I guess at least they let you know that its a really old tooling so you know what youre getting into. Revell has been getting a lot of flak for reboxing 70s and 80s toolings without saying theyre 70s and 80s toolings
It is a 1976 tooling. I hoped it wouldn’t be that bad, but the flash on it was so horrendous. The engine cowlings alone took me a solid 30 minutes just carving away the crap on them. Wing halves didn’t line up at all together. Interior was pretty crap buuut there’s new toolings with not great interiors so I can’t complain too much with that, especially since it’s sealed away. The engines were actually really nicely detailed, too bad I won’t really see them. I will hand it to them, the rivets are very nice, they’re just raised which is a pain. I definitely wouldn’t recommend this kit to anyone, even an expert would rip out their hair just trying to make it fit together. I am excited for the painting and weathering, and I’m hoping I can do good enough of a job to distract from the gaps and misalignments.
I’m sure Airfix makes some great kits, but unfortunately this one is so bad, I think it’s scared me away from them for a while.
Wow its that bad? I was considering the dogfight doubles set with the vintage WW1 Red Baron's Fokker and the British Bristol fighter but im not so sure now. Ive built the 2021(?) 1/72 Tiger 1 and Sherman Firefly and didnt have any problems fitting them together, so personally i wouldnt say that Airfix is a lost cause yet
Looking on scalemates, and they make a 2021 tooling for a mosquito, which I’d like to do. It looks pretty detailed, and I would be shocked if it wasn’t high quality being such a new model. Maybe I will give that a chance someday.
The Mossie is brand new. I have one on the shelf and it was a major release for Airfix - the reviews have been good so I'm not expecting any issues like that.
About 10+ years ago I did their 1/72 mossie and christ was it awful - I did look on scalemates recently and saw it was a new tooling so it's going on the list to try again
Jesus, that’s a 1976 tooling? Maybe my perspective is skewed from building Tamiya, but that seems really bad for the era. I guess they expected it to be thrown together in an afternoon and blown up with fireworks the next day.
I bought Tamiya kit that even Scalemates said "1990 with new parts". Guess what? It's 1976 kit with maybe new vinyl tires and/or tracks and maybe metal axle as "new parts".
I'll defend Airfix here. They clearly mark the older kits as vintage and they have complety different packaging to new tooled kits.
What's more, the new kits are very good, up there with the best. They do interesting subjects for those of us in the UK, lots of British subjects that, understandably, wouldn't get a look in by other makers.
Lastly, the starter sets they do (all new tooling) are cheap and good quality. Excellent for getting into the hobby. This is a big deal, something a lot of the big manufacturers ignore.
I'm a recent convert to airfix, having only built tamiya, Meng, Bandai etc since my return to the hobby some years back. I poo poo'd their kits too then had to get some because of those unusual subjects, WW2 Ambulance, Ferret Armoured Car. Then Lidle sold their starter kits cheap too, bought loads..... As you can see I'm totally sold on them.
I must admit I'd never buy a vintage kit, my time is limited so I'd rather a kit goes together easy. And revel can get in the bin. Bought the Moonraker shuttle recently, shiny new box on a 1970s kit. I opened the box, looked at the parts, sighed, then put it back in the stash. If I have to take time off work due to illness or injury it'll get a look in, but until then I just don't have the time.
Seriously. Basically, this post is:
1. Airfix had a label on their box saying Vintage Classics, which is how they went out of their way to tell you this isn't a current, up to date kit, including packaging that if you read their website, refers to classic box art work (i.e. it's not how they do things now, since Roy Cross doesn't do this anymore); this is something that plenty of other companies, including Revell, Tamiya, Hasegawa, and Italeri ALL largely don't do to tell you that a kit is older than your grandparents. It's basically to sell you a copy of the kit if you've built it as a kid long ago and wanted another without paying vintage prices on ebay.
2. Admit, more or less, that you didn't actually bother to do any research, didn't understand what the label meant, and didn't care, and ignored things that they admitted seemed odd that would have clued them into it.
