I found this kit on sale for $ 3.00. Has anyone here built it?

Yes, this kit and its siblings, the PT-76 and BTR-50 share about 75% of parts with only the upper hull portions being different. These very old kits were issued by ITC and Ringo, although I don't know who owned them first. Originally designed as a motorized model, the Glencoe reissue do not contain any of the necessary motorization parts. On the plus side, Glencoe included very nicely done decals in all their kits.

The kit suffer from aging (about 35+ yrs old) and the hull has a lot of sink holes along the superstructure. The rocket launching tower has lots of seam clean up to do on all the thin stringers. I gave up on mine because of all the cleanup necessary. The rocket however, is molded pretty well and is in white plastic. Tracks do not have a lot of detail on them and the centerguides are solid and not hollowed out like the actual vehicle.

For $3 have fun, build it and use it to practice a nice Soviet parade finish. It'll look good on the shelf. (I've got several versions of each kit and will build them someday.)

Funny you should mention Glencoe. One of the local shops has a 1:15 Walker Bulldog @ $20 off making it @ $22 for the kit. Is that still too high for this kit?

It's not even as nice as the toy ones available at Toys R Us. The decal sheet is awesome, too bad it's worth more than the kit. Save your money to put towards a newer Tamiya kit.

ok, thx Rob.

Thanks for the info Rob. The parade version would be interesting. All I have to do is get thru all that filling and sanding and paint on the white trim.

I salute anyone who's tackled a Glencoe model kit! That achievement ranks right up there with finishing a Starfix model!

Gunnie

The Retriever Rocket and the AirGeep were not too bad. The Lunar Rocket too. Glencoe also reboxes the old Lindberg 1/48 scale UFO which is a nice little kit. If you haven't tried one of the old Aurora reboxed SPADs or Nieuports, give one of those biplanes a whirl. Very nicely done older kits. Stay away from the Venom/Vampire jet kits. Another one where the decals are worth more than the plastic.

Several other sci-fi/real space stuff that is actually nice. Space Station is OK too.

I do have the Airgeep, but none of the space vehicles I've only press-fit parts of the Airgeep together, I'd love to see someone's finished example...

Gunnie

Mine wasn't bad, but it wasn't OOB either. Unfortunately it did not survive being played with by my son. First this is to cut off all locating tabs. The the "rubber" front and back skirting take a lot of liquid cement strippling to lose the seams. I did replace the windshield with sheet plastic and I think I used a black aircraft's landing gear instead of the kit supplied ones (it may have been the 1/48 Testors F-19).

Rob - how'd you display it? Did you balance it on the landing gear? I always fancy doing one as a weekend-type model, but I'm pretty easily distracted like most armor modelers. The 'rubber' skirts caused me to frown a bit when I taped mine together, I suspected a chore eliminating the seam there...

Gunnie

IIRC I used the kit supplied stand, pretty cheesy as it was.