I made two discoveries this weekend. Certainly not new, but new to me.
One, we have a Hobby Lobby here in town. Never noticed it. Though the LHS is better stocked, I was impressed with the range of stuff they did have- actually had quite a few kits I don’t see at the LHS. I’ll probably check the price at HobLob and let the LHS get a shot at meeting or beating it, but it’s still cool to have more places to wander the styrene aisles.
Second thing- Accurate Miniatures. I’d read reviews of them, and seen a few discussions, but hadn’t paid attention too much. HobLob had quite a selection. What’s the consensus on Accurate? One of the boxes was opened, and the parts looked pretty nice- certainly were plenty of them, even in 1/48 scale. I’ve not built a Hasegawa or Tamiya kit since returning to building- only 2 Academy kits under my built right now- but I know those two have a very good reputation. Were does Accurate stand in relation to those? Worth the money?
I’ve built the Accurate TBF Avenger and the Stormovik. Both were very good quality kits that I would recommend to anyone. I also have a Doolittle raider B-25B and a Vindicator in my stash. The Vindicator does not appear to have as many parts but the quality seems on par with their earlier kits. Accurate kits are probably a slight step below Tamiya and Hasegawa, but they are worth the money. Pick one up and try it, I think you’ll be satisfied.
Your a lucky soul for having a hobby lobby in you area. Especially with all of their half off sales. Accurate Miniatures is right on par if not ahead of tamiya or hasegawa. Wish I had a hobby lobby in my area.
I’ve built about 4 of the AccMin SBD’s and 3 of the F3F’s and I have to say those kits are sweet!!! The SBD has an interior to rival a complete resin set, nice fit all the way through (except the trailing edge of the wing where it meets the fuselage, it just needs a little fiddling though, not a big issue. They also usually come with a good selection of decals, as in with the F3F-2 you are able to model ANY of the F3F’s ever built from them, and on some of the SBD’s it has several carrier wing’s decals on them.
The two types I built either rival or beat hands down the Tamiya and Hase kits I have done. I’ve heard lots of praise on their B-25 kits, as in very detailed interior and bomb bay etc… I’ll be doing one of those in the future. And if you do a lot of WWII A/C I recommend picking up their WWII US Armament set with all the bombs, depth charges and torpedos you can shake a stick at!
Hobby Lobby probably will be close to the LHS in price… UNTIL they have their 50% sale on models or their 40% off any one item coupon on the internet… that’s when it’s time to build up the stash!!!
Bookmark the linked page below and check it every so often, you’ll be pleasantly surprised about every other week you’ll see one of the two sales in the list… And at least at my Hobby Lobby they don’t mind if I buy a kit withthe 4-% off coupon, go put it in the car and come back and get another one etc… just print out enough coupons to get as many as you thnk you wanna buy! Also I print extras because a lot of times there’s someone standing there looking at a kit lovingly unltil I offer to give them a coupon and they smile real big, rip the box off the shelf and go running for the cashier! [;)]
In my opinion, Acc Min kits are some of the best available. The TBF/TBM series is as good as(if not better than) anything Tamiya have to offer apart from maybe the P-47’s. The SBD Dauntless series is very good too (it was one of my favourite kits to build). The kits are generally more complicated than Tamiya or Academy ones, but aren’t really very difficult. And you get some great aircraft that no-one else does.
I agree with falcon and the others…in some respects AM beats out Tamiya and Hasegawa. As a novice modeller I’ve built a few of their kits. On the Avenger, there were absolutley no seams to fill. zero.
Some of the more experienced modeller can make world class stuff out of AM kits. The details, fit, quality of plastic is top notch. The only negative I hear is about their instruction booklet layout. It’s different, but some like it even better. It’s truly a matter of taste.
If they offer a subject matter that interests you, give it a shot…you’ll never go back!
Wow! Glad I asked. Thanks to all for the great feedback.
I’d never noticed Hobby Lobby, probably because I am only getting back into building recently. I was driving with my family Saturday morning, and as we drove past a strip mall that I go by at least once a week, I did a double take… Hobby Lobby. I’d have never thought to look there if it wasn’t for people talking about it on this forum.
I’ll definetly check out one of the AccuMini kits. I’ve been looking to build more 1/48 now that I see (if rather blurrily) that while 1/72 is not as expensive, it’s just darn hard for me to work with. So I’ll probably mix 1/48 and 1/72 a bit more.
tho9900- Thanks for the link to the coupon- I’ll check that every time it updates!
I was just looking over the AccuMini website- they’ve got quite a bit of stuff there. Step by step builds, aircraft photos, links. Cool.
Not only are the AM kits very nice as so many have already pointed out the customer service level is also very good just in case you do run into any problems.
I think the AM instruction booklets are the best ones out there, and the kits are far better than the top-of-the-line Japanese, if only because they’re always just a bit different in terms of assembly procedures. I’ve simply stopped building the Japanese fall-into-place kits, nice as they are, because whatever the subject airplane, it’s the identical assembly procedure and you can do it blindfolded after awhile.
Me, I’ve turned to resin and vacuform simply for the variety.
I’ve only built the B-25 but it was one of the nicest of the aircraft I’ve put together in a long while. It’s hard to not pick up a few more of their kits, even if the subjects aren’t really any versions that interest me, the kits are that nice.
I’ve got all the Accurate Minature P-51 kits, well they keep coming out with the Recon versions now. I noticed Hobby Lobby likes to up the regular price a little but with the good deals you still get them a whole lot cheaper.
I picked up an Accurate Miniatures P-51A (using the 40% coupon from Hobby Lobby!) and just looking the parts over I’m really impressed. It’ll be a few weeks before I start to build, but it looks like an awesome kit. The instructions are cool- I like the narrative format they use.
I’ve not built a Tamiya or Hasegawa kit, so I don’t have anything to compare it to, but I’m really impressed.
Hehehe… I also ordered the AM SDB-3 last week from Squadron when they had it for $13.99. I went by to apologize to the guy at my LHS- but he agreed it was a great price. (He sold it for $36).
I was also surprised to see AM is over in Charlotte, NC (USA)- only about 3 hours from where I am. Cool!