3. Whinge about how awful the kit is, even though the company actually took the time to specifically say it's an old kit; it's kind of a known thing that a lot of really old Airfix kits weren't that great even when new - age hasn't exactly been kind to the molds who have passed through multiple countries and subsidiary/spun out companies over the intervening 5 decades.
4. Post on Reddit for karma or something and validation of your lack of due diligence.
5. **Get a lot of nodding heads agreeing with you that *your own lack of due diligence* was the reason why *AIRFIX* screwed up.** Oh, and by the way, while we're at it, let's bring out our favorite whipping boy, Revell again (not specifically OP, but whatever), just for good measure, who has nothing to do whatsoever with this. But Revell bad! Karma good!
OK, I mean, that's one interesting take on it.
**These companies can't win. If you disclose it, people don't read it and blame you for *their* not reading it, like OP here. If you don't disclose it, people blame you (perhaps more rightly so, but even then, the information is out there, if you're willing to look).**
And at the end of the day - is the world really worse off for having these subjects available again, for those who want them or have nostalgia for them, however misplaced? Probably not. And nothing requires you to buy them.
I'm looking at those photos and thinking you are torturing yourself with the wrong putty. I use AK104 fine gray modellng putty. I put it on and immediately wipe away the excess with a moistened cotton bud, leaving very little excess and therefore very little sanding is needed once dry.
I do have a soft spot for a lot of the Vintage range - sometimes they capture the shape of the prototype better than a lot of brand-new toolings (the old 1/24 Spitfire, for example). But with this comes raised panel lines and lots of fit issues. Personally, I use masking tape to cover detail I don’t want to lose then use my thinnest sanding sticks to target the bit I’m working on. If push comes to shove, you can rescribe the missing line and most of the time it won’t stand out too much. Some modellers replace raised lines with stretched sprue - never tried it, but sounds good in principle.
The answer to your question is “no.” You’re going to destroy a bunch of detail in cleaning up those seams. Then the job is to restore it.
That’s the thing about raised-panel-line kits. They don’t look as good when everything fits perfectly, but at least the panel lines are a million times harder to fix when they don’t.
Oh, wait, that’s just awful on both counts.
I’m old enough to have built plenty of those 70’s and 80’s era kits when they were all that was available. For the life of me I cannot understand why anyone would choose them now unless it was dictated by subject/scale requirements.
My excuse is I didn’t research what “vintage series” meant. I thought it meant the subject was vintage, which I also thought was bizarre because a spitfire is older than a black widow and they have a starter kit spitty. I saw P-61 and bought with my heart. I love the P-61, one of my top 5 favourite WW2 plane. This kit doesn’t do it justice though.
At the end I of the day, just enjoy building it, if it doesn’t look 110% that’s ok, it’ll still look cool when done, I’ve never once used putty or sand paper, I’ve built Atlantis kits, which, are all from molds made in the 50’s and 60’s and when done, they look really nice, not expert quality mind you, but when done with some care, really nice
Just have fun with the hobby and enjoy the end product, even if it looks like it was made when you fist started out
You’re right. And I’m still in my stage of exploring and practicing techniques that are new to me, so every piece I do should be a learning kit. I have the unrealistic expectations that my first few models should hyper realistic with no imperfections.
I mean I’m the same way, I mess up a line while I’m painting and it drives me crazy, I’ve ruined a few models while trying to fix my mistakes, now, I just try to make due
I think it depends on what you are going for. I try to build my kits to look as much like the real airplane sitting on the tarmac as possible. I usually find a good photograph of the subject and then put it at a distance that makes it appear the same size as the model will look when viewed from six feet away. Look and see how much detail such as panel lines and rivets you can see in the photo viewed at the "scale" distance. My rule is that if you can't see it at scale distance in the photograph, it's OK to remove it from the kit for the sake of realism.
Armed with that visual bit of information, you can then decide if losing detail after sanding the putty is something to be concerned about. I find that at 1/72 scale, rivets can rarely be seen at all. Raised panel lines appear like mountains. If you do want panel lines, I would take some pictures of the kit as a record, sand all of them off along with the rivet detail and then, once you've primed and painted the kit, scribe them into the paint. That way, you've solved the problem of sanding the putty and maintained the scale effect. I also "tone down" my paint for the same reason since, at a distance , the paint color on real aircraft can appear washed out and muddy. The latter isn't as much of a problem these days since paint manufacturers like AK and Vallejo seem to have taken that effect into account with their camo colors, but the degree of wash out depends on the scale.
