Everyone has requested what they wish to build or what they would like to see produced, but along a differnt line, here is a poser for all of you. What is the Worst kit you have built and why. I will start off the thread by saying the worst ship kit I have built is old Entec Titanic. Ill fitting and warped parts, sparse details in some areas, some parts do not match the basic shape they are suppose to portray( rudder post ill fitting and not the correct length). This should raise some interesting discussions.
Back when I was a kid many years ago, I got a model of the Bismarck, which as I recall was by Revell (but I might be wrong!), at around 1/570 scale. What a piece of junk! The whole shape of the hull was wrong, the deck was so distorted that I had to use half a roll of tape just to clamp the thing down until the glue dried, and because I had not expected to have such problems with this I ended up getting airplane glue all over the model, myself, the bench, and broke off one of the turrets. What a mess! But firecrackers and BB guns were still readily available in those days, and it shortly ended up on the bottom of the river (where undoubtedly it still is to this day)…
About 200 meters from my childhood home is a lake of about 1/2 acre…a 1/700 scale Kaga has resided on the lake’s floor for over thirty years…
Eric,
You may be referring to the so-called 1/600 scale Aurora Bismarck; it was absolutely awful! As for my nominations for the worst ship kits, how about the Lindberg American Cleveland class CL’s and their HMS Hood, Bismarck, and Tirpitz? I wouldn’t even call them decent toys!
Bill Morrison
The revell “pirate ship”. I got it for my daughter, big fan of the POC movie. What a piece of junk. Actually, since I never bothered finishing it, does not qualfy as worst BUILT 
PS Manny,I thought you only sunk merchant ships
Maybe it was an Aurora Bismarck…REALLY bad! The Lindberg Bismark and Hood were pretty much rubbish as well, but at least they went together easily and made good pool toys in their day (I think Lindberg may still make them!!). I remember building the Lindberg Hood, and it went to its eventual doom in Buzzards Bay, on fire, and sinking fast!..In fact, as I recall just about every Lindberg ship kit in the '60’s and '70’s was pretty bad, but they were actively seeking the ‘cheap and cheerful’ market at the time (compare that with the pricing and accuracy on their latest 1/72 Japanese submarine kit!)…
Hi! Your local raving maniac here…Worst; Adj. that which is too easy, does not provide any challenge, everything is there and fits perfectly, requires no modeling skill to assemble, has instructions that actually instruct. As long as the major components are relatively accurate, and I can scratch the details that the kit doesn’t provide…I can carve off the offending stuff, and enjoy the art of superdetailing to the level I enjoy, or am willing to quit at. To put it simply, I am in the hobby of modelbuilding (trains, planes, cars, ships/boats, buildings, sci fi craft, etc… So! the worst kit, would be the one that I couldn’t do something with. The “worst kit”, would be the “shake-and-bake” kit…rattle the box a few times, and POOF dump out the finished product…where’s the fun in that!?
The worst was the 1/72 Armageddon LCT-6 kit I bought a couple of years ago. It was limited edition and expensive, but my Dad sailed in one to D-Day, so I dropped the $140. Not a single piece fit properly, the directions sucked, and I ended up scratchbuilding a good part of it. Yeccchh!!
Steve
My nomination is the USS Maine by Pyro. You know a model is going to be bad when they put a caveat on the box “The within model is similar to the ‘Maine’ but not an identical replica”! Warped parts, sink holes throughout and no detail - definately a candidate for pond pyrotechnics…
After having built several Tamiya 350th ships which were fantastic , I made the mistake of buying a Hasegawa kit.
It had no detail at all. I took it back into the shop and returned it after opening it in the parking lot.
If I remember the Pyro Maine correctly, it was a duplicate of the USS Olympia with off-set main battery turrets. It bore no resemblance whatsoever to the USS Maine.
Bill Morrison
Which Hasegawa kit?
I challenge you to do something useful with the Aurora 1/600 Bismarck. For you, it would be a perfect joy that you’ll be fooling with for years (and STILL never do anything useful with it!)!
Yes, but Bill, I built both, and they cost maybe $ 3.00 in 1966, and they were cast in white plastic, and you got to get out the precious jar of Testors GOLD that said 15 (cents-symbol) and just lay it on, while Admiral Dewey yelled " you may fire when ready, Gridley…" That’s a great ship model in my estimation, nostalgia style.
