Building to a Theme

I’m sure I must have posted on this idea before, but sometimes you find yourself building to a theme. I found myself doing so earlier in the year, turning out a Hasegawa Bf 109 F in a North Africa scheme, then remembering that I had Gleed’s Spitfire V, also by Hasegawa, in common scale, on the shelf too and begging to be opened and finished from the mid-construction stage at which I’d left it, oh, a long time go.

No modeller worth his salt can ignore the siren song of such a notion, and before I knew it I was reassessing the older project, and imagining the two warbirds of the ’42-’43 period, contemporaries in the Mediterranean Theatre, displayed together. I doubt the pilots, Werner Shroer and Ian R. Gleed, ever met in action, but they were in-theatre in the last six months or so of the campaign before the collapse of the Axis endeavour on the continent of Africa in May 1943. It seemed just the right thing to do to build a second aircraft to compliment the first – place it in context, if you will.

The models themselves are superb, as you expect from one of the big guys from Shizuoka City, though the Messerschmitt’s tooling design calls for separate engine panels, presumably to allow for the production of change-out parts to cater to other sub-marks, and this allowed for some warpage of the forward fuselage and a lot of elbow-grease to correct the resulting inaccuracies of alignment. From the firewall back the parts matched up as perfectly as you could wish for, so it was likely simple warpage of the parts after demoulding that was to blame.

The Spitfire assembled beautifully, with only the characteristic fine mismatch on the underside at the rear of the wing subassembly to fill and sand, which seems endemic to all Spitfires the way intake seams are endemic to Phantoms, regardless of manufacturer. Other than these points, building was smooth and a pleasure, and I mixed the colours for both from Tamiya Acrylics, applied kit decals (the ones in the 109 were a special edition by Aeromaster) and used Microscale chemistry for decal set and cleaercoats. The roundels under the wings of the Spit were required to conform to various bumps and dips and took many applications of setting solution, plus attention with a blade, to lie down as well as they did, which is acceptable but not perfect. Flory (Promodeller) panel washes and MiG pigments finished the process for each, and I had my first foray into the African phase of WWII.

I like building to a theme. I have a Tamiya Jagdpangther under way, to be finished in the markings of the Ardennes offensive period/area, to compliment the King Tiger I finished six months ago, and have a Pz. IV for North Africa also underway. In a way, building to a theme allows more comprehensive justice to be done, reflecting one’s interests and the depth of research that is done, leading us on to new and fascinating projects.

Of course, themes can get out of hand… I have nine German single seat fighters underway at once, and am aiming to finish a bunch of them production line fashion, and there is something to be said for learning the requirements of certain periods and amassing the materials to do justice to them, but one’s collection shows the dearth of attention outside the theme – and begs for another theme to be addressed. What about US naval aviation? What about the British FAA? What about those vinyl sci fi figure kits? Perhaps things go in waves of interest, and that could also be a good thing. I can’t wait to get stuck into those magnificent 1:20^th scale vinyl dinosaurs… One day!

Enui?

What do we do on one of those days when superglue seems to lose its “oomph..?”

I think we must have all had them, or maybe it’s a symptom of aging, but there are days when the “passion for precision,” to borrow Academy’s old slogan, is dulled somewhat, by the simple expedient of things not going as expected, predicted or otherwise planned for,

Aftermarket decals that behave so badly you wonder why the manufacturers bother if they couldn’t make a better product? Photoetch that springs away into the carpet never to be seen again. Paint that is absolutely not the colour that the catalogue claimed it would be (well, you have to add a filter to make it the right colour, only nobody mentioned that at the sale stage). Parts which, though well moulded, are never going to line up. And so on.

Our skills are supposed to be what compensates for the shortcomings of the manufacturers, this is an engineering artform, after all, and that’s a tub I’ve thumped often enough. But sometimes it would be nice if the parts really, genuinely fit, the colours were truly accurate without any pushing and pulling, and the decals behaved well. To be fair, I just used some Aeromaster decals and they were a dream, they separated cleanly and readily, responded well to manipulation, even survived secondary wetting and application perfectly, and the carrier film is absolutely clear, with no hint of silvering. If I have a gripe it’s that they didn’t snug into recesses tightly enough to take a panel wash throughout, but that’s the only shortcoming. It doesn’t qualify as AMS anymore, but again, to be fair, maybe my setting solutions are getting old.

