The blistering and peeling of the unbuilt plastic parts surfaces is what I refer to- I have only found it on Airfix kits in the past- their airliners in particular is where I encountered it. Any other manufacturers have been known for this?
Thanks
I can’t remember what make the kit was, but I have seen this, and heard of others finding that defect. The conscensus seems to be that it is the result of improper plastic temperatures or material during the molding process, the plastic or molds being too cool the most likely reason. I don’t think it is an Airfix only issue and it is not very common. See if you can improve it by painting the areas with thin styrene cement ot Tenax, just a thought. It’s not easy to deal with.
I’ve occasionally found this on Airfix kits. I think it comes from running the moulds too quickly, so that the mould doesn’t have time to heat up properly between shots. I’m sure that it happens with other manufacturers, but the quality control at the Heller plant in France where, until recently, the vast majority of Airfix kits were moulded, was, and remains, pretty poor, and mouldings that would be rejected elsewhere seem to get through the QC process. Now that Airfix and Heller have gone their separate ways, and Airfix kits are moulded elsewhere, this should be less of a problem, though there are, of course, plenty of Airfix kits that were moulded at Trun still on LHS shelves.
I buy maybe a couple of dozen Airfix kits in an average year, and have only encountered the problem once in the last four years (on some of the white sprues of the ex-Heller 1/72 Concorde), so I wouldn’t not buy Airfix kits because of this. Hornby have a much better awareness of, concern for, and grip on quality control than the previous management did.
Cheers,
Chris.