In my humble opinion that is indeed a very subjective question.  Certainly there are manufacturers that do a better job than some others, but many of the worst in this category also are the ones that offer the most interesting kits. 

From personal experience I can say that I have always had good luck with the fit of Tamiya, Trumpeter, Italari, and Hasagawa kits.  Typically for most LHS purchases, the more the kit costs the more detail went into it's production and the better the quality (don't depend on that though!).   

My real recommendation is to Google kit reviews of any kit you are interested in before you buy it to see what others have said on it's fit and finish.  Also in the in-progress builds on this site, you will start to see certain manufacturers mentioned over and over as quality producers.  I try to always do this and it has saved me from a few kits that after reading the reviews and in-progress builds were well beyond my skill level.  It also helps so that I can make sure that what I am getting isn’t going to be the one model from that manufacturer that isn’t worth spit.

I take it that you want a kit that you can build easily, rather than beat into submission?

All of the kit makers are going to have well-engineered kits that fit together like they're supposed to, and they're also going to have their share of problematic kits that will fight you all the way to the finish line.

Tamiya is likely going to be the most recommended manufacturer for your needs, as they have an excellent reputation for well-engineered, high-quality kits in all areas of interest.

What are you looking to build?  Cars, aircraft, armor, ships...?   What one company does well in one field they might not do so well in another... Dragon does excellent, if not fiddly, armor but their aircraft can be real PITA's that require a lot of work to make fit right.  Not to mention their instruction sheets can make a stone statue cry in frustration.

Best thing I can recommend is that you inquire about specific kits of a given subject- that way you'll get the most useful feedback.

Another nod to 'google reviews of the specific kits you're interested in' angle.  If you want to build aircraft, espcially in 1/32 scale, then any newer Tamiya kit is going to be close to perfect.  Their mold quality is so high that putting together a Tamiya spit, mustang, or zero is considered by some to not even be 'modeling', but simple construction.  The price of their kits generally reflect the quality, however, so you're directly trading fitting time for money.

Trumpeter and Hasegawa... you need to google the kit.  Here, LSP, Hyperscale, etc. between them have reviewed pretty much every kit in existence, and you'll immediately see the good ones from the problem children.  My first kit back was the Hasegawa 190 D-9 in 1/32, and I researched it extensively.  It almost fell together, with only a few seams to challenge my nascent skills.  I didn't research the next kit up, the Hasegawa 109 K-4, nearly as well, and it was a nightmare.  The next two were Trumpeter, the Me 262 A-1 and Mig 3, and they both got good reviews and indeed went together well especially in the large, important parts.  

Decide what you want to build and in what scale, and then google reviews on it.  

If your primary concern is fit and overall engineering quality, it's hard to go wrong with Tamiya.

Their armor kits are almost universally recommended as the best way to get into tanks and such.

Their aircraft can vary - and they do have a few dogs - but their 1/48 single-engine props generally exhibit excellent fit. And in those you have a few that are somewhat dated (Fw 190) and a few that are among some of the best kits ever put into a box (P-47). But they all fit pretty well, and most of them can be picked up for around $20-$25. The P-47 will be closer to $30.

In 1/32, Tamiya's new Spit and Mustang are amazing, but I would't recommend them until you've got some kits under you. The fit is spectacular, BUT they are very involved kits, and even with everything snicking together you have to pay a lot of attention to what you're doing.

If I had to recommend one, it'd be Tamiya's 1/48 P-51B (or Mustang Mk.III if you want the RAF version). A gorgeous kit on just two sprues. Fit is impeccable. And you can find it for $20 online.

Now getting out of here before the Monogram Mafia sniffs this thread out!

It's a question of money. There are good cheap kits and lousy expensive kits, but IMO most good kits are expensive.

IMHO from the kits that I've actually built,  & recent kits only:

Aircrafts:

1.  Hasegawa

2. Tamiya

3.  Hobbyboss

4. Trumpeter

5. Revell Germany

6.  Revell America

WWII Armor:

1. Dragon

2.  AFV Club

Modern Armor:

1.  Tamiya

2.  AFV Club

3.  Hobbyboss (not built, but in stash)

4.  Trumpeter (not built, but in stash)

Ships:

1.  Tamiya

2. Trumpeter (not build, but in stash)

3. Dragon

PilotSpike

Boy the newbie is asking all kinds of questions lately.

