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Best Kit/Worst Kit


802chrisg

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Here is a topic that I saw on Track Links site. What was your best kit you have ever built and what was your worst kit you ever built. Everybody should be able to comment on this one. Don't be shy in telling us if you have more that one.

 

As for me: Best kit, Tamiya Jadgertiger 1/35, great kit can build it blindfolded. Worst kit, Can't remember the manufacture, but is was made by a Russian company. it was a Russian army WWII jeep. It ended up being blown up by a ton of blackcat fireworks and M-80s, RIP Comrade!!!

 

 

Chris Graeter

IPMS #39558

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Best kit? Easy, hands down the AKI 1/72 Blackburn Firebrand. Resin casting at it's absolute finest. Open the box and you think you have pale cream colored styrene. And it fit as well as any Tamyia kit I've ever built. Expensive, but worth every penny.

 

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Worst kit? Not so easy. A couple of contenders though. Classic Airframes Wyvern is in there. I didn't hate it while working on it, but guys in the club were amazed at the filler and sanding they saw prior to paint. The other strong contender is the CMR 1/72 Supermarine Attacker. One fuselage half was about 2mm short. Had to cut it at a panel line and superglue in a styrene plug to get the two halves to match up lengthwise. I then gave up trying to rescribe the belly and took the easy out...I added that pregnant guppy belly tank!

 

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Interesting my best and worst all end up being FAA EDSG over Sky builds.

 

 

Mike Moore

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Mike,

 

I want one of those Aki Firebrands.

 

Best kit would probably be the Tamiya 72nd F4U-4. The kit absolutely fell together. Worst kit, I have several contenders, but they are all sitting in my "to be finished pile."

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The best kit I have ever built is, by far, the Tamiya 1/32 Spitfire MkIX... not that I have finished it yet, but so far its a dream.

 

The worst? Here are some contenders:

1/48 Vautour from HiTech/FM (same kit, different variants) - neither allows the resin detail to fit the horribly thick plastic

Anything from Starfix!

Classic Airframes 1/48 SBC Helldiver

1/48 Trumpeter RA-5C (by far the most disappointing)

 

But the prize has to go to the A Model Miasischev M-50A 'Bounder' ... this kit was soooo poorly deisgned that nothing would dry fit together. I ended up selling it to a friend for less than half price ($150 for a $350 model), and he hasn't spoke to me since!! Not really, but he agrees its a total dog. He has actually worked on it a few times and put it away before he smashed it.

 

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Well, for me I have a few for each category...

 

Best kit: 1/48 Fujumi Bf 109K-4. I followed some good advice on how to get the cowling to fit the fuselage properly and it was all quick and easy after that. To this day this line of '109s is my favorite to build. Also worth mentioning are the 1/48 Tamiya Rex and 1/48 Hasegawa Bf 109E.

 

Worst Kit: 1/48 Idea P-40E. An old repop of the Otaki kit by Hobbycraft before they became Hobbycraft as we know it. Why (and how) I finished this I could not tell you. Copious amounts of super glue were needed to hold it together. Even the few Starfix kits I built were not this bad.

 

Later,

 

Lee

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The best kit I have built is Imai's Thunderbirds "Mole". It was full of motorized gimmicks, but went together with absolutely no fuss. The amount of research that went into the kit equalled any scale subject. It was the only kit I built since high school that needed no modifications. Plus the pulsing red beacon was really cool!

 

My worst built kit? I was big into Luft 1946 before it became fashionable, so I built a lot of Huma kits. The Triebflugel was my first, and it was also my first kit that recieved a scratchbuilt cockpit and completely redone panel scribing. It was a PITA, but came out okay. All my other Huma kits were pretty much the same, except that their panel lines got straighter with each new release. Their decals, however, never really progressed beyond performing like frosted Scotch tape.

 

My runner up for worst built kit is the Trimaster/DML Me-262. Detail-wise, it was superlative. However, the fit was really dodgy, especially the lower wing to fuselage joint. The leading edge fairings for the engines fit so poorly and were ridden with sink marks, that I decided to build the engines exposed. The main landing gear bay was fiddly and demanded precise assembly for the gear legs to fit, which of course I found out the hard way. The windscreen was crazed at the sprue attachment point, thus spoiling the model. It took three months of continuous work to get the model done, and while I still think it is one of the most accurate Me-262 kits around, I will never build another one.

