Opinions on Special Hobby kits

Hope these mate. Links are to site that has photos of special hobby and MPM pe-2/pe-3 sprues and instructions.

Andrew

Special Hobby - http://www.model-making.eu/szczegoly.php?grupa_p=1&przedm=713212&kateg=100069

MPM Kits

http://www.model-making.eu/szczegoly.php?grupa_p=1&przedm=712838&kateg=100069

http://www.model-making.eu/szczegoly.php?grupa_p=1&przedm=712827&kateg=100069

http://www.model-making.eu/szczegoly.php?grupa_p=1&przedm=712841&kateg=100069

I built the Czech Model/Special Hobby Me-309 and it is a pretty good kit.I did have to use some filler on the fuselage and wing root seams but it wa not a major deal! Here it is !  

As far as I know, MPM, Special Hobby, and Azur are all part of a bigger 'MPM Group' Czech company. Hence many of their kits are rebox of others with different decals or such. I'm not exactly sure what the marketing difference between these two, as almost everyone refers to them as MPM/Special Hobby. Nor can I figure out why the Special Hobby one cost more.

I have the MPM Pe-2 kit actually.

^

Squadron does have a Special Hobby kit but it's actually the PE-3, which is the fighter variant derived from the PE-2 dive bomber variant.  This is actually the kit I've been interested in but the MPM kit is a bit cheaper.  The description of the MPM PE-2/PE-3 kit reads exactly the same as the Special Hobby kit, which leads me to another question - who is MPM?  Are they connected to Special Hobby or might this be a repop?

I don't see the pe-2 from special hobby on squadron, do you mean the pe-2 from MPM?

Nice job! I threw mine out because when compared to drawings, the rear fuselage was way too skinney. I tried to compensate for that by building it up, it just did not look right. Also, engines are wrong, cowlings are too small, had immense difficulty with cabin floor. With all that, I just lost interest and patience. I probably should have kept it, but my current projects are much more easier:

Academy P-26 peashooter and Classic Airframes Vampire FB.5 and soon the Accurate Miniatures F3F-1  all in 1/48.  

I've bought the 1/48 Sack 6 from special and found the resin is good but the  injection molding will require a little cleaning up of the furry edges. But I have seen worse from Revell.

That's a great looking model. I hope my turns out as nice.

I've built two, one (pictured) was just completed.  While I wouldn't mind if I never built another one, they do have alot of subjects you can't get anywhere else, but like mentioned, lack detail, mounting holes or even locations for things like landing gear.  With some work, they can be built up to a rather nice representation of the real thing.  It's no Tamiyagawa kit though!

NOT unbuildable Earhart L-10E Electra

I have the F2G corsair (Marine\Navy markings)  the kit is stunning. Panel detail, resin engine bits.  Looks good to me.  Please let me know how yours comes out if you purchase the kit.

Bob

Gordon D. King

I built the X-15A-2 kit. It did require a lot of work to clean up the parts but otherwise it went together quite well. I enjoyed the challenge. I have  the Model 10 Electra but I haven't started it yet.

I built the X-15A-2 kit. It did require a lot of work to clean up the parts but otherwise it went together quite well. I enjoyed the challenge. I have  the Model 10 Electra but I haven't started it yet.

I have their X-15A-2 kit.  The panel line and rivet detail kit is superb.  It looks to match up with the real deal and it seems to be in scale.  The included resin and PE make up for a lot of the missing molded in detail, but I'm sure it's designed that way.

But, there are places where detail is glaringly absent and could have easily been covered by the resin parts.  And some of the injected pieces are overly simplisitc, while others were molded out of register (i.e. the two piece mold didn't line up correctly, so half the piece is shifted).

The two biggest problems, for me, are 1) the sprue attachment point are blobs and spill over onto the part, making for un-necessary clean up and 2) complete lack of locating tabs and alignment pins.  Having to guess where something should go isn't nearly as much fun as you'd think.  And when you have a 20"+ long fuselage to glue together, not having alignment pins is a pain - unless you're an octopuss.

But, like I said, the included resin and PE does help build up to a nice kit (for the X-15, anyway).

-Fred

Yes. The Lockheed L-10 Electra was a 1999 release, I think.

Most of their older kits are challenging builds, comparable to the early MPM kits.  I've only built one of their newer releases & it wasn.t bad, but still required more effort than most main stream kits.  I'm not familiar with the kit your interested in, but I believe it's one of the early releases.

Regards,  Rick

Not crazy about them. I attempted to build Earhart's Lockheed L-10 electra. Had to pitch it as it was unbuildable and dubious accuracy. However, I hear that the newer kits are improvements, but they are a little overpriced.

Intresting subjects though.

Special Hobby kits are very buildable, although they will take more effort than the typical Tamigawa kit.  Most contain resin and PE detail parts.  Once the mating edges are cleaned up the fit of the parts generally is decent, although test-fitting several times before actual gluing is essential.  There also are no normal location marks and guide pegs/holes to help you with alignment of the parts.

My experience with Special Hobby (admittedly limited) is they produce interesting subjects but are rough little kits with lots of flash and simple detail. 

Cybermodeler has reviews of several of the Special Hobby kits. They don't have a review for the kit you are looking for but reading these reviews might give you an idea of the quality of their kits.

http://www.cybermodeler.com/aircraft48_s.shtml

Hope this helps somewhat...