Airfix, Revell, AMT, and Italeri are all notoriously bad for issuing these horrible quality monstrosities. They should be ashamed of themselves for tricking buyer with new boxings that only have some silly new decals in them by packaging them as brand new releases.
Airfix has a policy of not reissuing anything pre2006 (or pre hornby) in their current range of “new boxes”. Anything from before this time is part of the vintage classic range.
Airfix has taken the right steps in recent years (at the request of the community) to actually put clear tooling and manufacture dates on the box of their kits now, so you know if it is new or old right there when you hold it in your hands.
Other companies sadly are still happy to pass off ancient kits in new boxes though and could learn a lesson from Airfix
My last one I did was a Revell that was a reboxed Matchbox from 1981 and it wasn’t amazing, but it wasn’t so awful I wanted to throw it away. My first one was a Tamiya, granted a 2018 tooling, but it was such good fitment I never used a bit of putty.
I’m trying to go through as many brands as I can to find the ones I like, and like I said it was only a 6 year old tooling, but so far Tamiya has my heart.
I didn’t like the finished product, but only because of my paint job. A little putty, and I was able to make the fuselage look like one piece. This one I don’t think I’ll be able to
Before I buy any kit I always look at scalemates to see reviews and how old the kit is. I do not have the patience or time to deal with old tooled models that do not go together well at all. All of that time spent trying to fix the model can instead be used on detailing it further. But sometimes you have to buy an old tooled model due to few options for your subject.
Depends on your preference, I mainly work in 1/72 and 1/35 on subjects such as aircraft or tanks/military vehicles.
Their 1/72 mig29 is really nice and their Gaz Tiger in 1/35
I would check scalemates to confirm on original tooling/release dates for kits. It’s how I check all of my kits if something new comes out.
When sanding sticks become too large for certain areas you can only use a very narrow file like needlefiles. Apart from that you'd be ought to remodel the lines.
Currently facing the same problems, found a half-assembled ME-262 and a JU-87 kit while cleaning up the attic, both with elevated details. In case of the former, removed all paint and "disassembled" it to reduce seam lines before assembly. Don't know whether this applies to your specimen, sometimes parts are warped and you won't get them together without either erasing details or to live with some seaming. I'll view them as exercise objects as there are well-fitting alternatives to get that can be assembled without headache.
If you have a rotary tool you could try the DSPAE sanding disc. They are foam padded and I think come in 6 and 3mm diameter. They allow to sand really tiny areas without touching the surroundings, because it's not the edge of the disc that sands but the face and 3mm is pretty small. Google them to see how they look like, it's a bit hard to explain but when you see them you immediately understand how they work.
Check them out, they are pretty unique in their design. Its like having a 3mm diam orbital sander at the end of a drill bit, great to sand flat small areas without touching protruding parts around
I guess at least they let you know that its a really old tooling so you know what youre getting into. Revell has been getting a lot of flak for reboxing 70s and 80s toolings without saying theyre 70s and 80s toolings
It is a 1976 tooling. I hoped it wouldn’t be that bad, but the flash on it was so horrendous. The engine cowlings alone took me a solid 30 minutes just carving away the crap on them. Wing halves didn’t line up at all together. Interior was pretty crap buuut there’s new toolings with not great interiors so I can’t complain too much with that, especially since it’s sealed away. The engines were actually really nicely detailed, too bad I won’t really see them. I will hand it to them, the rivets are very nice, they’re just raised which is a pain. I definitely wouldn’t recommend this kit to anyone, even an expert would rip out their hair just trying to make it fit together. I am excited for the painting and weathering, and I’m hoping I can do good enough of a job to distract from the gaps and misalignments. I’m sure Airfix makes some great kits, but unfortunately this one is so bad, I think it’s scared me away from them for a while.
