I just had a Grand Phoenix F2H Demon and a Hi Tech Voison 10 LAR “Night Bomber” fall into my lap, and will have a Fonderie Miniature 1/48 Halifax III soon. The Demon is a beauty and I can tell from playing with the parts it’s going to be a challenge but a joy. On the other hand, the Hi Tech kit is not for the faint of heart, and I wonder if anyone with experience with these Hi Tech and FM kits are in agreement that they are expensive nightmares? At least Hi Tech gives very ample warning that this is not a kit for anyone but the most experienced, but I’ve heard horror stories about FM, that those kits aren’t for anybody, period.
Can I get some comments from the initiated, please?
TOM
PS: If you haven’t got the Roden Dr. I, and you are so inclined, it’s a beautiful kit. Maybe in a year or two I’ll get time to squeeze it into the building schedule.
I’ve built a couple of the Grand Phoenix kits & they are not shake the box builds, but not too difficult. I’ve never built a Hi Tech kit, but from reading reviews they would be for the more advanced modeler. My experience with FM kits is that they are basically very overpriced crap.
Regards, Rick
That’s really a shame for the Halifax, because it’s a needed and wanted subject in 1/48. But we ain’t gonna get it from the Big Four. I’m still waiting for the Trumpeter Wellington in 1/48, but haven’t heard anything about it lately.
As for this Grand Phoenix F3H-2N, I haven’t seen such a beautiful kit in the box in a long time. Lots and lots of great Aires resin parts, plenty of good PE. Let’s hope it all fits together as nicely as it looks in parts.
TOM
Im building the GrandPhoenix F3h as we speak. I think it’s a genuin challange thats for sure,but Im loving every minute. I previously built an A-10 from Tamiya and all the panel lines had to be rescribed. You dont have to do that with this kit. In fact I would say that the panel lines are the best Ive seen on any kit yet. The A-10 had no detail at all in the cockpit so I had to spend $50.00 bucks to buy a resin one and then another $30.00 on P/E So weres all the savings .The F3h comes with the resin cockpit,and wheel wells,etc. The cockpit asembly is a litle tricky and Dry-fitting is the most important word I can use for the cockpit assembly. The cockpit alone has almost 30 pieces!! I would say the entire model fits pretty good but you have to clean alot of the flashing and resin always needs a litle extra care to fit correctly. The almost complete lack of guidance from the Instructions is the only bad thing in the box. Your deffinantly going to need lots of refrence material. The Decals are great.
All in all I would highly recomend this kit and I think it will definantly become my best OOB kit on the shelf for sure.
If you need any tips of refrence sites, send me an e-mail. Enjoy Trevor.
Kits with more PE and resin parts than plastic almost need another term for the build besides OOB. Those beautifully delicate panel lines were among the first things I noticed, and my lack of references for this bird is going to be a serious problem.
TOM
Your right, they should be called somthing other than OOB, They are refered to as Multi-media Kits, that are oob. Heres an OK site for now, the best one is down for the time being. http://www.modelingmadness.com/scotts/korean/us/48f3h.htm