I haven't found much info regarding this in past threads, probably because its such a subjective question. Could someone give me a general ball park list of kit manufacturers ordered by quality of their products? I am working on my first kit since childhood and having a good but somewhat tedious time getting things to fit acceptably. Obviously thats part of the hobby. However, one thing I was considering was making my next model one that was going to go together a bunch easier without having to fidget with it so much.

I realized that I didn't know how to go about finding a kit on the upper end of mold/fit quality as I dont really know anything about the manufacturers and what they are known for. Hence the question. So, if I wanted to get a model that is lower on the frustration and higher on the quality scales, to what manufacturers would I be looking next time I am at my LHS?

 

John

 

Awfully broad question, like asking what brand of vehicle you should buy without telling us whether you need a minivan, pickup truck, SUV, sports car, sedan or motorcycle.

You need to narrow down genre, i.e. automotive, aircraft, ships, armor
Then let us know the subcategory within that genre; car, truck or motocycle? prop, jet or helicopter? modern or WW2? Country of origin? Era?

What one company does well, another may totally not do well. Without specifics, any anwers you may get could be useless unless someone happens to guess right.

I recently got (back) into modeling and had the same question. Primarily I am planning on building ships but chose the Tamiya 1/35th willys jeep as my first project. I dropped the shifter in the carpet and lost it, posted on the forums here about what to do and one of the suggestions was to get ahold of tamiya and see if they would replace the part. I thought there was no way, at the very least I would have to buy the sprue. Well, I emailed them and they got back to me in less than two days. They said they had the part and would send it right out to me. Sure enough, just 5 days later, I got it in the mail and it didn't cost me a dime! That's great customer service and I will certainly be inclined to buy a tamiya kit when given a choice from now on.

You can't go wrong with Tamiya and Hasegawa.

I would avoid Revell / Monogram.

Cadet Chuck

You can't go wrong with Tamiya and Hasegawa.

I would avoid Revell / Monogram.

I don't know about this. If you're looking for the best M10 Wolverine or M36 Jackson tank destroyers, Tamiya will get you the absolute worst of the available kits And if you're looking for a kit the Star Trek Voyager, Babylon 5 StarFury, 1/72 scale Space Shuttle or maybe some large 4-engined WW2 bomber in 1/48 scale like the B-29 Superfortress, Revell-Monogram maybe your only choice.

I say again, the answer depends on what subject you want to build.

Ain't no one best manufacturer,as has been alluded to. "Best" is subjective, for some, price trumps fit and detail. Others prefer the reverse. I work with Dragon on their ship kits, and they strive to be the best in terms of detail and fit, but the instructions are rushed and many find them difficult to understand. 

If you have an interest, odds are at some point you're going to have to stray away from the "best" to get what you want any way. The question is how much you'll enjoy it!

Tracy White

If you have an interest, odds are at some point you're going to have to stray away from the "best" to get what you want any way. The question is how much you'll enjoy it!

This is what I call "journey" versus "destination" kits.

A journey kit is one where you may be relatively "meh" on the subject matter, but the kit's supposed to be so fun/amazing/challening/whatever-blows-your-skirt-up that you dive in anyway. A great example of this - to me - is Zvezda's La-5.

A destination kit is one where you really want to build X, but the kit is anywhere from flawed to a total mess. But since you want to build X, you grit your teeth and power through. Right now, my biggest destination build is the P-38. Every single P-38 kit in 1/48 is pretty flawed in one way or another. 

I think most of us could probably lay these two out on an axis and scatterplot a ton of kits. Mine would be heavily weighted toward P-47s and Shermans...

I like to model as a way of getting closer to the actual object; this ship may be razor blades, but as I build it's deck I can picture walking down it. I don't often get to hear a P-47 or see one fly, but that model there fired a lot of examination and imagination as I put it together.

Some subjects are worth more of a journey to me. Others I won't do if it will take a lot of work. Some destinations I'm just not as interested in if it's a tough hike. That's where I tend to favor quality a lot more.