 

My vote for worst unbuilt kit is anything from the Mach 2 catalogue. I have a bunch, but never finished a single one. For the uninitiated, their clear parts resemble toe nail clippings, their decals look like something from a flea market find, and their plastic parts are unevenly thick, rough, deformed, and full of crazy stuff like ejector pin mark perforations and crinkles due to mold cracking. And they never get any better. I really wish MPM and Special Hobby would step in and give us some decent replacements. But who else would want a Snecma C.450 or a LeDuc 010?

 

Neal

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One of the worst kits I ever put glue on was the Trumpeter M60A3 kit. It was a poor copy of the Tamiya kit that looked like someone made into a wax duplicate. I used copied Tamiya instructions and even showed the original Tamiya parts placement for items Trumpeter had molded already in place. The plastic was rather slick and nearly impervious to glue. I gave up trying to use Testors bottle cement and switched to Tamiya Extra Thin which worked. The kit became my spray paint target.

 

One of the nicer kits I remember building was the Skybow M41A3 Walker Bulldog. I grabbed one in late 2002 or early 2003 and was impressed. It was my first Skybow kit. I really liked it.

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Best Would have been Tasca's Sherman (other than the bogie cushions) and worst is Trumpeters Bridgelayer.

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Best KIT I've ever built (quality of molding/engineering) is the 1/48 Tamiya P-47D.

 

Best MODEL I've ever built in terms of most rewarding personally due to scope of effort/degree of difficulty would be the 1/32 CollectAire resin T-28C I built last year.

 

Worst kit: the 1/32 Combat vacuform P-6E Hawk. So mis-molded it couldn't be assembled AND aligned correctly. The ONLY kit I've ever thrown in the trash incomplete since the mid '70's.

 

Worst MODEL I've ever built........purely due to disappointing MYSELF; the CollectAire 1/48 resin E-2C Hawkeye on which I put the outer tail fins on upside down! :smiley7: I've had a lot of other "disappointments" over the years, but that's one with NO excuses! Still, it's on my shelf. It's not like I'm so disappointed I'll throw it out! :smiley17:

 

GIL :smiley16:

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Best kit?... That's tough because its very different than "most enjoyable"... Best kit would be: Dr-1 by DML in 1/48th

 

Best job I've ever done: Tamiya Triceratops

 

Worst kit: Lindberg Ju-88

 

Worst job I've ever done: Miss Budweiser by MPC or AMT...can't remember who produced it. That model kicked my sorry rear from here to Iceland. And to this day I don't know why....I just couldn't do anything right on it.

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I have a tie for worst kit: (1) Mach 2 Convair Sea Dart for shape, useless cockpit canopy rebuilt from scratch, decals (lack thereof), and misaligned vertical tail halves by 1/8th inch. (2) Aurora X-15, or so it was called; actually it was a poor copy of the space fighters used in the Japanese thriller Battle in Outer Space, which ripped off the general shape of the then-new X-15.

 

My best kit (surprise!) is the old AMT Peterbilt Wrecker, which made a beautiful truck when assembled (it all fit well) and painted.

 

Ed

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Best kit?... That's tough because its very different than "most enjoyable"... Best kit would be: Dr-1 by DML in 1/48th

 

Best job I've ever done: Tamiya Triceratops

 

Worst kit: Lindberg Ju-88

 

Worst job I've ever done: Miss Budweiser by MPC or AMT...can't remember who produced it. That model kicked my sorry rear from here to Iceland. And to this day I don't know why....I just couldn't do anything right on it.

 

 

Good catch Dick, This gives me an Idea for a new topic next week. Most enjoyable, most fun I had , etc.. Something along those lines. Right now off to Noreastcon 2010.

 

Thanks,

 

Chris Graeter

IPMS #39558

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My worst kit I ever built was a tossup between the Maquette Ka-60 helicopter and the Maquette C75 Stratoliner. Gee, I'm seeing a pattern here. Both were models that required you to assemble all the parts and then carve/shave/sand all the extra plastic off to reveal the models. I'm surprised they came out as well as they did!

 

Best kit I ever assembled, hmmmm, Can't remember offhand although I do have a memory of one that I expected to be tough yet was so fast, easy, and fun to build that I was amazed. Gonna have to trek through my Hobby Room to remember which one it was.

 

Best model/job I ever did, hmmmm...... Maybe the Academy Stryker in 1/72 scale; although I may change that later. I'd almost have to list best armor job, ship job and aircraft job I did. Gonna have to decide which ones they are.

