The Worst Kit

[Michael]

All of us who have modelled WWI aircraft have at some point watched as the top wing slews to one side or another (at least until they stopped using individual struts with one-hole locators).

I'd like opinions as to which kit(s) take the prize as the absolute worst to assemble from this point of view.

My vote goes to the Aurora DH-10 if we only talk WWI, otherwise the Frog Blackburn Shark comes to mind.

[Matt_Bittner]

Since this is a WW1 list afterall, I will only mention that one.

The worst WW1 kit I have assembled to date is definitely the Tom-M 1/72nd Fokker D.VI. The Revell D.VII and Dr.I were obviously used to master this one, but the master maker did a half-baked job and didn't take some things all the way through. For example, the kit still had the Revell "fabric effect" we all love to hate...

[PeterL]

Your mentioning wings slewing through 90 degrees brings to mind my first OT and second ever kit the Airfix Camel. Certainly not a bad kit, it's still in production after fifty years after all, but it was 1958 and I was only eleven. I built the Airfix Stuka in the morning and the Camel in the afternoon. Both were painted the same shade of green granddad had used on the back door that same day.

The WWI Modelers mailing list voted the Merlin Salmson S2A2 the world's worst I remember. I haven't built that one but I did have a go at the same manufacturers Nieuport 12. No kit is unbuildable but this one comes near as makes no difference. I ended up carving the fuselage into a N10 and scratchbuilding everything else. The words Merlin and Kit should never be used in the same sentence.

In the midseventies I built a Airfix Hannover as a kid.
Used yellow allround gooey glue to build and painted it with glossy dark grey, with thick light grey spots (my representation of Tarnstoff back then ). It looked like modern art when I had finished...
Have found fuselage and lower wings of it in the cellar this
year and keep it to scare people off my modelling room

[Volker_Nemsch]

The two worst kits I´ve seen were made by ACADEMY: the Sopwith Camel and the Spad XIII. They are lousy! I bought each kit for less than DM 5,-- (about $ 2,20). The pictures on the box looked not very professional. I will use the Camel kit as a "wreck" on a diorama and the Spad for "spareparts".



Just an idea!
Volker Nemsch

I agree- Academy Sop. Camel is dreck.
I nominate the Merlin Vickers FB5- wings as thick as chemistry textbooks;upper wing in three parts,none of which was the same thickness.....I could go on to nominate ANY Merlin kit/same reason.I hate 'em.
How about the old airfix Handley Page? wing ribs so amazingly wide that its hard to fathom what they are supposed to represent- sanding them off might just take,oh,FOREVER.(too bad,'cuz otherwise it is a really snazzy kit) JimR

[Michael]

And of course, much as I wax nostalgic about the kits of my youth, all of those kits (Aurora, Revell and Monogram) with molded-in decal locations! Trying to get those thick 1960s decals to stay put .5 mm above where they should have been, and Decal-set not invented yet. :P

I also recently reread an IPMS Canada review of the K&B reissues of the Aurora WWI series back in the 1970s. Remember the vac-formed base, strewn with sufficient boulders and gullies to rip the undercart off any plane?

[GuyCanuck]

Let me see ......... as I dont model in 1/72nd scale I will
restrict my comments to 1/48th scale (the manly one).
Aurora"s DH-10 takes the cake as the worst one - it is still
in my basement about half-finished after about 8 years!
I may get around to finishing it eventually after I finish
building all my other kits.
Aurora"s Gotha would be a close second - not as bad as
DH-10 bu those engines were difficult to position right.

Pfalz D X11 by Copper State Models (sorry about this
Copper State) - I have been at it for 4 months and I still
working at the cockpit - lots of photo-etch parts but
nothing fits - all bulkheads are too wide.
Give me a day or two and I will think of some other stinkers!

[Craig]

I had no big problems with the Aurora/K&B Gotha, nor with the DH-10. The Copper State Pfalz D.XII was much more difficult than the Blue Max version.

My vote for worst is the Austro-Hungarian Albatros by Glencoe. Ironically, I hand-painted the upper surace camouflage quite convincingly. Otherwise, it was a mess. Hangs well to the back of the gaggle of 40-odd 1/48 birds dangling above my marine aquarium.

[Michael]

And then there are the pilot figures. I remember a review of a Frog offering that referred to it as "a Frog 'orrible little man who looks like he'd been hit in the stomach with a dumdum bullet".