Trumpeter ships over-rated

I'm not whining about Trumpeter, I'm just put off by all the hype around them when they came out only to be disappointed with what was delivered.  In fact, I enjoyed their offshoot stepchild kits under the MiniHobby lable because they were "cheap".  I paid $14 for the 1/350 Arizona and it was a good kit except the lower hull was 1/16 too large but did not mind since it could be waterlined, abiet a little low inthe water.  Paying $100 for a 1/32 plane kit and getting quality comparable to a simluar kit that sells for $15, now that is frustrating.  BTW, that kit has been retooled and improved a great deal so maybe it is worth the $100 now, but again, I bought what I felt was a "beta" model as a consumer, still have a little animosity over this brand name.

They are now producing better kits, then more power to them.  Doing odd subjects might gain my interst toward them again.  But I am still a little leary.

Scott

Tracy White wrote:

With that Hasegawa Akagi I get a kit that requires no corrections,

I've never met a kit that required no correction.

searat12 wrote:

In other words, it is hard to point a finger at any particular manufacturer and say 'their stuff is rubbish,'

I wish to point out that earlier in the thread I said that Trumpeter's Hood was well done and also pointed out that a lot of the cost of their (and others) kits were from the distributors and not the manufacture directly. I was not bashing Trumpeter, just pointing out that I think your comparison of the Lexington kit, which has been out for a couple of years, to one that has been out a little over a month was flawed.

If I may submit my "two cents . . .", the only time that I have a preference for one manufacturer over another is if there are two or more producing kits of the same ships in the same scales.  For example, if I want a model of the 1942 version of USS Lexington in either 1/350 or 1/700, I will buy the only game in town (Trumpeter).  If I want a pre-1942 version in 1/700 scale, then I can select from either Trumpeter's Saratoga or Fujimi's Lexington.  Again, the choice is with Trumpeter.  I cannot get a model of Lexington in any scale from Hasegawa or any other manufacturer.

However, if I want a 1/700 Bismarck, I have a myriad of selections; Dragon clearly comes off best, at least for me.  Similarly, I will not look for a 1/350 scale Akagi from any other manufacturer than Hasegawa because that is the only game in town.

Simply stated, a lot depends on individual preference and product availability.

Bill Morrison

OK, I got both prices from Ebay (under 'buy it now,' not auction), but just for comparison, if I go to Hobblinc, I can get the base model Akagi for $287 (at a 27% discount), and the Lexington for $111 (also at 27% discount).  Last time I checked, that makes Trumpeter less than half the cost, and when you start throwing PE and other stuff at them, the Akagi goes up astronomically, as i noted previously!  And of course, if you hunt around (as on Ebay), you can get a significant additional discount for Lexington (or any of the other Trumpeter kits like USS Hornet for that matter), and that's kinda the point.  It's pretty unlikely you will find the same kind of discounts from sellers of Hasegawa products (I note their 'Nagato' is still selling for over $200, and that is a kit with BIG problems, and worse, they were repeated in the 'Mutsu!'!). There are plenty of good reports for a variety of Trumpeter kits (and yes, there are some duds), and at the end of the day and regardless of the manufacturer, it pays to have a good look at kit reviews before buying, wouldn't you agree?  In other words, it is hard to point a finger at any particular manufacturer and say 'their stuff is rubbish,' because you can use the same criteria to criticize just about any or all of them, and depending how 'accurate' you want to be.  Virtually every single kit produced by everyone has some issue or problem, it is really just a matter of how much inaccuracy you can stand....

Let's take your Lexington versus Akagi then. First off, you were unfair to compare a discounted price of a base kit to the full-retail PLUS extras. A better comparison would be MSRP, which is $155 on Stevens International's web site. We could then add the Yankee ModelWorks Photo-etch set, also from Stevens, for $45. No clue as to shipping or tax; your mileage may vary. Still a far cry from the total cost of the Hasegawa offering, but honestly, I don't think the Hasegawa wood deck and jack stays are all that necessary, so let's knock off the $145 Stevens charges for the wood deck (they don't carry the jack stays).

