im just interested on hearing what some people have to say about there models
a couple years ago my local hobby store got a few kits in and i decided to pic up the bristol beaufighter and i was confuse on how half-a$$ed the kit was there was a total lack of detail and the few pannel lines it had were WAY to deep and wide for 1/72nd scale!
although it was a nice fit…but that didn’t make up fo the waste of money.
and after i told my hobby store to stop purchasing matchbox items a week ago i was there and they had 3 lanc’s and 5 halifax’s i was very dissiponted
That was the one and only thing consistent on Matchbox kits. They didn’t scribe panel lines, they excavated trenches. I never encountered one I found worth building, but I’ll bet there are some of our friends from the UK who have. The ones that were most commonly sold in the US, like the Fury and F-101B, along with the big Dauntless, were f’shizzle.
I actually like Matchbox a little better than Hot Wheels, more realistic. [:D]
Matchbox kits are kind of like Airfix in the regard that they are fairly simple and lacking in detail. However, they are decent kits to get started with. I have built many of both over the years. Sometimes it is nice to dig one out of my stash for a change of pace.
True, they are easy to build, fit good, but the lack in detail. Perfect for beginners. I started with them myself when I was 10, and must have buld, played with and destroyed dozens of them!
Christos
Most of the Matchbox kits, which are frequently interchanged with Airfix, are 20 to 30 years old or even more. The quality of the kit reflects the “norm” for that period. They are woefully lacking when compared to most modern kits.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
Actually, Matchbox kits weren’t interchanged with Airfix. Airfix does its major mold swapping with Heller and did some in the early 80s with MPC before MPC went under.
As for Matchbox, well, they are what they are. Personally, I love em’, I cut my modeling teeth on them and get real nostalgic for them. Some of them are worth building.
If you like the BAC Lightning inteceptor and build 1/72, then the old Matchbox Lightning kit series is still the best you can get until someone takes it upon themselves to make a new series of them with today’s tooling technologies.
Revell Germany owns most of the old Matchbox molds and reissues them fairly frequently, often with and extra sprue here and there for a particular version that was not in the original Matchbox release.
Notable Matchbox kits that have come back under the RoG label recently include:
1/72 Handly Page Victor K.2 tanker
1/72 Fairey Swordfish
1/72 Aerospatiale Dauphin
1/72 Augusta 109 (Matchbox original was civilian, RoG reissue is South African military)
1/72 Vickers Wellington
Thats just a few of them.
If there was ever an upshot to Matchbox, it was that they attempted kit of things nobody else did (or has done yet) If you want a 1/32 DeHavilland Venom/Sea Venom, the old matchbox kit is it.
When I started off, they were, with Airfix, the most common kits available. Although they wouldn’t be up to today’s standards, they were (and are) ideal for beginners, and good value for money.
Used to do loads of then when i was a kid ,
great to learn on , the cockpit detail er well just the seats ,
but great to build , I did a 1/72 buccanneer not long ago one of my favorites
Aaaaaaah the memories when someone brings up matchbox kits. Not all that great on details, but really fun to fly around the house when I was a kid.
ca-ca…
imo
i 'spect at one point in time they did some variants no-one else did but, by today’s standards they’re toys to learn & practice on…
At this moment the Revell … ehm … Matchbox Dauphin is one of my current projects. It builds OK. Not lots of detailing, but actually it is OK in detailing as well.
Doesn’t comply with current Tamigawa, Academy or MPM standards, but especially considering it’s age, I like it.
Take a peek on my website, under ‘in pro gress’ to see the Dauphin 1/72.
There isn’t yet much to see on this site concerning the Dauphin, but there will be…
Besides this, I’ve got the Voodoo in stock. Bought with enthousiasm, I had some shiveres when examining the kit some months later again. It’s not that bad, just raised panel lines and not much cockpit detailing. Still, probably worth the build.
Now: matchbox armor! And Alpha jet: both dispursed in small boxes with a piece of transparant plastic to take a peek on what’s inside the box. Espcecially the tanks are great. Remember, these models are approx ten zillion years old, and still are very very detailed. take a peek on the mad matchbox groupbuild on FSM. Perhaps you’ll chage your mind on this - alas outdated - model brand.
Matchbox kits may be basic and underdetailed but with some work can be made to look very nice indeed. I actually enjoy building them and adding detail.
Two Matchbox Kits
cheers
Mike
The only Matchbox kit I ever done was the “Tiger Moth”, way back around 1978-79. As was said, for the time period the detailing was pretty much par for the course. If memory serves, I enjoyed mine quite a bit! [:)]
Take care,
Frank
nothing wrong with matchbox, loved making them as a kid and still do, even if they don’t measure up to the latest and greatest (and usually hideously expensive!) kits that we have today. A little work (come on…we can’t always have models that ‘fall’ together and have every conceivable detail!) and they can look pretty good. And who else does planes such as the stranraer, heyford, he115 and so on??? In the end so what if many of them are for kids? Isn’t that the point…[;)] Without the cheap and cheerful kits that get kids interested today there will be no future for modelling that’s for sure [:)]
[#ditto][bow][#ditto]
Well said![:)]
Take care,
Frank
yep
well said indeed!
cheers
Mike
[#ditto]
One of my favorite builds was the 1/72 Norduyn Norseman. Not much interior detail or detail on the floats, but the the thing just looks great when its done!
I have one more of those in the pile, plus a 1/72 Twin Otter that looks like it will be a pretty fair model when done.
For the minimal bucks ya pay, Matchbox taint too bad.
I have not built a Matchbox kit in a long,long time but the ones I did build are basic in detail which is not bad.They give you a great oppertunity to did some great detail work if you take time at it and will help improve you scratch building skills.Have fun with it,if you deciede to build one and share it with us.I would like to see what you can do with one of them kits.Have fun and enjoy,Digger.
I really shouldn’t knock Matchbox, but I usually do… [;)]
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