Before we begin, a few words from our sponsor...

The Value Gear Details idea is to give model builders (me included) a more useful spares box! Creating and casting sets of Generic/Universal stowage. No helmets, no weapons and nothing to keep you from using it in a wooden cart, a chariot, a truck, or a Panther tank. "Any Army, Any Era!" is my motto.

They won't work on everything but so far I have seen people use them on so many different trucks and tanks and even some War Hammer tanks and dioramas. Stowage are accents to help give your model some story or a lived in realistic look. Armies live under canvas...

The Generic/Universal idea is one that bounced around in my head for years, but I never had time or energy working 12 hours a day in USA, to get started. Moving to Ireland for the past 2 years gave me the chance to be a daytime dad (priceless chance of a lifetime) and a night time sculpting and resin casting machine.

The Value Gear Promise is to have the best customer service, and constantly improving and innovative quality and new ideas. All sets will have the minimal amount of cleanup before use and no huge pour plugs to saw off and and potentially ruin a piece... like we have all done in the past. A little scraping and a little sanding is all you will ever need with Value Gear.

Cast in light gray resin, the thirty two pieces in this set of sand filled crates come in a resealable bag. Included in the bag are:

• sections of wall with crates and sand bags
• sections of wall ( two different lengths) with just sand filled crates
• several pieces of crates stacked on top of one another
• fifteen individual, sand filled crates (three in a smaller size)
• four individual boxes with nice wood grain and rope detail for the grab handles
• one corner piece of both sand bags and crates.

As noted, the stuff in the bag requires just the minimal amount of attention before you're able to admit them into your latest project. All I did was sand smooth the bottoms of the crates before carrying on with painting. A few of the pieces could benefit from some minor attention as there is just a modicum of flash on a few. But, mostly, ready for action straight out of the bag.

There is also a handy flyer of helpful tips when working with resin. I was aware of most of these tips but not the one about NOT soaking resin in brake fluid to remove paint. Turns out brake fluid will dissolve the resin. [Always read the all the instructions before you begin.]

A really impressive feature of these crates are the sand patterns sculpted into the 'fill', all are different. [The partially filled crate is a real plus.] I looked and looked and couldn't find any repetition. Unlike some other sets of cast diorama material or stowage were you are limited to just two or three different patterns, with these you get oodles. The sculpted detail on the wood pattern of the crates as well as the detail on the sand bags is also of the first order.

It should be of note that, to some extent, these sand filled crates are indeed stackable. Not only will these crates provide some unique opportunities to augment your next project you can re-live your miss-spent youth when you played with your own wooden blocks. That is before you started whopping your little brother over the head with them and your Mom took them away....

My thanks to the “Mad Caster” at Value Gear Details and IPMS/USA for the review copy.