Is Hobbycraft worthless?

There is an old saying, that you get what you pay for. If I'm correct they are old Trumpeter tooled kits. I didn't care for the M1 that I built, but it did have some nice detail.

It really depends with Hobbycraft.

If the kits are pre 1990 you could be looking for trouble, before then the company had most of its kit line up consisting of pirated versions of other manufacturers kits.

After 1990, they must have come under new management because their quality did go up noticeably as did the number of original kits in their catalog. They aren't up with Tamiya or Hasegawa in quality, but they are workable these days.

Specifficaly I was talking about their new "Operation Iraqi Freedom" line, I don't know if it's a new line or not. Some of the stuff looked pretty cool like the bmp, which I really like, but I just didn't want to spend 15 or 20 bucks on something I would just chunk in the trash.

I had a Messerschmidt BF109-g trainer os something like that just remember a two seter veriosn of the 109. It was absolute CRAP. I hated it. Terrible fit, looks sucked, it didn't look 1/72 scale it looked smaller, and the instructions were so confusing. After a day of sanding trying to get it to fit i slapped it together and gave it to my son who then promptly asked for his own model airplane to build. I did get him 3 models 2 planes and a car and he loved them. That was the only benefit of this kit.

http://www.angelfire.com/mech/stram0/Trent.htm

You can see pics of his models there. He really liked putting htme together and picking where to put the stickers. anyway sorry for the rant but i will never buy hobbycraft again.

I bought two of the HC Operation Iraqi Freedom kits from Hobby Lobby (%50 off, yay!!). They are the AS-90 and M1 Abrams. They are the Trumpeter kits, but in the HC box. Both hulls still have the Trumpeter logos on them. I have built the Trumpeter AS-90 and while it did need some improving, it looks good when finished. I haven't built the Abrams, but it does look good. I do think I will replace the M1 tracks with a set from AFV Club, but otherwise it will be built OOTB. As for the other HC stuff, stay away from the
T-55's and BMP's. The jeep is a copy of the Trumpeter chinese jeep and is very good.

Thanks, I'll prolly try out that Brit artillery, it looks pretty cool and it'll give me some good practice I hope. And as for your saying kaleu "Happiness is a belt fed weapon," then all you would need to reach Utopia would be a mg42 and lots and lots of 8 mill. Thanks guys

Hybbycraft makes a huge (1/24) Spitfire that's supposed to be awesome.

Speaking in general terms, Hobbycraft quality is mediocre to average with occasional nice kits. Of course, modeler skills and subject choice are important too. If HC is the only company that makes DeHavilland Vampire kits then the value of the kit skyrockets even if its engineering is not too impressive.

I have never have built Hobbycraft models before thanks for the heads up.
mark956

I've only ever built one of their kits, the 1/200 Boeing 747-200. This was a pre-1990 kit and I have to say it went well together. It's not as good as the Hasegawa kit (I blame in part the much softer plastic used by HC), but it's cheaper and very decent.

I'll echo what MonsterZero said... They are the only one to produce a fairly large number of esoteric or less well known planes such as the De Havilland Canada Otter, Caribou or the CF-100 and CF-105... So those kits, even if they are not Hasagawa quality, must count for more than yet another F-18, Phantom or MiG-29...

I built one of their 1/48 DeHavilland Vampires and while it was basic, it does capture the subject well.

I had to shorten the main landing gear legs a bit to get the right tail down attitude that it had on the ground and I needed a new nose wheel from the spares box, beyond that it was all straight from the box and I like it.

Several years ago I built their 1/72 S-2 Tracker. Its the Hasegawa kit and a very poorly done version of it at that. The parts looked like they came from a mold that had seen much better days. I built the Hasegawa issue of the kit a few years after that and saw how much better it was.

Like I say, if it comes from 1990 or later, its probably of respectable quality or workable at least. Pre 1990, save your money unless its one of the afore mentioned esoteric subjects.

I've also built (only) one Hobbycraft kit - a 1/72 scale EA-6B Prowler, and it was a disappointment. I was drawn to it by the price, but I won't be fooled again.

I built a BF-109E from Hobbycraft and it seemed OK. It was easy to build and didn't look too bad. I didn't use the kit decals... I also used it as a target for some airbrush experiments. I'd post a picture but I tossed the model a little while ago while cleaning out the closet. It was more of a practice build after getting back into this after a long layoff. The good thing I guess is, they're cheap so you can toss them or use them as practice for painting, etc. I'd rather do that on a $10 model than a $25-$30 Tamiya or Hawegawa kit.

Best I can say about Hobbycrap Hobbycraft is that they're a mixed bag. They have some really nice kits, and some which are good for the fourth of July. You just have to kinda know their catalog to know what's good and what's not.

