OT... Plastic Models

[Jeffrey H.]

ORIGINAL: Doggie


If you want a real challenge, try an old fashioned balsa wood and tissue paper flying model. That will keep you busy for a couple of months. But you will know every structural detail of the real thing by the time you're through.

Oh yeah, those were tough ! I don't want to go back to those. I made some severely warped aircraft that way. Some I even tried to fly. They didn't last long. For some reason, I'm little hooked on the plastic stuff right now.

[CJMello63]

Decent online site here:

http://www.squadron.com/hotdeals.htm

[Adam Parker]

Did anyone mention that the Airifx brand has been bought and will soon be back? Happy days.

Best catalogues ever made, in the 1970's. Tamiya caught on in the early 80's but have since watered down their once great encyclopedic model descriptions.

As for the Hasegawa catalogues with their beautiful photos, I think their model makers are superhuman. What amazing black washing detail!

[Jeffrey H.]

Airfix.....for some reson tht leave a bad impression on me. Can't say exactly why but it just feels like a poor quality brand.

[Adam Parker]

ORIGINAL: Jeffrey H.

Airfix.....for some reson tht leave a bad impression on me. Can't say exactly why but it just feels like a poor quality brand.

Gasp! Oh Jefferey I'm heartfallen. A person isn't a modeller unless they have Airfix sprue and Humbrol paint flowing through their blood!

How can one deny a full model kit hanging in a plastic bag with a cardboard support as essence itself.

Or say that this just isn't pure sexy!

[Adam Parker]

And who didn't grow up learning the military art with these?

[Jeffrey H.]

ORIGINAL: Adam Parker

And who didn't grow up learning the military art with these?

Oh yeah, those were cool !

[Jeffrey H.]

ORIGINAL: Adam Parker

ORIGINAL: Jeffrey H.

Airfix.....for some reson tht leave a bad impression on me. Can't say exactly why but it just feels like a poor quality brand.

Gasp! Oh Jefferey I'm heartfallen. A person isn't a modeller unless they have Airfix sprue and Humbrol paint flowing through their blood!

How can one deny a full model kit hanging in a plastic bag with a cardboard support as essence itself.

Or say that this just isn't pure sexy!

No comment on the sexy part but yeah, Humbrol paints were the greatest, from the colors to the texture, right down to the packaging.

I remember that C47 gunship model. Funny, so many memories locked up inside my head that I shake loose with the help of firends !

[HansBolter]

What brands make the best kits these days is highly dependent on what you are into building.

Two years ago I dediced to get back into model building after a hiatus that lasted since the 70s when I was a teenager.

If you are into tanks and vehicles, Dragon, AFV Club and Tristar are the leading brands for quality and accuracy of detail.

However, be forwarned that these are not your father's plastic model kits. Many contain frets of the latest rage known as "photo etch" or PE. It is a flat sheet of brass with super fine detail parts etched into the metal. The assembly, forming and bending of the metal and gluing/soldering require development of new skills and some of the parts are sooooo tiny they will drive you to frustration.

There is a Japanese guy who posts on Planet Armor who scratch builds out of brass and solder. His work will absolutely blow you away. He makes Swiss watch makers look like amatuers. Here is a link to his thread about scratchbuilding a halftrack chassis and engine:

http://www.planetarmor.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2875

[David Winter]

I have been building models of all sorts for about 35 years. Plastic scale, RC scale planes and boats, etc.. About 15 or so years ago, I switched pretty much to just scratch building everything. Some of my stuff is in RCAF and RCN museums.

One of my favourite plastic kits is the 1:72 scale Flower class corvette. You can see a couple samples of my work here (in various states of completeness)

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=208966#post1933949

Both are loosely based off of the Matchbox kit but have been heavily kitbashed to different ships. The top one, the HMCS Sackville is modelled after the last existing corvette docked in Halifax Nova Scotia.

