Introduction

Armorama recently covered news from a British resin manufacturer called Red Zebra, and earlier this week I received a number of items from their range including earlier releases. The items I have received are Fruit and Veg 1, Public Phones, Sports and Holdall Bags, IDF Bags and Equipment and 0.1mm Aluminium Foil. As indicated I am going to look at the Public Phone offering on this occasion.

Review

This is a resin offering from Red Zebra and arrives in a Ziploc bag with a card hanger with 4 resin parts loose inside, the package arrived in a cardboard tray with flip top lid that has ensured that the item arrived in perfect condition. I cannot of course be sure that every order is packaged the same way.

This offering from Red Zebra offers what I believe is a very modern public phone design that in the UK is only really seen in major cities. I have made attempts to work out how wide spread this phone type is but I failed to tie it down to my satisfaction and so it will be up to the reader to decide the suitability of the item to them. The product itself is offered as the phone in its protective shroud and the support stand. Two phones of the same design are offered in this set from Red Zebra moulded in grey resin. Taking a good look at the moulding reveals no concerns that I could find with the mouldings.

The phone aspect of the set has a small hole on the underside for mounting on the separately supplied post, but I see no reason why the phone could not be hung directly onto a wall if desired. The post has some nice bolt detail on the bottom [ad for giving the impression it is bolted to the ground. The nipple moulded on the top of the post is an excellent fit for the recess in the phone shroud, so good in fact that it will stay in place without cement being used.

The pour plug on the back face of all elements is smaller than the outer diameter of the moulding and so should be easily removed without causing damage to the moulding itself. The only part that causes me some concern is that the plug on the back of the phone shroud is not of an even thickness and is also thin, that means sanding this plug off is likely to result in damage to the moulding itself, so be careful. The resin is quite hard and so tackling it with a sharp knife is more likely to result in you being cut than the resin.

Conclusion

The choice of phone for this product is the only real concern as it would appear to limit its use in dioramas to very recent periods and specific locations. I would have liked the hand set for the phone to have been a separate as it would have expanded upon its usefulness. The word phone being in English further restricts its use. The moulding quality is excellent as is the detail it replicates. The result is that we seem to have a very well produced and detailed product with limitations on its use as regards time period and location.