introduction

An army is useless unless it can be fed and clothed. I haven't seen anyone come out with boxes of spare uniforms yet, but recently there have been a number of companies that have released ration boxes. Plus Model now offers a set of US C ration boxes made from laser cut balsa wood.

the boxes

The set comes in a simple plastic envelope with a card backer. The balsa wood sheet is very thin, giving a nice scale appearance. There are 30 parts total, with separate ends, sides and top and bottom sections that will allow the modeler to make five ration boxes.

Each of the boxes also has laser printing on the sides and ends that on my sample was partially legible.

Because the wood is so thin, care must be taken to remove them from the sheet. Once removed with a sharp knife, I used a file to smooth down the end. I used wood glue to attach the parts and found that it created some minor warping of the wood, so some pressure was needed to hold the parts in place.

Assembly is fairly simple, but care is needed to make sure that the parts are all facing the right direction.

Once completed the boxes look very nice. The only clear issue I noted is that the actual ration boxes are made from actual individual boards, with four boards on the top, where this set has solid sections. A careful modeler might be able to cut the sections straight to get the appearance of the individual boards.

Apart from the separate board sections, the boxes do look good, and as mentioned above, there is a good scale appearance, if the modeler chooses to leave the box top off.

conclusion

This is a handy set that will provide some potentially nice detail to a diorama setting.