So what do we do when we encounter the point that I call being “down to superglue and hope?” Glue that should grab in seconds doesn’t always, and even for a lifetime modeller there is always an aspect of close-enough-is-good-enough. Is this the pleasure we want from the hobby? Or is it a case of being an artist looking at a finished canvas and being let down by reality when compared to one’s inner vision?

We need to be realistic, of course. Some are more talented than others, that’s the way the world works, and even the most brilliantly skilful will always be harsh critics of their own work. It’s good to bear that in mind when perfectionism bites and we see every little flaw (and are inclined to say they are not so little, while others may have a hard time spotting them.) Understanding that it’s the fun of the journey, not the destination, also helps – that flush of pleasure with each completed stage cannot be undone, even if the final product falls short of the styrene nirvana we hoped for, and, if truth be told, still believe in with an unshakeable faith.

In the end, the answer seems to be the next kit. Can we resist it? We might have been temporarily scared off a particular subject, genre or scale, but we know it won’t be for long, because when we look at the stash it’s not as if we’re looking up the north face of the Eiger, it’s as if we’re looking into a candy store, and we can’t wait to open another box. Many of us resist removing the shrinkwrap from kits so as to preserve the heady feeling of that very act, followed by opening the box and seeing those fresh, welcoming parts, and gladly accepting the artistic and technical challenge of bringing those parts slowly, steadily together, into, if not a genuine work of art, then something not far short of it in the eyes of no few of our peers, friends and families. Yes, that’s the answer I was looking for…

So, as soon as this one is in the display case, which shall I finish next? As ever, I’m spoiled for choice!

Etch – When Necessary!

Sometimes there’s just no option, and a 1:32nd scale aircraft with a perfectly clear canopy is one of those occasions – you just have to bite the bullet and consider etch, no matter how much you hate the stuff.

I set out to build Hasegawa’s 1:32nd scale Fw 190 A-8 in markings for Operation Bodenplatte, and I stalled out for a number of reasons – difficulty with obtaining the paints in the format I wanted, finding display space for so large a model, but really, ultimately, there was only one reason, and that was the fact the kit cockpit came without harness. I needed harness before I could complete the cockpit, before I could close the fuselage, before I could do one more stroke of work, much less finish the project. There it lay in limbo, because the basic etch set I picked up from Eduard (#32-053) was just too intimidating.

Fast forward a couple of years and I spotted 32-600, a pre-painted set which was even self-adhesive. Well, I thought, that might simplify things to the point even a sausage-fingered hack like me might manage to not make a pig’s ear of it, so long as the light is bright enough and the magnifying specs strong enough..

Still, it took a long time to commit to the job, there is always another kit to procrastinate with, and eventually it was a blazing hot day in summer that was too hot to airbrush even at 8am that set me thinking about itty bitty etched parts that didn’t need painting.

I had studied the instructions a number of times, visualised the process, realised there was no way you could pass two thicknesses of etch through the same hole no matter what the instructions said to do, and at last trimmed the first few parts and gave them a go. They worked, more or less, I’m sure any mismatches were my fault, and an experienced etchaholic would have knocked the straps out in no time at a much better standard. The main thing is, they look the part and dress the cockpit with a detail that is otherwise all too obviously missing. Under macro-enlargement the fabric effect printed into the paintjob is nothing short of remarkable and prompts the question as to what eyesight these things are made for? Certainly not mine! (Thanks to my bro in law for the super-closeup images!)

The frightening thing is imagining doing it at a smaller scale. A bit of painted tape is fine for 1:72nd scale, I feel, unless one can miniaturise oneself to both do the work and appreciate it afterwards. Yes, now you mention it, I do still need glasses… My favourite 48th scale? I don’t know… Am I an etch convert now? Well, let’s just say that there are times when it’s the go-to solution!

Recently Completed: Tamiya’s King Tiger (Retool)

From time to time there are kits that you fixate on, or at least keep them tucked away at the back of your mind as one you really, really want to do, and Tamiya’s King Tiger with the Porsche turret, released in 1993 as part of their program of retooling and refining older subjects, was just such a kit for me. I saw the high quality factory job in the commercials of the day and longed to open that box. Unfortunately it was one of those kits which at the time I referred to in an article as “exotic mega-kits at exotic mega-prices.” I had no hope of affording it in those days, and it still sells over the counter in Australia for around the $70 mark. I picked one up on eBay for a lot less several years ago, and held onto it for a long time, savouring the moment I would finally slit the shrinkwrap.

