I have revell of germany’s Bf109K4 in my stash which is a hasegawa rebox (at half the price mind you). Excellent detail i must say. If you want to go for a top notch paintjob as opposed to pumping in aftermarket stuff you still might wanna consider this one
Richard
Pro-Modeler G-Trop looks good in the box. Picked one up a couple of years ago for under $20.
The Pro-Modeler kit is the Hasegawa kit reboxed.
Hasegawa 1/32 scale kits do usually have good fit and the mold quality is usually excellent. However, I think many of their recent kits are a step backwards in detail over both what is out there new and even their older kits. For example, the old Fw-190 had the engine and optional parts to make several versions. The level of detail is about what you’d expect from a decent 1/48 scale kit.
Everyone else producing new 1/32 scale kits are producing much more detailed kits which this scale is ideal for. Trumpeter kind of goes overboard with detail nobody is ever going to see and they have made some huge blunders in their research. Tamiya is always outstanding, but there are a lot of other players too. The newer Revell-Germany kits in 1/32 are excellent kits of subjects nobody else has ever done in injection molded. Dragon and Eduard are pretty good too.
A couple of months ago I learned about Zoukei-Mura. They only have two kits out (a Shinden and a Ta-152H) with a Skyraider coming soon. I got the Shinden and Ta-152 and they are staggeringly gorgeous kits.
The advantage of Hasegawa kits is that they are among the cheapest of the newer 1/32 scale kits. And they have done some things nobody else has done recently like P-40s (E and later) and the Japanese fighters.
The originator of this thread talked about getting the Big Ed set for his first effort. I read a reviewer several years ago sum it up nicely. He called it “gilding the lily”. There are some older kits like the Monogram B-17 that could benefit from a few aftermarket parts, but most of the newer kits are just fine without a lot of extra parts. The exception being if you wanted to do a conversion of a kit into another mark, or the original kit maker got something very wrong which Trumpeter has done on several occasions.
Just my opinion of course.
Bill
My personal favorites are my old Matchbox and Revell, because they only cost me ten bucks each. All of the 1/32 kits have their good and bad points. Also if you built any manufacture’s kit and took it to a show and mislabeled it, chances are no one would notice. Me? I know it’s not the right scale, but I’d give an eye denture for an old Aurora kit. I loved that metallic maroon color.
I just snagged the Cyber offering at Amazon for $38 and free shipping…a great bargain:
Trumpeter deceived everyone by claiming that an early G with some slight changes was an F-4. Hasegawas F-4 actually is one. A comparison build in another magazine states that one is not really any better than the other.
I wish the manufacturers would realize the we all have our space limitations and instead of everyone designing 109s, 190s, Spits, and P51s, look for what hasn’t been produced, like Pacific Coast has been doing. When Zoukei Mura came out with their first release of an obscure Japanese fighter, I went wow. I was now dreaming of my 32nd Nick and Dianas on my shelf. I wish you could see the look on my face when I just found out their next release is yet another @#$%^&* Mustang. What’s next after that? Another $%^&*(!@ BF109E4? I don’t care if they even have wires running to the wing lights. I’m not going to buy one. We can show those Manufacturers by not buying releases after a couple companies have released the same plane before them.
The market is glutted with Mustangs. And I don’t know how anyone is going to beat the Tamiya Mustang for features, ease of build, and accuracy. About the only advantage other Mustangs might have is the price.
Everyone has the iconic aircraft because they sell. Casual modellers only build the most famous of aircraft.
However, I do think the market is overloaded with some of these aircraft and would like to see some other aircraft modeled.
Bill