I am Gonna Start!
Years ago, I saw a neat little kit. It was called the “Shell Welder” A ship kit. At the time it was a FROG kit. Lousy tight in molding in the corners and angles. Poor fit and in some cases, No fit!
Some years later ran across it again. Under the Heller label. Guess what? It did fit better. Some! Then years later, ran across it again. One of the things in this kit hadn’t changed til then. The Rails were some kind of very pliable plastic.
After better than Thirty years after that I ran across it again. This time it was a Russian label. Nothing changed except for the worse. To get the two levels of the deck and the stairs right, I had to cut those pieces apart, File and and Re-Assemble and use P.E. for the stairs. Don’t ask me why, except, she is just such a neat little ship and once ballasted right, one of the sweetest sailing and looking Micro R.C. I have ever built.
It has the thickest plastic in what should be thin areas and the weirdest Wheelouse assembly that over time has NEVER fit right anyway. Still makes the neatest “Silk Purse out of a Sows Ear” kit I know of.
Mach 2 PBM. Horrible thing. Clear parts made out of dried dog drool.
Mach 2 Valiant bomber. And of course after I finished it Airfix came out with a decent one.
Bill
This is an old Monogram B-58. I put this model on the Shelf of Doom for a year before I finally finished it.
F-15C MSIPII by Academy. Pieces fit, but they were just “off” and Deluxe Putty is to thick to really fit in the gaps.
Dragons one and only known 1/35th attemp of a Scud missle launcher…neat concept of subassembly process however each subassembky was designed by a different set of measurements…in different factories…and IF I hazard a guess on different continents.
Axles had no hard points to frame, frame was warped, cab, launch cabin, and aft sponsons flat did not fit on akready mentioned warped frame.
Ultimately the 5yr old mind overroad the 22yr old builder and it became the best 40.00 I ever smashed.
A few that have hit my radar as “total waste of glue”.
Glencoe reissued a bunch of ancient ITC/Ringo/Ideal kits from the 1950s in the early 1990s. A pair of the Soviet armor kits, the amphibious PT-76 and FROG missile launcher were very poor kits. But they were mainly for nostalgia and not serious model kist.
Around 1999, Trumpeter released an M60A1/A3 under the brand name Wasan. This kit was a poor copy of the Tamiya/Academy kits. Many parts were molded on in place. The entire upper hull looked like it had been put under a heat lamp. It used copies of the other companies’ directions, showing the placement of parts that didn’t exist because they were molded in place.
The final kit was an old USSR model kit of the Soviet WW2 light tank T-60. Another very crude model that didn’t fit anywhere. It was illegal to sell it outside of the USSR. Yeah, it should have disappeared like the Soviet Union.
For me it was a Maquette kit of a Boeing 307. The fuselage did not look like styrene, it looked more like composition or bakelite. The wings were styrene. The right side of the fuselage was about 1/8 inch taller than the left. I pitched it.
It’s kind of hard to look back over 50 years of modeling and remember some of the bad kits. I’ve slept since then and my memory is not what it used to be. So I may not highlight a specific kit, but I do remember some.
I will start off saying anything made by Linberg,… anything.
In general any 70’s era Revell, MPC, or AMT automobile kits. The ones with the plastic tire halves. Some were so bad the box top photo was retouched to make the model look better than it actually was. One that comes to mind was an old 1/25 Revell or MPC Anglia gasser drag cars. Revell’s 1/12 Ferrari F40 was another kit where everything was warped or designed by the three blind mice.
Some aircraft I found that while neat subjects had serious fit and accuracy issues in my opinion include the 1/48 Revell/Monogram P61 Black Widow, 1/24 Airfix AV8 Harrier, and the XB-70 in 1/72 by AMT/Testors.
Now armor kits that qualify (IMHO) would be the early Monogram 1/35 Flak Panzer, 1/35 Revell Kfz251 German Rocket Launcher, and I have to agree with the previously stated 1/35 Dragon SCUD-B kits.
Ben / DRUMS01
Not long after I got back into modeling I saw a neat little mine-roller called a Minenraumer. It was made by RPM. I had never heard of them but it looked like a cool little build so I ordered one. When I got it the first thing I see is major warpage on parts of the body. Long story short, the kit ended up in the recycling bin, but not after more than a little cussing.
Years later, Meng came out with a new version of the Minenraumer and it was an absolute dream to build, so at least there’s a happy ending.
Land Rover by, I think, Rewell. Maybe they made this kit on Friday afternoon but it ended up hitting the wall so hard my wife thought something broke the sound barrier in the basement.
The newer Revell Land Rover is an excellent kit!
I still have mine about half built. Yes thats a bad one. The kit came with misc. B-17 parts from some other model. Compounded by the fact that if I were to finish the kit it was to be BMF!
Didn’t you build a nice one in 1/144? That would be the better choice.
Bill
For me it was <insert name of nearly any Lindberg kit here> in <nearly always some weird-a**> scale.
Fit? For rank amateurs! Accuracy?? We don’t need no stinkin’ accuracy!!
The sad part being…they’ve done some really interesting ‘outlying’ subjects that no one else has…they just (nearly) always do them badly.
I still build 'em. But each major project asks for months of therapy afterward! [proplr]
I’m with DRUMS01 on this one. [:D]
Must admit to the RPM Minenrimer as well, wow what a HORRIBlE kit for the " average" builder. The Meng kit is light years ahead but is still a bit fiddly, definitly buildabke however.
As to Thanos I also agree abot the Star Trek kits. Some are very well done while others are abismal at best. Sci- Fi has alot of wiggle room but if you’re gonna take the time and money to produce a model kit for retail atleast due some planning and put out a quality product.
My least enjoyable kit was one of Reveogram’s P38s. I am sure it can be made into a great kit, but I quickly ran out of steam for filling all those seams.
I agree that Monogram took a lot of filler but still can be made into a decent model .