To further add to the confusion, you have to consider that many manufacturers will "re-pop" kits from mold's that previously belonged to other companies, so you can get "duff" kit's from good manufacturers & vice-versa.

I prefer "shake & bake" kits that go together well as I enjoy "constructing" & painting over correcting & repairing. Being from the UK & having a jet bomber fetish, the Avro Vulcan is simply a "must have" kit, but the only thing readily available (the only in 1/72) is the Airfix kit & it just isn't that nice, it does build into a good representation but some areas like the intakes & wing roots are bad........ but Airfix it had to be.

The XB-70 was another "must have", but the bland & ill fitting AMT/ERTL kit was all that was available. Not long after finishing this kit it became available from Italeri (at a fraction of the price ), but all the same problems remain as it's a "re-pop" of the AMT/ERTL kit.

As other have suggested, use Google & find reviews on the particular subject you want to model, this will allow you to find out which kit has the least issues, or if there is only an "iffy" one available they will point you in the right direction on how easiest to correct the issues.

For guys, it's, ummmm, kind of like women - one guys 10 is another guys 4.

And that's all I have to say about that.   

Cadet Chuck

You can't go wrong with Tamiya and Hasegawa.

I would avoid Revell / Monogram.

Avoid blanket statements like this one. R/M currently put out the best F-15E Strike Eagle in 1/48, and for a significantly lower price. They also produce 1/48 F-84G and F/A-18E/F that are every bit as good as (detail and fit wise) and less expensive the above listed Japanese companies. Decide what subject you want to build, then research the available kits of that subject. Sometimes your in a no win situation- 1/48 Sea Harrier FRS.1 comes to mind. Only two kits avaialble, both are old, Tamiya and Airfix. And both are far from stellar in any way shape or form. Sometimes  there are more kits of a subject than easily counted, 1/35 Panzer IV... the choices are not easily listed from multiple manufacturers over the past 40 years. And sometimes you get a one of kind kit that somebody does right on its one and only offering in said scale. Have fun with your new obsession here

Lots of responses. To be honest, you guys are parsing this a bit too closely for my purposes :)

In answer to your questions regarding subjects and scale, I envision working primarily in 1/48 aircraft and i have an interest in armor as well. I am currently working a 1/72 A-10 which I find a bit small for my taste. Incidentally its an Academy kit and noticed that nobody even mentioned Academy so far in the thread. Id love to say I know why, but with only 2/3's kit under my belt that wouldn't be a fair statement. Though, with as much time as I have spent filling seams and ejector marks .....

I have not been envisioning the majority of my model building as targeted subjects. There will be some aircraft and armor that I specifically want to model but I have a feeling that in the near future a bunch of my builds will be simply based upon browsing the LHS and finding subjects that intrigue me.  If I had an inkling of whether or not the mfg is a good one would be nice.

I think Dre summed it up nicely when he said: I take it that you want a kit that you can build easily, rather than beat into submission?

I will get better and get stretched by tackling the "beat into submission" kits but I was hoping to get to the point where I  know enough of the mfgs such that I can reasonably gamble and purchase a kit that I can build more easily. Maybe I just want to take a few weeks and put something together without argument :) Especially if I want to use it as a distraction from life.  Alternatively  I might want to work on painting skills or some such  and I wouldnt want to have to sink tons of time getting parts fit worked out, etc. I hope that makes sense.

Academy is a hit and miss sort of company. Their early releases were clones of other companies work: Tamiya, Fujimi. etc. Once they started going on their own molding some of their kits have been superb, but many have some flaws that may or may not bother the builder. They usually offer a good value for the money. But as many other companies do, they also re-box other companies kits as their own. I really like their 1/35 armor and 1/350 ships. Their 1/48 aircraft is in my experience their big hit and miss area. Their re-box of Hobbycraft kits IMO is not  a good value for the money (they cost more under Academy label, even though the kits are decent enough), and their own aircraft kits often are the ones with flaws that cause some to have fits and others to blow off as no big deal. But overall, I like their products and do not avoid them.

I have one each of their B377, KC97, B29 and actually two B50s. Outstanding series of kits, plus of course no others like them except the 29. The B17 C/D is a good one too.

I think the 1/72 P38 is a good kit.

