Gecko 1/35 Lambro 550

[frank2056]

Unfortunately, I bought several Gecko kits before I built their excrementally bad M-76 Otter. I like three wheeled vehicle, so I decided to build their Lambro 550:



60'~70's Vietnam Saigon Shuttle Tricar with The Driver & Passengers. I also have their two Lambro 550 set... sigh.

This kit suffers from tiny parts (one is less than 1mm in the largest dimension!) vague attachment points, vague and misleading instructions and an over-engineered construction, designed to inflict as much irritation as possible. The Gecko designers must have worked at Hobby Boss. 

The front cab is designed to make construction as difficult as possible, with a combined front and floor piece, a separate back wall and a separate roof. It would have been simpler and no less accurate to combine the upper cab into one part, with a separate floor. This would make painting and construction easier, but that's not the Gecko way.

I read the instructions carefully and figured that the connection point between the front cab and the cargo section would be where the maximum pain would be inflicted, so I built the main subassemblies:



Part A5, the connecting bar, seems to be the spot where the most pain would be inflicted, right? Small part, tiny contact surfaces where most of the kit's weight would be concentrated - so the most fragile. The cab section connects to a thin crossbar that gets attached to the cabin floor, making it even more fragile:



I figured that I would be smarter than the mofos who designed this kit and I added a 1mm copper wire that goes into holes in both the cab and rear frame. I then attached part A5 in it's spot. Still fragile, but not terrible:



Hey, I'm making progress! No, wrong. Even though the glue was dry and the parts had been reinforced with CA, I noticed that the thin crossbar that holds the connecting bar to the cab was sagging. OK, I put some plastic under it to hold it up.

Next was connecting the engine to the transmission in the rear. Easy? Nope. There was a 3-4mm gap! The engine mount is just wrong and the engine cover barely fits when the engine is where they want you to mount it. I cut the mounts off, glued the engine to the cover in the right spot, then added some sprue to make the connection to the drive shaft.

I'm currently working on the back wall and roof connection and trying to get everything to fit without gaps. I'm sure that the connecting bar will fail with all the handling, so I may whif it by adding support bars from the edges ob the rear framework to the cab.

I started dryfitting the cargo/passenger section and I can tell  that it will be a PITA, since a couple of the thin railings broke off.

[Old Wombat]

You'll get there, Frank! 

It may not be your easiest or most relaxing build but you will get there!   

[buzzbomb]

Oh dear...
I will await the expected fantastic finish 

[PR19_Kit]

Sometimes it makes you wonder if the kit designers had EVER built a model kit in their entire lives! 

[Dizzyfugu]

It's still looking good. But some manufacturers simply over-do it with tiny bits and pointless options. Revell's indigenous Me 262 is a similar case. Controlling and mould engineers had an idea, but it simply does not work on the bench. 

[NARSES2]

Looking forward to this. I to have a liking for 3 wheeled vehicles and have fond memories of riding in the cab of one back in the day when my dad's mate worked for British Rail hauling coal.

[frank2056]

Thanks for the encouragement, guys. This company must be related to HobbyBoss - as Brian would agree, part of their shtick is to make the kits as pointlessly over-engineered as possible. There may be modellers out there who enjoy that kind of challenge, but I'm not one of them. This kit is the opposite of the wonderful Arii 1/32 three wheeled vehickes, like the 1957 Daihatsu Midget or Mazda 360.

Chris - my Dad had a car book that included oddities, like the Citroen DS 3 wheeler, the Messerschmitt KR200 and BMW Isetta.

[su27rules]

  

[PR19_Kit]

Looking forward to this. I to have a liking for 3 wheeled vehicles and have fond memories of riding in the cab of one back in the day when my dad's mate worked for British Rail hauling coal.

Thar would have been a Scammell Scarab Chris, they were all over the place in the 40s-50s. Even the RAF had some!

[jcf]

Sometimes it makes you wonder if the kit designers had EVER built a model kit in their entire lives! 

When companies that have primarily done armour try to do an automobile, of any sort even a little three-wheeler, they go back to the multipart body which the majority of the companies that produce car models abandoned 60+ years ago.

Go take a look at a car model kit ye feckin' eejits. Better yet go buy a Tamiya kit and see how to do the job properly in both realms. 

[frank2056]

I love the Scammell Scarab!

Jon - I think companies like HobbyBoss and Gecko are making kits like this on purpose. There must be a market for masochist kits - I just wish they would be easier to spot (and avoid)

I ended up taking the front cab apart and stripping all the paint. I then glued the floor, back wall, engine compartment and roof together. The front (with the windscreen, front wheel and handlebar) can be attached last. I think this will remove the major pain points in this kit. Next time I build this (I have the two in a box as well) I'll skip the instructions and build it like this.

The engine is the source of most of the problems in this kit, at least in the front. You only needs the nub for the break/accelerator and the part where the transfer rod goes to the transmission. There's some other hardware going into the engine compartment, but it's either not visible or structural. In a further build, I'll just cut the important bits off the engine, then glue them to the engine compartment. Paint everything black (and maybe add a bit of sprue painted black) and most of the problems will be gone.

The cargo/passenger section went together with relatively few issues. The thin bars around the passenger section have broken off several times - they're very thin and the plastic is surprisingly weak. Cleaning off the attachment points has been frustrating. They may end up getting removed.

[Rick Lowe]

But you now know the pitfalls and the fixes for the next ones - so there's a Win in that...

[NARSES2]

Yup, that was it Kit, a Scarab. British Rail used them for hauling coal.

I even got a lift in back from Great Ormond St in one after I'd had an operation. British Rail were on strike, so my dad and his mate drove me home in the British Rail Scarab whilst they were both on strike. Dad never ever saw the irony   

Chris - my Dad had a car book that included oddities, like the Citroen DS 3 wheeler, the Messerschmitt KR200 and BMW Isetta.

A mate had a 3 wheeler "bubble car" in our final year at school. Drove it on a m/c licence as long as you locked the reverse. Frankie Howard did a scetch based on a skeleton being found in a Bubble Car that had been driven up against a garage wall whilst the reverse was locked and the driver never got out 

[frank2056]

Here's where I was this morning. Parts separated and ready for primer.



The three main problem sections glued together. The front pretty much snaps into place. The curved pipe at the front serves no purpose. I cut it off:



First pass with paint. The windshield is one of the best parts of the kit - it just pops in and stays in place; I won't glue it. The front half clicks into place as well - I could almost leave it loose and I can live with the seam at the top of the windshield. There are a few spots that I have to fix, especially the rubber seal around the windshield. The cargo area is just resting in place; it still needs a lot of work:

[/url]

Just another example of the ridiculous "features" of this kit: the tires have little plastic tabs on the inside and the hubs have to be glued to these tabs. One can be done easily, but it's hard to align the other hub with the tabs. I ended up snipping the tabs off and gluing the hubs in place.

[NARSES2]

It's looking the business