Getting ready for my group build and the Corsair I want to build is an Academy Models Kit…Never built one from this company before…How do they compare to the other kits out there.
Mark
Assuming you are doing 1/48, the Academy Corsair is a re-box of the Hobbycraft kit. Not a bad kit, but the Tamiya is superior.
Regards, Rick
[#ditto] The Tamiya kit is VERY hard to beat. Best bent-wing out there, IMHO.
I can’t comment on the Corsair, but in general here’s how I summarize their 1/48 line
- Decent fit
- Nice finely engaved panel lines (from my experience)
- sparse cockpit
- Useless decals
For the money they are great, especially with some AM stuff
My freind build one about a year ago . A nice kit with no major flaws. A little scratch building and some photo etch and for the price it is hard to beat.
Soulcrusher
On the back of the FSM magizines, they make Academy kits sound like there perfect. Though I never built one.
Mucker, you pretty well summed them up right here. I actually like the Academy/Minicraft kits right along with Monogram, Lindberg and Revell (old) kits. They do not have the level of detail that Tami/Hase/Trumpy have, but they are far less pricey and and bit more challenging without being over the top hard.
Brian [C):-)]
I’d go with Brain here. It’s about modelling so the worse the kit the more the challenge. The more the challenge the better the modeler.
I built that F4U kit nearly OOB when it was a new release from Hobbycraft. I had no problems with it, and thought it built up quite nicely. It can use just a bit of improvement in the cockpit, namely instrument panel and the seat, or at least some seat belts. I used a Pro Modeler decal set for the panel and seat belts. I also put on different decals just because I found a better AM set. When released it was half the price of the Tamiya kit and while not quite as easy or detailed on the inside, was definitely a nice kit and worth the money.
Academy’s own 1/48 birds can be quite nice. Their Spitfire kits are real gems. I built one straight OOB, decals and all, and was VERY pleased with the results.
I’ve always been a bit puzzled as to why some claim that certain kit decals are “useless” or “unusable”. I’ve built several Academy kits, and the only kit that had unusable decals was one of their F-16 kits (fuzzy and overall poor quality). Their 1/72 F-86F, 1/144 B-58, 1/144 B-47, 1/48 Mig-21, 1/48 Mirage IIIC, etc. etc…All had beautiful decal sheets. Then again, if they have one kit out there that I know of with a bad decal sheet, then there are bound to be others.
The only trouble I have personally experienced with Academy decals is that the lighter colors tend to be transluscent. Otherwise I have had no bad deals with them. I have seen far worse from Revell Monogram whose look like they came out of a dot printer with poor resolution, or Tamiya, whose are often quite thick and dont snuggle to conturs well.