The catalyst was probably buying the old hardback edition of Tony Greenland’s Panzer Modelling Masterclass, a classic of the hobby, and seeing the job he did on this subject. I had the kit, I had a turned barrel for it, I had Tony Greenland’s recommended paints, and I had MiG pigments to substitute for his famous chalk pastel weathering technique, so it was game on.

What can I say that has not already been said? Nothing, I should think, but I can tell you what I feel about the kit. The engineering precision is everything you would expect from Tamiya, the “old master” of armour makers. Not over-thought and painfully finicky, that’s Dragon’s gig; just straightforward building pleasure, and most of the details of the real tank are represented down to a fine level of resolution. Maybe some details are overscale, such as the AA MG mount; the engine deck grills were absent, but Alliance Modelworks’ etched steel set provided a full set of grills that went on without trauma. I wired the headlight with some soft detailing wire, a first for me, and again there were no particular dramas.

Some would say an etched set overall is a necessary upgrade but I have never had either the patience or the “anality” to demand it (or the eyesight, in all probability!) and I was happy with the tools and clamps. Instead of raked putty for the zimmerit, I used Cavalier’s resin set, which was wafer-thin and went on easily, with the exception of the transom piece, which called for the slicing away of most details, a task too radical for me. I pieced it together by removing a few details and adjusting the zimmerit around the rest, flushing it together in multiple tiny pieces and even some raked putty here and there. Same with the gun mantlet, I used Cavalier’s supplied rake tool and created zimmerit in areas indicated as necessary by Tony Greenland’s research but not supplied in the Cavalier set. Cavlier provide a cast resin mantlet to go with the Tamiya gun, but I was using an Eduard turned barrel which was designed to go with the kit mantlet, not Cavalier’s, thus some modifications were needed.

The real thrust of the project was the camouflage scheme. I followed Tony Greenland’s research for a King Tiger in the French campaign of late 1944, possibly surviving as late as the Bulge in December though this is my speculation only. Tiger 334 was finished in the green, brown and yellow stripe scheme found at the time, though without the windblown “leaves” of the “Ambush” scheme. This called for what is probably my best fineline airbrushing to date, using high pressure and low flow to replicate the almost floral writhings of the stripe edges. Then I used the standard approach of fade-and-shade coats to tie everything together, oil pin wash and rust streaking, and pigments to finish off with as dust and dirt. The running gear uses pencil graphite worked extensively into the rims of the resilient steel wheels, and the vinyl tracks are perfectly acceptable behind the skirt armour, as their lack of proper sag is simply not visible.

I was very happy with the result. It was challenging in some ways, a breeze in others, and I was able to get to grips with the painting and weathering without being caught up in too extensive a build job. It looks proud on the shelf, squat, powerful, menacing, just as a King Tiger should.

This is one of those kits deemed “good in its day” by those for whom refinement out of the box is everything, but I’m more than satisfied with the texture and look of the finished article, and have no plans to update in the foreseeable future. I would recommend the basic kit to anyone with a few tanks under their belt, and if building without the extra bells and whistles I’m sure a beginner could return a pleasing result too.

Thankyou, Tamiya, for building pleasure which did not let down the years of anticipation I had for this project!

Masking – A Dying Art?

That may sound like a strange title at first glance: every modeller masks at some point in a project if paint is going to be applied, so how can the art die? The thought crossed my mind that the hobby is so well supplied these days, with every possible labour saving device, substance, gadget and fitting, that many of the arts our forebears took for granted have gone the way of the dodo.

Fifty years ago serious modellers rescribed their kits to get recessed panel lines, because they knew perfectly well that raised lines were an artefact of the tooling process and real aircraft had recesses between their skin panels… Kit makers took another twenty years to catch up with that reality and figure out how to produce kits with engraved detail – some companies have still not quite got the hang of it. Similarly, the flood of etched parts means that fabricating tank engine grilles from wire or vinyl mesh, and making frames from plastic strip, with rod slivers for bolt heads, has been consigned to the realm of scratch building. The craze for aftermarket seat harnesses has eclipsed any attempt to make them for oneself.

