Machinator248 Chimera Conversion Kit - Product Review

Time for the blogs very first product review, I hope you all like and if you have any thoughts or suggestions please let me know. Each Section is marked out of 10 and then the marks fiddled about to give an overall mark for the item and seller, hope its of use. Enjoy:

The Machinator248 Pegasus Chimera Conversion Kit

Product Name: Pegasus Chimera Conversion Kit
Production Company: Machinator248 (ebay seller)

Price: £15gbp (at time of purchase)

General Summary:
The Pegusus Chimera Conversion kit is as suggested by the name a converion kit for the standard Imperial Guard Chimera Tank, this kit allows you to convert you Chimara to have a smaller troop area and set back turret, as well as an option to use a hi-tech looking turret, combine with a Standard GW Chimera this gives your tanks a unique look on the battlefield.

Review

Purchasing and Delivery:
Purchasing of the item was somewhat unusual, this kit was origionally availible online but after the usual shanninigans with non GW kits the only place to obtain this kit is via direct mail on Ebay. This email was quick, courteous and straightforward, at no point during the email did I feel like Machinator248 was going to run off with my money and all comms were asking me if everything was satisfactory. Payment was as expect via paypal and again everything was followed up in a timely manner.
Delivery was quick, around a week but considering it had to get to the UK this is often better then most GW/FW/BL packages.
SIDE NOTE: check out machinator248 on ebay for some very cool baneblade/shadowsword components amongst other things.
Result: 8/10

Packaging and Presentation:
The model was shipped in a nice padded envelope which initially I was worried about but on opening discovered that additional packagin material was included and this helped protect the model in transit. Personally I would have prefered a small card box or similar but i appreciate that this is not a business as such and is a side venture so I underrstand the need to keep costs down.
Prentationwise I wasnt expecting huge boxes or patterened bags, i was please however that every component had its own individual ziplock bag so everything had that extra bit of protection.
Result: 7/10

Quality of Materials and Manufacture:
Being a resin based conversion kit I was initially concerned with the quality of the models, both in terms of air bubbles, overcast and casting stalks. As you can see from the pics this need not have been the case:

There were no miscasts in the kit i recieved, casting points only had small lumps and for the most part all edges were sharp. The inclusion of a hatch to cover the hole in the lower hull was also a nice touch.
The details on the body are great, the rivets scale well with the Chimera ones and the large hatch is good as well. I am however not the biggest fan of the turret but have converted mine as a spare.
Result: 9/10

Ease of use and Scale:
As you can see from the above pictures the model needs little clean up and other then the usually wash for resin is workable straight away.
The kit is a great add-on for the current Chimera and really does add to the look, if you are starting an army this would be a great place to start for looking at alternatives, as I have an exsisitng for with Chimeras I choose this kit to add something familiar but different for my Inquisitors ride. One caveat the kit came with was that FW turrets dont fit, it has since turned out that this is not the case and as you can see from the pics below this kit works well with the chosen base tank:

As you can see a great model that works well with current GW Imperial Gaurd products and one that looks like it should have come from FW.
Result: 8/10

Value for money:
Most definately good value for money, given a similar kit from FW would cost at least £20-25gbp I personally cant fault it and feel it is worth the money, just because of the time it saves converting your own chimeras.
When you also factor in that you can buy the Imperial Guard Chimera Chasis sprue from Let the Dice Decide for £10 this makes the complete conversion only marginally more expensive then the standard Chimera.
Result: 8/10

Overall Rating and Final Thoughts
Overall a great kit and one that I am please I picked up, whilst it is only WIP so far I hope to feature the model more on the blog as it gets further on in its progression. The kit however is a great buy and would recommend it to anyone who is new to converting, resin and just wants something different with little to no hassle. A good solid product.
Result: 8/10