Scale Model Shop

**Guest** · 18 September 2011, 09:09

Have to regret Colin that this is typical of, not all by any means, a lot of industry.

Some are very helpful & actually welcome you to ring or contact them if you have any problems. In the most I have found they do & the results are satisfactory.

Then there are those like Airfix who do not have a customer care department purely because they do not care about their customers. Their web site is pathetic. If a piece is missing & you request a replacement they inform you it will take a month to send it. A month a good reputable supplier would have that off to you the same day with apologies.

The trend seems to be to hide every phone number they have. No address. Just an email contact us & that is if you are lucky.

Some are good. Vallejo on their web site can not give you enough information top marks to them. Before John started stocking Albion Alloys stuff I had fantastic service especially as they did not want retail customers. John here with his shop is the same.

Remember in my architectural days explaining to a drain manufacturers salesman what certain of his products were for. He did not have a clue. Says it all.

Laurie

**Guest** · 18 September 2011, 19:39

Isn't it strange; I've just accessed the Hornby website, and found that they do have a Customer Care Dept., Hornby Hobbies Ltd., Westwood, Margate, Kent CT9 4JX, and (surprise, surprise) the Airfix customer care dept. is at exactly the same address, and the phone no. 01843 233525 is on full view, for everyone to see, together with an E-mail form, if you prefer to use that. It took me all of 5 minutes, and I'm a complete beginner as computers go. Of course, I am clued up enough to know that Airfix, as a company, no longer exist, so we have to contact Hornby, Airfix's new owners. I've also spoken to many people, who've had pieces missing, or badly formed, and to a man (or woman,) they say how quick the company was, usually within days, and, even if the loss was due to the modeller's mistake, were never asked for any sort of payment.

Having bought the Spitfire XII & Seafire 17, and found that they match dimensions, and drawings, within 1mm., I'll be buying Airfix kits again.

Edgar

**Ian M** · 18 September 2011, 20:14

The XII and the Seafire XVII are bloody good aren't they Edgar.

Six inches sounds like a big error. How does the hull measure up. Lenght x beam x Draft? What about the height of the masts, is that out as well-

Ian M

**Guest** · 19 September 2011, 10:17

Thanks for the input Laurie, i came across those with lttle knowledge of their product quite a lot when i had my business's back in England. It came across as irritating at the least when you knew more than the guy selling their "new product"

Edgar, i appreciate what you're saying but as a business man who's dealt with so many sub-companies and sister-companies i'm a great believer in dealing with the noted end supplier as it is up to them to inform the parent company of the error , for example if i had a problem with my jaguar i would contact the Jag garage, if they felt the need to contact Ford about the isue it's their call.

I know about the same address, telephone number etc ... found that easily ... i was intentionally making a point to Airfix that they should get their contact details sorted out on their site alone, after all they're a very large company but their presence on the web makes them appear third rate

I've just finished the Airfix Golden Hind" 1/72 and the limited specs i can find on this ship were all consistent with the 1/72nd scale of the model (no-one knows 100% what it actually looked like unfortunately) ....even after hours of cleaning spare flash and re shaping a few bits on the sprues due to moulding quality i was fairly impressed and this led me to buy the Cutty Sark.

Ian.....I acccessed a few sites containing specifications for the ship and found these discepancies ....

To answer your main question with relevant details......

The actual HULL length of the model is 16.5 inches (including figurehead) thus.....212 x 12 = 2544 ... divide by 16.5 is a scale of 1/154. (different to the total length of model at scale of 1/172)

Other bits you asked about in brief ........

Draft is within half an inch

Beam is within 3/4 of an inch

(the deck items are within acceptable scale measurements to the dimensions for the deck floor area)

Bowsprit has a 1 inch error

Main mast is 3/4 inch too short

Mizzen and foremasts are supprisingly very close to scale. (and the model doesn't suffer visually from this)

The model has all the extra mast strutty bits for the yards etc so it can be made up in "full sail" if required with all the sidey bits ...( yeah dead technical i know

)

All in all i'm enjoying the build of this and it's actually turning out to be a nice looking model.

I'm just a little pedantic and think everything should be as it says on the tin

**Guest** · 19 September 2011, 11:03

Originally posted by \

Edgar, i appreciate what you're saying but as a business man who's dealt with so many sub-companies and sister-companies i'm a great believer in dealing with the noted end supplier as it is up to them to inform the parent company of the errorI know about the same address, telephone number etc ... found that easily ... i was intentionally making a point to Airfix that they should get their contact details sorted out on their site alone, after all they're a very large company but their presence on the web makes them appear third rate

I'm sorry, but you do not appear to be listening; Airfix is not a very large company, in fact they are no sort of company, at all. After a succession of dud management, they went bust (again) a few years ago, and Hornby took over the name, lock, stock and barrel. Airfix is now a trade name, nothing more.

Although I wouldn't expect you to know this, the Cutty Sark was first issued in 1967, and expecting some poor little bod, sitting in an office, to be able to discuss the ins-and-outs of a kit mould, probably produced before he was born, is asking rather a lot.

Edgar

**Guest** · 19 September 2011, 11:25

Originally posted by \

I've also spoken to many people, who've had pieces missing, or badly formed, and to a man (or woman,) they say how quick the company was, usually within days, and, even if the loss was due to the modeller's mistake, were never asked for any sort of payment. Having bought the Spitfire XII & Seafire 17, and found that they match dimensions, and drawings, within 1mm., I'll be buying Airfix kits again.

