Quick kit review

1/72 scale Heller VAB, kit no. 79898 - By Al Magnus from Canada

The VAB is a very basic kit by today’s standards. It shows its simpleness in many areas while in others it exhibits a desire to be more than a toy. Where a modern kit will use multiple smaller parts joined together to make larger parts, many of the VAB’s parts are simplified and molded as one piece. The fire extinguisher, pioneer tools and tow cable are all molded to the body, while on the other hand some of the hatches and all of the window shutters come as separate parts so you can pose them open - but then any benefit coming from the open hatches is ruined by the absence of an interior. Providing the option of a view into the body is nice, but without an interior all you’ll see is a gaping, empty shell sans any hint of interior detail.

The tread detail for the tires is completely inaccurate. You can replace them with resin parts from the Azimut set but doing so will definitely bump up the cost of the build.

I decided to model the kit all buttoned up save for the front windscreen, thus avoiding having to construct a complete interior. The only interior detail was for the front cab, which I based on photos from the web and from pictures of the Azimut interior detail set. I didn’t put a lot of work into this as you can’t see much of the interior through the front windows anyway.

The majority of the work went into minor detailing of the exterior. Using my trusty drill set I opened up the exhaust pipe, added holes in the towing points, plus I deepened the hollows for the tow cable ends and for the handles of the fire extinguisher and shovel. I also added the small lumps (horns maybe?) to the fore of the body just below the windscreen. The door handles molded to the front doors were replaced with wire substitutes and I replaced the storage loops found mid-way on the upper rear of the body. The seam lines along the join of the upper and lower body were filled, as was the join between the body and the panel containing the rear doors. The last item was the addition of an antenna using a section of guitar wire.

The decals are excellent and went on without a hitch. An application of Microsol made them sit down beautifully with no silvering whatsoever. Only one marking option is provided – that for a sand and dark brown splotched VAB of 2nd Co., 2nd R.E.I., Daguet Division, Saudi Arabia 1991.

So with a little work and a few minor concessions to accuracy a reasonably nice model can be made.

Al Magnus

Click on the pictures

For more information contact Al Magnus: - replace (at) with @

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E-mail to Henk Timmerman / HenkofHolland