Why do we put up with poor quality kits?

No doubt about it there are some real crappy kits out there.
Lindberg and Starfix spring to mind.

Sometimes I think the model companies don't even bother to build a sample of the kits they produce. Flash is the result of poorly matching molds, which after a few thousand cycles of molding, can at least be understood, but is still unacceptable. But poorly fitting parts, bad instructions, parts in the wrong position, etc., are just plain sloppy design standards, inexcusable in this day and age, especially for what a kit costs these days.

You pay for what you get, you get what you pay for. Trumpeter, Tamiya, and Academy manufacture first-class kits but you pay dearly for them.

I don't mind cleaning up flashing and ejecter pin marks, but poor-fitting parts are completely different. I've got an Italeri F-16 cockpit that I finally just threw back in the box and gave up on. On the other hand, the Trumpeter F-105 I just finished went together with only minor glitches.

HEY,
I agree that the fit should at least be nice, flash and ejector pin marks are acceptable, although not wanted, but fit is a neccesity, cuz for the new modelers they get a cheaper kit to start and they get crap and think all models are like that.

Randy

QUOTE: Originally posted by MusicCity You pay for what you get, you get what you pay for. Trumpeter, Tamiya, and Academy manufacture first-class kits but you pay dearly for them. I don't mind cleaning up flashing and ejecter pin marks, but poor-fitting parts are completely different. I've got an Italeri F-16 cockpit that I finally just threw back in the box and gave up on. On the other hand, the Trumpeter F-105 I just finished went together with only minor glitches.

Can't totally agree with that. My Trumpeter M1 Abrams was a piece of , but at an affordable price.

I am building a VW Bug for my daughter, also by Revell and it's the biggest piece of #$%@ I've ever looked at. Makes me never want to look into another Auto again. I assume it is a very old casting.

If there's something that I really wanna build and the only kit available is less than perfect, with no replacement in sight any time soon, I'm just gonna suck it up and kick each problem in the butt as it comes along. Hence one of my half-tongue-in-cheek maxims:

You're a modeler... deal with it...


However, I've seen many folks here on FSM, presumably fairly new modelers, complain about ill-fitting kits and I honestly don't know what to say to them. I was a newbie once myself, but that was a long time ago when we didn't have a choice between great kits and kinda 'eh' kits.

It was tough being a newb then, but it's even tougher now because unless you know the history of a certain kit (ie; whose mold is it) you really have no clue what you're getting. And if you were lucky enough to build a fairly recent Tamiya aircraft kit as your first model, and then try to build an 'ole Monogram kit for #2, you could very well be in for a rude shock.

I have to continually bite my lip when I hear folks complain about ill-fitting kits and try to remember that not everyone has more than a few builds under their belt. All I can do is to be thankful that I grew up on less-than-perfect kits; it helped me to develop the skills which are necessary to deal with some of those golden oldies, if I so choose.

We've been quite spoiled over the last fifteen years or so...


Fade to Black...

Yup, mold technlogy & CAD have made the newer kit releases from the early 90's forward much better than the older generation kits. Also, kits used to be considered more as toys in the oldie days, but todays more mature modelers demand far more & the manufacturers have to respond to survive. Newbs are at a disadvantage if they go strictly by price or old names like Airfix, Revell, Heller, as they may end up with a piece of c*#p. Build a few of the newer Tamiya, Hasegawa, Trumpeter kits and develop some basic skills. Then if you want more challenge & learning experiences go with one of the 60's/70's era kits. I have developed some skill over the years, but I still prefer to build kits with excellent fit, recessed engraved panel lines & gobs of detail. Those that express yearning for the kits from the good old days probably no longer have rotary dial telephones, B&W Tv's, 8 track tape players & the Nehru jackets that were all popular in the good old days. Or, maybe they do .

Regards, Rick

LOL, i fit right into the "buying a cheap kit cause i'm a rookie" mold!! i went out and purchased a P-40 by revell at walmart just cause it was the only model in my small town! boy, i used up about a half a tube of squadron green before saying to heck with it, i used it for airbrush fodder. then, i looked another day and found a Revell F-14A and tried to assemble it..............not happening for the newbie!! it was worst that terrible!! so, i've stayed away from revell kits, but, i'm slowly moving out of my tamiya/hasegawa comfort zone into other cool kits that i like. its been a fun challenge most of the time to get a crappy fitting kit to look nice. later.

I have sucked it up to. One of the most expensive kits I have ever bought was pretty much trouble from the get go. Maint hing that irritated me was that the company went through the trouble to make such a big kit but seemed like they just rushed right though the process. And to boot the same kit has been rereleased a few times over the years with the same problems.

