pi just bot the revell p-61 black widow kit . i was woundering witch kits better ? the dragen or the revell kit …as a kid i rember a monogram kit that i buildt all are in 1/48 …5high
Google Modeling Madness Kit Review Index. There are reviews of both the Revell and Great Wall P 61’s
The Great Wall kit is “better”, if by “better” you mean more parts, engraved lines, mixed-media, more details, and way more money…
The GW kit costs about the same as five Revell P-61s, and you can’t build the Late-block A or B-variants from it…
Hans, did you say five times? I just bought my second Revell P-61. I paid less than $10 for each one; and that included 7% sales tax. I see that Great Models is selling the Great Wall kit for $75.95, not including shipping or sales tax. I would expect it to fly!
i believe it’s all personnel preference. some like recessed lines and some like raised panel lines. some like harder construction because it’s so called real modeling and like a challenge.
revells widow will take a bit more love and a good amount of filler from what i been told and read online.
i have more respect for people who make revell/monogram kits that look show quality because we know all their kits aren’t always user friendly.
The Revell kit is a bear. I’ve been picking it up and putting it down for about two years. It’s a nice kit but in desperate need of some retooling. If you have lots of time and patience (and a fair amount of skill) the Revell kit isn’t a bad choice.
There’s a lot of options with the Revell kit which is not only a strength but a weakness. In trying to make a kit that can be positioned every way the ended up with one that doesn’t position well in any way. The pieces simply don’t fit well together, there is a lot of flash, a lot of thin spots and sink holes that will need filled, and on the port side wing, on the outside wing surface, the copywrite information has been cast into the wing. It’s also notorious for wanting to tail-sit. The kit is provided with pieces to prop it up but they look like hell so you’ll need to figure out another solution. For me, I put some lead sinkers in the nose and then stuck them in place with a fair amount of putty. Apparently the putty setting up creates a bit of heat because it warped the nose cone. Kinda looks like a bird strike so I’m going with it.
The Great Wall kit, in contrast, is very clean and well molded. The example I’ve seen had very little flash, no sinks, no mishapen pieces. I can’t comment if it will tail sit (probably will) but the compairison between the two kits is night and day. The Great Wall kit is simply higher quality and therefore should require a lot less putty and sanding to make it look right.
Still, as the prudent consumer (read: Cheap Ass) I would be torn as to which I’d choose. The Revell kit can be found easily for $15 or less where as the dead cheapest I’ve found the GW kit is $85. Granted, its a new kit and the price will go down eventually but right now it’s expensive.
Then again, so is the medicine I’ll need to keep my blood pressure down while I work on the Revell Kit.
i finished the revell widow a few months ago. its passable if you add some wiring in key places and some scratchbuilding in a few places :namely adding bulkheads to the gear wells, and some shims to the cockpit glass to make it actually fit. i did buy some verlinden resin engines for mine (i made a diorama and the kit engines were not even close to the detail i wanted) but i found that either the booms were too small, or the engines were too big, even when i shaved down the side walls until they were paper thin and scraped about 1-2mm off the cylinders.
I have never spent anywhere close to as much money as what the GW kit is, and have never seen that kit, but I second the opinion that the Revell is a bear, and that is being very polite about it. You will need patience and skill to do much with the Revell.
Personally, I like a little challenge when building a kit, but for me anyway, the Revell was more than a ‘little’ challenge, but then I do not claim to be an experienced or skilled builder. I have nothing but respect for those that can and do make this kit look good. I went to my 1st modeling show this fall, a small show, and there was a Revell P-61 that looked very good.
Do yourself a favor and look up what it takes to make all the ‘glass’ fit.
Here is a link that was posted to me when I was working on the kit:
http://www.swannysmodels.com/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1266508807/60
This guy is incredible, and if I recall, he went into some detail on the amount of work he put into the canopies.
Putty is not a good idea to use for attaching weights into the nose of a plastic aircraft model. At least not in large amounts. Why, because of the tolulene in the putty which helps it adhere to the plastic. I found this out the hard way may years back on a 1/32 Tornado. The tolulene in the putty caused my radome similar melt damage that had to be repaired. Try superglue, white glue,or modeling clay, for any lead weight attachment.
As far as the RM vs GW Widow goes, if you can afford it, go for whichever you prefer. As for me, I will be building the RM one that is already in my stash long before I go out and buy the GW. Not in my budget in the foreseeable future here.[^o)]
The only previous Widow I ever built was the Aurora one as a kid, so the much maligned RM Widow will be a step up in any case[;)]
Yeah…well now I know. Although if you ever want to simulate a big dent in an aircraft it makes a pretty realistic looking one.
As far as the “glass” goes I haven’t started work on it yet but I can tell I’m in for a real treat. Just touching it the plastic feels brittle and the couple pieces I’ve dry fitted while still one the sprue aren’t even close.