The bottom one HMCS Vancouver, is extremely heavily modifed. Pretty much only the hull and funnel from the kit were used, the hull had major surgery done on it.

The really great thing about the corvette model is that no two real ships were ever the same, and the same ship was rarely in the same configuration for more than a few months. So that one kit, with some skill and effort, can be turned into a limitless number of subjects. And they were always pretty beaten up too so lots of good weathering opportunities.

You can see my scratch building work here: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=207686

This is a 100% scratch build model of a Canadian Patrol Frigate. The hull was built from fibreglass (via a mold I created), the upper decks are vacuformed and sheet styrene. There's some photoetching and resin detail as well that I built. I create my own resin molds and do my own photo etching. Raw materials excepted, nothing on that CPF was a purchased part.

What you see there is a couple years worth of work, and it's far from completed.

[Zap]

Just wondering? Why brass. Is it easier to form? I imagine it looks better than, say, using tin.

[David Winter]

I assume that question is for me in regards to my brass photo etching? Brass is used because it can be etched with inexpensive, and less caustic acid solutions than tin. It boils down to the point that Tin simply doesn't photo etch very well.

Oh yes, brass also solders better too. I generally use CA glue for most of my fine-detail metal working needs, but occasionally when strength is really needed (like building propellers), soldering brass is required.

[Zap]

Ok I just learned something. Does'nt tin rust as well, so brass would last longer.

[David Winter]

Well they both corrode, but tin much faster. And you never, ever mix the two together or they'll just eat each other appart. Literally. I don't know of any modeller, especially one building RC models that go in water, using tin for a construction medium.

[Jeffrey H.]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

What brands make the best kits these days is highly dependent on what you are into building.

Two years ago I dediced to get back into model building after a hiatus that lasted since the 70s when I was a teenager.

If you are into tanks and vehicles, Dragon, AFV Club and Tristar are the leading brands for quality and accuracy of detail.

However, be forwarned that these are not your father's plastic model kits. Many contain frets of the latest rage known as "photo etch" or PE. It is a flat sheet of brass with super fine detail parts etched into the metal. The assembly, forming and bending of the metal and gluing/soldering require development of new skills and some of the parts are sooooo tiny they will drive you to frustration.

There is a Japanese guy who posts on Planet Armor who scratch builds out of brass and solder. His work will absolutely blow you away. He makes Swiss watch makers look like amatuers. Here is a link to his thread about scratchbuilding a halftrack chassis and engine:

http://www.planetarmor.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2875

That guy is something else !

[105mm Howitzer]

Still remember shopping at Eaton's for C-Mas and getting that enourmous Lancaster Bomber kit, (forgot the maker) Talk about wingspan...I eventually hung it under my ceiling light, just floating in midair. I fell asleep many a nights staring at it. Than one day, it crashed and broke up. That's when my teenage life ended for me.
I haven't modeled a kit since then, but I do have several 1/35 Tamiya WWII German tanks and a couple of M-113 scenicked for Vietnam War era. Maybe one day I'll get the urge.

[HansBolter]

Here is a good example of what a plastic tank kit looks like with a turned aluminum barrel a and a PE detail kit (prior to painting):

[Nemesis]

I have been thinking about re-starting my plastic model-hobby. I used to dabble with them as a kid, but that was something like 20 years ago. But I still remember the great time I had putting together a replica of the Gneisenau... I was never in to painting though.

[JudgeDredd]

My dad used to get my brother and I model aircraft and plastic soldiers when we were younger when money permitted.

I have fond memories of my dad coming home from work with his hands behind his back and asking "Who wants which hand?". We were stoked....we had Japanese infantry, US, British and both our favs...German.

We would sit together with our dad helping out with the painting and do the models together.

I always yearned for the big buggers though!!

[JudgeDredd]

In fact this is one of the less known ones (for me at the time) I remember doing with him

I also remember him using matches to give my newly painted and made B17 a "crach" look and the bugger set fire to it! [:(]