I have purchased a Roden kit online of a 1:72 Fokker E VIII. I bought this blindly having never built any of their stuff before. Soooo… what am I in for- good, bad or indifferent? Thanks!
so far the only Roden kit I have built is the LaGG-3, but it was originally molded by ICM.
it was a good kit (two more in the stash) with only a few areas that needed a little sanding and dry-fitting.
nothing out of the ordinary for any ‘normal’ modeler
is your kit a Roden original or a ‘re-pop’?
I’ve got their Gladiator MkI & Fokker DVII kits in the stash at the moment. By & large I’m fairly happy with them. Cockpit detail is a little sparse & the plastic is a little soft, but for about $A 30, I can’t complain. If it wasn’t for these kits, I wouldn’t even think about bi-planes. I’m sure the Eduard kits are very good, but at around 2 1/2 times the price, they’re out of my league.
having built a number of their kits,I can safely say that Roden is a wonderful “middle of the road” company…they sort of bridge the gap between cottage shops and the monsters like Revell, etc.
You should be pleasantly suprised.
greg
I just bought my son the Fokker Dr. 1, and it looks to be a nice kit. Agree with above that the pit detail is a bit sparse, but the rest of the detail and the casting of the parts looks nice.
I’m very grateful that Roden have the courage to manufacture subjects that otherwise would not be seen in injection moulding, to the standard that Roden make them. However, I felt a little frustration at some variabilities in fit and detail (ie some fit was good, some detail was good, some fit was atrocious, and I am unsure of the decal quality and artwork) of the Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter Comic Night Fighter.
I still haven’t finished it, actually, because the upper wing didn’t fit on the struts as well as it might have. It’s not going to beat me, but it’s not like building an Airfix Sopwith Pup (which at first it looked like it would be).
Top marks to Roden for making a Felixstowe Flying Boat, though, and I look forward always to more WW1 Roden releases, hoping, of course, that each kit will bring some incremental improvement in fit and quality.
That I am not sure of ,actually. I normally build ships, and dabble with planes and tanks when I need a break from ships. Ships can get daunting at times…
It’s nice to finish a kit in, say…over a couple of weekends- versus a full 6 months?!
Their 1/48 scale Fokker D.VII, Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter, Nieuport 28, SE 5a kits are prime. Very nice kits with great details and reasonable prices. See my reviews at http://www.wwi-n-plastic.com
I would love to see Roden do the Gotha series in 1/48.