What’s the best A-10 kit? Should I go with the Italeri or Hobbyboss kit?
Thanks,
Jeff
Hey Jeff,
I would lean towards the Hobbyboss kit… But it will set ya back between $65-70. I have seen this kit and she is really nice indeed…
To be honest, I never saw the Italeri kit in 48th scale… 72nd scale, now thats a kit!! On a side note, it would be nice to see either Hasegawa or Tamiya do one up…
Good hunting
Flaps up,
Mike
Rangers Lead The Way
The Revell-Monogram has been the best 1/48 A-10 for some time, however I don’t know how it stacks up against the recent Hobbyboss kit.
I would not recommend the Italeri A-10.
I’ve built the R/M and compared to the Hobby Boss it is second class, in fact I recently started a second R/M kit and picked up a two seater NAW-10 from Hobby Boss and it was like stepping into the light! Its worth the price.
Thats what I heard as well about the Hobbyboss kit although some still stand next to the R/M deal…
I guess its all up to the builder on what they prefer as well as the $$… Either way, the R/M is still good for the buck!!
The next time that I go to my LHS, I will have to have another look see at the Hobbyboss kit…
I know this is a little off topic but hows the Hobbyboss FJ-4B that just came out?? Is it any better than the Grand Phoenix deal?? She goes for $30
Flaps up,
Mike
Rangers Lead The Way
I did pick up the Italeri kit, and was initally impressed that they pantographed up their 1/72 scale kit, which is excellent. But as I was building it, I realized that’s all they did. They did no retweaking of the kit to make it fit in 1/48 like it does in 1/72. Even the 1/72 kit has some minor niggles. Blowing it up to 1/48 only exacerbates this, and they made no attempt to correct it. I got 1/3 of the way through the build, and aborted. Maybe one day I’ll finish it just for posterity. I was very disappointed, since the 1/72 kit is the best in scale. The R/M kit still holds up indeed. I got 1/3 of the way through that build as well, but I got tired of rescribing.
It’s pricey, but the Hobby Boss kit is worth it, best in scale.
I’ve got the Tamiya kit in my stash, but haven’t built it yet. How does it compare to HobbyBoss and R/M?
John
I haven’t open my Tamiya yet either but normally you can’t go wrong with a Tamiya kit. It’s certainly going to be better than either the Hobbycraft or the Monogram kit also sitting on my shelves.
I heard on some review that it was one of tamiya’s worst flaws in 1/48. but I’m not sure
The Tamiya kit has some shape problems, it’s not as good as the Monogram kit. Good for parts.
[#ditto]
Tamiya doesn’t usually miss, but this one is second banana to the RM.
The Tamiya A-10 is one of their all time stinkers. Go with the Hobbyboss!!
Jerry
I would agree with you on the Hobby Boss Kit. Rather expensive but I think it.s worth the money.
Gotta concur with the gang. The so-ugly-it’s-beautiful A-10 got me back into modeling this year (after a “brief” twenty-ish year hiatus lasting from childhood to adulthood), and the Hobby Boss was highly recommended. Many firsts for me (using Future, airbrushing camo, using washes, etc), but the kit still came out great:
Good luck!
PB
PS–If you decide to go with the HB kit and need spare parts, lemmeno! I bought two of the kits b/c I didn’t have confidence in my abilities. 
There’s a common misconception about the Tamiya kit. Forst of all, it’s old, and doesn’t come close to ther current level of quality. For its time, it was a good kit. But therein likes it’s achiles heel…it’s so old, it was based off early production A-10s and only early production A-10s. So early in fact, that it only repsresents the first 10 production A-10As. Thus for anything else, it takes a lot of work to get it right. So for 90% of the production run, the Tam kit just doesn’t measure up. A rare spot for the Big T, I know. So unless you actually want to build one of those first 10 airframes…there’s much better to choose from.
Hey Guy’s & Gal’s
Sorry for being a late comer on this thread but I had to put my [2c] in, Being a former A-10 wrench and a conasure of model kits heres my skinny on the A-10’s
1/32 Scale: Trumpeter (The only one in this scale)
1/48 Scale: 1.) HobbyBoss, 2.) R/M, 3.) Italeri (New), 4.) Revell (1980’s), 5.) Tamiya, 6.) ECSI/Italeri (old)
1/72 Scale: 1.) Hasegawa, 2.) Italeri, 3.) R/M, 4.) Academy
Even though the Italeri 1/48 A-10 is newer then the Revellograms, it has loads of problems the most noted is that the gun is centered on the nose it should be off to the left (hence the nose gear id located on the right side of the nose) and the cockpit HAS NO detail