Rating Model Companies

[Dave Ward]

It's interesting, about models falling out of availibility. Most makers subcontract the actual plastic injection part out to specialists. When a model is being produced, the tooling has to be set up, and the injection process calibrated - ie type of polystyrene,temperature, pressure - running test shots - at first there'll be short shots, distortions, but tweaking will eliminate this. This is an on cost, and the production run will have to be large enough to justify this expense, and leave a viable profit. To reduce this, I believe makers like ICM & Revell will share the on cost of the setup, and have a larger production run than would be needed by one company, which will reduce the piece price, the two companies splitting the output between them. The set up being the same cost, whether producing 100, 1,000 or 10,000.
Also, it can depend on the quality of the tooling - dies may be made of a softer quality steel, which is easier to machine, and much cheaper, but have a limited lifespan.
Existing legacy tooling , designed for older injection moulding may need expensive modification to fit on modern machines, so the retail price has to reflect this.
Dave

[PaulTRose]

When a model is being produced, the tooling has to be set up, and the injection process calibrated - ie type of polystyrene,temperature, pressure - running test shots - at first there'll be short shots, distortions, but tweaking will eliminate this. This is an on cost, and the production run will have to be large enough to justify this expense, and leave a viable profit.

the expensive bit is the actual tooling........the setting up is quick and cheap

ive helped set up injection moulding machines on a first run for things waaaaaaaaaay bigger and more complicated than a model kit and it will only take a few hours (and most of that is me measuring and inspecting the produced bits)...............any time the tooling is used again all the settings will be saved and it can be a matter of minutes to get it running.......only slight tweeking might be needed to change dwell times or temp or pressure.....and those setting will be saved for the next time to build up an 'average base setting'

[Guest]

I would imagine the design work must be very expensive.

Getting detail dimensions 3d stuff. Drawing up the major parts.
Setting up the inside detail work. A huge amount of information
building.

Just wonder how they get a lot of the information. Probably OK
on the old stuff as museums will allow info to be taken.
Perhaps out of date military stuff may be obtained from the
manufacturer.

Also variants another info nightmare. Decal design work

From my career in architecture I know how long it takes to put info together.
It is very time consuming.

However cannot, on modern stuff in operation , see it being easy to get info.

Then the design work to turn it into a thing which can then be tooled up.
To design each part to be tooled up. All must be a very fascinating job.

Just love to see them doing it all.

Laurie

[BarryW]

interesting subject..............and very subjective and personal

you mention ICM as being 'almost' a favorite brand......and then place Revell as cheap and cheerful............Revell these days are all about reboxing other peoples offerings....including ICMs..............the Model T ambulance comes instantly to mind, great kit......and id rather pay cheaper Revell prices than ICMs!

someone mentioned Eduard.............to me they are pretty low down the scale.......every time ive tried one of theirs its ended up in the bin!!

i wish i could afford expensive shake and bake kits that are superbly engineered and go together with no drama.......but i cant

i also get a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction when i take some 30 or 40 year old kit, with known problems and make something decent of it.....but then thats what i do for a living.....problem solving and creating countermesures, product improvement and quality assurance

this is one of those model making subjects where it comes down to personal choices and preferences.......what is one persons modelling 'gold' is another persons 'junk'

I am aware of Revell releasing ICM and others including Dragon and Special Hobby under their own label. In this thread I am really addressing a companies own toolings.

That said I have built the Revell release of the 1/32 bf110C and the earlier Dragon release as well. I was just astonished that two kits that came from the same set of moulds could be so different. The part make-up was the same of course but Revell used their own plastic which is significantly lower quality than the Dragon and it affected the fit due to shrinkage and minor warping. Perhaps Revell also do not apply the same standard of quality control over their processes to keep the price down. Also the parts were not as crisp as in the Dragon release. This was to such an extent that I would not hesitate to pay the extra £30 needed to buy the Dragon release instead of the Revell.

I have not done the same comparison with a Revell repop of an ICM kit, such as the 1/32 I-16, but I would not be surprised if you get the same again. Bear in mind that there is a much lower price difference between ICM and Revell I see no reason to risk Revells plastic.

That is the point with Revell, when they get it right then it does represent a great value kit and I am thinking of their 1/32 Ar-196 here, but only too often their kits are a bit slipshod. Having built the 1/32 Revell Spitfire, I am much happier spending £100 more for the Tamiya and I consider the Tamiya much better value for money.