 

Worst job I ever did: Heller 1/72 scale E3B AWACS. I had to fill the wing roots with 1/4" sheet styrene doubled over just to fill the gaps. Several nacelles kept breaking off, landing gear breaking off, a lot of other parts breaking off; and this is all before I put the radar dish on! Finally, I just glued all the broken parts back on without trying to cover the fixes. Paint is the wrong color: I had to strip and re-paint it nine times! Finally I was running out of the correct color (for the third time! Not counting all thew white I used and re-used!) so I just reached for the nearest gray, shot it on, several days later I re-shot the white, and called it done!. Color's all wrong, white is cracked with all kinds of spiderweb cracks. Clearcoat also cracked in places.... man I could go on...

 

I'll try to get more accurate answers later. Good topic here. I like it.

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Worst job I've ever done: Miss Budweiser by MPC or AMT...can't remember who produced it. That model kicked my sorry rear from here to Iceland. And to this day I don't know why....I just couldn't do anything right on it.

 

 

The racing boat or the plane?

 

While you were in Iceland, did you chuck it in the volcano? Maybe now we know why it blew its top... it finally got around to looking at it and was displeased with the offering. :smiley16:

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Good topic.

The best kit that I have built thus far would probably be the Tamiya M6A1 Seiran. Pretty much fell together.

The worst kit that I have actually finished - Hobbycraft Corsair. Don't get me wrong, I have a stack of dogs, but none of them have been finsihed yet...

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Good topic.

The best kit that I have built thus far would probably be the Tamiya M6A1 Seiran. Pretty much fell together.

The worst kit that I have actually finished - Hobbycraft Corsair. Don't get me wrong, I have a stack of dogs, but none of them have been finsihed yet...

 

Tim, I've heard that the Seiran is a terrific kit (in both scales). I figure I'll get my hands on a 1/48 version down the line.

 

And which HC Corsair gave you fits? Their repop of the Monogram F4U-4 is a real bugger but their own line I've always had pretty decent luck with.

 

Later,

 

Lee

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Lee,

Seiran: I do have a smaller one started, but it's not finished yet. The 1/48 kit is the one I built a few years back. The biggest drawback of the kit is the huge canopy area if you don't like to mask. Thankfully the new vinal sets on the market make this super easy.

The HC Corsair was the "Commonwealth Corsair" boxing. It came out very well, and I put a ton of time into it but there were a few parts that just didn't fit worth anything. The one that really comes to mind were the gun inserts....

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Best fitting kit I made was the 1/32 Dragon BF-110C. Other than sketchy instructions the fit was awesome. Worst kit I attempted to make was the 1/32 Revell mirage III, holy cow- mega warped parts crappy detail, ugh. That kit didn't even make past the fuselage being glued together.

Edited by TheDude
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The best kit that I built was the 1/35 Tristar Pzkpfw I or the 1/48 Accurate F-6B Photo Mustang. I did my best to goof them up but they refused to fail :smiley20:

 

I wasn't so enamored with DML's 1/72 P-38 Droop Snoot. Had too many fit issues for the price. :smiley19:

 

I am proudest of the 1/35 Hobbycraft (Trumpeter mold) BJ-1212 that I converted into an African Technical. I challenged myself, made a plan, stuck with it and now I have a unique vehicle telling a not-too-unique story :smiley16:

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Good topic. Best kit would be the 1/24 Tamiya Nissan Skyline GTR35 that I recently completed. The worst kit (and one of my most successful builds) is the Polar Lights Carl Casper Undertaker show dragster.

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Best (recent) kit, for enjoyment and basic accuracy is the HOBBYCRAFT...wait for it...Spad XIII-! I wanna build another soon. Older, all-time 'best kit' would require an extensive nostalgia trip. Best 'accomplishment' is probably Monogram's 1/72 Tigercat: First ever effort at scribing panel lines and that paid off nicely. Added resin engines, scratched the cockpit and took good care of the basics on that one. Finish came out nice, too; i.e. the mistakes are hard to spot. Sad thing is that its effing PE antenna mast keeps breaking off.

 

Worst kit ever: Absolutely the 1/144 B-17 by Crown, Academy,Minicraft, or whomever re-pops this nasty little beast. For the life of me, I cannot understand why there is no decent B-17 in this scale!

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Best - Tamiya Panzer III M/N - The early one, actually most of their early tanks were good builds.

 

Worst - Special Navy Type XXI U-boat - Round hull and no locating pins, what were they thinking of? Parts that were made of resin that could have been plastic would probably made it cheaper. Photo etch snorkle that could have been engineered better for much easier assembly. Just a few of the things I remember.

Edited by LesWalden
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