The worst model kits available .. a Top 10 run-down

 

Martin Slovak posted an interesting overview of a range of model kit companies and their worst kits as a comment to the Champion Scale Modelling youtube site video (see bottom)..I've reposted it here and added my own comments and remarks. 

In fact I've built a few of these, from the hopeless Fokker Dr. 1 (Smer) to the ancient Airfix 'classic', the DH 88 Comet. Probably the worst kit I've ever built is one that many will know - the Italeri P-51 in 72nd scale. Or is it the Academy Fw 190 in 72nd scale. Or even the Hobbycraft Me 109 D in 48th scale. I guess if built out-of-the-box it's not too bad, but try correcting it! More below...

- Smer
The last kit this company really tooled is from the early 90s. When taken in perspective to the age when these kits were created, they are not bad (can be compared to present short-run kits and with some work are adequate). These kits are for those who want to get back to their modelling beginnings or want a specific thing (Su-25 1/48 and some more). See their 1/44 Fokker Dr 1 elsewhere on this blog

- MisterCraft
This company have never tooled their own kits - all their 'range' are re-boxes of old Smer/KP/Frog/other eastern Europe kits from 80s/90s (and the molds are not maintained properly so there is loads of flash).

- Amodel
This is a specific company...for me their kits were a miss. According to Martin you are 'best off getting a lump of wood and carving the plane from it than from their kits..'

- Trumpeter / Hobby Boss
Mostly high quality and very buildable. However some new-tools are really inaccurate shapewise and/or overly complicated with details that cannot be seen. See their Fw 190 V-18 elsewhere on this blog.

- Airfix
the 'favourite' kit brand of this blog, especially since the division to "Classic line" (old kits) and standard new kits. See their very ancient DH 88 Comet elsewhere on this blog - issued in 1957, it was pretty poor then one imagines, complete with solid cockpit with pilot heads. The new kits are generally brilliant - see the 48th scale Sea Vixen elsewhere on this blog. However certain of their new tools - even the brand-new Vulcan - have been found to suffer from certain quality control issues, including but not limited to short-shot parts! This must improve..

- Zvezda
Anything before 2008 is hit or miss, anything newer is quite good and represents good value for money. See their 'snap-together' Fw 190 and Bf 109 in 72nd scale elsewhere on this blog.

- Italeri
Interesting subjects, usually not so good in the fit department, especially their 72nd scale P-51, possibly one of the worst kits I've ever tried to assemble (but some kits have cartograph decals so...). Their Bf 109 G-6 in 72 nd scale is an absolutely awful kit too - tyres like tractors' and an undercarriage that is far too wide. Here's one I finished as a 'wilde Sau' nightfighter of JG 300. Dreadful. I also built their Apache in 72nd scale - I spent some six years on and off filing and filling and sanding that one!

-Academy

a 72nd Fw 190 A that looks absolutely nothing like a Focke Wulf - the ailerons are over-sized, the tail too small and the front cowl an abomination! Academy's Dora-9 on the other hand is not too bad at all

The Revell & Academy Fw 190s side by side in the colours of Heinz Bär's 'Red 13' (JG 1) and Staffelführer JG 11 Erich Hondt. Note how horrible the Academy kit is (on the right!) with its barn-door type wing & hopelessly oversized ailerons. The rudder and engine cowl are also under-sized. In fact the front end bears no relation to the actual aircraft - easily Academy's worst 72nd scale kit.

And a late contender from AZ  - their 72nd MB-5. Nice subject but when producing a short-run kit you do at least need to get the fuselage halves the same size. The canopy was simply too horrible to use as supplied. Full story elsewhere on this blog

Building the AZ -MB-5 in 72nd 

 

British Airways Boeing 747 in BOAC livery

As part of British Airways 100 years centenary one of the current 32 strong fleet of 747-400s, reg G-BYGC, is painted in BOAC colours. Another one is painted in the Landor scheme, a third one in the Negus scheme. All three will remain in these colours until retirement in 2023/24.


" ..Monday February 18, 2019 – Large crowds gathered at Heathrow today to watch the much-anticipated arrival of a British Airways Boeing 747 painted in the iconic design of its predecessor British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC).

The aircraft entered the IAC paint bay at Dublin Airport on February 5 where it was stripped of its current British Airways Chatham Dockyard design before being repainted with the BOAC livery which adorned the BOAC fleet between 1964 and 1974..."

  The BOAC-liveried Boeing 747 model and photos are by Tom Weir (shown here with Tom's permission). The kit is the original 1/144 Airfix 747 BOAC boxing with Two Six Decals BOAC 747 silk decals. Below, the real machine  - or almost. G-BYGC is a -400 variant with the extended upper deck. Photo taken on 12 June 2019 on a wet ramp at London Heathrow Terminal 5 prior to operating BA 243 to Mexico City - my son's last B747 flight prior to converting to the A350.

