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All the kits I did as a kid were buildable, because I didn't have very high standards.  I just glued everything together, sloshed paint all over the place, and broke the models by playing with them all the time.  hahaha...

But since I returned to the hobby almost two years ago, I've only come across one.  An old 1/48 TBF Avenger that I actually didn't even start work on.
I'm sure it could be a good build for someone (with more skill), but I was really put off by the giant raised detail, and raised date stamp right in the middle of the horizontal stabilizer, the raised company logo... etc.
So I immediately just glued the wing halves together, as well as the fuselage halves, and turned them into paint mules.  Everything else went into the spare parts box.

Cheers,
Mark

If it isn't buildable for display it is buildable for a paint mule just need the basics for that.

I have yet to come across a kit that is “unbuildable”. Some are far more challenging than others. But never truly unbuildable. I have tossed one project, and that was a conversion attempt that was beyond my skills at that time. Not to mention that finally came out with the subject in a mainstream kit of the same subject, so the need for the conversion to have the subject went out the window. When there is a will, there is a way to build a kit. 

Very few over the course of my 72 years of building have been trashed as "unbuildable". I save them for parts and for painting practice. When the paint gets too thick, "then" I trash it. I've made quite a few what ifs and sci-fi's with those spare parts. 

Jim  

I have never binned a kit yet. I came close last year, but that was nothing to do with issues in the kit. I have found some to be a challenge, but never un-buildable.

Diffiult-challenging-frustrating?  Yes.

Looks ridiculous or terrible when finished?  Yes.

Truly unbuildable?  No.

Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.

Of course just about any kit is buildable,it just depends how much,blood,sweat and tears you want to put into it.And of course if you give up on a kit,it should be saved for spare parts or painting/weathering practice.

I don't think he meant whether there was truly an unbuildable,but what kit for whatever reason,we found unbuildable.

Tojo72

Of course just about any kit is buildable,it just depends how much,blood,sweat and tears you want to put into it.And of course if you give up on a kit,it should be saved for spare parts or painting/weathering practice.

I don't think he meant whether there was truly an unbuildable,but what kit for whatever reason,we found unbuildable.

 

 

How many times have you seen somebody pronounce a kit as unbuildable. Often they do so as part of a review. Yet it is built as part of a review. Obviously the writer is being dramatic. 

Like I said, in my one situation, it was a case of my skills not being up to the level needed for the conversion project that I was attempting. Nowadays I could do it. I am actually considering doing a similat project now. But my, scratch work experience, skills, and tools, are now up to such a task. And nobody yet makes the kit that I want... and I’m too cheap to by an overpriced resin conversion. Of course that means that somebody will come out with a kit of it after I start but before I’m finished... that is what usually happens to me for such things... Yes Dragon, I’m talking about you...

I have a 1/48 hasegawa f14a that is about to be my first 

Hi,

I think that I agree with alot of others here.  I have had kits that I have done a poor job on, but I suspect alot of that was my lack of skill, or carelessness in building.  Thats not to say that some kits can be very hard (and sometimes maybe even harder than they maybe need to be) though.

PF

I’m in the camp with those who will build everything but some will just be “better “ than others...I have a 1/700 Dragon USS New York that I don’t sh to anyone lol

Yeah, I agree with the view that there aren't really unbuildable kits, just kits that have so many challenges that you give up.  Look at your Shelf of Doom, and you'll see such kits.

For me, that kit is the HobbyBoss 1/700 Arizona 1941 kit.  I picked one up nine years ago now, and started it as a conversion into the Pennsylvania circa 1935.  I started out with enthusiasm, but as the project went along, the soft details and poor engineering (the kit's DNA goes all the way back to Revell's Arizona) gradually made me lose interest.  Now it sits, awaiting the addition of PE.  It's been sitting for about eight years at this point.  I will finish it, just because I finish what I start.  But it's not as much fun as I thought it would be.

I can only think of one.   I pulled a 1/48 A-7 by I think AMT out of the stash a few years ago and started on it only to find the plastic was so brittle that it was cracking and fracturing everywhere and I mean everywhere.  I put it back in the box and vowed never to return to it!

John