[Dave Ward]

Barry,
I've made several Revell reboxings of ICM models & essentially it's the same bag inside, just in a different box, and with different instructions - the plastic is identical
Dave

[Martin64]

Meng, Takom or Ryfield not mentioned.
Martin

[David Lovell]

I still can't see the point of this ,do people really build because of the name on the box surely thats coming down to I'd like to build one of them but so and so don't do one so I'll make do with this because I like the manufacturer. I'll be honest I wrote a lot more but scrubbed it I'll ask again why rate model companies it seem to me the way this is going what you ment is rate them from no brainers to leave it well alone it involves some modelling.

[BarryW]

I still can't see the point of this ,do people really build because of the name on the box surely thats coming down to I'd like to build one of them but so and so don't do one so I'll make do with this because I like the manufacturer. I'll be honest I wrote a lot more but scrubbed it I'll ask again why rate model companies it seem to me the way this is going what you ment is rate them from no brainers to leave it well alone it involves some modelling.

It’s not what’s in the box, more what they put in the box. There is a world of difference between, for instance, the Revell 1/32 Spitfire and the Tamiya 1/32 Spitfire and I am not just talking about the cost. In this case the £130 Tamiya is much better value than the sub £30 Revell, they are chalk and cheese.

Take the Revell 1/32 new tools as a range and the Tamiya’s. While not all the Revells are ‘dogs’ none of them compare for sheer quality to the Tamiya, even the best Revels are not comparable to the least of the Tamiya’s. Cost is an issue of course and you get what you pay for and that is the point.

Take the sprues out of the boxes from Revell and Tamiya you can always tell which is which.

Most companies will have their ‘dogs’, specially those that have been around a while, if you just take more recent kits, you can see a huge difference between companies. I have to say that it would be unfair to compare a company judging them on a single kit or comparing 1970 tools to 2010’s.

Some people like a kit that fights back, others not. Some are into sado-masochism, many are not!!! We all want something different, even from kits.

[David Lovell]

How can it be a dog its a perfectly good sub thirty pound kit you get what you pay for im sure you can get some upgrades for them still bringing it in at under the extortionate amount wanted for a tamiya spitfire im sure its marvelous if that's what you want and very happy im sure it makes you but don't go slagging off what other people obviously not as privileged as you can afford ,some of us have to feed family's and pay mortgages before thinking about the next build its a hobby a pastime a escape from the pressures of life and im proud that I do it most of the time on horrible little kits from the Ukraine costing well under fifteen quid but hey their a right load of dogs stay well clear loads of modeling involved. Sorry all if im out of order but I asked why at the start of this thread stated it was plastic snobbery and its still trying to compare pounds to pence.

[Mark1]

I've done a twenty quid 1/32 revell spitfire ,all was a perfect fit no filler involved detailed well enough and I wouldn't know if it was every last nut and bolt accurate, thoroughly enjoyable build! Couldn't see by spending another 110 quid it would give me any more enjoyment to build! Definitely think with some companies you pay for the name to some extent, vw's are more expensive than a skoda but not much better build quality nowadays! The quality of any model can really only be decided by the quality of finish a modeller puts on it!

[JR]

What I look for is the subject, most major manufacturer's shy away from obscure Russian armour so I've ended up with some real cheap and nasty Eastern European kits. Some have proved beyond me, others quite good fun. Normally they are cheap as well.
I've bought really well produced kits, overly large parts counts, but only because the subject is what I want.
To me modelling is about the model, ok if it's a well known make, or has great detail , that's just a bonus.
There are manufacturer's that I like, mainly because they produce the kit I want.
Now I have been modelling this time around for a lot longer I know which manufacturer's have decent distructions, and those that set traps by mentioning part Nos that don't exist.
So for me it's the subject, model and price .

[rtfoe]

Same for me John, subject, model and price. I do have quite a few of those 'branded' kits in the stash but they're too nice to build and are left alone...perhaps not challenging or I'm a 'sado' :smiling2:
I have come across some very bad kits that are either unbranded and branded and the outcome with colorful language whilst putting them together is the same...which is a fine finished replica. I would advise anyone wanting to build those kits to take it as they are and make the best of it with at least a level appreciation index indicator so they don't get a heart attack or feel cheated.

Cheers,
Richard

[BarryW]

How can it be a dog its a perfectly good sub thirty pound kit you get what you pay for im sure you can get some upgrades for them still bringing it in at under the extortionate amount wanted for a tamiya spitfire im sure its marvelous if that's what you want and very happy im sure it makes you but don't go slagging off what other people obviously not as privileged as you can afford ,some of us have to feed family's and pay mortgages before thinking about the next build its a hobby a pastime a escape from the pressures of life and im proud that I do it most of the time on horrible little kits from the Ukraine costing well under fifteen quid but hey their a right load of dogs stay well clear loads of modeling involved. Sorry all if im out of order but I asked why at the start of this thread stated it was plastic snobbery and its still trying to compare pounds to pence.