Edgar

Regret not my experience Edgar.

They said a month & it took a month & a bit more.

My point is that a company, which is any good, should be after more business. Telling clients they will have to wait a month when it is the companies failure is just not on. I still run a wedding film business & I get real thanks for sorting problem things out pronto.

Give Airfix or Hornby a small pat on the back they did provide a replacement which I had offered to pay for (my fault in wrecking the piece) free of charge. But 30 odd days to send a part.

Laurie

**Guest** · 20 September 2011, 08:28

Well thank you Edgar, very condescending ... i sort of expected it though .. i'm admin' and moderate on two forums and there's a few on there that seem to like to go off on tangents, not really discussing the topic but picking at the structure of the post instead, most of the time it ends up in personal critique, going that way here isn't it... doesn't interest me mate sorry, i'm too experienced in dealing with people with shoulder chips to care what they think.

I actually found out all that info on google before i emailed them initially as i like to have all the info at hand for reference, the fact is that you actually missed the point of the thread anyway and your posts really just come across showing you're desperation to appear you know more than me .... as i've said above ....who cares?

Anyway for those that have an interest in the original topic (not whether or not i'm listening or have no intellect) ......

I have received an email from Hornby stating that they have a project to review and improve all the mouldings for the older models using their latest CAD system, they will be sending my dimensions to their development dept for comparrison to the existing figures they have that they state were inherited from Airfix and have been used since 2007 (nice to think i could possibly make a difference to any new versions of the model)

I wasn't after any freebies (and stated this in my email) but the Hornby rep has requested my address so as to send a sample of the new tooling kit for my perusal.

**Guest** · 20 September 2011, 08:54

the Hornby rep has requested my address so as to send a sample of the new tooling kit for my perusal.

Great news, for future builders at least

Hornby/Airfix do seem to be quite pro-active these days and I've been very happy with their atitude whenever I've contacted them. Spare parts do take a while but their replacement service is 1000% better than some manufacturers I've had recourse to get in touch with

**Guest** · 20 September 2011, 09:02

I read in one of the recent periodicals that the Fairey Battle that Airfix produced in their early days and continued to do so up until they folded was done from the wrong drawings. The discrepencies were the tail was at the wrong angle, the nose was short by 4mm on the model and the wings needed a piece of 10000 card in the trailing edge to correct this.They were apparently livid because they had made the molds. Now that the aircraft has reappeared in the VC edition, does anyone know if these corrections have been made? Thankfully there are after market pieces to correct these errors.

Having said that I have not even looked at whether they kits produced are at the correct scale and thanks Colin for pointing that out. I do not build many Airfix these days due to the overwhelming choice that comes out of South East Asia. I think nowadays I tend to stay at 1/48 - 1/32 and scales in between but it is an intertesting fact that the dimensions are slightly wrong on the kits.

Staying on the theme of the thread and dimensions I have, one thing, that does annoy me about Airfix and correct me if I am wrong, that is they for some reason made all their vehicles 1/76 but still continued to produce 1/72 aircarft. Now I do not do small scale dioramas so it does not effect me, but does it make life difficult for small scale dio builders or at that size is the difference between aircraft and military vehicles negligable?

Interesting to say the least!

Andy

**Guest** · 21 September 2011, 08:35

To elaborate a bit further on the reply i had, it seems they are sorting through the models they have (and those that are being continued) and improving moulding, scale and any errors that were apparent.. they have been since 2007 when Hornby took over.

Originally posted by \

Staying on the theme of the thread and dimensions I have, one thing, that does annoy me about Airfix and correct me if I am wrong, that is they for some reason made all their vehicles 1/76 but still continued to produce 1/72 aircarft. Now I do not do small scale dioramas so it does not effect me, but does it make life difficult for small scale dio builders or at that size is the difference between aircraft and military vehicles negligable?

The small scale difference is apparent when you have 1/72 figures in close proximity to 1/76 vehicles, any figures included in the 1/76 vehicle kit are a couple of mm shorter.... . i must admit that the 1/72 figure packs have always been within acceptable quality standards when i have used them, the down side is that (in my opinion) their vehicles lack the fine detail found on other brands, maybe this will be addressed with the new tooling kits?

**Guest** · 29 September 2011, 20:16

Giving nil marks to Airfix when I opened up my Beaufighter to find the two props were bent in half. They were attached on the outside of the end of the sprue frame just dangling in mid air by one flimsy attachment.

Sent off a note on their site asking for two props replacements at 12:00. An hour later received a reply to say they were in the post. So gave them full marks on that one

Laurie

**BarryW** · 30 September 2011, 09:57

Things do go wrong with companies and the real test is how they respond when they do so well done Airfix.

**Guest** · 30 September 2011, 16:14

Yes and a beautiful pair of props popped through the letter box this morning.

24 hours all the way to Jersey & that is a lora miles. That is premier service.

Top marks Airfix.

Laurie

**Guest** · 06 October 2011, 08:37

24 hours is a great service Laurie, i would assume it's a pain to put a model on hold when waiting any length of time for replacement parts.

I still haven't heard from them about (or had delivered) this little free sample sprue/kit of their new tooling methods ........ 16 days and counting.

Scale Model Shop

Model Scale issues

Model Scale issues

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment