Modern Combat Black Dog 1:48 Upgrades

From Czechia with ... some kind of love. To pimp the Tamiya Humvees that I bought last month, I got myself two boxes of Black Dog conversion kits. The Iraq War Accessoires Set (T48034) and IDF Uparmoured Humvee (T48058).

I visited the black dog page a couple of times in the past, as they have some very extensive conversions and upgrade kits for world war 2 vehicles in 1:35 and 1:48. And I like to take those as ideas or inspiration to upgrade my Bolt Action (28mm / 1:56) kits. And to be honest, that was the main reason, why I spend that much money on these kits. Kinda like paying for the inspiration, as the upgrade sets are rather boldly priced with 14,50 EUR and 27 EUR for the two kits and that's without shipping.

The first kit Iraq War accessoires is the smaller one and covers some additional luggage and stowage, a bull bar, some smoke launchers and weaponry.

Casting is rather wild. A lot of flash, warpage and broken parts. The bull bar isn't any use in that condition. Some pieces maybe be fixed simply by glueing them. There is no instruction on these, so I'll lead my way by using the pictures on the box and in the online store. A couple of parts are in here multiple times, maybe to cover up the below than mediocre casting quality. If both pieces are defective, that is still no use for me... as you can imagine, I was pretty bummed when I opened up this set.

With that in mind, my expectations for the IDF Uparmoured variant weren't to high. IDF stands for Israely defense forces. I wasn't looking for a specific vehicle pattern, just a generic, heavier upgrade for the HUMVEE and this will do. This kit even comes with some brass etched pieces for the gunner turret and spots an instruction, as there are lots of pieces.

Quite a lot of pieces. Same quality issues than before. Warpage, broken parts and flash. Some parts are incredibly thin, so that it is no wonder, that they broke. I like the armoured doors on this one. For them to hold, as one is broken right along the middle, I'll glue the vehicle shut, so I won't have to think about using the interior bits and pieces.

Usually I wash resin parts prior to assembly, to remove any release agent left overs from the casting process. But I am afraid to damage the already fragile parts even more during that process. I'll keep you posted on the updates on these.

I bought them at Sockelshop, fast shipping and proper packaging. Quite contented.