It is in this light that it struck me that masking, an integral part of painting, is also a declining art. There are literally thousands of die-cut adhesive mask sets out there, from Eduard and other manufacturers, and I have become very used to using them – where would we be without them for those complex World War II “glass house” canopies? And yet… I applied Eduard’s set for Fujimi’s Stuka and I was not terribly impressed by the fit. It was far better than trying to cut tape and mask all those panes individually, but it was not as accurate as the old way would have been. Eventually I called the job done after fiddling with tape fragments to even up the lines created by the ill-fitting commercial masks, but I’m aware once again that 1:72nd scale is pushing the boundaries of what is both possible, and acceptable to both today’s sharpened sensibilities and heightened expectations.

Is there a place for old fashioned masking in today’s do-it-now mentality? Sometimes there’s no choice, either there’s no set available for your subject matter in the scale you need, or you can’t afford it, or you haven’t got time for it to arrive… That sounds like a self-evident thing and I’m sure we’ve all been in the same situation. I remember doing Hobbycraft’s Avia S-199 and checking to see if I could make Eduard’s set for the Bf 109 K fit – it didn’t really, so I masked the old way, grumbling a bit as I did so. But just today I found myself masking the canopy for a Fujimi Phantom, for which there seems to be no commercial set, and it struck me that far from resenting the necessity, I actually enjoyed the process.

I outlined the areas with fine strips, filled in the large ones with tape and the small or fiddly ones with Humbrol Maskol solution. It was not particularly difficult, if time-consuming, and nothing I’ve not done before. The result was at least as accurate as a commercial set, and probably more so. I do feel it would become tedious to mask every model this way, and I have no plans to stop using die-cut sets, but I guess my point is that the old way is a useful skill that still has a strong role to play.

And, in the end, there is also a certain satisfaction that comes from saying you licked the problem without need of a third party (except the guys who make tape, knives, scissors and so on…), and it encourages the thought that it may be desirable to be less reliant on the aftermarket industry to satisfy our every whim. Just now and then, we should at least try to make the odd detail from scratch: it’s what craftsmen do.

Or used to…

Recently Completed: Hasegawa 1:72 F-16CJ (Block 50) Fighting Falcon

I don’t often build 1:72nd scale any more, partially to do with eyesight and dexterity issues, but perhaps mostly because of a certain dissatisfaction with the result I can get at this scale. I had the same trouble half my life ago, doing my very best and not being really happy with the result, and moving up a notch seemed to largely fix the issues by changing the ratio of minimum detail resolution to the overall product.

Nevertheless, from time to time, when I fancy a simple or quick build, I’ll still open a 1:72 – good quality, of course – and see what I can do with my current skill set. The issue of resolution is still there, and I’m probably well above the standard I was not happy with long ago, but the same sort of dissatisfaction still creeps in.

In the box, Hasegawa’s F-16 series, tooled in the 1990s and updated thereafter, is a sweet kit, with plenty of options. To model the later variant there are numerous extra parts, intake, exhaust, landing gear, weapons (yes, there’s a full suite in the box, a change from Hasegawa’s usual marketing strategy), no less than three pilot figures with separate right arms, plus decals for two choices. The instructions are Hasegawa standard, but pack a lot of information into a small space, and at times they could do with scrap-views to clarify how small parts locate and align (sometimes I referred to Academy’s plans for where stencil data was supposed to go).

Construction was straightforward, needing a little filler here and there. The limitations of turning out new variants from old moulds account for a few problems, while scale itself accounts for others. The seat looks nothing like an ACES II and I ordered up True Details’ resin version – only to find the resin had more holes than an Aero bar. In the end I chose to use the kit seat, which might not have looked like an ACES II but neither did it look like a cinder block. Tape harness was the only addition.

Main construction was generally good, though some seams were persnickety. And the F-16 is simply a difficult shape, with difficult details. The intake throat, with its internal support vane, needing to be painted inside before assembly, is tricky. The landing gear is imprecise and finicky, and how it can end up with the main wheels off-true when the struts are fixed in alignment by double locator holes I simply don’t know. The warload I painted and decaled first and set aside to be added last, a good move as it broke down the job into manageable lots.

I used Model Master Acryls for the four main shades of grey, plus Tamiya white, gunmetal, silver etc. Some parts of the paintjob I simplified in the name of sanity, the intake has a medium grey swatch above it that would be difficult to mask at 1:48th scale, and I did not even attempt it, nor did I try painting the darker shade across the white of the intake lip.