Also, as with any kit, unless it's a total POS it is what you make it. As an example, Hobbycraft late-model 109's are kinda 'eh' but you can build 'em up rather nicely as evidenced below:




Fade to Black...

you could build up anything nicely Steve. I've got 1 HC kit unbuilt but it looked good and I tend the do a lot of tweaking. I buy cheap kits and make up for it in work. I did a little dry fitting and it didn't look too bad fit wise. (MIG25 1/72 by the way)

Thats probably a re-issue of Hasegawa's 1/72 MiG-25 you've got there Cassibill.

My experience with Hobbycraft kits goes like this:

1/72 CF-100 Canuck MK.5: decent kit with no real fit issues, can be made into a real beauty with a bit of work.

1/72 Avro Arrow: definitely showing its age as a kit, but still the only injection molded Arrow kit in 1/72 around, needs plenty of work.

1/72 Sukhoi SU-22 Fitter: this is a perfect example of Hobbysraft's pre 1990 crap. I don't know if it was an original kit of theirs or if they copied someone else's molds. Whatever the case, its not worth the money at any price.

1/72 FW-190A: another pre 1990 hunk of junk.

1/72 DeHavilland Dash 8: Its a basic kit, but the outlines are right and it shouldn't take much work to make something good with it.

I've already mentioned the 1/48 Vampire and 1/72 Tracker in my previous post.

Definitely do your homework and research before putting out money for Hobbycraft kits.

Cassibill,

I know just as well as anyone that you can make ANYTHING look good if you have the talent and the patience. I know I have plenty of the former, but only dwindling reserves of the latter. I wouldn't even bother with something like, say, Hobbycraft's 48th Hurricane when there's the Hasegawa kit. Why?

I myself have also built way too many crap kits and made up for their deficiencies through alotta extra work. Matter of fact, I used to HAVE to do it. But I got paid very well for it. That used to be the fun of it for me; it just ain't fun anymore.

Why would I build a Frog kit when I can build a Tamiya kit? So I can say, "HEY! I did something special here..."? Been there, done that and it got real old after almost twenty years. Nowadays, if I'm gonna build a masterpiece I wanna do it the easy way cuz I've already done it the hard way many times over. I just wanna build and enjoy it.

I ain't knockin' nuthin' and/or no one. That's just my present modeling philosophy.


Fade to Black...

Well I agree they aren't the best by a long shot, but sometimes they seem to be the only ones offering a particular kit. I always buy them expecting the worst, but their quality really seems to vary from kit to kit. The one thing that really irks me about them is their lack of instructions as to painting.

thems ok...

I have only bought one Hobbycraft kit, a 1:144 scale f-14 with the "Sundowners" tail art. At least, that's what the box art showed. It turns out there was a total of four decals ( the American insignia for the wings and fuselage. Now, this was years ago and I didn't expect recessed panel lines or anything for the price, but I did expect there to be some element of "truth in advertising" regarding the box art and the contents. I decided I couldn't trust Hobbycraft and did the Tomcat in VX-4 "Black Bunnies" markings ( easy to paint on, given the lack of decals ).

Thanks for the info on their management change. Maybe I'll risk getting their B-36. If it turns out to be substandard and needs a lot of extra work anyway, I'll just get the XC-99 conversion kit I saw advertised recently and make the extra effort worthwhile.

Their kits can range from really bad to decent. The 1/48th Corsair is a gem, but Tamiya has a bunch of 1/48th Corsairs so there's no really good reason to get the HC ones.

HC probably has some sort of licensing deal with Trumpeter with packaging their plastic. HC is also sueing Academy on some kits. Seems like the company HC sourced to make the plastic also shipped Academy the same thing.

Hi
Hobbycraft is definitely not 'worthless'. I find the notion of any kit being worthless absurd. THeir aircraft kits are decent, I"ve built a few of them, and they're on par with monogram and testors kits, so that'll tell you much. Definitely not Tamiya quality, but as tigerman said, you get what you pay for. They're fairly accurate in their overall shape and detail, but will need some basic improvements. If you build straight OOB, they'll build into fair representations of their topics.
As for their armour, most of it that you can find on the shelf today are reboxed Trumpeter kits, most notably their t-72 (which is a fairly old tooling) and the M1 Abrams. Not the same for their Bradley, which I've heard is pretty crappy in quiality. Give it a try, they're really not all that bad. At an average of half the price of Tamiya and Hasegawa kits, you can buy two HC for one Tamiya or Hasegawa.

I built HC twin mustang, and it was......painful, lots of work for an average model. That being said I am sure a better modeller could have done a better job.

I guess it boils down to how much of a 'challenge' your up to.