I’d go along with what 's been said already. Having just left Okinawa, I’m hooked on Tamiya, but I have had good experiences with Dragon, Academy and Italeri. I recieved a pair of Zhengdefu (sp?) kits and they were terrible; out of scale, lacking details, just too much like a cheap toy, but they were good practice kits, and strangely, they both were motorized.
Tamiya for me
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Tamiy - very good fit, some kits have edward photoetch. expensive
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Academy - good fit, some kits’ instructions have errors. light on the budget
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Dragon - good fit. we have shanghai dragon and dragon here, i dunno what’s the difference. expensive like tamiyas.
sorry but i don’t like revell, the plastic is very brittle and it’s expensive too. the parts are just numbered from 1- let’s say 150. and the drawings on the instructions are confusing.
hasegawa is kewl too with their 1/72 scale. a bit expensive though.
Tamiya.
I would go for 1. Tamiya 2. Dragon 3. Academy.
mark956
It’s certainly a better time to model now than back in the 70’s. (when I started).
Steve
[:D]I couldn’t have said it any better Steve, there is no comparison with what we have available now in our hobby vs. the 70’s! Thanks, Joe[8D]
Indeed this is a great time to be a modeler. However, i sure miss the prices of yesteryear. Sob.
Istarted in the late late '60 after I back from Nam. 1.tamiya 2.academy 3.dragon 4.italeri “The Big Four” Not much out there then that were not “toys” Stephen
Tamiya is still the best now.
Last week, Mr.Tamiya annouced that he bought a large factory in China. You will see “made in China” Tamiya stuff soon.
I think Chinese manufacturers will be next generation. We have some rumour here in Japan about a brand-new AFV manufacturer from China or Hong Kong.
And,Skybow/Taiwan was one of my favorites.
i was wondering abt Skybow.
there is a kit of theirs at my LHS, and i was not familiar w/ them.
Easyeight, you have built some of their kits, i take it?
i am new to the armor side, and have only started 2 Tamiya kits.
but i have Italeri, Alan, CMK/Tamiya and others ‘on the shelf’.
ed.
Hi ed,
Skybow is very good.
Especially, I recommend “Dodge truck” series.
Norio,
I would have to go with the herd and say Tamiya is the kit I most often buy (I’m building 4 right now).
I do like the Dragon kits better though, but I just don’t buy very many of them. I always like getting the indy tracks with the kit and not having to go out and buy them separate.
I do have to add, I am working on my first AFV Club kit and it is dimensionally far more accurate than most Tamiya’s I’ve built, and although the tracks are some type of rubber/vinyl stuff, they’re incredibly detailed. They don’t have a very good offering though.
Guess I’ll wade in her too (of course tempered by what I’ve actually built)!
1/35:
Tamiya - the best, over all. They have a wide range, are accurate, and build easily. They have the best instructions I’ve run across. They are expensive!
Dragon - is accurate, well detailed, and are usually a little more intense to build (a lot more , if you include the indy tracks in that). (I like indy tracks!) Their instructions are much harder to follow than Tamiya’s, and often have misprints. Sometimes just with a misnumbered part, but sometimes with misplaced, missing, or backwards parts shown in the instructions. However, they are coming out with new kits faster than anyone else. Cheeper than Tamiya (in the US).
Academy - I only have their interior model Tiger I Early. For what you get, the price is very reasonable, and you can often get a great buy from an online house or e-bay. The interiors aren’t necessarily accurate, but give you a starting point. They are starting to issue a number of new kits, also.
Alan - I’ve looked in the box of a couple of these kits. The detail looks very good, the moldings are crisp with no flash. They do look like very nice kits. I’ve heard they build up well.
Trumpeter - I’ve only got their M1A2. The plastic is very hard compared to Tamiya or DML, making it harder to clean up parts. They have very heavy (compared to Tamiya or DML) mold lines and some flash. The instructions seemed pretty straight forward.
1/72:
Right now, the best braille scale manufactures out there are Revell-Germany. Their line of Tigers is particularly nice. Dragon has some super kits out too. But they also suffer from errors in the instructions. (My sig, below, is of the DML 1/72 Elefant. It only took a few nights to build.)
Good luck, and welcome to the darkside of the hobby!
Easy, Tamiya and Academy by far. But whatever you do dont buy Trumpeter!!![:)]
Easy, Tamiya and Academy by far. But whatever you do dont buy Trumpeter!!![:)]
Thanks for all the input guys and gals! It is so neat to have so many different perspectives and experience available to us in one place! Joe
Good luck with your Trumpeter M1A2 Bill. If you go way back, there was a thread dissing this kit. I had one and gave it away.
I wish I knew more about Alan, they have a few interesting kits.