Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Sd.Kfz. 2 Kettenkrad, Zoukei Mura, 1/32 scale, kit review.
Hi everyone and welcome to the kit review video of the Sd.Kfz. 2 Kettenkrad by Zoukei Mura in 1/32 scale.
The Kettenkrad (tracked motorcycle) is an absolutely crazy vehicle, i love it.
The entire concept is just genius and insane at once.
I´d love to drive or even own one.
Utterly crazy and cool, i am amazed.
Zoukei Mura is known for their 1/32 scale aircraft models, which come with impressive details.
I think the Kettenkrad kit is only meant as an acessory for an airfield diorama.
It is my first kit of this brand, so i am curious to see how it looks like, and whether or not the Kettenkrad kit can be compared to these enormously cool aircraft kits.
The box is a top opener. As you can see the lid is a bit crushed there, it is not the most resilient box.
The plastic parts are all in one bag, as far as i can tell there are only two sprues.
There is also a small bag with the decals and an instruction sheet.
The instructions are just in Japanese, which is a bit odd.
As a central European i have some problems with that.
As i mentioned before there are two sprues, named A and B. They show them on this small sprue map.
Below that we have a paint chart, refering to Vallejo paints only.
The assembly starts with the gear box - engine unit. At least it looks like that.
It is pretty neat to have that in such detail.
Then we have to assemble the hull along with the engine and so on.
Looks decent to me. Everything is clearly visible. Only few parts get installed in every step.
This looks quite interesting here: The tracks are pretty much complete. Some wheels are also in place already.
By the looks of it the rubber pads are not split, they are molded on one section of the tracks. This means there is no seamline across the rubber pads - very clever!
The frontal axle with the steering mechanism gets added here.
Then we are done already. This promises to be a quick and enjoyable assembly.
Three painting and marking versions are suggested. Unfortunately i can not decipher what they are exactly.
I assume the first one is sand yellow, the second is grey and the third one as a tritone camo.
It is a shame that you can learn about more details here without knowing Japanese.
Let´s have a look at the plastic parts now. This is sprue A.
Here is the engine-gear box element.
The rest of the sprue contains parts of the chassis.
I have to say that the overall mold quality is not really exceptional at all.
There is some flash here and there, the connection points to the sprue are very thick.
It feels a bit like a Tamiya kit from the 80s.
The surface details are pretty decent.
All in all the first impression shows me, that this is just a normal kit really.
Well, i don´t know how the 1/32 scale aircraft models by Zoukei Mura look up close, the Kettenkrad looks very ordinary to me.
Let´s have a closer look.
Nothing is bent or twisted here. Pretty nicely done.
There are only few parts all in all.
Everything looks decent.
On sprue B whe have a lot of parts that belong to the running gear.
The most interesting parts here are the track elements.
I like this, beginners won´t have to deal with hundreds of tiny parts.
When it comes to the level of detail it will look just fine.
I don´t think you would get a much better result with individual track links or rubber band tracks. This will save quite some work.
The rubber pads are molded on one section of the tracks, this is quite clever. You can see them sticking out there.
The corresponding inner part of the track has only the other half of the track links and the guide horns.
The track links are split in half, the rubber pads are in one piece.
Split rubber pads would be quite visible and you would have to clean the gap up. This is not necessary here. A clever solution.
The level of detail is alright overall, nothing to complain about.
The front tire lacks some tread pattern. It could be a bit more pronounced.
The small parts are nicely done.
There are only few connection points to the sprue. That will speed up the assembly process, because less time has to be spent on cleaning up the parts.
The decal sheet is quite big for such a tiny vehicle.
What really annoys me here is the thickness of the decals.
When i wipe over them with my fingers i can feel the carrier film.
I am not sure whether or not you can see it by the glare of light.
Very thick decals indeed. Not optimal.
In my opinion the licence plates look a bit weird as well.
I don´t recall them to look like that on Heer and Luftwaffe vehicles.
If you want you can put together your own licence plates there, you get the numbers and abbreviations separately.
There are also decals for the rev counter, the tachometer and so on. All is there. A nice touch.
Anyway, i have seen much better decals elsewhere.
The Kettenkrad kit by Zoukei Mura is small, but lovely.
The instructions are nice. The kit is simple and sophisticated.
Maybe it is even too simple to build. Certainly a great kit for beginners.
Despite everything positive i expected more to be honest.
Zoukei Mura makes amazing aircraft models - well, they put not in the same effort into the Kettenkrad.
It is a good kit anyway. It offers many opportunities for display and will be a nice addition to aircraft models.
The kit costs about 20€, which makes it interesting for beginners along with the simplicity of the kit.
I personally have not yet built any Kettenkrad model, so it is about time. This was one of the reasons why i got this kit.
I have no doubt it will look interesting next to an aircraft model.
Thats it again for this kit review, i hope you enjoyed it.
See you again in the next video, your Hamilkar Barkas.