Fonderies Minitures…
Short-run limitedproduction kits, plastic made of mopuldy cheese! 1 Win, 1 draw, one loose…
Well, Let’s See;
I believe it was 1956, yeah that was the year. Birthday. Gramps gave me two car kits. Sub 1/25( 1/32?) 56 Chrysler and 56 Mercury-Revell.You know if you’ve paid attention. They had multiple piece Bodies. Yeah, they had interiors and engines But no window material.
My first of their cars was a 1/25 FORD Country Squire Station Wagon. Same situation, but that one fit together great.( Only one I can remember that did on their American cars) That one I made windows for, out of wide cellophane tape glued together sticky side to sticky side carefully working out all the Bubbles. Made passable windows.
Those I believe were the worst! I kept a Machete on the hook at the end of the bench!
Hardest because my skills weren’t up to the kit: Mirage Hobby PZL P.11c. Lots of fiddly PE and also plastic bits;
Hardest because it was also tedious: Trumpeter LAV-III. Lots of bits and the PE sowage baskets. Eduard Bf-110G with radar array. Things like separate throttle levers and aligning and attaching the radar array.
Hardest because the kit was a bear: Alanger Yak-9. Lots of interior parts that need to fit together with NO locating pins, grooves, or anything of the sort to indicate how.
Any vacuform kit. They have always defeated me.
Most challenging kit from a painting perspective for me has been the Polar Lights 1/350 scale refit USS Enterprise NCC-1701. Achieving the subtle “Aztec” pattern is not for the faint of heart. Aftermarket mask sets are a must.
Concur with praise for Tamiya’s P-47. It’s a gem. Every more recent 1/48 scale Tamiya kit I have owned is really well engineered making for easy, painless assembly.
That’s why I plan on building my Enterprise in a gray green “experimental” lizard camouflage. Hey, it’s Star Trek; anything can happen with enough plot armor!
I second the Baron’s sentiment about Tamiya’s kits! I recently completed their Spitfire Mk I for a facebook group build (the Plastic posse Podcast) and it assembled beautifully!
That P-47 is on my list of “must haves”!
I’d say the hardest kit to date, for me, has to be the Roden 1/72 Gotha Bomber! the instructions were horrible, and the parts so teeny! lol
So far the Rye Field Models Tiger 1 (Gruppe Fehrmann version).
Between the “workable” tracks and the PE tool holders this one kicked my big behind! It is still not really “done”!
I agreed, The Heller Soleil Royal took me 6 1/2 months working on it almost every day, and 3 different set of instruction, one in English, one in French, and one in Japanese. The English and Japanese direction were provided by the good folks of this forum.
Now I am working on a supposedly “beginners” wood model and I am pulling what is left of my hair out.
Joe
I think the DML Me-262 was the hardest for me. It was my first foray into PE (stainless steel PE is HARD to cut!) and the first time I built a model with exposed engines. The DML kit is actually from Trimaster, and while it was pretty accurate, the fit was not the best, especially the lower wing joint at the fuselage and the forward engine fairing pieces.
The plumbing and wiring for the two Jumo 004B turbojets took me a month to research and implement. But I did learn where everything goes and how it works. For example, I learned that the exhaust nozzle “zwiebel” (onion) moved back and forth to control the aperture size, and that it was shaft driven by the accessory pack up front. The engines were attached to the wing using just three bolts.
It was the most complicated model I had built up to that time, and though it was trying, I did learn from it. I blame that kit for my PE seat belt addicition.
Just came across this thread, and it brought back memories! When I was about 9 or 10, I found a submarine model - don’t remember the brand, or specific sub other than it was a US nuclear sub. it was a cutaway, with half the hull molded in clear. I was so enthralled with all the little compartments and details, I simply HAD to have it. Mom and/or dad relented, and got it for me. Well, at that age, the shine wore off rather quickly when I realized the time-consuming tedium of painting each and every one of those compartments, and the little things therein. I started and stopped several times, wanting to move on to another less grueling model to build. My mother was having none of it. The hard rule was, no new model until the previous one is finished. After what must have seemed to me to be years, I finally finished it, and thankfully moved on. I do remember thinking, once it was all done, that it sure didn’t look as impressive as I had hoped. But that’s the life of a young modeller I suppose.
Where’s mom when you need her?
You will get a kick out of this:
Bill
For me the ICM TB-3 Zveno …multiple butt jointed sub assemblies made alignment quite a challenge.2nd was the Contrail vac form HP-42 .It was worth the effort!
It flys!
It sure growls!