Introduction

FC Model Trend is a Spanish company offering a wide range of products in card, decals, resin in a number of scales and even self written books; in addition to these there are some items stocked for resale from other manufacturers. The resin items are the more common master and mould approach, but of late 3D printed items have made an appearance and provided FC Model Trend with some very fine items for retail sale. It is one of these 3D printed items I am looking at today in the form of a light cluster and protective cage for any of the following, T54, T55, T62.

Review

The item arrives in a blister pack and wrapped inside a plastic bag, a wise choice as this is a very very finely produced item. Also inside the blister pack with the model part is a folded sheet of paper providing the details of the product. The result of this packaging process is that it reached me in the UK after leaving Spain.

The Product offers the two main lights with what looks to me to be clear lenses and the cage around them as a very fine single piece. The orientation of the lenses is correct with the shielded light (for want of a better description) on the left when looking at them from the front. The lens locks are well replicated and while a minor detail it is well refined.

The cage protecting the lights from external influences is incredibly fine and I feel better than can be replicated in plastic or photo etch. The plastic offerings would not be able to beat the finesse of the wire cage and photo etch would be flat rather than replicating the correct circular aspect. The only challenger I can think of to something like this would be wire soldered together correctly and if you wish to do that all I can say is “rather you than me”.

Conclusion

Many modellers demand the absolute best from their model and spend far more on after market parts than the model cost in the first place, and if you are one of those modellers or someone who just likes to dress some aspects of a model I very strongly suggest that this is considered for your T54, T55 or T62. The finesse of this part is wonderful to see in such a small element and I can see there being demand for it.