And Mark1


As I said we all want different things from the hobby and that’s fine but to suggest ‘plastic snobbery’ is absurd. This variety is what it’s all about, catering to all wants and needs. Your example of Skoda and VW is correct but I would suggest Skoda and Ferrari are a better example for what I mean. Ultimately both are just for getting you from A to B but few who could afford it would choose a Skoda over a Ferrari.

If you enjoy cheap kits that’s fine but ‘not all cheap kits are equal’. I don’t necessarily equate ‘dog’ to cheap. I rate ICM new tools very highly and they are far from expensive and are far better than Revell equivalents. I refer to their own kits, of course, not white labelled. Indeed there are a couple of Revells I rate highly too, the AR196 in particular.

You may think the Tamiya kit to be extortionate but I promise you,
If you invested in one you would change your mind. I have built both the Revell and Tamiya and there is seriously no competition in any respect. It really is the Ferrari….

I started in dead end jobs earning peanuts, having left school age 15. Even after launching my first business I had periods when I was broke, unable to pay myself anything after working a month of 70 plus hour weeks with a family to feed. Staff get paid before you can even think of paying yourself from whatever is left, if anything. In the end it was worth it and I no longer have to worry about money and that is the goal we all work towards. Hopefully you will get there too and can experience the ‘Ferrari’ of models and see exactly what I mean.

[Tim Marlow]

Interesting that in all of this discussion accuracy is rarely mentioned. I spent quite a few years in the scale railway modelling field when I was younger. In that discipline accurate manufacturers general arrangement (GA) drawings were relatively easy to come by. My particular interest was the LSWR in the Edwardian age around 1910. For modelling that period I obtained, and have still got, GAs for everything important, track, line side hardware, wagons, coaches, and locomotives. It was all easily available and mostly collected and published.
With this information I could assess any kit I purchased and modify it if required to ensure accuracy and consistency of standard. I could also scratch build anything not commercially available to the same consistency.
When I decided to move to the military modelling field I was surprised that this sort information was very hard to find. I had to therefore adopt the “if it looks right it is right” ethos. However, to me, accuracy of representation remains is an important aspect of a kit.
For the high end “Uber“ kit accuracy seems to be assumed. However, without quality information to hand to check the kit you may actually find the low end “Dog” is a more accurate representation of the object being modelled!
How can this important aspect of a kit therefore be determined in the context of determining the rating allocated to a model company?
Sure, you can compare the model to photos, but that really only gives you an idea of the spatial relationship of parts. In blunt terms photos do not tell you how big or thick those parts should be, just where they are in relation to others. Some kits have full internal detail. How can this be checked for accuracy, especially in the rarer or one off prototype subjects? All the excellent pattern making and fit and finish from that kit could simply be copying the designers best guess! That detail then becomes nothing more than a marketing tool to increase price and perceived value. We have no accessible field of reference so cannot determine accuracy.
Without pre-determined fields of reference, rating manufacturers in the way this question has been asked is simply an exercise in showcasing your personal viewpoint.
Me, I’m sticking with “if it looks right it is right” these days and will buy from whoever makes a subject I want to build.

[Airborne01]

And Mark1


As I said we all want different things from the hobby and that’s fine but to suggest ‘plastic snobbery’ is absurd. This variety is what it’s all about, catering to all wants and needs. Your example of Skoda and VW is correct but I would suggest Skoda and Ferrari are a better example for what I mean. Ultimately both are just for getting you from A to B but few who could afford it would choose a Skoda over a Ferrari.

If you enjoy cheap kits that’s fine but ‘not all cheap kits are equal’. I don’t necessarily equate ‘dog’ to cheap. I rate ICM new tools very highly and they are far from expensive and are far better than Revell equivalents. I refer to their own kits, of course, not white labelled. Indeed there are a couple of Revells I rate highly too, the AR196 in particular.

You may think the Tamiya kit to be extortionate but I promise you,
If you invested in one you would change your mind. I have built both the Revell and Tamiya and there is seriously no competition in any respect. It really is the Ferrari….

I started in dead end jobs earning peanuts, having left school age 15. Even after launching my first business I had periods when I was broke, unable to pay myself anything after working a month of 70 plus hour weeks with a family to feed. Staff get paid before you can even think of paying yourself from whatever is left, if anything. In the end it was worth it and I no longer have to worry about money and that is the goal we all work towards. Hopefully you will get there too and can experience the ‘Ferrari’ of models and see exactly what I mean.

Don't care for Ferrari's - it's impossible to get a bag of cement on the rear seat! Sorry, just thought there's a slight overheating on this thread at times :thinking: