues with superfine parts from Bronco.

MiniArt always has issues with that. Partially this is due to sprue layout and not plastic quality.

got the d-7 kit.all the small,thin parts broke in so many places in wound up in the trash. will not buy any more of there kits.takes all of the fun out of modeling.

Is there any problem with their T44 because that is on my short list to buy???

I did get a recent figure set, and the plastic was VERY soft, but I did their SU-122 with interior, and it was not bad

same here,got the d-7 and it is junk.will not buy any more of there kits.as you said it takes all the fun out of modeling.

Just wrapping off the su-122 w/interior, no problems with the plastic. The WLA w/rider was fine as was an older AEC Mk III. The releases before last year this time going back about a year (two?) are hit and miss apparently. MiniArt had problems with their plastic supplier, they've been very public about it and I believe offered to replace sprues, don't hold me to that though. If you did get a bad batch, it wouldn't hurt to send a mail to MiniArt. Any kits produced this year should be fine plastic wise.

And if you are having problems with fine parts in general, it may be time to re-examine how you approach removing and cleaning parts. Not trying to give manufacturers a free pass, but you do need a delicate touch with delicate parts, understanding where stress areas are, and very sharp blades. My damage rate is very low since I started using a single edged razor blade and cutting block for parts removal, and simply replacing some parts, with rod for example, when it looks easier to do so than trying to remove and clean hand rails and what have you.

Kimmo

Funny! … Shortly after reading your comment, I was working on a Bronco kit which has exceptional plastic. I put those subassemblies aside for curing. And since I had some energy left, I went back to work on a previously started ICM kit. With confidence, I put sanding stick to plastic and just when I thought 🤔 … “Change gears for brittle styrene.” ... You guessed it ... 💥 SNAP! 😖

—mike