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In-Box Review
135
Stryker Slat Armor Update Kit
Pro Art Model Slat Armor Kit
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by: Seb Viale [ SEB43 ]

Introduction
Pro Art Model is Belgian after market company dedicated to modern armor. They have produced quite a few kits for the HEMTT and more recently have been releasing some quite impressive modern communications equipment kits. Pro Art Model jumps into the Stryker market and releases a multimedia slat armor kit.
The box
The set comes in a small box made of stiff paper. It is a neat box, but a corrugated cardboard box would be better as the box I received was slightly damaged in transport despite being packed a inside bigger cardboard box with Styrofoam chips inside. Some small parts were damaged. The box features a photo of the finished model. Inside the box, there is one plastic bag containing all of the kit contents. The bag contains all of the resin parts (86 in total), the eight PE frets and the CD with the instructions. This is a multimedia kit with the traditional PE for the slat armor and the unique resin detail pieces.
the kit
The kit contains PE slat armor and includes the additional armor panels in resin. The kit also contains PE panels for the perforated suspension guards. The tool rack is also detailed in PE.
The instruction CD
The instructions are provided in a CD with a pdf file that contains a 37 page document. The instruction shows step-by-step pictures of the completed model and are broken down into the following steps:
1. Construction of each panel separately
2. Assembly of each side panels.
3. Assembly of the complete slat armor.
4. Attachment of the slat armor to the hull.
For the panels, a CAD diagram is also provided with a picture of the finished panel. The instruction booklet is user friendly until the attachment of the slat onto the model. There is too much information is gathered in the pictures and you need to pay attention to properly identify the resin parts and their locations.
The Resin Updates
Ammo baskets and grenade launcher covered with tarp for the Remote Weapons System are added as resin parts, this is a nice addition but can be easily home made. An other plus is the driver hatch cover in resin that will replace the horrible vinyl part provide by AFV. Finally, the exhaust cover, tow bar and elevated support for the front lights are provided as additional resin parts. These resin parts are not numbered and are easy toidentify.
The exhaust cover is dimensionally correct and while some details have been neglected the construction is fairly simple. The tow bar is Stryker specific and consists of one single bar.
The PE and Resin armor
All the resin parts are cast in a light cream resin and are free of air bubbles (in my sample). This is really an incredible casting job by Pro Art and all the air bubbles are trapped at the end of each resin section. Resin is used on the lower section of each slat panel making the build easier. Care must be taken during assembly to square the outer PE frame and the middle support. When finished, the entire slat slides inside the small grooves of the outside frame. Unfortunately, no jig is provided to obtain a perfectly square panel. Special care should be taken when cutting the resin parts since the length of some of the parts does not match the size of the mating PE parts. Also, some of the small resin parts are warped, which can be straightened using hot water or replacing with 2.2 mm strip styrene. Either methods work perfectly.
The attachment points of the slat armor to the hull are very tiny U shape parts (thickness approx 0.5mm) that did not survive the trip to Mexico. I do not understand why such parts are not provided in PE?
Conclusion
The use of resin parts is a nice addition to help the builder to speed up the building process. Since this is an in-box review, I cannot comment very much on the actual build. Please check my build blog for construction details.
Concerning the accuracy of the kit, the resin parts and PE are dimensionally correct. The additional armor in the on the left hand side shows some inaccuracy around the hatch.
Finally, since the Pro Art Models' kit is the only mulitmedia slat armor kit on the market it is hard to make a fair comparison to other slat armor kits.
SUMMARY
Highs: The pro: the use of the resin part is a nice addition and gives a strong and square panel and you can easily replace those parts with evergreen strip styrene. The most economical kit on the market.
Lows: The resin parts are easily bent and you have to take special care when cutting these parts in order to have a square panel. Some parts were damaged but they were rapidly replaced by Pro Art.
Verdict: Nice easy to build kit with the resin parts. Some care needs to taken with these but the result is great.
Percentage Rating
90%
  Scale: 1:35
  Mfg. ID: PAU-35026
  Suggested Retail: 95 Euro
  PUBLISHED: Jan 11, 2009
  NATIONALITY: United States
NETWORK-WIDE AVERAGE RATINGS
  THIS REVIEWER: 87.06%
  MAKER/PUBLISHER: 88.52%

About Seb Viale (seb43)
FROM: PARIS, FRANCE

Back to Europe, I am living in Paris since december 2011 with my Wife. We have a nice 6 years old daughter, and a 3 years Baby boy. I am doing AFV modern era. I started when I was a teenager , back to business after 10 years of break due to Sport (Baseball, yes european plays baseball) and Unive...

Copyright ©2021 text by Seb Viale [ SEB43 ]. All rights reserved.



Comments

What will be the best Glue and/or Cement for the PE parts? Please advise. Thank you, M998A2
JAN 12, 2009 - 04:21 PM
Since it is metal, superglue, epoxy, or soldering (to other PE, still need glue to attach it to the plastic parts) are about all that work. I just finished up a Stryker w/slat and must have used 4 tubes of superglue. Between gluing the slat and my fingers, it took quite a bit. If you have never done PE before, a slat armor set is not the one to start on. It is quite laborious and can be a real pain. Get a small update set and work up to it. PE isn't necessarily hard, it just takes some time getting used to and uses different techniques to get it right.
JAN 12, 2009 - 04:48 PM
I did use only Super Glue. Soldering was not possible due to the resin part. Cheers Seb
JAN 14, 2009 - 06:42 AM
Thank you guys for the tips! I've tried the superglue, but its very fragile when I try to attach the slat armor to the Stryker.... BTW, do you know why most of the upgrade kits are made of resin instead of "plastic" since resin is very fragile and not flexible? Thanks, M998A2
JAN 14, 2009 - 10:03 AM
I dont know what kind of Slat kit you are using but mine is very strong after the super glue has cured. Why resin ?? Because you dont need to create a injection mold that it is very very very expensive but you dont see it since you will produce thousand of kits with one mold. With resin you create you master duplicate with silicon RTV and you copy it with PU resin, it is easier for short production less than 100 pieces. If you compare plastic kit vs resin kit for the same amount produce, resin kit will be cheaper. You need to amortize the price of the mold that why plastic producer will release more than thousand copies. Is it clear
JAN 14, 2009 - 10:53 AM
   
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