But the Hunter doesn't sound too good.

stikpusher

Academy is a hit and miss sort of company. 

This.

Their 1/48 P-47N is a respectably solid kit. It's very obvious that it predates the engineering of the Tamiya Jugs, but it gets a lot of things very right. The cockpit is a bit on the spartan side - par for the course with a lot of Academy kits, in my experience - but it seems to go together well. I had one on my bench before I realized there was no way I could get very far into it before I'd have to pack stuff away for the move. 

Their 1/32 Nieuport Ni-17 also seems very good. Not Wingnut quality, but easily a match for what Roden's doing, at like a quarter the price.

I actually built their Spitfire Mk.XIV when I was a teenager, and recently picked up another that'll probably now stay stashbound for a long time, now that PCM's doing the 5-blader in 1/32. It has some shape issues that rivet counters whinge about, but I remember it going together pretty well.

I've heard pretty good things about their new F-22. But I don't have any interest in building modern aircraft anymore, so I'll leave any real impressions to someone who swings that way.

Then there's their 1/48 P-38. This kit infuriated me. Not because it's awful, but because it struck me as just inexcusably lazy. I can count the list of things it does better than the ancient Revellogram kit on one hand. It gets the upkink in the lower outer wings right. It has boxed wheel wells. Its steering yoke is molded separately from the control column. And, uh, that's it. The cockpit detail is no better. The boom/wing joins are still atrocious. The horizontal stabilizer is a mess. The canopy is done in five separate pieces with absolutely no provision for posing it open (i.e. no hinge or even the shape of one...), and if you go to build it closed, they don't align. The cooler intakes in the boom nacelles are just divots in the plastic. There are no positive location holes for things like pitot tubes and counterweights...you just get to glue these oddly-shaped, hard to grip pieces to the flat wing surface and hope you don't knock them off. If/when I tackle a P-38 again, it'll be the Revellogram, or maybe the Hasegawa if I find one that's not outrageously priced.

PilotSpike

I am currently working a 1/72 A-10 which I find a bit small for my taste. Incidentally its an Academy kit and noticed that nobody even mentioned Academy so far in the thread. Id love to say I know why, but with only 2/3's kit under my belt that wouldn't be a fair statement. Though, with as much time as I have spent filling seams and ejector marks .....

As mentioned previously, many of Academy's older kits are cloned from other manufacturers' donor kits. I believe your A-10 is another such example, the sprues being very similar in layout to Hasegawa's early 80's vintage A-10 kit.

Academy is a very tricky bird to peg. They started out with blatant copies of Tamiya armor kits, right down to decal marking. Most of their kits were B- copies, very close, but you could tell the quality of the molding was poorer, more flash and mold slippage, etc. Apparently, the South Korean company wasn't hindered by any copyright laws.

Towards the end of the 80s and into the early 90s, they started "improving" or modifying their copied armor kits so they were not totally direct copies. They also started making some kits of their own that were pretty good like their M998/1026/966/997 HMMWV kits. Two of their modified copies, their M113A1 and M113A2 were actually better than the Tamiya kits they were "inspired" by. Others, like the M1A1, M2A2 were not as good.

More recently, Academy armor has become hit and miss. Their long awaited M3/A1 Stuart series had plenty of errors the 30 year old Tamiya kits did not have. Likewise their M3 Grant/Lee kits had some issues as well (even had the opportunity to order replacement bogey sprues to fix this issue).

They did do some great original kits like the M12 SPG and some export variants of the M113 family of vehicles used by Korea.

Bottom line, if you do decide to purchase an Academy armor kit (or any other manufacturer's kit), it always pays to do a few minutes worth of googling to see if that $40 kit is worth the money. It amazes me that modelers who would drive an extra few miles to save pennies per gallon of gas won't spend 5-10 minutes on the internet to see if the tens of dollars they are about to spend on a model are worth it.

Rob Gronovius

They started out with blatant copies of Tamiya armor kits, right down to decal marking. Most of their kits were B- copies, very close, but you could tell the quality of the molding was poorer, more flash and mold slippage, etc. Apparently, the South Korean company wasn't hindered by any copyright laws.

