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Im certain that everyone on here has seen the ads on EBay for a company called RC SUBWORKS. They seem to offer everything a RC Sub builder would ever need, from Peristatic pumps, Ballast systems to complete kits. Not finding anything negative posted about this company, I decided to dip my toe into the water, and see what I would get. I ordered a complete Akula Kit, with a full WTC, ALL components, as well as a fibreglass shell. About 2 weeks later (not a bad shipping time) I received my kit. Im going to make the rest of the story in point form, in an attempt to keep it short.
I am also not interested in this becoming the traditional Made In The USA/Made in Asia slamfest.
PROS:
-It was truly a COMPLETE kit, right down to the individual screws and nuts required.
-Well packed
-Great price
CONS:
-Horribly fabricated Fibreglass body, top and bottom halves don’t match each other. Scribe lines so faint, that the primer coat applied by the manufacturer pretty much obliterated them.
-REALLY badly cast hull details/fins. All the additional details were so poorly cast in Resin, they were practically useless. Cast in a resin, and filled with bubbles, they were so brittle, I don’t really think that holes for rods and screws can be drilled successfully without the part shattering. Details of dealing with the resin parts didn’t seem to really matter, since the sandwich baggy containing the parts, consisted solely of razor-sharp smashed Resin shards.
-WTC end caps that were so tight, they could not be removed from the cylinder. They were all so tight that the WTC walls were showing stress-cracks, and one of the walls had actually cracked from the pressure from the cap.
-ZERO assembly instructions / detail pictures of the assembled items. OK, so the experienced members of the group probably wouldn’t need them, but there was no mention in the ad that this was a kit only for HIGHLY experienced modellers. An Email request for at least a picture of the assembled WTC for reference was met with a terse NOT AVAILABLE response from the manufacturer.
After many, many unanswered emails regarding the mis-matched hull, and the broken resin pieces I finally received an email stating that a replacement hull, and detail pieces would be sent to me. A few weeks later, I received the replacement lower hull piece (really, not much more of a match than the original) and a sandwich baggy of smashed resin pieces. After sorting thru the razor-sharp resin shards, I was actually able to find a complete set of detail pieces, albeit really roughly cast, and filled with bubbles. It seemed as if they had sent me 5 complete sets, in the hope that 1 set would actually make the trip.
Wanting an additional set of pieces, since I doubted that the existing pieces would survive construction, I packed up the shards, along with a DETAILED letter stating that I wanted another set (in both English and Mandarin). I also followed up with several Emails explain what I wanted (again in 2 languages)…all of which were unanswered.
Months later, I have not received ANTHING back regarding this parcel, although many unanswered emails have been sent asking about it.
By now RC SUBWORKS was no longer replying to my questions, and complaints. When they did reply, it usually was a terse 1 or 2 word response, which would not actually answer any questions. I even included a translation from English to Mandarin in all of my correspondence, to no avail.
Needless to say, I FINALLY just gave up, and the poor kit sat here for months. I was not going to attempt to build this thing, realizing that it was not at all possible with my skill-set.
I finally reboxed it, and sent it off to Mr. Merriman. If there was ANY modeller out there that could massage this hodgepodge of mis-matched, poorly cast bits and pieces...…it was him.
Now, It COULD be argued that the cost of the kit was well under the summed cost of the components (taking under consideration that a brushless motor and ESC are at least $100.00 alone), that I basically got a bunch of really useful bits and pieces in the long run.
So here endeth my cautionary tale of despair…take from it what you can, and I am certainly available for additional questions, and comments.
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