The decals looked great on the sheet but they silvered somewhat against a sealed finish and reacted very badly to Microscale chemistry, wrinkling up and staying that way. I can also say the coloured stripes around the missiles are among the least cooperative, most frustrating decals I have ever had to use.

Given the complex contours the kit captures so pleasingly, I was surprised to find that the simple underwing pylons were shapes rather different from the underside of the wing to which they attach. Not in many years have I prayed for superglue to do its thing, after all refinements to technique, forward thinking and skill have done theirs, and I am less inclined to blame the scale than the company. In an age of CAD-CAM, this sort of mismatch should not be so pronounced.

What else could go wrong? Very little, but when a canopy is designed with an open option, it never fits quite right when closed, and given the poor seat and decal instruments closed was always the better (and simpler) option. I used Eduard’s mask set, and the canopy outlines were reasonably good, but the wheel hub masks did not fit very well. Perhaps painting the tyres first and using the negative masks would work better, but here and there the manual touch-ups after spraying were so poor (such as one side of the nose wheel) you would be forgiven for thinking no masks were used at all.

The finished aircraft looks like an F-16 and is impressive from a distance, but the landing gear and warload are painfully fragile. This is a kit for the seasoned 1:72nd scale builder or for the hobbyist with plenty of time to invest and a knack for getting small parts to cooperate. Despite my acknowledged AMS, a time came when I just had to say enough is enough, I want this project off my bench.

It’s my first F-16 since I was about 13 years old, and superior in every meaningful way to that vintage Revell outing, but my next Falcon will be in 1:48th scale, probably Academy’s offering, which will hopefully be large enough for glue to hold and error factors to be small.

Product Review: AFV Club T-34 500mm Width Cast Links

First of all, apologies for the apparent abandonment of this blog since last year – it was not intended but an overseas trip immediately followed by moving house, then teaching at the university and a lot of other stuff ended up in time prioritisation that saw lots of things go by the wayside and hobby allocations down in general… But nothing lasts forever, and there’ll always be time for something. Lately it’s been research and prep work for major projects to come, and I had gotten out of the way of building to the extent that diving back into a project that was already fairly advanced was off-putting and I needed to start something from scratch.

I pulled Tamiya’s old Su-85 off the shelf, one of those easy-build, old-tool kits I’m so fond of, and had a great time reacquainting myself with the basic skills, the cut, file and glue skills that get us into the head-space to get more creative, and as I studied the model I decided I would add a few AM bits and pieces. The object was always to try out either the hairspray technique or a chipping fluid to do a winter camo effect, and I might invest in a turned barrel. But when researching aftermarket goodies for this kit I read about AFV Club’s indie track links for T-34s, and my interest was thoroughly aroused by the reviews. Here was a link set that was workable and simply clicked together, I’m assuming somewhat like Dragon’s “Magic Tracks,” and I found a set on offer in Hong Kong for half the price of elsewhere…

Those who have read this blog before will remember my aversion to indie tracks, my loathing of repetitive fiddling and their uncooperative nature that could reduce a professional to tears, so you’ll appreciate how good this product is when I say it has been pretty much a breeze, as far as I’ve got.

The set contains four sealed plastic packs, three of horned links on sprues (five sprues of six links each, for a total of 90 horned links) and a pack of non-horned inter-links on sprues of two. The totals allow spares, so if you spoil a few links, as is more than likely, it’s no disaster. The plastic is good quality, the detail sharply molded, and the sprue-gates clean up quickly with a file. Connection is by a pin and socket arrangement on the outer edges of the links, they click-fit and are strong enough to remain one piece so long as no strain is placed on the assembly. They are definitely “for looking at,” as the saying used to go, but certainly look the part.

Cleaning up after detaching from the sprues was by far the most time consuming factor. I would have invested an hour, an hour and a half perhaps, in assembling one track, a run of 34 of each type of link, matching the counted number of horned links on the Tamiya track and visible in profile pictures.

I went on to complete the second run and then set the project aside pending time and materials to pursue completion. Other things have demanded priority on the bench too, so I’ll be revisiting this subject at a later date. So far as assembling the tracks go, I can thoroughly recommend this product to anyone with as big an aversion to indie links as myself.

