I have never built a 1/24 scale plane yet but I want to take a crack at one. The posibilities for detail make it very tempting. It seems every review I read on a 1/24 scale kit deals with a lot of fit problems or just incorrect detail. Can anyone out there suggest a 1/24 scale kit that does not have major fit problems. I would prefer spending my time detailing the model not correcting time consuming fit problems. Has anyone build the Me 109E. Any input would be greatly apreciated.
“I would never be a member of any club that would actually accept me as a member”
I haven’t put one together but I do have 3 I am trying to sell for a family estate so have actually taken a look at the kits. Finding one without fit problems may be fun. The new Trumpeter kits are supposed to be pretty good but have those fiddley PE hinges.
The kit I played with is the Airfix Hurricane. Looks like a nicely detailed kit with an option to put an electric motor in the engine to get that realistic turning prop.
The first thing I noticed was that with the fuselage taped together and the wings taped together, there were huge gaps at the wingroots. Just as I was thinking this would take a lot of sheet styrene to fix I got to wondering. Yep, sure enough, if you spread the bottom of the fuselage at the wing joint, the gaps pretty much disappear. My advice is try to pick something up second hand and play with it. You won’t be out that much money and you get some experience before you shell out the massive costs these things go for.
When building, take your time and dry fit every major seam. I have seen several different kits built up and they all looked good when done.
Back in the day, I built the Airfix Stuka, and it was a nice kit to build with no major problems.
I’ve also heard the Trumpeter 109G series is quite nice, and their Fw-190D-9 also got good reviews.
I have a bunch of kits in the stash in 1/24 scale, and they all look pretty buildable if you ask me. Of course, that’s all relative as everyone’s skills are different.
I have most of the 1/24 kits in my stash and I’ve built a few. The Trumpeter kits are new molds with the new high pressure molding techniques, so the detail is sharper than the old Airfix and Bandai kits. The Trumpeter Spitfire, Mustang, and Zero all have shape problems though. The Me-109G series and Fw-190D are very accurate to my eye (though I’m not a rivet counter). I’ve also read good reviews of the 109G and Fw-190D. For some reason many retailers have been putting the 109Gs on sale lately. I’ve seen them come up a lot on Ebay cheap too.
The old Airfix kits are quite buildable though. I’ve built the Mustang, Spitfire, Fw-190 and Stuka. I recall the Stuka and Fw-190 were pretty straightforward builds. The Mustang and Spitfire had a few fit problems that needed to be dealt with (I built them all more than 20 years ago, so my memory is foggy).
I haven’t had a chance to get into any of the Bandai kits yet. The Me-109E and P-51 cover the same ground as Airfix, but they also have the A6M5 and George. I’ve seen the George built and it’s a nice looking kit. Bandai only reissues those kits in small batches every 5 years or so, so they are in constant short supply.
For the money, the Airfix kits are the best value for the price. Their lines are generally better than the Trumpeter kits, though the detail may not be quite as sharp. The amount of detail is comparable between the Airfix and Trumpeter kits though. The P-51 has the radio, oxygen bottles, and radiator detail behind the seat. It also has nice engine detail and gunbays. Other kits are similar.
You can find the Airfix kits as low as $20 if you hunt around. Most of them are easy to find for around $40. Most of the Trumpeter kits start with retail prices around $120. Ebay prices run $60 to $80. For the P-51D and Spitfire, I would definitely go with the Airfix kit. Both Trumpeter kits (Hobbycraft has reissued some of Trumpeter’s kits, so this applies to them too) have too many problems to justify the higher price.
Thank you for all of the input guys. I read some reviews and the JU 87 seems to have the best fit of all of the old airfix kits. I am partial to the early me109’s. They had some of the most exotic camo patterns that I’ve seen. Has anyone built this kit? I can’t see myself spending the money that trumpeter gets for there kits with all of the little problems they have. I know if you spend enought time on any kit you can make it into a good one. I only have about five to six hours a week to devote to modeling. I would rather spend the time adding more detail than fixing errors or filling in huge gaps in wing joints. Because these models are so large it will probaly be the only one in 1/24 I will build so I want to make sure I will be happy with it. Agian thanks for all of the input guys.
Michael
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