In some cases they did make miniscule changes, perhaps so they could justify saying that their kits were not "exact" (laughing at the obvious difference in moulding quality) copies. The old Pz.IV Ausf.H had the orientation of one or two parts altered on one of the sprues compared to the Tamiya original. And oddly, the M2 Bradley's mouldings were the same layout as the Tamiya original, but the tracks were tooled with the track pads reversed on the track shoes.

Similarly, many of their early aircraft kits were near clones of Hasegawa (and other) originals.

Best thing I can sell you for free is to pick a simple cheap model to go at it and get your hands dirty. I suggest one of the older Tamiya subjects. They are simple and easy to build and understand. Then you have Dragon models with beautiful details and awful instruction sheets that leave you scratching your head on parts placement.  I have been building plastics since the late 60's and still learn something new everyday from places like this fantastic forum. Here you will find a lot of members eager to offer direction and help. Get a couple of the Chep Payne books which will help you sharpen some skills. These books are old but they are our "Bible"   so to speak. Do some web surfing on particular models and sometimes a review was done on it explaining the good and bad.

 First, Welcome PilotSpike. I'll speak to the 1/48 scale aircraft part of your interests as that is the majority of my building. I, like many of my compadres here, am a big fan of Tamiya and Hasegawa yet one manufacturer seems to have been overlooked here. That is Eduard. Now, have I built one yet, no. But, I have three of their kits in my stash mainly based on the reviews and research I did. They make a series labeled "Weekend Editions"  that are no frills kits that one might be able to build in a weekend. I have their Lavochkin La 7 in this series and it appears to be a simple build with rather nice detail and few fit problems. They are also an excellent bang for the buck. Their other kits are a bit more involved and include masks and PE detail. I bought their F6F-3 Hellcat after reading many reviews and follwing some WIPs and finding that this was hands down the cream of the crop for Hellcats based on accuracy, detail, fit and buidability. These kits are reasonably priced also.

 By asking this question here you are doing yourself justice as the folks here are immensely knowledgable and helpful and i have taken many an advice from them.

                                                      Enjoy The Ride, Joe

Pilotspike:

I'll echo what Stikpusher and Rob just said. The newer Academy tank kits are very nice. I recently built their kit of the S. Korean K1A1 and it's an excellent kit. I have their kit of the K-9 self-propelled gun and though I haven't started it looks like another excellent model.

Wow, great feedback. Thanx!!

DoogsATX

 

Then there's their 1/48 P-38. This kit infuriated me. Not because it's awful, but because it struck me as just inexcusably lazy. I can count the list of things it does better than the ancient Revellogram kit on one hand. It gets the upkink in the lower outer wings right. It has boxed wheel wells. Its steering yoke is molded separately from the control column. And, uh, that's it. The cockpit detail is no better. The boom/wing joins are still atrocious. The horizontal stabilizer is a mess. The canopy is done in five separate pieces with absolutely no provision for posing it open (i.e. no hinge or even the shape of one...), and if you go to build it closed, they don't align. The cooler intakes in the boom nacelles are just divots in the plastic. There are no positive location holes for things like pitot tubes and counterweights...you just get to glue these oddly-shaped, hard to grip pieces to the flat wing surface and hope you don't knock them off. If/when I tackle a P-38 again, it'll be the Revellogram, or maybe the Hasegawa if I find one that's not outrageously priced.

Ugggh, thats the next one I had on my pile. Its the Glacier Girl release. I have that and the Tamiya M1A2, and the Revell Germany Big Boy Locomotive all ready to go. Maybe Ill skip it and go to the M1A2 or pick up another aircraft.

Thanx for the heads up.

JOE RIX

That is Eduard.

I'll second a thumbs up for Eduard with one caveat; some of their kits are re-pops of other manufacturers with resin and photo-etch upgrades. Not bad, but not he same quality as the purely Eduard kits. Additionally, they can sometimes be a wee bit fiddly with the fit; the Bf-108 Taifun I built had very thin fuselage pieces and one of them had warped in a subtle way that made closing it up and getting that big canopy lined up right a little more work than I had expected. Still went together well otherwise, though.

Cadet Chuck

 

I would avoid Revell / Monogram.

Yeah... Monogram kits are for modelers...  Shake & Bakers need not apply..