Hardest Kit you made?

Kittyhawk's Jaguar.  That thing fought me every step of the way.

Hobbyboss m1070 truck trailer combo probaly the best enjoyable kit I have ever Built

Teenage Modeler

For me, probably my P-47 from Tamiya. I have not built it yet, and won't plan to,

This is one of the nicest kits out there. It practically builds itself. A true gem in the modeling world.

For me, my Kenetic E-2C Hawkeye. Great kit but tons of work. Looks awesome done.

BK

   Back in the early 90s Dragon issued a Scud TEL, I think it was about 40.00US. Best 40 bucks I ever smashed. Next would without a doubt be ANY B-17, love that plane but cant build one to save my life.

I did a cal-fire S2T tracker conversion from the 1/72 hasegawa kit.  Kit was fine, but conversion required major surgery.  Super fun though.

Hasegawa 1/48 Tomcat

Couldn't beat that one for some reason 

DiscoStu

Kittyhawk's Jaguar.  That thing fought me every step of the way.

 

This one? 

Tamiya P-38. So many fiddly parts. For me the kit is like restoring Glacier Girl: No end in sight. It's been sitting on my shelf of doom for about a year maybe half finished.

The old Revell Black Widow.  The horror.  The horror.

Other one was 1/35 AFV Club's Wiesel 1 TOW.  Who would have guessed such a small subject could give such big headaches.

I'd say it's a tie between any Lindberg,MPC, and AMT kit.  Lindberg(paddlewheeler boat)kits because of the poor parts fit and parts seldom labeled on the sprue. Any of the old AMT semi truck kits(Mack trucks) because parts are seldom labeled and the vague parts placement on the instructions. MPC, well come on, you probably know why but any of the reasons above describe MPC kits.  So, why do I still build these kits, they make unique subjects and I like a challenge.

fotofrank

Tamiya P-38. So many fiddly parts. For me the kit is like restoring Glacier Girl: No end in sight. It's been sitting on my shelf of doom for about a year maybe half finished.

 

Really !!!! We've heard so many good reviews that it is one of the best engineered kit ever,just falls together, on and on,I'm shocked.

But thanks, I will have to think on this one.

The Revell AG 1/72 Leopard 2s (Leopard 2A6, Swedish Leopard 2, Leopard 2A5/A5NL). These kits have defeated four attempts to build them. The problem is that you have to glue the suspension arms to the hull, the wheels to the arms, then bend two lengths of hard plastic track around the sprocket and the idler.

1st attempt Leopard 2A6: didn't work too badly, except that one of the idlers broke off and I had to pin it back on. It was only after I finished that I realized that I'd bent the arms down, and the tank was now too low (All. my. friends. wanna be a lowrider...)

2nd attempt (2A5/A5NL) Three suspension arms broke off, and the track broke in two places because I didn't let it soak long enough in warm water.

3rd attempt (Swedish): I used a hairdryer (Acme Corporation, I think) to warm up the track. Unfortunately it warmed up the suspension arms, too, and they pointed in all directions.

4th attempt (2A6) This time there was going to be no guesswork. After setting the suspension, I cut pieces of .040 plastic and glued the tops of the wheels to the bottom of the sponsons, which allowed me to press down on them. It worked. Of course I couldn't do the complete run, but as they say, sideskirts hide all sins. Sadly, after I'd primed it I realized that the rear end was jacked up. 

5th attempt (Border Models Leopard 2A6): Shake and bake kit gave me a perfect model after two days of building. Expensive, but after all I'd spent on the Revell kits...  The end.

That might be an older version, rather that the new "G/H" tool.  On the P-38.

Being a newer modeler I started with Tamiya models for the easier construction.  They have been a blast and went together pretty well.  So far-Tamiya A6M2 Zero 1/48 no problems there.  The F6F5 Wildcat I don't recall any headaches.  F16 a little trouble with some of the landing gear assembly but my favorite build so far.  Ferrari F189 had a major issue with the top body mating with the lower section.  Everything else with that build was great.  Two MK.1 Spitfires that was super fun.  Had trouble with PE belts and the canopy on one but that was self inflicted.  Tried my skills with an old AMT indycar.  Tons of flash and cleanup but I didn't have any problems.  Currently building the Toyota GT one and it's been a pleasure.

So I only bring that up because Im also building my first Hasegawa kit.  The F15E.  Its kinda kicking my butt.  The cockpit went together great but now I'm on the intakes and it's been a chore.  After  hours dry fitting I can't figure out how to avoid the major gap between the intake and fuselage.  The entire intake assembly has been a head scratcher.  On the positive side, it's teaching me trouble shooting skills and I'll get more practice with filling seams. I'm sure it's gonna be great when completed but it's testing me for sure.

