d good, d bad n d ugly kits

2 cents from me.

Best: all the newer Tamiya kits I have from the 1/32 F-4J to the 1/72 WWII warbirds. Astounding detail, especially considering the 1/72 kits. Also the Fine Molds Star Wars kits have crisp detail, incredible planning and perfect fit. I never thought I'd see Sci-Fi taken seriously by manufacturers.

Good: Any current Hasegawa and some recent Fujimi kits. The haswgawa kits would be the best if Tamiya weren't around to put them to shame.

Bad: Italieri 1/72 aircraft and when they get reboxed by Tamiya. Huge panel lines, horrible decals, miserable fit. Yuck!

Ugly: I can't even remember because I'm too careful when I buy these days. Except for that Lavotchkin La-15 but I don't remember who made it.

BEST: I know it's an air forum, but the best kit I've ever built was the Tamiya Steyr 1500A Kommandeurwagen. No seams, no fill, and incredible detail.

GOOD: 1/32 Trumpeter A-10A N/AW. A little fidgety, especially with the aftermarket kits, but a definite winner.

BAD: Academy 1/48 Blackhawk Special Forces. Bad support for the wheels, foggy glass, bad instructions, bad casting of parts.

UGLY: Testor's HSO 1/48 SR-71 Blackhawk: Incredibly bad fit, warped tail, no detail at all. The only redeeming factor was that the instruction sheet had some cool facts in it.

demono69

13-07-03
Been building kits seriously for a while now after a long hiatus, but for me, the story so far is:
The Best: Tamiya 1/48 P-51B : no fill, excellent detail, no problems. went together in hours!!

The Good: Academy 1/48 F-86F Mig Killer. Great detail, nice options, but i will not chop this baby in half, no way.

The Bad: So many....Revell-Monogram 1/48 F-14 Black Bunny. Nothing fits tot he extent that the only useful thing in this kit are the decals.

The Ugly: Almost anything by Monogram. I have two kits, bought in a rush of emotion that are 1/48 scale "British Spitfire" and Hawker Hurricane.
They are globs of plastic, no cockpits, wheel wells, golf ballls for rivets, ugly plastic, ugly canopies that seem made from the material they make those warped mirrors from in funfairs.....where do i stop??
here i guess.
liam

great:tamiya 1/72 and 48 109's
good:hasegawa 1/72 P-47D miss mary lou
bad:revell 1/48 warhawk
ugly: revell 1/72 Fokker dvii

The Best. Tamiya 1/32 scale F-4C/D. Big, impressive and goes together like a charm. No filler at all needed, except around the intakes. But of course, you pay for what you get

The Good. Hasegawa 1/48 scale F-86F-30. A pleasure to build. Good quality with plenty of options. Very impressive when finished.

The Bad. Monogram 1/48 scale F-101B. Nose section does not fit. Used a lot of filler on it and still did not look right when finished. Main landing gear has no way to secure into the wells. The top of the strut just glues into the top of the wheel well. Lots of fit problems around the wing to fuselage joint. After the model was completed I think I had more filler than plastic in it.

The Ugly. Arifix 1/48 scale EA-6B. Nothing fit. The cockpit has only one thing going for it, it is in the correct position. No detail at all in the cockpit or wheel wells. The wings are the type found on the A-6A and not on the EA-6B. Pylons look like chunks of plastic. The ECM pods do not even come close to looking like the real thing. I ended up putting some parts in my spare parts box and throwing out the rest.

I've just gotten back into the hobby, going to take it more seriously this time. I haven't bought many expensive kits because I'm trying to get the basics down. Buying these cheap kits has given me a good deal of experience with bad kits.

The worst I've encountered has been the Testors/Hawk 1/72 F4U-Something. The fuselage halves don't quite match, there is no cockpit, just a half a pilot figure, there is no detail whatsoever to anything but the wings. For some reason, the cowl has flaps running along the entirety of it.

The Testors Nieuport 17 has a few flaws, but what gets me is that it has a spinning prop, but no spinning engine to go along with it.

I should have known to avoid these old kits. :)

For me, its like this:

Best Kit: ICM 1/48 Spitfire series, most variants of the Spit are covered in the !CM series and they're all great, aftermarket parts would be an insult to any of them.

Good kit: Bilek 1/72 Ilyushin IL-28 Beagle. A bit of a diamond in the rough, but if you have a bit of experience its a great representation of this classic Cold War bomber. If you've been around the hobby long enough to remember the Airfix 1/72 IL-28 kit and you've taken a shot at the Bilek kit, you'll know why I like the Bilek kit.

Bad kit: ICM 1/72 MiG-31 Foxhound. In fairness, this is not actually derived from ICM molds, the kit was originally made by Condor. I gave up on this kit, but I have seen it done well by others. Its rough, full of flash, most parts need significant cleaning up before they'll go together. I'd say aftermarket decals are a definite must for anyone attempting this kit.

Ugly kits: Only one kit I built could be called ugly and that was Pioneer's 1/48 BAe Hawk trainer, I had the Red Arrows version. The engraved panel lines looked like someone had done them blindfolded with a dremel tool (yes, that sloppy). The cockpit was all decals and generic seats, considering what you can see through the large canopy of the Hawk, such cockpit treatment is inexcusable at 1/48. The landing gear and wheel wells were totally inaccurate, the decals were solidly out of register. However, to its credit, it came in a nice strong box with pictures of the real aircraft on it. Too bad the kit wasn't worthy of such a good box.

Sorry, that should be F4U-1D, not F-4U1D.

Best Kit: 1/48 Tamiya Vought F-4U1D Corsair (I have 2 built and 9 unbuilt kits)
Good Kit: 1/48 Hasegawa F-16C Block 50 Fighting Falcon
Bad Kit: 1/48 Monogram B-17E Flying Fortress "Memphis Belle" (couldn't make this thing fit together, no matter HOW hard I tried: EXTREMELY warped!!).
Ugly Kit: 1/48 Testors OV-10 Bronco (where's Tamiya or Hasegawa when you really need 'em??)

I have never come across a totaly unbuildable kit (yet) but the lindberg skyray springs to mind as one i would rather not build again. one of the best (christ how do i choose that one) well if you had a gun to my head and MADE me choose, well for shear buildability i think the Hasegawa seahawk copter. i had never built a kit that didn't need any filler at all before i built that one and it looked real good OOTB...Greg

just remembered about the PM Models spitfire kit it was only good for .22 practice. it took about 5 pellets before it was totalled. shame to do that with any spitfire but as the kit didn't look much like one anyway it didn't realy matter ...Greg