Product Review: Eureka XXL Replacement Tow Cables

Tow cables – most armoured vehicles carry them, those tough bowden-cable connectors used by engineers’ tractors to pull armour out of the mud. They’re not the easiest things for companies to tool out in plastic, and many solutions have been tried, including “heat and bend to shape” or Tamiya’s infamous string option. There has to be a better way, and braided picture hanging wire has often been used, yet the degree of twist is not to scale.

Polish firm Eureka XXL came to the rescue several years ago with their hand-made replacements, and it would be hard to imagine what more you could want. Typically, the end shackles are moulded in resin, while the cable itself is soft copper made just like the real thing, fine strands twisted around a heavier core wire. The copper is soft enough to bend readily, and to length-trim with a knife.

Using them is a breeze. Spray the end pieces on their resin pour block, crack them away (you don’t even need to saw or cut them free), prepaint the copper with your favourite metallic/rust effects, then superglue into one connector. Lay the cable on the vehicle, arrange with as much sag as you like, mark the correct length for the other end and trim with a knife; glue on the other end and glue to the model. But for final rust, dust and dirt effects, you’re done and the cable looks absolutely convincing because it is what it is supposed to be, spiral-braided metal.

Eureka have a huge range, and lots more for the armour fan than just cables. Check them out at:

http://www.eurekaxxl.com/

It’s been three months since my last post, during which a few models have been finished, a trip to the UK happened (including a sci-fi modelfest visit, expect a report before long!) and a house-move-from-hell which has nonetheless resulted in a better mancave than before, including a proper display case for the first time. Sorry about my lack of blogging, normal service will hopefully be resuming at this time…

Airbrush Blues

Have you ever had a period when your airbrush did exactly what you wanted it to – maybe for years – then suddenly became uncooperative? That happened to me recently, and I had to take it in for service for the first time in about three years. Some odd stuff, a deposit reaching up to the back end of the needle, and I have no idea where that came from or what it was…

It can be subtle, of course, and also blindingly obvious if you’re not locked into one way of seeing what you do. Three years ago I bought an excellent set of Paasche cleaning brushes to do the necessary on each periodic strip and clean, and everything was peachy until – and this is what happens so subtly you don’t really see it happening – the brushes wore out.

Nothing lasts forever, and the small-size brushes which you use to clean inside the mechanism gradually accumulate a deposit of paint that locks up what bristles remain, so they very slowly go from fully efficient to completely inefficient, and you need to spot that. It’s remarkable how blind we can be… This time I bought another set of generic brushes for as fraction the cost, and if they wear out quicker, it’s no disaster.

Of course, there are other stumbles to be made. For instance, “backing off the needle for storage” is a professional’s habit, and when I got my AB back from servicing I wondered why the finesse of control had disappeared. D’oh, adjust the needle, dude! And then there was the business with the siphon tube…

When everything is clean and the paint is properly thinned, but the AB won’t draw the paint up the tube, what’s happening? I took me a few moments’ puzzling to realise it was because the nylon siphon tube in the jar was no longer a snug fit around the metal pickup in the cap. Air from the jar was being drawn around the top end of the tube, defeating the vacuum effect needed to lift the paint. Solution? Easy, reverse the tube so the unstretched end makes the seal.

Ah, that’s better! Now, on with the job…!

(Sorry it’s been a while since I posted, things have been busy, to say the least. More stories coming shortly…)

“It Was A Good Kit In Its Day, But…”

If this remark is applied to, say, the big Airfix 1:24th scale planes which have been surpassed by Trumpeter’s ambitious range, it’s perhaps accurate enough (though, I’ve heard it said that there are so many quibbles with the latter’s big Mustang that Airfix’s, for all its age, is still the better build!), but is this remark always pertinent?

In an age of fierce competition for the hobby dollar among scores, hundreds, of manufacturers at all points on the spectrum from the mega-corps/gods of injection moulding right down to the smallest garage outfit turning out etched brass and poured resin, it might seem axiomatic that every product from every firm offers itself as a target for mimicry and a standard to be outdone. In many cases, the latter is not hard, and the offerings that were state of the art half a century ago have by and large become collectors’ items, never to be built, merely hoarded and passed from hand to hand as the historical artefacts they have become. But I have my doubts as to whether that is always going to hold true.

