which brand

upnorth, bearing in mind of course that RevellAG also reboxes Matchbox and Italeri from time to time, I agree that their later kits are excellent, as are Tamiya and late Hasegawa from the last ten years or so. As for Hobbycraft, I am less impressed since their recent sale. The new owners brought in some kits, such as the P-51B in 1/72, which were made in Poland, I think by Intech, and they are not state of the art. The Hobbycraft items taken over by Academy are good, as are the last three or four years of Hobbycraft items. I am finding, however, that another P-51, BF-109, or Fw-190 doesn't thrill me any more. I find myself building more ICM and Classic Airframes and desiring Eduard kits because they are not the same six subjects.

its an interesting comment to make about revell monogram kits, interesting because while that problem seemed to be apparent for a while in Revell monogram kits from stateside i've never once encountered a fit problem in Revell Germany kits of any scale.

I haven't built much by Hasegawa or Tamiya in the past couple of years with the exception of Tamiya's 1/48 MiG-15 and I have no complaints about that.

Hobbycraft kits have gotten much better after that company cleaned up their act a few years back, I remember days when you couldn't get one of their kits to fit together for anything, but their 1/48 Dehavilland Vampire kits are decent enough with a little extra work.

I'd baisically agree with everything said above. I grew up on Revell-Monogram kits, great bang for the buck but typically moe fit problems that can burn you out or turn you off. Their newer stuff has been much better.

I think the best kits are made by DML,Italeri,Hobbycraft,Tamiya and Hasegawa.

After 21 years of building I'm glad to have companies like Tamiya around. Constantly battling mediocre kits that require many hours of rework will lead to burn out, at least it has for me. The nice thing about Tamiya is that you get a near perfect exterior (on aircraft at least ) and an ok cockpit. This allows me to flex some of those creative muscles by detailing the cockpit with some scratchbuilt or aftermarket items. I like focusing my energy on one area and letting Tamiya take care of the rest. Their selection of kit offerings has grown quite a bit compared to ten or twelve years ago.

I also enjoy Hasegawa models as well, but consider Tamiya to be slightly better.

Darren

Like the above comments, rescent Revellogram a/c are descent. Tamiya kits you just add paint,glue and throw in a box and shack. Tada a built up right before your eyes.
Every once in awhile you may come across a bad mold no matter who produced it. Hey it happens from time to time. It all depends on how many times they use the same molds over again.
Its your call if you want an easy build or "it makes ya think" build. Flaps up Mike

I think it all depends on what interest you and you want to build. Sure enough, if you are into japanese aircraft, or modern stuff such as F-14, F-15 and the like, Tamiya, Hasegawa and Fujimi are going to be what you want to buy, 95% of the time. Good kits (most of the time), that can easily been build 'out of the box'. However, if you are interested in, say, pre WWII French air force stuff, well, forget those brands... It will mean short run companies, possibly resin kits, often requiring lots of extra work to get a nice looking model.

Building a kit 'out of the box' is fine. I do it time to time, to change pace, but I also take much more pleasure in working on a poorer offering, bringing it up to Tamiya stadards (and above) with plastic card, plastic rod, foil, metal wire, and whatever else I can lay my hands on.

Gee, I thought the bad fit of the Revell kits was MY fault! I personally found that Tamiya and Hasegawa (okay, I've only built one of each so far) fit beautifully. But my wallet looks emptier too!

Buy Tamiya and u wont go wrong. I'm building the Tamiya 1/48 scale Meteor and Wildcat right now, and they go together real nice. ProModeler is great too.

I agree with berny13. Revell has gone through many ownership changes over the years and I found the quality of their kits varied as much as the owners. Some were extremely good and others, well...

I do 1/72 scale airplanes. Hasegawa, Italeri, and Academy are three of my favorites for "common" aircraft subjects. Tamiya kits are the best, but in 1/72 the selection is limited to a few WW2 subjects and a couple jets. For more obscure aircraft subjects I go the the eastern European manufacturers (like MPM) but those are short-run kits and may be a little difficult to build. Hope this helps.

Regards,

Pat

What scale and which aircraft model? Some of the early releases had fit problems, in 1/48 scale, but the later releases fit much better. As far as 1/72 scale, I don't know but I am sure many members build in that scale and may be able to help.