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Irreversible kit disaster- how often


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Seems to be every other kit with me. Just binned two mostly finished 1/48 Hasegawa P-51Ds because of a number of issues with misaligned gun ports and also not happy with the sanded fuselages - these Mustangs have a lot of parts to their fuselages in typical Hasegawa style, and it's easy to get them all misaligned. Also yesterday, I chucked a Hobby Boss P-80 that I was trying to correct intakes on - didn't think it would ever be finished. Got an Academy P-38 that has one gear leg in the bin because I'm tired of all the sanding with the misaligned booms and fuselage and especially the ill-fitting nose. And a Monogram P-51D is probably going to be binned today.

I'm 71 and don't have any more patience for ill-fitting kits that require a lot of sanding. I've done my sanding penance in the last sixty years and I'm tired of it. Decided this morning that I would go through the Shelf of Doom and throw out most of it, especially the kits that probably would never be finished and that are just taking up space in the workshop. Over the winter I'm going to get back into figures, because I can do them on the kitchen table and not in the too cold basement workshop. 

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Hey Sierra... that's one reason why I almost exclusively stay with current Tamiya product.  No issues with fit and sanding is minimal at best.  I've also switched from Aircraft to Armor as the eyes aren't as good as they used to be and sticking with Tamiya means I don't have the fit and alignment issues of other kits.  Armor is also more forgiving and you can cover up a lot of mistakes 😉 Also, I can't believe that in the new Tamiya kits there are almost no seam lines to scrape... I'm very impressed with how far Tamiya has come along over the years in terms of improvement to their technologies.

 

-Greg

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I just resign myself to the fact that no model I make will be 100% right.

 

I find the only time people including myself really notice the flaws is when I take photos of them to stick up on forums.  The camera shows up blemishes far more than the naked eye, even when I have my glasses on.

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I've been building kits for 40 years, never binned one before completion yet.  I put firecrackers in all the ones I build as a kid, so they're gone now, but that was all in good fun.  My favorite is around the time I started driving, we launched a Monogram 1/48 B-17 out of the sunroof of my car at around 45 mph.  It was an EPIC way to go, but it was at least finished before its demise.  

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Just one word of advice: Don’t try to straighten the wings or a Hasegawa FB-111 with a hairdryer. Ask me how I know…

Back when I tried that stunt that kit was super expensive and it really annoyed me, how stupid I was. Well I learned my lesson from that.

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21 hours ago, lgl007 said:

Hey Sierra... that's one reason why I almost exclusively stay with current Tamiya product.  No issues with fit and sanding is minimal at best.  I've also switched from Aircraft to Armor as the eyes aren't as good as they used to be and sticking with Tamiya means I don't have the fit and alignment issues of other kits.  Armor is also more forgiving and you can cover up a lot of mistakes 😉 Also, I can't believe that in the new Tamiya kits there are almost no seam lines to scrape... I'm very impressed with how far Tamiya has come along over the years in terms of improvement to their technologies.

 

-Greg

Agree. The funny thing is - I have a lot of expensive, highly detailed, unstarted uber kits, but always seem to gravitate to the lost souls of the kit world, the Smer end of the gene pool, if you will. And I've built plenty of the much maligned Kitty Hawk and Kinetic kits and didn't have a problem with them. So, have vowed to throw out/sell off the junk and stick to better kits after the winter.

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5 hours ago, Gwen Phoenix said:

 

Ouch Greg... :rofl:

Had better not even tell you how the AFV 1/48 F-5F turned out, then.

 

 

Teach me. 

Cheers,

 

Gwen

 

Supreme stubborness.

 

Honestly, I've never yet made a kit I'm 100% happy with, probably never will.  But most people don't know the issues I can see.

 

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Hey Thommo... You are right about not being 100% happy with any kit... there is always room for improvement... but I'm as close to 100% as I've ever been with my latest piece... I'm over the moon with it actually 🙂

 

vgXc3TU.jpg

 

If you want to see all the photos see the Display case... below...

 

I just want to be sure that every new kit I build I improve on my prior builds...

 

-Greg

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I have to stop cleaning my hobby room. Changed the placement of several models and found one I USED to think was great.......Is not so great.

 

Now I want to rebuild my refit 1/350 scale Enterprise........again. 10 years ago when I built it I thought it was great.....Now.......anyone want to buy a starship? Its not bad....but its also not great (enough).

 

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On 10/2/2021 at 11:28 AM, Joerg said:

Just one word of advice: Don’t try to straighten the wings or a Hasegawa FB-111 with a hairdryer. Ask me how I know…

Back when I tried that stunt that kit was super expensive and it really annoyed me, how stupid I was. Well I learned my lesson from that.

Always put in almost boiling water the plastic parts that are wrapped. Have done it a couple of times and I had managed to reshape the parts (ESCI S-3 Viking wings).

 

For me, the worst thing that I have ever experienced is accidentally placing too much glue on the clear parts. Always gloss coat (Future) the clear parts before you use glue. However, if you're using Humbrol's Clearfix you don't need to do this.

 

Just my two cents

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