Samil 20 Mk. II

Manufacturer: BaxModModels

I have often lamented thelack of small scale kits of South African vehicles. So I wasobviously delighted to hear about a company in South Africacalled BaxMod Models (named after Chris Baxter, the owner) whowas producing a very impressive line of kits of trucks, armoredpersonnel carriers, and even artillery pieces, of the SouthAfrican army. After making contact with Chris, he informed methat unfortunately his entire line of kits had been temporarilywithdrawn from production, in order to make improvements to themolds. The first kit of his "new and improved" line isof the Samil 20 Mk. II truck. Chris' familiarity with the subjectmatter is obvious, having spent a lot of time himself in andaround these vehicles.

These are the resin partsright out of the box:

And these are the sameparts after cleaning off the flash, gluing broken pieces, andfilling a couple of holes with red putty:

The resin parts are castwith the pour-method of casting, which produces a lot of flash,but most of it is paper-thin, and was easily cleaned up. Thethicker stuff I removed with a saw and sandpaper. The masterparts are very high quality, some are very delicate and extremelythin. There were numerous air bubbles throughout the kit, butthey were all easily filled. The resin is high quality, and holdsthe detail very well. I am not sure if the resin was curedimproperly, or if it was just a different type of resin than whatI am used to, but many of the parts in this kit seemed almostrubbery, which in fact, helped considerably with construction, inthat it was easy to simply bend warped parts back into shape.

The truck is built in foursections: the cab, the spare tire/engine exhaust segment, thecargo bed, and the chassis. The cab was very straightforward inits construction, although the side pieces with the doors, werenot quite long enough. I lined them up with the front of the cab,and added a small strip of styrene at the rear where it connectswith the rear cab wall. The interior has some basic detail, suchas seats, a dash board, steering wheel, and control consolebetween the seats. The doors are molded shut, and careful cuttingand re-working of the hinges would be necessary in order to modelthem open. There is a stippled pattern on the top of the cabmeant to replicate the canvas covering. Careful drybrushing andweathering enhance the effect even more.

There are foot rungsbeneath each door, which are provided in photoetch. Based on thephoto on the box top, I would guess that it would be better tomake these rungs out of bent wire, and attach a flat step plateto them instead. It might also be beneficial to use wire orplastic rod for the mirror mounts, but the etched parts don'tlook too bad either. The protective screen in front of the cab,and windshield wiper blades are also done in brass, and look verygood. It would have been nice to have some clear plastic includedin the kit to replicate the windshield.

The cargo bed was quitesimple to put together, and the parts fit perfectly. There aretwo bent rods projecting up from the rear of the bed, which weremolded onto the rear panel in resin. But they were so thin, thatit would prove difficult to remove the resin flash withoutdestroying them. Replacement parts are included as etched brass,but I didn't like the 2-dimensional aspect of the brass, so Ireplicated the parts with plastic strip and bent brass wireinstead. Also included as etched brass are the mud flaps, andtroop benches for the cargo bed.

One thing that I've foundlacking in many of the best resin kits are decent instructions,but not so for this one. The parts layout and engineering of thekit are very good, and the inclusion of excellent instructionscertainly helped in making the construction relativelyhassle-free. The color photo of the truck on the cover of the boxprovides an excellent reference for a vehicle not well documentedin the U.S. Baxmod should be commended for including suchexcellent materials.

The instructions statethat the truck should be painted "Dark Tan" so I usedTamiya Dark Earth, and gradually weathered the color throughsuccesive layers of lightened paint, as well as pastel chalks. Nodecals are included, nor is any guide to markings in theinstructions.

This kit didn't falltogether like many plastic models on the shelves today, but itshouldn't pose a problem to anyone familiar with building resinkits. I think it is a very interesting subject, which makes aunique addition to my collection. I greatly look forward tofuture releases of additional South African vehicles to accompanythis Samil 20.

Thank you very much to BaxMod Models for providing the review sample.