The Worst Kit

chip55 · 29 October 2001, 01:05 PM

BOBE
You can always share a modelling moment with her...let her hold one end of the rigging thread fast while you go look for tweezers. Make sure you look in the fridge and check to see if they are around the Tv remote *

. Then duck as your model demonstrates it's flying charactoristics *past your head. :

.
Did I do that?

anyhoo, Craig the fuselage halves on the Glencoe Pfalz I dispatched to the Great plastic beyond couldn't be held tight with vise-grips. The wings looked like potato chips..very sad indeed.

be well
chip55 *;D

Martin · 29 October 2001, 01:17 PM

Dear Craig,
Nope were purchased at the same time . Supposed to be collectors items now, but somehow I don't believe it.

Michael · 29 October 2001, 05:13 PM

Martin,

Flog them on eBay - people will buy anything!

Apropos of modelling and spouses I remember years ago a modelling column that started out:' "My wife doesn't understand me" my friend said, as he picked the parts of his latest model out of the dustbin.'

Hans · 30 October 2001, 07:23 AM

:'(
Worstness lays in the eyes of the beholder....
I can't go with you, comrades, concerning the Aurora kits or Glencoe's copies. They are bad from our view of today, but when the Pfalz came out it was a near perfect match to the drawings and other sources available in the late 50ies. They all could be built easily, only those engraved decal positions were a nuisance.

I can speak only for injection moulded kits. I do only have two or three resins and I sold nearly all my vac formed kits. And I would not consider any short run kits to say ' IIIIiiiiiiihhhhh...'.
as they follow their own rules.( If I would include short run kits also, does anyone remember Veeday...?),

I do have a near complete collection of all WWI injection moulded kits, missing only the newest additions from those russian and ukrainian firms.

To make a long story short, here are my favourites:

1. GLENCOE Albatros Series ( D.III and AH series). 1/48
2. ICM Pfalz E. IV ( in fact a Fokker E.IV) 1/72
3. ICM Illiya Mourometz 1/72
4. TOGA Morane Saulnier I
5. SMER S.V.A 5 1/50

Happy modelling

Hans

chip55 · 30 October 2001, 12:20 PM

Hello

Hans, I have many of those short run kits from: Merlin, Pegasus, Veeday ( I think theses guys were related) .and Tom's modelworks and Eduard. Unbuilt at this time.
I got them mostly because these companies were the only ones that made off the wall stuff.
Some of these aren't too bad. The Veeday kits were heavy as heck, The sprues were as large as a tree trunk not showing good economics with that much waste then they throw in the infamous spaghetti strut material that was previously mentioned. The Pegasus Seimans has a lot of trimming to do on it. most of the decals stink.
The Tom's modelworks Pfalz DVIII (resin) was a bit of a disappointment for being that pricey with having the spaghetti and massive decals.
The Eduard Fokker DVI, Albatros DRI, and Brandenburg DI kits are of good quality despite the camo decals.( Reminds of the old aero-skin kits)
Anyhoo they are interesting.

Be well

chip55 *;D

Martin · 30 October 2001, 12:39 PM

Hans,
do you have a kielkraft 1/72nd scale sopwith camel?

chip55 · 30 October 2001, 12:56 PM

Something tells me Martin knows where you can find one....

be well chip55

Hans · 1 November 2001, 07:53 AM

Martin,
no, sorry, I don't have a Keilkraft Camel in my personal collection, but in my friend's collection I have seen one...Brad Hansen ( author of the WWI kit collector's bible for any pre-1980-kit) said, it's fairly good.

And I am missing Penguin Avro 504, some Renwals, all Joy's. I also have not every copy of copies or re-used moulds from every firm/make. F.e. I do have a few Eldons's /Nichimo's, but all the ESCI's which are from the same moulds. Or I don't have Merit kits,but all Artiplasts and all SMERs. I don't have a Hasegawa Vimy, but Frog and Novo. And so on.

Chip,
Veeday and Pegasus were related, but did not have a good relationship. Chris Gannon, later on 'Pegasus', started with Veeday. He made some master models for Vagn Espensen, the Boss of Veeday. Vagn was no business man and his enterprise disappeared at last. Chris was angry with him ( like a lot of other people, too) and started 'Pegasus'. But I forget who was the man behind Merlin.( ...Arthur??....)

Hans

Tom_Cervo · 24 December 2001, 07:13 PM

The Merlin Salmson, no question. You've all named some kits with some building problems, inaccuracies and difficulties, but unless you've seen the Salmson, you don't know the meaning of pain. Between the fuselage with bits missing where they ran out of plastic in the mold and the wings so thick they needed a belt sander, a collectors item.

chip55 · 25 December 2001, 10:53 AM

Hello
Tom as I posted earlier in this discussion, which I forgot to add merlin to the heavier than heck catagory,
Merlin, Pegasus and Veeday had a lot of waste plastic to them.
But ya gotta love 'em because these companies did the models no one else did. with a lot of putty and imagination coupled with knowledge of the aircraft (stick around here there is plenty shared) even these kits can be made to look great.

Be well
chip55