Academy Model Kits Poor Fitting Parts

Yup... The M10 you built H&HT was probably the clone off the old early 70s vintage Tamiya M10 GMC. The box cover photo art made that obvious enough. I have built two, decades ago, and was content with them. That kit was all that was available for a 1/35 M10 at that time. The only game in town. Their own non cloned new tooled M10s are top of the line kits of their own design and molding. PMMS ( a thoroughly meticulous site in their reviews) rates them well.

I also built their cloned M2 Bradley and was very happy with how that turned out. It looked just as good finished with its' stablemate Tamiya M3 Bradley next to it on my display shelf. I actually have built more Academy armor kits than aircraft and have been very pleased with the builds, as have other modelers at the local IPMS and AMPS chapters who have spoken with me about them. I have never heard one of them snub a kit merely because it is Academy, and there are some world class modelers there.

I think knowing your subject kit ahead of time in Academy's case whether it was one of their start up clones or new curent technology kit is a big factor in deciding to lambast a kit or not. Many of Academy's 1/48 single engine WWII fighters are originally Hobbycraft molds (Bf-109, P-36/P40, F8F, La-7, F4U, etc.) In todays world with internet information and reviews available on nearly every model kit out there, and its' orgins, at ones fingertips, a warning label of mold vintage is 'nanny state' thinking. If one knows the kit is an early cloned company effort to enter the modeling market, the grounds for complaining are pretty thin. It's a knockoff.

I have to say that I am a fan of most Academy kits, the best bang for your buck I recon. The 1/48 kits I did (P-40 ,Spit, P-47,and F-86 ) and the 1/72 Typhoon all had good fit with enough detail to dress up it so desired.Sure it is not near the quality of Tamigawa, but still good.

I also did the Academy 48 size F-15e but had a very hard time with it, the F-14 was slightly better, but still a chalange to get sorted, same with the Md 500

All in all I enjoy academy.When I choose to build a kit, I will allways check out a few on-line reviews to get a feel for the build.

Theuns 

I thought so too. I just completed their 1/48 P-38J, many of the parts needed filing and sanding. I also found the decals to be horrible. They would not stick!!!!

Most of my experience with Academy has been with their WWII 1/48 aircraft - which I find are usually pretty good, if not the most detailed.  I did build one of the F-16's one time, and while it looks like an F-16 on the shelf, I remember being VERY disappointed in the cockpit.   I had just come back from looking at real F-16's at Luke AFB with a freind who was a pilot there, and I remember that the IP looked absolutely nothing like what I had seen at Luke.  IIRC, it was all round holes without any square areas for the display panels in the real one.

Like many others, I've had problems with thier decals several times and usually buy replacement ones for whatever kit I plan to build.

Well if that new release F-4B also is poor fitting then it will really be a disaster for Academy...

Academy has always had issues with me. I found that decals won't work, panel lines disappear, and fit doesn't. I have actually stopped using the kit decals whenever I get an Academy kit.

You are not alone.

Klik

only 48scale strike eagle i would touch is revell. price blows away both hasegawa and academy.

and it's more accurate then hasegawas eagle. hasegawa reboxed a D model and added the CFT. the revell kit needs some upgrades to spring it up to date though. the kit represents a desert storm bird.

Impressive that Revell still has what is considered the best kit of the Eagle...

I built the 1/48 Academy F-86 F a few years ago .  I thought it was a great kit and the surface detail was outstanding.  I have their 1/48 P-47N in the stash too, which also looks like it will build up nice.  The latter is on deck soon but I'm not sure why they decided to mold the rock rails right to the bottom of the wing.  I'm gonna have to carve those off.      

sorry to hear that man. I building a 1/35 Huey frog from Academy and I HATE IT with a raging hellfire. the fit is a joke end up putting the gap like a mad man, missing parts, misaligned everywhere, and no instruction on half of the gun layout. 

my last 4 build was Tamiya and 1 from Italeri, the Italeri instruction was very poor but overall fine build. I have to say this academy kit really made me want to give up on model building, so we are in the same boat up *** creek without a paddle.