> I am curious about the experience of others when they open a new kit
> and inspected the parts. I have been at this hobby on and off for 50
> years now and its rare (none comes to mind) to have any problems with
> the plastic injection parts. I build them right out of the box. Its
> only within the last 20 years or so that I started making
> modifications and additions (of extras).
>
> My curiosity is with the kit reviews published. The reviewers seem to
> suffer an unusually high incidence of kits with poorly molded parts,
> flash, that needs cleaning up, missing parts, warped parts, ill
> fitting parts, injection pins, injection pin holes that need to be
> filled, etc. In otherwords the QC inspector was asleep at the bench,
> the kit distributor loves to tease reviewers or the reviewers need to
> invent a problem to have something to write about.
>
> What is your experience?
I think I've had maybe three kits in the past 50 years with short-shot parts. The one that caused the biggest problem was the Monogram F-15A. The incomplete part was the upper fuselage/flying surfaces. That stalled me for awhile until the new part came in. To my surprise it was of the production wing shape where my kit had been the prototype wing shape. When it comes to ill-fitting parts, I haven't had too much trouble outside of TKM cars or Merlin kits. The review that causes me to snicker everytime I read it is the one for the '75 Dodge Dart that RC/Ertl managed to title as a Duster. It seemed that no one at Kalmbach alerted the reviewer to that fact. He spent so much of the review complaining about the parts making a Dodge when they were 'supposed' to be of the Duster that he came off as clueless. Either Kalmbach wanted to impress RC/Ertl with their goof or their editor let one of his writers make a fool of himself.
Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.