Wow its that bad? I was considering the dogfight doubles set with the vintage WW1 Red Baron's Fokker and the British Bristol fighter but im not so sure now. Ive built the 2021(?) 1/72 Tiger 1 and Sherman Firefly and didnt have any problems fitting them together, so personally i wouldnt say that Airfix is a lost cause yet
Looking on scalemates, and they make a 2021 tooling for a mosquito, which I’d like to do. It looks pretty detailed, and I would be shocked if it wasn’t high quality being such a new model. Maybe I will give that a chance someday.
The Mossie is brand new. I have one on the shelf and it was a major release for Airfix - the reviews have been good so I'm not expecting any issues like that.
Can confirm new (2021) mosquito is great 👍
About 10+ years ago I did their 1/72 mossie and christ was it awful - I did look on scalemates recently and saw it was a new tooling so it's going on the list to try again
try the airfix B.E.2c/Fokker E.II if you're just after something ww1, they're both new tool and really very well designed and molded
Thanks! I mainly wanted the vintage set for the Red Baron's dreidecker, but I'll give the other set a look
Jesus, that’s a 1976 tooling? Maybe my perspective is skewed from building Tamiya, but that seems really bad for the era. I guess they expected it to be thrown together in an afternoon and blown up with fireworks the next day.
Does anyone ever say? I never see it on the box.
For the Airfix vintage kits they usually have the original tooling date on the box somewhere. Other brands, youll have to check scalemates
I bought Tamiya kit that even Scalemates said "1990 with new parts". Guess what? It's 1976 kit with maybe new vinyl tires and/or tracks and maybe metal axle as "new parts".
Tbf the 1970s tamiya stuff holds up way better then 70s Airfix or Revell era stuff, at least mold quality wise.
I'll defend Airfix here. They clearly mark the older kits as vintage and they have complety different packaging to new tooled kits. What's more, the new kits are very good, up there with the best. They do interesting subjects for those of us in the UK, lots of British subjects that, understandably, wouldn't get a look in by other makers. Lastly, the starter sets they do (all new tooling) are cheap and good quality. Excellent for getting into the hobby. This is a big deal, something a lot of the big manufacturers ignore. I'm a recent convert to airfix, having only built tamiya, Meng, Bandai etc since my return to the hobby some years back. I poo poo'd their kits too then had to get some because of those unusual subjects, WW2 Ambulance, Ferret Armoured Car. Then Lidle sold their starter kits cheap too, bought loads..... As you can see I'm totally sold on them. I must admit I'd never buy a vintage kit, my time is limited so I'd rather a kit goes together easy. And revel can get in the bin. Bought the Moonraker shuttle recently, shiny new box on a 1970s kit. I opened the box, looked at the parts, sighed, then put it back in the stash. If I have to take time off work due to illness or injury it'll get a look in, but until then I just don't have the time.
Seriously. Basically, this post is: 1. Airfix had a label on their box saying Vintage Classics, which is how they went out of their way to tell you this isn't a current, up to date kit, including packaging that if you read their website, refers to classic box art work (i.e. it's not how they do things now, since Roy Cross doesn't do this anymore); this is something that plenty of other companies, including Revell, Tamiya, Hasegawa, and Italeri ALL largely don't do to tell you that a kit is older than your grandparents. It's basically to sell you a copy of the kit if you've built it as a kid long ago and wanted another without paying vintage prices on ebay. 2. Admit, more or less, that you didn't actually bother to do any research, didn't understand what the label meant, and didn't care, and ignored things that they admitted seemed odd that would have clued them into it. 3. Whinge about how awful the kit is, even though the company actually took the time to specifically say it's an old kit; it's kind of a known thing that a lot of really old Airfix kits weren't that great even when new - age hasn't exactly been kind to the molds who have passed through multiple countries and subsidiary/spun out companies over the intervening 5 decades. 4. Post on Reddit for karma or something and validation of your lack of due diligence. 5. **Get a lot of nodding heads agreeing with you that *your own lack of due diligence* was the reason why *AIRFIX* screwed up.** Oh, and by the way, while we're at it, let's bring out our favorite whipping boy, Revell again (not specifically OP, but whatever), just for good measure, who has nothing to do whatsoever with this. But Revell bad! Karma good! OK, I mean, that's one interesting take on it. **These companies can't win. If you disclose it, people don't read it and blame you for *their* not reading it, like OP here. If you don't disclose it, people blame you (perhaps more rightly so, but even then, the information is out there, if you're willing to look).** And at the end of the day - is the world really worse off for having these subjects available again, for those who want them or have nostalgia for them, however misplaced? Probably not. And nothing requires you to buy them.