Yeah, I've done my share of sucking it up and dealing with it to. Try building some of the stuff from back in the early 60's if you want to see ill-fitting parts. Just "Poor" fitting parts was the norm in those days. A really bad kit wasn't worth the plastic it was molded from.

But I'm a technocrat now. I like technology and I guess I just expect companies to use the best tools available to design and manufacture these kits. Modern computer aided design and manufacturing has taken away any excuse for poor fitting parts. I deal with that software every day, there is no excuse for it any more.

QUOTE: Can't totally agree with that. My Trumpeter M1 Abrams was a piece of , but at an affordable price.

I'm really surprised about that. I've built 2 1/2 Trumpeter birds this year and they were all very well done.

QUOTE: Originally posted by MusicCity QUOTE: Can't totally agree with that. My Trumpeter M1 Abrams was a piece of , but at an affordable price. I'm really surprised about that. I've built 2 1/2 Trumpeter birds this year and they were all very well done.

Well you made a fair statement based on experience. Perhaps their armor is a bit behind. From the grapevine though, it seems they are making progress and are heading forward.

im working on a monogram 1/48 huey hog kit and its a load of crap, but its taking a lot of serious sanding and filling to make it look decent.

I have yet to get a "terrible" kit as such, but I'm sure it won't be long........

Wow, just got up and 13 replies overnight. I guess that I am not the only one with feelings on this subject.

Poor fitting, or just plain badly designed kits can be extremely off putting, especially to the newbie modeler.

Having said that, there is a lot you can gain from working on the older/cheaper kits, especially in terms of experience in things like filling and sanding, shape correction, and scratch building, which you are never going to learn from just building Hasegawa and Tamiya kits.

I think it just comes down to research, if you're a newbie check the kit out first to gain some idea of what you might be letting your self in for. I've found a great place to do this is:

www.modelingmadness.com

Don't dismiss the cheap kits though. I've found Revell's recent 1/72 kits to be excellent, and at least 50% cheaper than the equivalent Tamigawa kits, which are often older. Again it's a question of doing your homework.

Karl

I think we have all talked about this before,but let me say this;Life is like a model kit.You have some good and some bad.This is what builds your skills in building models.You end up learning how to make things work.How to build replacement parts and how to deal with the good,bad and just plain ugly.When you get a bad kit and come to this site,you have come to the right place.There are a lot of us that can help you in your time of need,so don't dispare,just ask.We will be there.As for me,I get my far share of bad kits and still make them work.I also can understand were you come from,but this is the nature of building.Digger

As a rule i try to stay away from cheap kits such as the department store models,every time i go into a Kmart store i see the Revell 1/48 P-40,Spit 1 and Me109g plus the host of auto's.
But if i want a particular model kit and all's thats available is a crappy cheap kit then i'll bite the bullet and put up with it......
Building a good model out of akit can be very rewarding.......
The Revell 1/72 Flower class corvette of the old matchbox mold is an ultra crappy kit in particular the armament guns and depth charges but it can be turned into a great model with a ton of patience and cursing..............

QUOTE: Originally posted by BlackWolf3945 It was tough being a newb then, but it's even tougher now because unless you know the history of a certain kit (ie; whose mold is it) you really have no clue what you're getting. And if you were lucky enough to build a fairly recent Tamiya aircraft kit as your first model, and then try to build an 'ole Monogram kit for #2, you could very well be in for a rude shock. I have to continually bite my lip when I hear folks complain about ill-fitting kits and try to remember that not everyone has more than a few builds under their belt. All I can do is to be thankful that I grew up on less-than-perfect kits; it helped me to develop the skills which are necessary to deal with some of those golden oldies, if I so choose. We've been quite spoiled over the last fifteen years or so...

I couldn't agree more. Times have changed in the past 15 or 20 years.

I remember some kits when I was a newb that could have put me off the hobby completey, some I gave up on, some I fought through, but I learned valuable things from every one of them.

The Warhammer Eldar Falcon grav tank in my signature is a fairly recent build for me and probably one of the more expensive models in my collection. The molding was good, but the parts fit in some places was an attrocity. Would it have come off as well as it did if I hadn't learned the value of a lot of dry fitting on crap kits from my earlier days in this hobby? Not a chance.

If you want crap kits look at Hobbycraft Canada products from before 1990, that was before they affiliated with Academy and started making their own kits and original moldings. Pre 1990 Hobbycraft meant crap quality pirated versions of other folks kits.

I once had Hobbycraft's 1/72 Grumman Tracker (nightmare beginning to end). A few years later, I bought Hasegawa's 1/72 Tracker and on opening the box realized it wa the same moldings as the Hobbycraft one, it was a pleasure to build though.

