Well, I havent bought an Airfix kit since I dabbled in their big Harrier, 1/48 Spitfire, Hurricane, Bf109, Fw190 a few years ago. Considering my LHS wanted $89 for the 1/72 Bone, I feel like a real sucker after opening the box. The decals must be the fuzziest, out of register crap that I’ve seen since my one and only Zhengdefu kit a few years ago. Its a series 12 kit, I thought Airfix had fairly good (Cartograph ?) decals nowdays ?
Never again.
LOL Paul,
Somewhere in the back of the stash I have two of these that I picked up in the mid-late 80’s at a clearance price of about $21.00 each.
Never could figure out why I wanted two of them… [:(DD]
Really disappointing Phil. I also built their 1/24 Sea Harrier last year and the decal sheet was great.
To make matters worse, 1/72 Bone decals seem a bit thin on the ground at the moment. Squadron has nothing, neither do Two Bobs. Cutting edge has gone belly up, running out of options…
Howdy guys,
What are the Airfix kits actually like now days? (Apart from your dilemmas with the decals of course).
I made a 1/72 Harrier about 15 years ago - and after that i swore i’d never buy another airfix kit. Whilst i was only a teenager at the time, i thought the mould details was pretty poor, with poor fit and yes, poor decals. I’ve never bought another.
Have they improved at all? After my experience, i relegated them in the back of my mind as a “budget” brand. Can’t say i’ve even bothered to look at prices of them in recent years.
Glad to hear your thoughts on them today, perhaps they’ve improved…?
Chris.
[dto:] for the same reasons[Y]
I built the Airfix kit originally but wasn’t happy with my seam-filling work. So, I built the Revell-Monogram kit instead and I was amazed at the differences between the kits. The Airfix definitely has some shape problems, and the Airfix wheels were about half the size of those in the Revell kit.
I believe Two Bobs just recently released a set for the B-1B. Could they really be sold out already?
Look at the TwoBobs site. Search for Bone. They list both 1/72 and 1/48 Dakota sheets for US$12.00 plus $5 shipping to Oz
Don
Thanks Pordoi, Just ordered a set. My first try, I found Bone decals with SOLD OUT in red up in the top right hand corner and I just gave up !
i find airfix extremley basic, havent had a good kit from them ever. My mossie was airfix and i spent more time filling sink holes and crappy seams than anything else. stuff all cockpit, but it did come with 2 fairly nice pilots, even if they didnt fit properly (lots of mods to make them fit) So yeah,long story short, ive never had a good airfix kit. always been basic and crap. But in this part of the world $89 for a B1 isnt too too bad. not the best, but yeah
To be fair, the Airfix (Series 3) Mosquito dates back to the early 70’s and was not a bad kit for its time. You should have seen the earlier Airfix Mosquito - that was extremely crude by comparison (eg. nose cap with grossly overscale mg’s moulded on), but IIRC it did date back to the '50’s.
Yes, much of the older catalogue are decidedly “old tech” (the tools were cut by hand - no CAD/CAM/CNC stuff back then), but they do have a certain charm to them.
i will concede that, i guess im just a bitter airfix victim [:P] lol
I believe people are saying good things about their new 1/48 B57/Canberra, and of course, the 1/24 Mosquito.
I noticed this thread on the shortcomings of Airfix kits and would like to include my 2 cents worth. Sorry to hear you got a bad kit.
I’ve been building Airfix kits for years and actually started on this hobby because of it. You’ll get some good ones as well as bad. Obviously they can’t be compared to todays standards but for me it’s nostalic to attempt to improve on it with the skills that I had garnered through the years. I remember just slapping the kit together within a day, paint and all, with awfull uncovered seam lines and glue as plain as the eye can see. Nowadays I spend days even months happily giving it the respect that it gets to the end. The results can be gratifying.
If decals are the issue, I’ve seen alot of modelers buy the latest hightech kit and still replace parts and decals with aftermarket stuff. I find that strange but I have to admit that Airfix needs to improve on their decals or include better ones from decal expert manufacturers.
The funny thing is as a kid, I couldn’t afford the bigger kits and now with the increased prices i still can’t afford them[:)] And because of the price I would sometimes rather settle for a similar kit of a different brand with better details at a slightly inflated price.
Nevertheless there are some subjects that only Airfix has like the Short Stirling which is in the forum WIP, the TSR-2 and many others. That at least would still get me buying an Airfix kit however bad it is.[:P]
Cheers,
Richard
Sunderland, Vulcan, Super Connie.
This i can agree to, airfix does have some real brilliant hits, in the larger scales. My dad has the 1/48 Canberra and shes a beauty, but all he can do is complain about the mistakes lol
I did the same thing when I was looking for 1/48 decals. Persisted a little longer and found that they actually weren’t sold out. Glad that you were able to purchase a set. Although now that you’ve done that, you will see that they are mostly current aircraft that will need modifications to add the towed decoy and other features… Out of the pot and into the fire, because I don’t know if these are available as resin parts in 1/72. If you’re a stickler for detail, you might be loooking at scratch building details.
Don
There are lots of good Airfix kits, some just for fun and then there are some that…
Unfortunately the 1/72 B-1 by Monogram is way better and the Airfix is kind of toy-like, such as the canopy. The Monogram is not very expensive, at least not in the past. But perservere and the Airfix kit will look nice on the shelf.
The Harrier would have been the venerable GR3 which dated back to the 1970s with raised panel lines and a very thick canopy.
Current efforts take advantage of modern moulding techniques and are fire better