A challenge is one thing. Hell, my brother and I are doing a “polish a turd” challenge where we have to make a good looking, accurate aircraft out of a Starfix kit. This Revell kit isn’t a challenge, its annoying. It’s just plauged with problems that could easily be fixed by Revell but I think their attitude has always been “We’ve got the only kit for this plane, take it or leave it.” I’m hoping now that there is some competition that their molds will get a much needed upgrade.
Ya gotta consider that the kit molds are over 30+ years old now. If you have a “new” issue of the kit, the molds themselves will show their age, as opposed to one that has been sitting in a stash for nearly 20 years or so (like mine). Sink marks and flash are what happens when molds get old. And yes, decades of being the only game in town gave no reason for them to clean the molds up.They probably got their costs in these molds back when Jimmy Carter was still President. I always seem to find that the clear parts on any makers kits are brittle. Especially if they are molded nice and thin.
With all the gripes I see on here about Revells Widow, I am tempted to have a swipe at mine this coming year… But I really want to find info for markings on “Hard ta Get”, the Widow used as a diversion over the Cabantuan Camp during the 6th Ranger Battalion’s raid to free the POWs in January 1945.
the glass on the RM kit is very brittle, i cracked the top back on the cockpit piece beyond repair just by cutting it off the sprue, so i made a “tarp” out of tissue paper and thinned olive drap paint, something that a crew may have put over the windows to keep the interior cool. i tried finding AM glass for it but no luck.
A company called Vector makes AM glass for it…they are sold out of course. I read through the link that was posted above and his frustrations pretty much sum up this kit. Nothing, and I do mean NOTHING fits together correctly.
Edit:
Found some!
http://store.spruebrothers.com/148-vector-p-61-black-widow-canopies-rev-kit-vds48021-p20190.aspx
$35 for a the glass on a kit that cost me $9. Yeah…
well i wouldnt say NOTHING fits together perfectly…the base of the seats and the seats themselves fit pretty well lol. all kidding aside though, ther wasnt much more than that that actually fit well, i agree. mine was a re-release kit, make a few years ago with the ancient molds. (in kit mold terms, 30 years is ancient in my opinion) but i also like a bit of a challenge with a build, but the widow really tried my patience. i shelved it twice before finishing it. if you are making a dio base of any kind for it, i have a suggestion for getting itto sit level insead of adding weight: before you glue the front wheel together, drill a hole a tad smaller than the dia. of a needle or finishing nail and insert the nail or needle (with the head or eye) onto the hole and glue the tire together with superglue. drill another hole in the dio base (again, slightly smaller than the dia of the nail/needle) and pess it into the hole with some superglue. do you final adjustments on the angle before the glue dries and there you have it. i read a tip similar to this somewhere and whn i tried it myself i found that supergue helps it stay put.
I have three R/M kits in my stash which I have yet to start. One of them is going to become an F-15 Reporter since I have the conversion set for it. These are the older molds so they did’nt get the problems of all the sink marks and flash. I’ve "only’ had them for 20 to 25 years.
The date that Revell was kind enough to mold into the exterior of the wing which I subsequently had to scrape off with a knife said 1974…nearly 40 years using the same mold over and over and over. Heating, cooling; expanding, contracting; getting moved, dropped, shaken and yet not a single re-tooling. Boo.
it really is quite funny to tell a modern jet enthusiest that the first “F-15” was prop driven, the look on their face (if they dont know of the origional F-15) the look of bewildermant is priceless.
And every bit as “hot”, cutting edge, and futuristic when it was new as the fast mover was three decades later.
Well… 100.00 for new kit that has about the same number of flaws… Just in different places…
Basically, you just gotta be a modeler to build the Mongram/Revell kit… [;)]
As for “Nothing” fitting, I disagree… I’ve built it (Monogram) at least eight times, and they all fit together fairly well, with SOME putty work needed on the gonsola and neacelle/wing joints, but that’s always been the case with with most kits… No kit (at least none I’ve ever built, and I’ve built a couple thousand models) has parts that fit everywhere, all the time… Even two copies of the same kit have different issue sometimes… You get a “Monday kit”, one with a short-shot or warped parts from sitting in a too hot warehouse, brittle decals, etc. and/or broken/missing parts…
No, the Monogram Widow isn’t a “Shake & Bake”, and it’s not for everybody… While I don’t begruge anyone wanting perfect fit, I don’t pass up a kit just becasue there might be some fit-problems… If it has a problem, I just fix it… As I see it, it’s all just part of building models, and no more a “problem” than having to sand a seam or fabricate a missing or broken part…
Heck, That’s why they sell styrene sheet, strip, rod, putty, sanding films, etc[;)]
You ought to try building “Limited Run” kits if you wanna see REAL fit-issues, lol… Like the Modelcraft F-82… Whew… That was a “fun” kit…
Not…
But it built into a beautiful CAF P-82, once I’d beaten it into submission…
Hans, you are talking like someone who is a modeler. Maybe about a year ago I was talking to a gentleman with the Revell Corporation about the inaccuracies of the 1/48 P-40B and all the work that it is to fix them. His response was, “that’s what modeling is about”. Thanks for your comments; I hope we can learn from your wisdom!