M.Julian Marles
Handy review..I was always curious about the quality of Vulcan figures.

John Van Kooten
Yes, I was wondering about that too, when I found this (brief) review of the figure set. I was actually looking at the 2 Pounder gun kit 🙂

Looks like the quality is on par with what we expect from current top rating injection molded figure sets 👍

M.Julian Marles
Ya, was a pretty short review, lol

John Van Kooten
Haha! Pretty much the shortest I have ever seen 😛 ah well, at least it contains a nice picture of the sprue. That was good enough for me 😄

Fabian D.
but still a usefull one😉 at least he wrote everything himslef... way better than those who simply copy the specifications and write their name under the sentence "Seems to be another great kit from Drag..o..n... er, Company xyz" 😄

John Van Kooten
Haha! 😄 Yes, that is most definitely true! 😉 I have also encountered many of them, those exact copies of the official Dragon website kit page, trying to pass them off as a review... what's up with that?? Why do they even bother posting that? 🤔

Fabian D.
Well, I´ve read a lot of strange stuff, guys wasting more words on the box art than on the kit itself, reviews consisting only of single sentences like "I don´t know anything about this kit, but I like it" or "Hi Guys, intreresting what you can find on the attic, I´ll complete another kit frist, but then I´ll build this one", but all the three guys had at least pics of all sprues in there.😉
I think Terry is doing a fantastic job in his reviews, and there many others out there who do better than my examples here.

H K
I "like" the, oh so many shiny parts, must be good kit, reviews. Completely worthless, except if it has pictures of the instructions, so I can add the decal options in scalemates 🙂

M.Julian Marles
my favorites were the Dragon reviews done by a Dragon contract employee...just about every one was "highly recommended" even though many had errors, like the first Stug III 10.5cm, the RSO that had M113 seats, etc. Pretty funny.

Fabian D.
@HK right, forgot those. .. thy are only topped by: "ouch- a Damm lot of parts... I'm not sure if I can handle this...."😉

John Van Kooten
LOL! All of the above is exactly the reason why I don't read texts in reviews (aside from those from a small number of excellent reviewers excepted) but instead look at shots of sprues and try to form my own opinion based on what I see.

@Julian: yeah, those reviews actually annoy me to no end😉 it's basically an advertisement, nothing more, AND misleading, to say the least.

Anyway, one thing to keep in mind is that there is a difference between an in-box review and a build log/review. An in-box review is obviously exactly that, just a peek inside the box, not knowing how building the kit will work out. So we can't blame anyone doing an in-box review for not telling or even knowing how the parts will fit and if the kit is any good once it is built.

All review links on ScaleMates are in-box reviews, not build logs.

Frank Krause
Sorry, John, your statement "All review links on ScaleMates are in-box reviews, not build logs." is not correct. Most PMMS reviews are build-reviews. The 2 pounder gun crew review is just one of the very few exceptions. Some Armorama reviews are also build reviews, but contrary to PMMS the number appears to be low.

I'd prefer, if you could say "Many review links on ScaleMates are in-box reviews, not build logs."

Holger Kranich
I agree with Frank, even many of the Hyperscale Reviews are build logs!😢

John Van Kooten
We have different views on what a build-log should contain, I think. I don't consider the review section of PMMS as a build log section. They discuss the parts and detail of the kit, as in an in-box review.
Sure, they sometimes mention fitting issues and whatnot but a build-log, I would not call it. There never are finished models or even intermediate steps included in the articles. At best, some images of sub-assemblies but nothing more.

Also, listing the steps from the instructions, with some minor notes added, and calling it a build log does not cut it.

This is an example of a build-log: armorama.com/modules..&ord=&page=1

All of the above, in my humble opinion, of course. Otherwise, let's agree to disagree 😉

I can't really comment on Hyperscale because I don't really use them.

So yes, I do agree on the fact that me writing "All" was probably not correct 😉 to be honest, I didn't give it that much thought when I typed that. Sorry! 😄

Frank Krause
Hi John,

I think it'll be difficult to find an agreement, what an in-box and what a built review is. As far as PMMS is concerned, the early reviews are in fact in-box reviews. The later ones are (except the "preview" ones) are build reviews (as per my opinion - model completely built). You need to scroll down to see the build images part. Some examples:
- perthmilitarymodelli..umpeter/tr01585.html
- perthmilitarymodelli..models/vsm56010.html
- perthmilitarymodelli..miniart/ma38001.html

John Van Kooten
It's not difficult, Frank😉 Scale Mates don't have to agree on everything, all the time 🙂 That would not be interesting even😉 haha! So as far as I'm concerned: good talk! 😄 And thanks for the links. Those are good ones indeed 👍

And mind you, it's not that I dislike in-box reviews. That's not the case. In fact, I love them. They are often exactly what I need to form an opinion of a kit. So I do really love PMMS and everything their members post 🙂 They are top ranking in the reviews I have collected in my personal database 👍