This is because “good” is a relative term. One person’s good is another’s over-thought, over-engineered or over-priced. One need only look at Dragon’s introduction of everything from Magic Tracks to the SmartKit range to see the truth of this, because Dragon’s early policy of “never use one part where five will do” might have delivered high parts counts, allowed sophisticated detail accuracy on the limitations of the state of the art twenty years ago, and constituted a different approach than their chief competitor, but it also had its drawbacks. For every builder who patted him or herself on the back for defeating the Dragon challenge and eagerly tackling the next, another let that next kit lie a year or two, or permanently, or at best opened the next kit with curses readily at lip and ready to denounce over-engineering just as surely as others would extend the same consideration to compromised accuracy. Dragon SmartKits are an attempt to satisfy both positions, and a fairly successful one.

So we might say that the old Dragon Imperial Series kits were ‘good kits in their day” but they have been superseded. That does not mean they change hands for a song. The same goes for the Tamiya retool program from the early 90s onward: these second-generation moulds for Tigers and Panthers may be dismissed as obsolete but they continue to ride the shelves at very substantial prices, $70 or more in Australia, and while the hobby as a whole is a luxury one, that is a fair wedge of money to dismiss lightly. And of course, there are those of us who find a great deal of enjoyment in Tamiya’s previous generation of toolings, many of which remain available at around half the cost of the retools, and which, with care and artistry, some extras and scratchbuilding, can still look very attractive on the shelf.

It may come down to the old equation of “horses for courses.” How much accuracy to you demand? How much is it practical for you to pay? Are you a “rivet counter” whose yardstick for the worth of a product extends to accuracy on the most minute scale, basically to the limits of resolution of human vision? Or are you looking primarily for experience, to build your skills in construction and painting, so any kit which does not set you back too much and delivers a reasonably attractive 3D canvas on which to exercise is just fine? These are opposite ends of the spectrum, and reality usually falls between the extremes, but one wonders where one would file the case of taking an old classic kit and applying the most sophisticated skills might fall? There are plenty of kits designed in the last forty years which, with good research, patience and skill, and modern finishing supplies and paints, can return very attractive results. A little scratchbuilding goes a long way, and a few AM parts adjusted/modified for older subjects can upgrade a potential “clunker” until it sits proudly next to a kit generations younger. Sure, it took a lot more work to get it there, but isn’t that at least partially the point to it all, learning how to be craftsmen, engineers in miniature, making something, not just whacking it together?

I would point to Shep Payne’s incredible dioramas for Monogram in the early-mid 1970s. Kits in those days were a lot less sophisticated than they became in later years, and the Monogram range from the period has indeed been superseded in quality and accuracy more or less universally. But those dioramas are works of art that incorporate far more than the kits: they have theme, design, concept, execution and scratchbuilt detailing par excellence that raise them out of the ordinary. As a consequence, their day will never be done, they are a completed entity in their own right and will continue to inspire and teach the art of the diorama.

Those for whom the cutting edge is all there is we might term “kit snobs.” They’re like “wine snobs,” for whom the price and a product’s standing with other snobs are the important factors. The sort who buys the most expensive and up to date offerings, then throws away half the pieces and replaces them with even more expensive aftermarket add-ons because only with these things can their models be sooo much better. Whether that’s better than anyone else’s or simply better than their skills can deliver without the virtual “oxygen support” of the AM industry is another matter. Twenty years ago Tony Greenland was working with first generation Tamiya, Italeri and even older kits and, though he describes himself in his book as simply a competent technician, not a true artist, the models in his Panzer collection are some of the most perfect examples of the miniature art I can possibly cite. Yes he used etch, resin, whitemetal, the works, he was also a brilliant scratchbuilder and adventurous artisan whose models, though based in many cases on toolings now getting on for forty years old, stand up for visual impact and engagement, I believe, against any of the new stuff. The point I’m making is this: the skill of the craftsman is what counts, not the fanciness of the kit or the weight of extras.

So next time someone points to a kit and says “it was okay in its day,” take it with a grain of the proverbial. There’s too much one-up-man-ship and too many points of view for any statement to be an absolute, and there may be total gems from decades ago waiting for the touch of a true artisan to bring them to life. After all, if the yardstick for what makes a kit worthwhile is how little the company has left the hobbyist to do, the hobby is in trouble because the better the kit the less incentive there is for the modeller to become a craftsman. We can all be experts if all it takes to turn out a masterpiece is a few dabs of glue. Personally, I like a modicum of challenge… But not like early Dragon!