Now I have to pay about $ 75 for the Asahi.
Just in fun. We are all builders, not just assemblers.
I liked the Olympia at the time, but also remember the Maine as a pretty lousy model too…But cheap! Speaking of the USS Maine, every once in a rare while on Ebay I see a Heller model in 1/400 scale that purports to be the ‘Maine,’ but the turrets are on the centerline and it is flying a French flag on the box art! Does anyone know anything about that kit, and /or the ship it is representing? I can’t find any reference to a ‘Maine’ in the French navy of the time, though I may well be wrong…
And speaking of cheapness, perhaps it might be a good idea to start a string extolling the benefits of a cheap line of ship models to get younger people interested in model-building. For all we scoff at the old Pyro and Lindberg kits, they served a very definite purpose and filled a very well-defined niche ‘back in the day.’ This is a niche that has seemingly been lost in the thrust towards ever-more detailed and accurate (and therefore very expensive!) kits. While I love the kits being produced today for the most part, there doesn’t seem to be much on the shelves that would encourage a young potential modeller to save his nicklels and dimes, mow lawns, shovel snow and other odd jobs… Perhaps it is all the price of losing ‘Woolworths’ as a ‘point of sales!’
i do believe the worst ship model i ever tangled with was the tanker shell welder offshore tanker . this was an imai venture and although it had nice lines the rails were out of scale and , are you ready ? VINYL ! yep ,vinyl . the portholes were off in both size and in shape . who ever heard of oval portholes ! the next worst was the model that appears once in a while the S.S, united stetes . the stacks were to big and none of the bulkhead detail was there . i had to use architects detail decals to make it look right and it still fell short . i don,t remember who made it though … i do believe that lindbergs efforts were not the best ,i found out that they made a good base for scratch building , and that because off price . i would NOT buy the tamiya 1/350 fletcher say , to convert it to a gearing or a radar picket . not at 45.00 !!! tankerbuilder
Bondoman,
Oh, yes! I remember 15 cent bottles of Testor’s Enamel paint, as well as inexpensive kits. I remember taking my 50 cents allowance every Friday and going to the local Dime store to buy my models (Pyro’s Table Top Navy was my favorite). By 11, I had educated myself about the ships I built and saw the very real flaws in the kits, notably the 1941 configuration on the port side of the Aurora and the Pyro Yamato kits and its 1945 configuration on the starboard side! But, I was very disappointed by the USS Maine kit. I only built it once and quickly sank it in a local swamp.
Bill Morrison
At the risk that my opinion may sound like it came from the mouth of a space alien on the distant Andromeda galaxy, may I suggest that folks who complain about the lack of quality models, or who lament the often inaccurate models that exist on the market today, that they scatch build their own model. What a novel concept !
As an example, in the Nov/Dec 2008 issue of Ships in Scale, part I, there is a article by Joh L. Jones on how to build the Blue Jacket’s U.S.S. Maine, with step-by-step photos. People who wish to follow the authors example can obtain plans from Taubman’s Plan Service, or contact the Smithsonian Collection of Warship plans. True, if one goes by this route, it requires research, tools, skill and a desire to see the result of one’s own work without the dependence on kits. Over time, the self satisfaction of accomplishment leaves a warm glow all over one’s hairy body. Try it, you might enjoy the results. But first, write to the magazine, Ship in Scale for a back reprint of the vessel of your desire, then plunge head first into real model making !
Montani semper liberi Happy modeling to all and every one of you.
Crackers [angel]
Well, you were right in the first instance, in that we do burn aliens at the stake here! Perhaps you didn’t READ the title of this thread, which is ‘Worst ship model you have ever built.’ Obviously, EVERY model you have EVER built has been from scratch, and came out perfectly (quick, get the firewood!), and that you have NEVER had ANY problem with ANY kit, because you have always whittled yours out of popsicle sticks, and perfectly to scale (pile it up by his feet boys!). Further, since you have never built a mere ‘kit,’ you have never had any sympathy for those on the much ‘lower scale’ (light the kindling!) of modellers who can neither be bothered with cobbling together a ship merely from plans, or are people new to the hobby who just want a good kit they deal with straight out of the box. So in support of your position (kick some more coals in and pile up the firewood against his legs, dammit!), certainly, everyone SHOULD aspire to scratch-building wood kits!
No, doesn’t sound like a space alien, more like a @!#$@!@$%#@!..