i found a hobby shop close to my home whith great armor selection. no more ordering online when i can go there and binge shop for tanks. i have just finished building tamiya’s dragon wagon, and i have to say that the detail was wonderful! tamiya is a little pricey at this store, and dragon is pretty cheap compared to tamiya. i picked up the flak 88 model 36 from dragon, and the detail was also amazing. tiny small parts and super fine detail, just what i need and want. thing is tamiya had hardly any flash or mold lines, dragon had quite a few. what are some of the pros and cons of each kit? flash, price, number of parts, detail, etc etc. the kits that strike my interests are dragon, tamiya, italari, MRC, revelle, academy, and trumeter. i have many selections, but i don’t want to spend precious bucks for a crap kit. i bought a flak 30 from italari, and i could tell when i opened up the box that i had a lot of work coming my way. it is sitting in the back of my closet as i write. suggestions? comments?
It depends on the individual kit you are looking for. No one kit maker is best. All have great kits and dogs. Generally, Tamiya’s are cleaner and easier to put together, also more expensive. Dragon’s are generally cheaper, but a little more fiddly and take more time to build. It is better to ask which brand of model _____ (fill in the blank with a type of vehicle) is the best to get. That will get you better answers.
how about what is the best kit, for a modern MBT kit? i have a lot of WWII kits already, but i’m wanting to possible work on a merkava, leopard II, or M1. narrow it down any?
The best M1 kit is the Dragon M1A1AIM. It is pretty new and goes for about $40. The older Dragon M1A1/A2 kits are pretty good too and go for about $15-$20. Tamiya’s newish M1A1/A2 is pretty good, but not as good as Dragon’s kits in my opinion. It goes for about $35.
For the Leopard II, Tamiya’s and Italeri’s are both pretty good. I’m not a Leopard expert, but they represent different version. Not sure which is more current.
Tamiya’s Merkave is an early Merk I. Academy has a Merk II that is pretty good. To get any other version Merk, you need to get AM resin sets to convert them. Legends has some great Merk upgrade sets. AEF Designs also does Merk update sets, but AEF is sketchy at best on quality and service. I won’t buy/use their stuff.
alrighty then. looks like i have to do a little bit of homework to figure out which one i want now, haha. i liked both the tamiya and dragons kits i have buile in the past. like i said the difference i have seen between the two, were major flash and seam lines in dragons, while the price of tamiya was high. i know its an off the wall question, but any suggestions on how to paint wooden ammo crates to get that real wooden look? and seam lines on 55 gallon drums?
Yup, you have to pretty much decide what you want; ease of assembly, or better details; more parts or less; and is price a factor. Like the paint question, a lot of it comes down to personal preference again.
painting plastic to look like wood.For the ammo crates, check out this thread on
Try drybrushing lightly over the seam line on the drums to make them stand out more.
the thread is very helpful. about the drums, what i meant was the seam line when joining the two halves. there is a sightly seam line between the two. trying to putty the seam line and sand it down scares me that i will warp it. trying to scrape it with a hobby knife scares me more.
Today, Dragon generally offers the best bang for the buck with all the AM stuff they include in their kits. However, they don’t make everything that we modelers crave…yet. Tamiya makes good stuff, especially late 80’s and up, but lack the extras that Dragon gives you. AFV Club and Tristar are up-and-comers and offer nicely detailed kits at a fraction more than Dragon. The companies to really wary of are the Eastern European such as Maquette, Eastern Express and Zvezda to name a few.
As for Italeri, they aren’t so bad. Their kits are old by today’s standards, but do build up nicely. Check out the Italeri Groupbuild for a taste of their offerings.
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Sorry, misunderstood what you were asking. Scraping or sanding works fine. No drum is perfectly round anyhow. If you use liquid glue and let a little squeeze out the seam, you won’t have to use any filler putty. Just sand/scrape it down and you will be good.
thanks everyone.
My favorite site for timely and informative stuff about kits is here:
http://www.perthmilitarymodelling.com/reviews/vehicles/revafv.htm
http://www.perthmilitarymodelling.com/whatsnew.htm
Plus, Track-Link and Missing Lynx also have good review and build up archives.
I definitely agree with all the responses posted to this thread.
In addition, to me, the real surprise lately have been the Trumpeter kits. I always…always check out the Perth site before seriously considering a model purchase. They are very high on the Trumpeter KV-1 and KV-2 kits, as well as the Pihrana LAV and some others. I think that in years past Trumpeter did not have a reputation as a top notch manufacturer, but that seems to have changed. Plus in general the kits seem to cost less than Dragon and Tamiya. But again, as is well pointed out below…one needs to consider all of the extras that Dragon throws into their kits to appreciate the value of their offerings.
I’m not the world’s biggest Italeri fan, but gosh darn if they don’t have some really cool AFV kits (styrene 1/35 scale) that do not seem to be offered by anyone else. Examples - M108, an entire M109 series, as well as the M107 and the M110. Also, I’m not aware of anyone besides Italeri that offers the Chaffee in 1/35 styrene.
And last and definitely not least, this forum is a treasure chest of good advice and information.
Larry
has anyone ever heard of Hobby Craft or Miny Hobby Models? they also sell those brands at my store. i just bought trumpeter’s Italian C-1 for like 15.00 bucks! i can’t wait to start on it!
Stay away from them. They are mostly really bad copies of other companies models. The exceptions are their M1A1s and a few other kits that are reboxed Trumpeter models. The rest are bad though. They are not worth the few extra bucks you may save buying them as opposed to the original boxings.
yeah thought so. the finished pics on the side of the box can be very deciving. sure the model looks great because it was probably done by someone who has been building for a very long time, and probably added on other parts. anyway, i am getting more and more impressed with the dragon models. i just bought the kingtger, premium edition, man o’ man. this kit is packed with a bunch of goodies. its like christmas when i opened up the box. i can’t wait to start on it. i have a couple models i’m working on right now in the final stages, but don’t want to get too far ahead of myself with to many kits going on at the same time. thanks for the advice guys
rooster