Airfix De Havilland DH Comet 1:72nd - finished (4)

..decided to perform some more surgery on the Comet since it was looking a little 'toy-like' and I've now cut out the rudder and elevators and added the engine exhausts and undercarriage struts from fuse wire. Also scribed the cowl hinge line and the cooling gills and added the mass balances on the rudders and elevators. Completed model below - note the neat effect of the flash on the nose landing light! I've since added some better pics taken in natural light. Things still to do, the rear of the prop blades should be black and I guess the internal canopy framing might well be in black too, but you have to stop somewhere. Overall I'm happy with it - a fiver (£5) for a 50-year old kit (!!) with no cockpit and no details worthy of the name is probably a bit much though....still a fair bit of modelling 'fun' for your money I suppose... let me know what you think.

Airfix De Havilland DH 88 Comet

This old Airfix kit is of course in the current catalogue although it dates from the late 1950s I believe - needless to say the fit is appalling. But still it is nice to have this 'golden oldie' available cheaply with nice new decals. The cockpit aperture is solid plastic with pilots heads inset and requires cutting away. Here I have detailed the cockpit in about ten minutes flat with an old Italeri Bf 109 cockpit and Spitfire IX seats with blu-tac leather seat-back detail. A 48th scale Spitfire flap cut in two makes for some reasonably convincing fuselage wall detail!

 To my eye this looks just as 'representative' as the Whirlybird resin. Instrument panel via a  3-D kits printed Spitfire panel...

AFAIK the colour of the Comet's cockpit is black, not the wood grain finish most modellers seem to leave it in. Period cockpit views of the real DH 88 are rare - here is one shot published in a 1971 issue of French magazine 'Le Fana de l'Aviation'. Note the large undercarriage retraction 'wheel' on the right hand side of the cockpit just visible in the lower colour pic of the Shuttleworth Comet.

Another rare view of the DH 88 cockpit from the Oz Typewriter blog.  London Daily Express air correspondent Victor Anthony Ricketts tests out elbow room for typing in the cockpit of the de Havilland DH 88 Comet.

A couple of neat views of the 'green' machine G-ACSR, subject of my boxing of the Airfix kit..

Clamping together the fuselage halves - fit is appalling.  The nose has been cut away for a piece of clear plastic that will be sanded to shape to represent the nose landing light. The engine cowls have been glued together and there is some radiator detail visible in there via an old P-51 part. Seat harnesses are fashioned from champagne bottle foil which will be painted green..

Airfix Morris Marina -1:32

no I'm not building it ..or even bidding, but this is so rare I'd thought I'd like to keep some record of having seen it on this blog. This is one of the hardest Airfix kits to find out there and certainly the rarest of the so called “modern” car series. According to the seller; " the kit is all complete although some parts are of the sprues. The instructions and complaint slip are there and this is a series 2 kit in the Type 4 box. There are some minor marks  on the front but overall this is still going to be a very desirable kit and I would rate it 8 out of 10 if I was perfectly honest due to the parts not all being on the sprues and the marking to the box.." .

new tool Airfix Hurricane IIC / Heller Hurricane IIC/ Manston Hurricane IIC

With the new Revell Ju 88 already on the 'shelf of doom' and no sign of the Fly Henschel Hs 123 on the workbench, I've been building another pair of WWII 1:72 fighters, the new tool Airfix Hurricane IIC and its elderly counterpart from Heller. Aside from the fact that with a bit of surgery you can build a Sea Hurricane from the new Airfix kit, there is not a lot to choose between the two. Of course the Airfix kit has engraved panel lines and is readily available and I'm already planning a nice series.

You have to cut out the rear lower fuselage to fit the arrestor hook and there are no catapult spools provided so I've added my own using some coloured beads from a craft set, partially visible in the pics below, which show the Airfix kit on the left and the Heller IIC on the right. The Airfix kit looks a little short in the nose alongside the Heller kit but is fine when painted and photographed on its own. I'm pretty pleased with it. In many respects as nicely detailed as the Revell Hurricane, and gets my vote as it doesn't have that poorly done canopy that detracts from the Revell kit.

As usual my pre-shading was a waste of time, but post-shading the panel lines worked nicely, if only because with a single colour scheme it's possible to lightly mist some of the main colour back over the post-shading! The Heller IIC (bottom) is finished in Gleed's well-known scheme from the Aeromaster "Hurricanes at War" sheet.

Worth noting perhaps that one of the three decal options in the new tool Airfix Hurricane kit is the Hurricane IIC BN 230 flown by the first Belgian RAF Squadron Leader, "Danny" Le Roy du Vivier of 43 Squadron. Leading the Tangmere Wing, Le Roy was one of the first pilots over Dieppe during the ill-fated 'Jubilee' operation of 19 August 1942 according to the plaque at the 'Manston Spitfire and Hurricane Memorial'. I mention this because the Manston IIC  is my 'local' preserved Hurricane and is finished as Le Roy du Vivier's machine. Originally LF 751 and built at Hawker's Langley factory in early 1944, Manston's Hurricane was restored duing the 1980's using many original parts especially in the cockpit .