Did I spoil myself with Tamiya kits?   

What's needed for Lindberg models

1/48 Kitty Hawk F-35B.  Loads of work, but when it was finished I realized that I enjoyed every second of it.

Ha - use in order left to right lol

Ha!  I'd say that you have everything that you need to build either a Lindberg, AMT, or MPC kit except maybe a large garbage can.

MPC R2D2, '77 issue.

I threw it into the trash, but my mom found it an encourged me to finish it.  It was a tough build for an eight year old kid.

Hardest? Does that mean bad, challenging, or just time consuming/

Bad- A couple of AMT cars I bought from Round 2. Hood will not close over the engines,

No locator pins/ holes for the trim. I guess we didn't care when we were pimply virgins in the 60's.

Challenging- any wood plank-on-bulkhead ship. 

Time consuming- I'm on year ten of the plastic 1/100 Heller HMS Victory. About normal schedule.

Bill

For me, it was DML's 1/48 Me-262 single seat night fighter prototype.  Challenging fit, bulletproof stainless steel PE, and it was being built for a contest.  I detailed both exposed engines and tried PE seat belts for the first time. In the end, the build was an unpleasant experience.

The other kit that really kicked my butt was Bandai's 1/60 Perfect Grade Gundam GP-01.  Soooo many parts, sooo many subassemblies, and though I called in help to finish it, it couldn't end soon enough.  So after that, no more Perfect Grade kits.

Tauro's A7V Sturmpanzer WW1 tank. That thing is a beast.

Heller's 1/100 Soleil Royal. I've had a love/hate relationship with it since 2012 and it still isn't fully rigged. In a moment of weakness I also started their Victory. It too languishes undone.

There are two, tied for the hardest, the Mephistofele race car and the Benz 1886 Motorwagon.

The Mephistofele because there were so many very small parts, and the fit was not that great.  The Benz had a very flimsy frame and even flimsier wheel rims.  You have to dish the PE spokes to the right cone angle. There is a jig provided, but it does not allow for springback of the hardened brass. The spoke ends are sanwhitched between the plastic half-rims.  When the wheels came out of the jig the rims snaked around instead o staying in one plane.  I had to bend many of the spokes further.  Of course, with harded brass you have to overbend a lot, and that would break the fragile rims!

For me , the hardest kit would have to be the Pyro Natches steamboat. 

Nothing wanted to fit, and a few parts are definitely out of scale.

I went through HECK trying to scratch build my own grand staircase, because the kit supplied stairs were crap !!!

Most challenging? I'll second the Dragon 1/35 Scud kit. Lots of fiddly over engineered working sub assemblies. That one was many times build part, put it away for awhile to recover my sanity.

Self inflicted? Monogram 1/48 B-26B. Not because of the kit itself, but because I got the idea to super detail and scratch build most all of the interior- cockpit, bombardier area, navigator/radio compartment, waist & tail gunners sections, wheel wells, etc. If it was even possibly remotely visible from the exterior, I built it. So lots of time later, I had a gorgeous model, but man was it a long involved process to get there.

Fought me all the way? Maquette 1/35 T-34/76 1941/42 Stz production. Lots of surgery needed... measure twice, cut once, clean up and repair that... repeat... almost threw that one against a block wall multiple times, but... no model will defeat me!

I have been building airplanes and cars for about six years. The Tamyia 1/12 scale Ferrari 312T and the ELF 6 wheeler are by far my most difficult builds. The difficulty is due to the fact that both models have hundreds of parts, most require individual attention and painting. Also, due to the large scale of the models, the models scream out, "Detail me, detail me, detail me."

Tojo72

 

 

fotofrank

Tamiya P-38. So many fiddly parts. For me the kit is like restoring Glacier Girl: No end in sight. It's been sitting on my shelf of doom for about a year maybe half finished.

 

 

 

 

Really !!!! We've heard so many good reviews that it is one of the best engineered kit ever,just falls together, on and on,I'm shocked.

But thanks, I will have to think on this one.

 

Tojo, that's just me. Don't let my comment dissuade you from getting the kit and having a good time building it. Sometimes I get lazy and I want to do a build that goes together more quickly than the P-38 kit.

BrandonK

 

Teenage Modeler

For me, probably my P-47 from Tamiya. I have not built it yet, and won't plan to, 

This is one of the nicest kits out there. It practically builds itself. A true gem in the modeling world...

Second that, BrandonK!

Teenage Modeler, have no fear about that kit, and about Tamiya kits in general.  They are engineered very well.  So you'll get good practice with a Tamiya kit, because you don't have to fight the kit, but you can exercise your skills and build confidence.  Then you'll be ready when you pick up a truly difficult kit.