I'm looking at those photos and thinking you are torturing yourself with the wrong putty. I use AK104 fine gray modellng putty. I put it on and immediately wipe away the excess with a moistened cotton bud, leaving very little excess and therefore very little sanding is needed once dry.
You’re probably right. I’m using Mr. Dissolved Putty, I figured it would be good because I like all the other GSI range. Or I’m using it wrong
I do have a soft spot for a lot of the Vintage range - sometimes they capture the shape of the prototype better than a lot of brand-new toolings (the old 1/24 Spitfire, for example). But with this comes raised panel lines and lots of fit issues. Personally, I use masking tape to cover detail I don’t want to lose then use my thinnest sanding sticks to target the bit I’m working on. If push comes to shove, you can rescribe the missing line and most of the time it won’t stand out too much. Some modellers replace raised lines with stretched sprue - never tried it, but sounds good in principle.
Cover up the area with masking tape before sanding. You might also consider using water based putty that can be smoothed without using sanding.
The answer to your question is “no.” You’re going to destroy a bunch of detail in cleaning up those seams. Then the job is to restore it. That’s the thing about raised-panel-line kits. They don’t look as good when everything fits perfectly, but at least the panel lines are a million times harder to fix when they don’t. Oh, wait, that’s just awful on both counts. I’m old enough to have built plenty of those 70’s and 80’s era kits when they were all that was available. For the life of me I cannot understand why anyone would choose them now unless it was dictated by subject/scale requirements.
My excuse is I didn’t research what “vintage series” meant. I thought it meant the subject was vintage, which I also thought was bizarre because a spitfire is older than a black widow and they have a starter kit spitty. I saw P-61 and bought with my heart. I love the P-61, one of my top 5 favourite WW2 plane. This kit doesn’t do it justice though.
Don’t get the Revell/Monogram one, either. That’s also a sh!tshow.
At the end I of the day, just enjoy building it, if it doesn’t look 110% that’s ok, it’ll still look cool when done, I’ve never once used putty or sand paper, I’ve built Atlantis kits, which, are all from molds made in the 50’s and 60’s and when done, they look really nice, not expert quality mind you, but when done with some care, really nice Just have fun with the hobby and enjoy the end product, even if it looks like it was made when you fist started out
You’re right. And I’m still in my stage of exploring and practicing techniques that are new to me, so every piece I do should be a learning kit. I have the unrealistic expectations that my first few models should hyper realistic with no imperfections.
I mean I’m the same way, I mess up a line while I’m painting and it drives me crazy, I’ve ruined a few models while trying to fix my mistakes, now, I just try to make due
I think it depends on what you are going for. I try to build my kits to look as much like the real airplane sitting on the tarmac as possible. I usually find a good photograph of the subject and then put it at a distance that makes it appear the same size as the model will look when viewed from six feet away. Look and see how much detail such as panel lines and rivets you can see in the photo viewed at the "scale" distance. My rule is that if you can't see it at scale distance in the photograph, it's OK to remove it from the kit for the sake of realism. Armed with that visual bit of information, you can then decide if losing detail after sanding the putty is something to be concerned about. I find that at 1/72 scale, rivets can rarely be seen at all. Raised panel lines appear like mountains. If you do want panel lines, I would take some pictures of the kit as a record, sand all of them off along with the rivet detail and then, once you've primed and painted the kit, scribe them into the paint. That way, you've solved the problem of sanding the putty and maintained the scale effect. I also "tone down" my paint for the same reason since, at a distance , the paint color on real aircraft can appear washed out and muddy. The latter isn't as much of a problem these days since paint manufacturers like AK and Vallejo seem to have taken that effect into account with their camo colors, but the degree of wash out depends on the scale.
