Steve, the Saladin by black Plague is one of the best (of the few available) and is respectable. It is probably Black Plagues best kit. Compare it to Tamiya's

The Dragon Saladin sells for $63 on Squadron.
No inner hatch detail
No main gun sleeve
Fire extinguishers unrecognizable
DS (ugh) wheels
No exhaust pipe (just an unconnected silencer)
etc etc

Takom AML90 $33 on Squadron
Tiger Models AMX10 $52 on Sprue Bros
Hobby Boss BA10 $44 on Sprue Bros

All the above are good models with lots of detail. Dragon can't even get the wire mesh screen right on the Saladin.

I only bought one because its the only one out there and I used to drive the damn things at Duxford. Now the DML piece of junk is out do you imagine anyone else will do it? THATS why I'm pi**ed and DML can go jump in the lake.

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Steve, the Saladin by black Plague is one of the best (of the few available) and is respectable. It is probably Black Plagues best kit. Compare it to Tamiya's

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Lol so it has finnaly happened!we've become so spoiled with the quality of todays kits that not so perfect kits like the black death kits from dml are making people think its hurti g the hobby. How soon we forget the toy like kits from the 70's that most were not even close to being accurate or to scale and that never stopped the hobby from growing lol so why would the black death lable kits hurt the hobby? As nice as kirs have become there will never be a 100% accurate kit ! Rivet counters will always find somthing to cry about !

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Steve, the Saladin by black Plague is one of the best (of the few available) and is respectable. It is probably Black Plagues best kit. Compare it to Tamiya's

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i would agree it is better than most BL kits but it was far and away severely overpriced (You could almost buy the very expensive and high Quality Accurate Armour Saladin for the release price). It may be their best kit in that line but that says a lot about the line than the quality of the kit. The kit is generally correct in outline but is deficient in so many other ways such as the glaring over simplification of the Exhaust Muffler assembly which connects to the engine by osmosis? or the lack of any hatch details on the inner faces or hatch splash rings or the myriad of othr smaller faults. The Tamiya Saladin Turret on their 1970's M113A1 FSV was actually better detailed than the "New" BL one. True the original late 60's Tamiya Saladin is a dog but I dont consider a BL Saladin which sold for $100Aud a bargain or reasonable. It is pretty much late 70's detail and quality but it is (sadly) the best Plastic Saladin Kit available in 35th.
Al

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Bypassing it all, I ended up some time ago purchasing the Accurate Armor Saladin. IMHO, it's a jewel of a kit, and I'll be using Keith F's post to correct the minor issues! Yes, the AA kit is expensive, but I felt I would be better off spending money to acquire mostly an accurate kit than multiple acquisitions of aftermarket features correcting other Saladin releases. Rather be mostly correct the first time out.

I believe the O.P. was ASKING if people thought Black Label was hurting the hobby, NOT stating it was.

I believe the O.P. was ASKING if people thought Black Label was hurting the hobby, NOT stating it was.

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I believe the O.P. was ASKING if people thought Black Label was hurting the hobby, NOT stating it was.

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Yeah, so? People are giving their answer along with justifications of how they got there.

Did I miss a post where someone called for Matt to be lynched or something?

KL

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I believe the O.P. was ASKING if people thought Black Label was hurting the hobby, NOT stating it was.

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Yeah, so? People are giving their answer along with justifications of how they got there.

Did I miss a post where someone called for Matt to be lynched or something?

KL

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Until moral is lifted, the beatings will continue.

There was only one kit out of hundreds that has ever sworn me off of a model company. The MP Models M50. MP Models didn't have a big line of kits but after dealing with the M50 they never got another penny out of me. There was another, an early Trumpeter kit can't even remember what it was, that was of some type of plastic that didn't take any cement I could get my hands on. CA's wouldn't stick, paint wouldn't stick, it was a hunk of junk. The next Trumpeter kit I bought was the T-72 which was a direct copy of the Tamiya kit, right down to the Tamiya sprue markings and photo copied instructions. That put me off Trumpeter for years. I've only recently started building them again, they've gotten much better and with a bigger lineup of kits. I don't believe that Black Label kits are hurting the hobby at all, what they are doing to Dragon is another story.

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There was only one kit out of hundreds that has ever sworn me off of a model company. The MP Models M50. MP Models didn't have a big line of kits but after dealing with the M50 they never got another penny out of me. There was another, an early Trumpeter kit can't even remember what it was, that was of some type of plastic that didn't take any cement I could get my hands on. CA's wouldn't stick, paint wouldn't stick, it was a hunk of junk. The next Trumpeter kit I bought was the T-72 which was a direct copy of the Tamiya kit, right down to the Tamiya sprue markings and photo copied instructions. That put me off Trumpeter for years. I've only recently started building them again, they've gotten much better and with a bigger lineup of kits. I don't believe that Black Label kits are hurting the hobby at all, what they are doing to Dragon is another story.

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That was ABS plastic. It was marked in tiny print on the side. Now look at the box side and you'll see PS for polystyrene. I made it through a few of those since I had ABS glue left over from an LS gun kit and I used Plastruct liquid weld. Had to for all the Plastruct open stock I'd get from architecture models.

As for MP models, guess you never did low pressure injection molded like the old MPM or Ace kits. Braille scale and that crude. I built all the MP conversion stuff as it was easier to work with than first generation solid resin conversions .

I have never sworn off a company because from tons of experience I know one kit can be a total mess and another an absolute gem. I also manage to keep track of the sharing of molds because sometimes that's to the builder's favor. Revell Germany reboxes of ICM have better quality control. Revell Germany reboxes of Dragon have much better instructions. Original Frog kits are fine avoid later Russian remoldings as they're really crappy with worn out molds, poor quality control and lots of release agent.

There used to be a place in NYC whose slogan was "An educated consumer is our best customer." That's what you have to be. I've been following stuff so long I feel like I practically have half of Scalemates database in my freaking head.

If you want a kit of what the BLACK LABEL should had been. Go buy TAKOM or MENG. They are putting out great kits. I bought the M103 when it first came out. One day I will get to it.

Those Black Labels should be renamed "All that potential gone".

What is it about Dragon that invokes so much passion?