i have purchased several AMT airplane kits that were on sale at a considerable discount price. All of the kits have resessed panel lines which is what interested me. One kit is a 1/72 scale AC130 gunship. Others are F117 stealth w/ground crew, F9N nightfighter. Apache VS mil24 hind in 1/72 scale. Are these kits any good? I never see any reviews of the AMT aircraft kits. Why not?
Also how do they compare to kits such as revell-monogram or hasagawa kits?
I am back into the modeling hobby after a 30 year hiatus. I am a canadian and would like to buy current revell or hasagawa kits but the $60.00 to $80.00 can. pricing is a little too rich for my income bracket. I paid $20.00 and less for the kits described above. so, did I waste my money or what?
You haven’t seen any reviews on AMT kits because they have been out of the AC kit business for several years. AMT kits were a mixed bag, some pretty good, some pretty bad. I haven’t built the ones you mention so maybe someone else can give you an opinion. They don’t compare well to modern tool Revell/Tamiya/Hasegawa kits, but some would be in about the same league as older kits from those Cos.
First welcome to the forum jeffbaker. About the qualities of Revwll-Monogram and Hasegawa, I can tell most of their products are very good, unless you get an old early re-issue kit which with some extra work you could still manage. I do not know which scale or era you focus on. For 1/48 WWII planes, beside Hasegawa and Revell-Monogra, you can try Tamiya kits in which I think they are superb(price range from Cdn$35-Cdn$55 except the F-177). Tamiya 1/72 planes are also great, they are actually the scale down version of their 1/48 twins. Academy also makes great kits, IMHO, they have the best quality/unite price value(their decals need some effort though). Their 1/72, 1/48 WWII fighters, bombers and jets range from Cdn$9.00 to Cdn$50.00. So far the best company I have tried is Accurate Miniature, their 1/48 kits subpass many companies including Hasegawa(IMHO) but Accurate Miniature produces only propeller engines planes.
Depending on the size of the plane, but will Cdn$20-40 you could get a very decent kit this day.
I have always felt they are on par with Monogram. The detail isn’t the greatest but not bad. The main thing I don’t like about them is the plastic they are made of. It seems to flexable or soft to me but that is just my opinion. I’ve built them in the past and I’m sure I’ll build them again in the future without reservation. [;)]
Wow talk about plastic being soft in their kits. I got a P-40N with very brittle plastics. They made the best P-40E, F and K in 1/48th scale (actually, they never released the P-40E, but AMTech did after some reworking of the molds.) The fit is not as nice, but not horrible. Some dry fitting and sanding will be needed. The kits are in general accurate.
For the price you did not waste your money. They are a bargain.
Hey Jeff;
well the AMT kits are nice if you are talking about their last runs like the A-20’s, F7F’s and P-40’s, and I hpe AMTech takes the reins and runs with these molds and re-release them again those where very good kits, also back in the early 90’s they also ran some of the old Otaki/Arii kits under their flag, but before that the ran ESCI’s, AIRFIX’s, and their own kits all where good for their time but now AMT is owned by a Road Champians and now just produce auto kits which I feel that hurt their chances of compatition with the others, but you can still get the P-40’s but they are AMTech’s, and the rest on EvilBay
Welcome to the forum Jeff. I personally like the AMT kits and have found them to be a lot of fun even if they need a little more work than the Hasegawa or Tamiya kits. I’ve built one of their P-40s with very satisfactory results and here are a few reviews of other AMT kits … http://www.swannysmodels.com/Havoc.html http://www.swannysmodels.com/B26B.html
Hey Swanny,
don’t feel that the old AMT’s where lacking but could be upgraded with some TLC, like the Gloster Meteor, the cockpit was lacking but with a little bit of imagination and some scrap styrene ( back then ) it came out to be a rather nice kit, and now we got PE kits but no one seems to remember those old kits like AMT’s and Monograms ACTION kits to apply them to, yes Eduard has a few PE kits for the old Monogram kits but the too are lacking for those kits and other companies have basicly replaced the old Monograms but they are still out there waiting to be built