Fight through your Apache and remember it dates back to the late 70s or early 80s, before CAD, CNC machining and all those good things. I've seen that kit built into a masterpiece.

Good luck and don't give up on her!

QUOTE: Originally posted by KJ200 Poor fitting, or just plain badly designed kits can be extremely off putting, especially to the newbie modeler. Having said that, there is a lot you can gain from working on the older/cheaper kits, especially in terms of experience in things like filling and sanding, shape correction, and scratch building, which you are never going to learn from just building Hasegawa and Tamiya kits. I think it just comes down to research, if you're a newbie check the kit out first to gain some idea of what you might be letting your self in for. I've found a great place to do this is: www.modelingmadness.com Don't dismiss the cheap kits though. I've found Revell's recent 1/72 kits to be excellent, and at least 50% cheaper than the equivalent Tamigawa kits, which are often older. Again it's a question of doing your homework. Karl

.....i was gonna type......if you get lemons, make lemonade but, Karl took the words right off my keyboard.......well put Karl.
the poorer kits can be as good a learning tool as they can be discouraging........imo.....it's all perspective.

Interesting. Every time the topic of quality of the plastic comes up, the thread diverts to a discussion of the skill of the modeler. It's happened a couple of times now. Maybe it says something about how we view ourselves in relation to our hobby. To me they are two separate issues. I think Daveash raises a legitimate point about quality that is independent of the status of the modeler as a veteran or newbie.

There are really two aspects of quality that bear on the issue. The first is the quality of the design. It's obvious that designs have generally, though not universally, improved over the years in parallel with design improvements in other technologies - as rjkplasticmod pointed out. The other aspect of quality is the quality of the manufacturing process - flash, warping, shortshooting, etc. Daveash's point is well taken - the range in quality between individual models is greater than for almost any other items I buy except tools. In modeling it's definitely caveat emptor.

The simple response to Daveash's comment is that poor quality kits will disappear when they no longer sell. There is a silver lining in the cloud - the diversity of quality supports a diversity of manufacturers, a diversity of price, and a diversity of subjects that doesn't exist with the larger volume consumer products.

While coping with warped parts, flash, and ejector pin marks may build skills, once those skills are learned many of us modelers with only modest talents appreciate starting projects with the best quality for the price. Some like the challenge of making diamonds out of dog droppings. As long as they buy poor quality kits those kits will persist. That's good, of course - if someone is willing to buy low quality, it's good that level of quality is available.

The down side is that poor quality has a negative effect on newbies. The cheaper kits are exactly the ones that do require the most skills, so a newbie is more likely to buy one of the lesser quality offerings. My father bought my nephew a Warpogram kit. After a few hours my nephew gave up in frustration. One fewer hobbyist.

I don't have answers, just observations. OFF

Good points, all.
I only "put up" with a poor quality kit when it is a subject I really want to build.
And I only "put up" with it after doing my homework to make sure there isn't a better kit of that subject on the market.

I'm confident enough in my "skills" to contend with almost any kit, but I don't feel compelled to challenge those skills by taking a crap kit and busting my butt just to bring it up to accceptable standards.

My point: do your homework and find the best kit available.

Or vice versa: if you do actually want to bust your butt just to bring a crap kit up to snuff, search out said clunker and knock yourself out!

We all have different goals in this hobby, and there are certainly a wide range of kits out there.

Do your homework!

Hmm, another rant regarding poor quality kits?

Well, as consumers, we are the ones with power. We chose to buy these kits. Do you honestly think a company will actually advertise the fact that they are selling inferior products? I think not, lest they be run by a very strange person

QUOTE: We all have different goals in this hobby, and there are certainly a wide range of kits out there.

I couldn't agree more. You know what J-Hulk, your input is always nothing short of insightful. There ARE a variety of kits available to us, and it is completely foolish to think that all of them should be first rate. Just like pretty much any single product you can buy, there are bad examples and there are good examples.

How come no one complains about aftermarket kits? They carry a VERY high price, yet the fit and finish of many of them is quite sub-par...

I see a bad kit as nothing more than a challenge. Personally, I don't really mind them. I know that when I get one, I generally pay half as much as I would for a well-made kit, and that to me is great. I would not like it very much if every kit out there is a beauty, but a pricey, thus more than likely unatainable by myself.

Variety is the spice of life. If you don't like it, complain, make your voice heard, then move on.

1:35 Maquette T34/85 with mine roller. The indys that came with the kit, totally suck. The plastic didn't completely fill in all the details of the mold. But I liked the rest of the kit; the price was right, fit was good, and the subject was interesting.