PT-76B

Manufacturer: ARMO (Kit No. 72011)

This is one of ARMO's earlier releases, and is an excellent kit. It is actually their first kit that I bought a long time ago, and it is the kit which got me hooked on the brand in the first place. It is a completely resin kit, and the quality of the resin is very good. There are no air bubbles or imperfections in my kit, with the exception of many broken parts, which can be easily fixed. There are large casting plugs of resin on the bottoms of the hull and turret which need to be ground off, but the remainder of the parts should be easily removed from their resin "sprues."

The detail on the parts is very good. As you can see in the photo, all of the pioneer tools are molded onto the hull, but have excellent relief and appear very three-dimensional. All of the hatches are closed, which is to be expected for a solid-body kit, such as this one. The wheels have excellent detail, and the tracks are the most detailed tracks I have ever seen, in resin or plastic. Unfortunately, mine have many broken parts, especially the track teeth, which will be time consuming to repair. As is common with many resin kits, the tracks need to be heated in hot water, and then bent into shape. I have never tried this technique yet, and am a bit apprehensive about it. It would have been better to mold the tracks in metal, but I wonder if the same level of detail would have then been possible.

There are no decals included with the kit. The instructions in the kit are poor, but most of the parts are obvious in their placement. I highly recommend this model.