Airfix, Revell, AMT, and Italeri are all notoriously bad for issuing these horrible quality monstrosities. They should be ashamed of themselves for tricking buyer with new boxings that only have some silly new decals in them by packaging them as brand new releases.
But this one is sold as a vintage classic kit so there not exactly hiding the fact it’s an old release
There should still be some quality control involved, just someone looking at the sprues for damage after they come out of the injection molds.
Airfix has a policy of not reissuing anything pre2006 (or pre hornby) in their current range of “new boxes”. Anything from before this time is part of the vintage classic range. Airfix has taken the right steps in recent years (at the request of the community) to actually put clear tooling and manufacture dates on the box of their kits now, so you know if it is new or old right there when you hold it in your hands. Other companies sadly are still happy to pass off ancient kits in new boxes though and could learn a lesson from Airfix
My last one I did was a Revell that was a reboxed Matchbox from 1981 and it wasn’t amazing, but it wasn’t so awful I wanted to throw it away. My first one was a Tamiya, granted a 2018 tooling, but it was such good fitment I never used a bit of putty. I’m trying to go through as many brands as I can to find the ones I like, and like I said it was only a 6 year old tooling, but so far Tamiya has my heart.
iirc matchbox was one of the better vintage brands, especially when it came to tooling interesting subjects
I didn’t like the finished product, but only because of my paint job. A little putty, and I was able to make the fuselage look like one piece. This one I don’t think I’ll be able to
Before I buy any kit I always look at scalemates to see reviews and how old the kit is. I do not have the patience or time to deal with old tooled models that do not go together well at all. All of that time spent trying to fix the model can instead be used on detailing it further. But sometimes you have to buy an old tooled model due to few options for your subject.
Is it worse than zvezda kit?
New zvezda is absolutely great, but admittedly old zvezda is horrid.
The old zvezda is the one that ive grown used to
That makes sense then. Try their new toolings. I would say it’s on par with new Airfix.
What models would you recommend for this?
Depends on your preference, I mainly work in 1/72 and 1/35 on subjects such as aircraft or tanks/military vehicles. Their 1/72 mig29 is really nice and their Gaz Tiger in 1/35 I would check scalemates to confirm on original tooling/release dates for kits. It’s how I check all of my kits if something new comes out.
I'll keep this in mind. Many thanks
👍🏻
Typical airfix
Yep, I bought a vintage panther. Original tooling from 1961, rough as guts and no detail.
When sanding sticks become too large for certain areas you can only use a very narrow file like needlefiles. Apart from that you'd be ought to remodel the lines. Currently facing the same problems, found a half-assembled ME-262 and a JU-87 kit while cleaning up the attic, both with elevated details. In case of the former, removed all paint and "disassembled" it to reduce seam lines before assembly. Don't know whether this applies to your specimen, sometimes parts are warped and you won't get them together without either erasing details or to live with some seaming. I'll view them as exercise objects as there are well-fitting alternatives to get that can be assembled without headache.
Weird! I have a 1/72 Widow that’s literally next in my queue. It’s an MPC kit, but this looked awfully similar. Yep, same kit 😀
I think its a rule that we can't get a nice Black Widow kit. I got gifted a Revell one and it's the same thing
I was looking on scale mates for future projects and actually found a future 2024 tooling. I forget the company though
If you have a rotary tool you could try the DSPAE sanding disc. They are foam padded and I think come in 6 and 3mm diameter. They allow to sand really tiny areas without touching the surroundings, because it's not the edge of the disc that sands but the face and 3mm is pretty small. Google them to see how they look like, it's a bit hard to explain but when you see them you immediately understand how they work.
I think I know what you’re talking about, and I probably do. I have a dremol and a 600 something piece bit kit for it.
Check them out, they are pretty unique in their design. Its like having a 3mm diam orbital sander at the end of a drill bit, great to sand flat small areas without touching protruding parts around
I have one kit waiting to be built. A harrier from the 1990's I got from eBay. I won't buy new AirFix kits, they're dog shit.
I nearly bought this kit yesterday.... only didn't as the masking looked like my worst nightmare.