Hi Joying,
thank you. I assume this is for your personal us, pls do not publish.
Original Design as by Thomas Jenkins: 4/5. It is very interesting to build, has some weaknesses especially in structure and the usual problems with SNOT constructions. Some assemblies or building steps cannot turn out as instructed. Eg inserting the bombs containment in step 233 and then lateron trying to insert the upper cockpit section). Some assemblies build up unnecessary tension (eg the brackets in step 212 which are a tenth of a mm too short. Can be replaced by simple 1x6 and all is fine).
Last but not least the entire frame often collapses right above the tail opening because of accumulating tolerances and not enough support on the tail.
However, an advanced builder can fix all of them.
Apart from that there were very interesting techniques and I learned a lot.
Brick Composer: 3/5.
a) Lots of bricks missing, I'd say like 20-25. Often only a 1x2 plate and stuff like that. For me, there were no crucial ones, as I have a good inventory. Someone with a worse inventory would have had to stop building. However, all the "unique" pieces and also the rare coloured plates were there.
b) Wrong pieces. Eg step 100, those plate modified with a hole downwards, in my set they have put the plates with the hole upwards.
c) Brick colour: not so well. It appears the bricks have been assembled from different manufacturers. What was really annoying was heavily yellowed white bricks. This is not smart as it is so obvious but when sent anyway it feels like "we don't care about our product". I can send you photos if you want.
d) Tolerances:
- Brick modified with two studs: those guys are some 100th of a mm too long so that when built in the middle of an assembly (e.g. 402, substep 1) they spread other bricks. I had to discard and replace.
- Brackets: see above
- Front gun spheres have no friction and hang down
Superglue-Required-Rating: yes, some crucial steps must be glued.
Instructions: 3/5. Some views hid similar bricks, eg a 1x1 brick and a 1x1 technic. Even in later steps it was not obvious which of those went where. The pdf quality was low so it was sometimes not well to see what dark red brick they mean.
All in all, price/performance: 4/5. Would I recommend? Yes, but only to experienced builders with inventory and half blind ;-)
Thank you for asking.
Best regards,
Sven
