I was happily assembling the lower chassis of CB 25113
(the SU-152 or KV-14). I hade come to step 4 where 12
torsion rods (part Cb , 6 on each side, get inserted.
Open the little bag with all the Cb-sprues, snip off all
the little rods (2 on each sprue), clean off the injection
gates, count the parts to check that I have 12 of them.
Surprise, surprise, I only have ten!
Check the floor and work table, no luck.
Check the sprues to see that I have taken all the parts, nope,
no Cb 8 left on any of the sprues.
Check table and floor again. Count the sprues.
Dang, there is only five of them !!
I can manage without the torsion rods but the road wheels are also on that sprue.
Have a panic attack, check the instruction booklet for any
"send complaints about missing parts to this address"-information.
Didn't find anything.
Oh well, maybe on their webpage but let's check if there are any more sprues missing.
All the Cb-sprues were in one bag which I had just opened
so I know that there were only 5 of them in that bag.
Hmmmm.
Start ticking of the sprues against the parts list.
Sprue A OK, 2 x Ga OK, 1 x Ka OK, one missing Cb, 1 x Ca OK, hang on,
what's that other sprue in the bag together with Ca? Holy Moses! It's the missing Cb !!

For some reason or other they have gone to the trouble of
packing 5 x Cb in one separate bag and leave one Cb in
another bag together with sprue Ca.

I have heard that all is well that ends well but this was an unpleasant and unnecessary scare.

/ Robin

Oh, by the way: I think this idea with the functioning
torsion rods is a nuisance but that is just my personal
opinion. The rods are not perfectly circular, same issue
as with gun barrels cast as one piece, the two halves
don't line up perfectly which causes fitting issues.
Oh well, they're soon in place and when it's time for
the suspension arms I will glue them in place so that all
road wheels line up properly.

But it does give you the option of a working suspension if displayed somewhere uneven.

so, is it a complex build like most Bronco kits? Compared to a Trumpeter it must be crazy?

Hello,

so your first-world problem was that you had to open all bags included in the kit to find all sprues before you could assemble working suspensions???

The more complex and detailed the better. More value for money, more time in the hobby, better results, possibility to attach the Suspension to an uneven diorama surface... What could we want more? Who likes properly lined up roadwheels anyway.....??

Seriously: be happy that a manufacturer goes the extra mile and gives you the choice how to glue your road wheels. People really love to complain these days....

Cheers

Dennis

Dennis I think you will find this is light hearted banter rather than a complaint from Robin as such.

@ CMOT : My initial impression is that the torsion rods are fairly stiff so I would like to come back to that aspect later. Is the weight of the rest of the plastic sufficient to exercise the suspension or will the whole tank balance on three wheels (like a dog interacting with a tree) ?

@ easyco69 : The instructions are easy to read and follow. The workable suspension generates some extra internal parts but it isn't extreme. I wouldn't call it crazy or complex. The separate link tracks will take some time to assemble though ...

@ DKdent: I'm used to opening bags. The little surprise this time was that they had chosen to put or hide one of the six identical sprues in another bag, almost like putting some of the spoons in the knife compartment. I like kits with many parts but there are limits to everything, splitting things into many parts only to increase the parts count isn't fun. It could be made extreme with an A7V for instance, provide all the visible rivets as separate parts (one from the inside and one from the outside) so that the builder can chose to build the kit with some rivets missing
The road wheels are positionable in many kits (circular peg for the arms solves that problem) so the working torsion rods doesn't really add any value, except for the fun & play in showing that they can actually move and work like real torsion rods.
See also my answer to CMOT about the working suspension and if it will really work

at least after I recovered from the original shock

and the kit number shall of course be 35113 (incredible that I managed to make such a bad typo ... I'll blame it on the shock )

I don't think some of the complexity of Bronco kits adds anything at all to the kit. Bronco simply is not in the habit of doing serious kit design by thinking through how much added complexity adds to the finished model in the way Tamiya does. It's probably cheap for them to simply added more fiddly bits in their CAD drawings.

Dragon use to be bad in this regard, Bronco is worse.

I was just thinking today that kits should come with a bag of rivets especially for the rivet counters! (Actually in some cases that might be a good idea...)




I lost a couple of parts to the 25 pounder in my Bronco Bishop - and no one will ever know! Seriously, they were that small even I couldn't tell they were not there, and I'm peering through a magnifier! Not really a complaint - I thought it was amusing. Can't complain about lack of detail in that case.

I'm not really sure why the complaints about complaints - it's a forum after all. I DO prefer it when people qualify their complaints though. A generic 'kit X sucks!' doesn't really help anyone...

Didn't sound like complaining to me. Sounded like sharing a building experience, with a "fyi" included. This is a forum to share expeiences...

Hah. Sounds as scary as a visit with the carpet monster.

[Quote]
Bronco simply is not in the habit of doing serious kit design by thinking through how much added complexity adds to the finished model in the way Tamiya does. [quote]


Oh, come on. Tamiya and serious kit design? There is no design, details or complexity at all. They would mold a whole kit in one part if they could... And if you consider pricing Bronco vs. Tamiya, it is rather unrealistic that it should be Bronco cutting costs at expense of design.

Anyway: everyone has his favourites. I can only still hope that some companys won`t jump the "fast, quick`n easy", low-detail, DS-Tracks,crappy figures for the unambitious included-train. If at least one or two companies like Bronco stay on course it would be okay for me. If the kit Comes with seperate rivets it is welcome.

Cheers