discussion Model kits...poor fitting.

[The Migrant]

One of the problems with manufacturers is that they know they can get away with their kits not being so good. Each who buys a kit is an individualist & most just get on with it & put up with it.

It's true that many manufacturers continue to sell the same old kits in new boxes. Airfix are the only example I can think of as a company that is slowly working its way through many of its older toolings and replacing them with brand new, well-fitting accurised versions, yet still at an affordable price. (They also seem to be a bit more selective about the older toolings that they're still releasing, some of the worst from the 60s haven't shown up yet in the new red boxes). However 'old' isn't necessarily synonymous with 'poor fitting'; I've built a lot of classic kits from Heller, Matchbox and Airfix that have been very good requiring only small amounts of filler, and as Laurie pointed out even that can be avoided sometimes by careful forethought and whittling away at plastic before gluing.

Sometimes they can fit well as you say. I built a kit by Fly recently that fitted almost perfectly and was pleasantly surprised. Others are rather more vague, you know, the ones where it seems like the bloke who did the wings never spoke to the one who did the fuselage

I have the perfect example of that scenario, Steve I'll post it later.

 

[ojays]

One of the problems with manufacturers is that they know they can get away with their kits not being so good. Each who buys a kit is an individualist & most just get on with it & put up with it.If we all said this is not good enough then standards would improve. But how many of us take the trouble to moan ?

Very few I suspect & so things just carry on as before.

It is all who has got the cat by it's tail. Them or us. On the other side, being devil's advocate, we will all moan if the cost of models go up due to the extra effort of manufactures to make things more near perfect.

Can understand SI's predicament & the best there is to chose those models which are brand new as this seems to be the best way of getting something of the best fit.

Plus having read sometimes that somebody in producing the same model, as I have, has encountered a problem which I have not & vice-versa. So some of the problems I suspect are in the way we tackle a model & that a lot of forethought should be given to the planning of the construction & not to follow willy nilly the instruction sheets provided.

How many of us have said to ourselves wish I had thought that out better ?

Laurie

As to your last line Laurie,

This is where the forum comes in with advice, ideas and experiences etc..

One persons bad experience is another mans solution (or something like that) Well I know what I mean

Gregg