With that Hasegawa Akagi I get a kit that requires no corrections, just a straight build and whatever additions I *may* desire to add. The Trumpeter Lexington has many errors and quality issues that will give you tons of extra time in build, including pretty much a complete replacement of the forward island bridge and flag levels, 1.1" gun tubs, and if you care about detail, aftermarket guns that don't look like logs in scale. I won't even go into the fit and engineering problems.

Yes, it's cheaper. It needs to be; it's quality is low.

Trumpeter's kit may not be absolutely top notch, they do provide entirely adaquate foundations for user-created improvements.      In any case, I don't know about everyone else, I now seldom (that is to say never) build a ship out of the box, and I always modify it to some degree, to enhance accuracy, improve details, change the configuration to a date that interest me more, etc.    What is more,  trumpeter is releasing injection molded ships that interests me, but is relatively unlikely to be released by other companies in the market now.   And it is doing so at a prodigious rate.   So as far as I am concerned, trumpeter is on the vanguard of injection molded ship model industry.

I'm not overly enamored with most of Trumpeter's kits either, although they do have a few gems.

Their figure kits are downright atrocious.

Tilley's discussion on this topic is extremely well put.

I got my first Trumpeter/Minihobby 1/350 kit of Bismarck from Hobby Lobby. It was good, but unimpressive. For $20, it was extremely good value for beginner of ship modelling. Still can find this good value at HL now and then. Then I got a Trumpeter 1/200 destroyer kit of Shen Zhen at a LHS after seeing its review on the internet. Again, a good value at $23 plus tax.

My third Trumpeter ship kit was the 1/200 Sovremenny. It was one of the good kit that generated lots of excitement when first released. I paid $45 and considered it the best ship kit value to now.

I have the Dragon Arleigh Burke and Buchanan 1/350. They are very good to excellent for the $35 price.

There are many $100-200 recent releases of 1/350 battleship and destroyer kits by Trumpeter, Hasegawa and Aoshima. Are they any better than the Revell 1:350 Bismarck whick sold well under $100? I guess not. But I don't know since I have not seen them out of the box.

Trumpeter is about to release a 1/350 Arleigh Burke and prices it at $80. They have shown that they can build outstanding kits like the Sovremenny. The real question is whether it is better than the Dragon or up to the standard of the Dragon Smart Kit? The Trumpeter ship kit may not be over-rated, but the newer ones are definitely over priced.

With the CAD based mold engineering advancing in light speed, I expect the plastic kits to get better and cheaper at the same time just like computers and electronics. But it is not like that at all!!

I'm no expert on the Trumpeter line; I've bought exactly three of the company's ships.  I rate the 1/700 North Carolina and Saratoga extremely highly, and the 1/350 Fletcher-class destroyer quite a bit lower.  (I don't think it's quite as bad as some Forum commentators do, but it certainly doesn't represent a step up from the Tamiya competition.)

In general, though, it looks to me like what we're talking about her is a near-universal phenomenon:  manufacturers get better as they get more experienced.  That applies to virtually all of them.  The Tamiya 1/350 battleships, at the time of their release back in the late seventies, represented the state of the art or something close to it.  Nowadays they look...well, respectable, but outclassed by most of the more recent competition.  For that matter, when the Revell 1/535 Missouri was originally released, back in 1954, most modelers found its details pretty awe-inspiring.  By modern standards, it's...well, never mind.  (I really wish Revell would take it off the market - but that doesn't seem likely.) 

Every company also makes occasional steps backward, as Trumpeter seems to have done with that Fletcher-class destroyer.  But the good ones stay in business, due, at least in part, to the fact that they keep up with the standards of the time. 

What makes Trumpeter remarkable, it seems to me, is the sheer mass of kits it's produced in a relatively short time.  I don't remember when the first genuinely new Trumpeter ships (as opposed to those awful, toylike ripoffs from other manufacturers) appeared, but it seems like it wasn't much more than a decade ago.  (Beware my notorious memory.  At my age the years fly by.)  In Revell's first decade, 1954-1964, it released, by my count (in the appendix to Dr. Graham's fine book on the subject) 36 ship kits.  (That includes sailing ships - but not modified or unmodified reissues).  I don't know how many Trumpeter's released, but it's surely quite a few more than that.  The Trumpeter/Pit Road design and production people seem to be working at a record pace.  For some duds to pop up under such circumstances is probably inevitable.   

I certainly agree with the above comments about Dragon's ships.  I have yet to encounter one that I'd call a "bad" kit - or even a mediocre one.  But even that company has been getting better with time.  (Remember that 1/350 Typhoon-class Soviet sub - with the retractable torpedoes?  And compare the first Dragon 1/700 Essex-class carriers with the most recent ones.)

Bottom line:  even the weakest new releases nowadays are light years ahead of what modelers regarded as "good kits" twenty or thirty years ago.  This is indeed a great time to be a modern warship modeler. 

While a modeler can make all the difference, it is fair to complain that Trumpeter kits are over-rated at times. It depends on the kit, however. Their Hood in 1/350th is well done, and the 1942 San Francisco I have is not bad. Not up to Dragon's recent releases, but a step up from the older Tamiya kits.

Dragon has more 350th in the pipeline as well.

Perhaps its not that the kits are over-rated as the builders are under-rated.  It just take more effort.  Even with a Lindberg POS you can build a good model it just takes that extra push on the details.

I think the Baltimore I'm building from Trumpeter is a first rate kit with lots of detail to offer OOB and a great template for adding more details with the right PE set.

warshipguy wrote:

I also agree that Dragon does produce outstanding kits!  I would love to see them get into the 1/350 line! Bill Morrison

Dragon was also the folks who picked up the ball from Tamiya with their modern 350th scale ships in the early 90s. Their Kidd, Spruance, and Ticonderoga class ships are nice kits. And their subs. I would have loved to have seen them expand their 700th subs line in 350th.

Ummmmm..........maybe becaues no one else does a 350th Kuznetsov, or 200th Sovremeny?

kustommodeler1 wrote:

What is the obsession with Trumpeter ship kits?

Dreadnought52 wrote:

You are correct about the early Trumpeter kits. The current line is hugely improved especially their 700 scale Hood kits, North Carolina class, the Russian Cruisers and destroyers and the recent Richelieu and Jean Bart. WS

Trumpeter's 1:700 scale line of ships are produced in a cooperative agreement with PitRoad. PitRoad designs and cuts the molds.  PitRoad gets first dibs on marketting the kits to the Orient.  Trumpeter gets the West.

Take them out of the equation.  The Trump The Sullivans in 1:350 is not all that great.   Their England is much better.  The North Carolina is decidedly mediocre, as is the Richelieu.  

Trumpeter quality,  while it has improved from 2001 with the Banner/Trumpeter/MiniHobby Models branded Arizona, is still hit and miss.  It all depends on which team they have working the project.

For trumpeter, there is a HUGE difference between their early early efforts (pirated bad copies), early efforts (bad stuff), and new stuff (really good). The problem is, that span of time is less than ten year, maybe 5 ! Same for their armor/aircraft. You have to look at reviews before pulling the trigger.

Dragon, some of their Premium kits have a lot of issues, but build up nicely.

And yes, we are in the golden age of plastic (non-sailing) ship kits, I cant even keep up reading about all the new 350 offerings coming out of Japan/Far East.

warshipguy wrote:

Agreed.  Their 1/500 scale Nimitz class really are toys, especially when compared with their newer 1/350 and 1/700 scale efforts.  Those early kits you mentioned do not compare with any of ther 1/350 series or 1/700 series. I also agree that Dragon does produce outstanding kits!  I would love to see them get into the 1/350 line! Bill Morrison

Agreed.  Their 1/500 scale Nimitz class really are toys, especially when compared with their newer 1/350 and 1/700 scale efforts.  Those early kits you mentioned do not compare with any of ther 1/350 series or 1/700 series.

I also agree that Dragon does produce outstanding kits!  I would love to see them get into the 1/350 line!

Bill Morrison