Fire Drum and Buckets
Thanks to Aires Hobby Models for sending these excellent diorama accessories and details for review. Thank you to the IPMS Reviewer Corps for letting me review them! I am very appreciative of the chance to contribute back to the scale-modeling community.
This 5 piece set of fire suppression equipment is quite simple, consisting of a 55 gallon sand drum and 4 water buckets that appear to be about 5 gallons each. They are all cast in gray resin on solid pour plugs. Copper wire is provided to make bucket handles and a sheet of decal stencils is included. I found the resin to have a very nice balance of workability and strength. I had no troubles with brittle resin or needing to do excessive sanding, but the handle tabs on the bucket rims are very thin. I did bend one tab over by accident, but was able to restore it in the correct position with a touch of cyanoacrylate securing it. Flash was minimal and easily removed when present. Assembly problems are non-existent, since there is no assembly required!
The detailing on the drum and buckets is very nice. The drum comes full of medium-grained sand. The first pass for painting was completed in Vallejo acrylics with no problems. The only resin preparation I used was an overnight soaking in concentrated Simple Green® soap solution. The only problems I had were in applying the stencil decals. The decals fragmented almost immediately in water and correct placement and restoration was very challenging. I suggest a clear coat on the decal sheet before application to help prevent this fragmentation.
I highly recommend these details! They were very enjoyable to prep and paint. I will be placing them in a diorama soon, after touchup and further detailing, depending on the final positions of the drum and buckets. I may very well add water to the buckets.
Thanks again to Aires Hobby Models for sending these samples for review. Thank you to the IPMS Reviewer Corps for letting me review them, it is a much appreciated privilege.

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