How do tamiya’s kits stand up to others,and what are the differences in the tamiya kits? any problems that need attention…
As a rule Tamiya kits are exellent fit wise. I have the D9 but have’nt started on it as yet. But if it is anything like most of their product, it should go together well.
Personally, I dislike the Tamiya kit (but then again, I dislike ALL their kits). Like all other 1/48 D-9s, the wheel wells are not open (the back of the Jumo engine is visible). The Tamiya kit had a very odd spinner and prop blades, and the tires are tiny. But, it’s as easy to build as Legos. If you don’t mind all the inaccuracies, it’s easier to build than the Trimaster/DML/Dragon/Italeri/Revell kit (those are all from the same basic mold, with the Trimaster & DML issues being superior).
I agree with Pix, the Dragon/DML/Revell boxing of the old Trimaster kit is the more accurate kit, but the Tamiya is a lot easier to build. There are AM sets avail to correct some of the Tamiya inaccuracies, but it looks pretty good just OOB. The new 1/32 kit from Hasegawa is excellent if you want to move up to the larger scale.
Regards, Rick
This reminds me of when Trimaster issued its first Dora in about 1987 (an FW-190D-9; I heard they also did a D-12 with a torpedo, though I never actually saw the kit). I believe this was Trimaster’s first kit, and it was touted as the first “high tech” model. This was because it included white metal undercarriage and a very small, hard and thick fret of primitive PE parts that were almost impossible to remove from the fret without a pair of bolt cutters. The instrument dials were also PE, as I recall, no film instruments were around yet. The plastic parts were a terrible fit, and at $50 bucks for a major-release kit, in 1987 dollars, it was a fantastic investment. But I loved it, because I saw in it the future of modeling, and that future looked very bright. And indeed it has turned out that way. But being shocked at a $50 price tag is certainly a quaint memory.
After that, I was hooked on AM parts, and the next investment was a Verlinden cockpit set for a Hasegawa F-15A, also “high tech” though I don’t remember what they really called that series. It included PE turkey feathers (you had options for both types of exhaust cones, and their PE was also in that awful, impossible to cut stainless steel or whatever they used back then) and white metal wheels, gear legs and an odd gunsight that looked like a rifle scope.
But I’m rambling again. You guys need to just rap me with a stick when I go off the topic and start babbling like that…
TOM