Right out of the box

Hi guys,

I was just curious how many of you build right out of the box and concentrate on the painting of the model for the main impact? Is this viable today with so many accesories and after market products (ex. engines. wheel wells and and cockpit detail) I know a so many of the models are now supplied with great deatail. Good examples would be the 1/72 scale tamiya WW11 kits. years ago that kind of detail would not be really present in a 1/72 scale kit. I appreciate you thoughts

Bill Hall Please visit my website at

formatting link

Reply to
Bill Hall
Loading thread data ...

I build OOB only to have the shape of the kit to look at, the basic shell sort of. That is what is going to have the visual impact when I walk into my work/play area. I have no interest whatsoever in detailing wells, cockpits, etc. The kit is on the shelf to look at as far as I'm concerned. It's not built to undergo a OB/GYN exam.

Craig

Reply to
Craig

I don't necessarily build straight from the box but the colours and markings are what attract me. I have often taken a kit and built something that was not on the mind of the manufacturer when they made it. I often add stuff that I scratch or convert. I've only once gone for some resin aftermarket parts and the results were acceptable. I just like doing those extra bits myself if I feel moved to add them.

Bill Banaszak, MFE

Reply to
Bill Banaszak

Haven't built out of the box for many years. all those add ons parts etc are just too tempting

Reply to
Umineko

Hi

Thanks for starting this thread as i have been wondering if i was the only left OOB kit builder. I have two reasons for building strictly OOB.One is the cost, by the time you get the exact PE parts, decals and resin parts, or right color of paints, a $7 kit becomes $25.The second reason is the time involved in detailing.I have a very busy life and if i detail every kit i build, instead of building the 6-8 kits yearly currently, it will be more like 3 yearly kits. Again we are all free to do what we want, i don't spit on the guy that wants to super detail his kits and pay a fortune. My kits aren't competition class, but they are fine for me.I am the one looking at them. About PE parts, i got some one day for a 1/400 french Heller destroyer and i got so mad trying to work with them that i dropped most of the parts and used only the railings.

OOB rocks my boat!

Patrick

Reply to
Patrick

I build OOB,hand paint and only worry about finding new and unusual paint schemes. Just doesn't make sense to me to count rivets,add detail no one else will see or spend big bucks on a model. And most important,I do it this way because I enjoy it,which is all that matters.

Reply to
Eyeball2002308

I also build right out of the box. I did modify my 1/6 scale Tamiya Katana1100s with a working headlight, but that was about it. I suspect a very high percentage of models sold are built from the box.

Fair play to the rivet counters though. I just don't have that amount of patience or time to devote to the hobby.

Reply to
Colin

The only thing that I did to my Roden PKZ-2 was rigging, cables to three cable reels, a tarp over one engine, and a scratch-built ladder to the tub.

The HAT WWI Austrian Infantry was just too good, so the model got a stock soldier standing guard, another converted to haul the tarp off and one terrified observer in the tub converted from an officer.

Aside from trying to get the parts to fit (maybe just my example), the most time consuming part was the base, a hodge podge of wood attatched at all kinds of angles as shown on the box art.

After the Yak-11 conversion to "our" racer variant with a P&W R.2000, carved props from a Tracker and many other small mods plus doing one for myself and one for the owner, I'm doing an out of the box model.

I've always wanted to do an Avia S-199 in the markings of the first Israeli fighter to shoot down an enemy aircraft, a Egyptian C-47 kicking bombs out the door over Tel Aviv.

I picked up the Kora kit of the Israeli variant in 1/72. This has got to be one of the best 1/72 scale models ever produced. It's mostly resin with a good vacuformed canopy, a few tiny parts in cast metal and a good number of etched metal parts plus an instrument panel decal. It even includes the appropriate sand filter and the elusive bomb rack. All of the above meets the out of the box qualifications, plus a decal sheet that looks to be spot on.

The one thing that I am pondering is using the Moskit exhausts for the Me

109F/G/K. I am trying to see if they are appropriate for the Jumo engine and trying to decide if it's worth going beyond out of the box.

So it's either that little bit of extra detail to please myself or...

Tom

Reply to
Maiesm72

Sure its viable--I've got a bunch of kits that won't require any aftermarket. For example:

Tamiya 1/72 M6A1 Seiran Promodeler 1/72 Me 262A Italeri 1/72 Me 210A Revell Germany 1/72 Ar 240C Special Hobby 1/72 Ju 388K/L Huma 1/72 DFS 346 Pavla 1/72 Westland Whirlwind MPM Fw 189B

?and that's without duplicating brands and just glancing in the closet; I could probably come up with another 20 or so. Of course, it's all a matter of perception--for those kits, I'm satisfied with the contents of the box. Someone else might not be. I thought the 1/48 Tamiya He 219 was exquisite--and someone came out with an aftermarket set.

Mark Schynert

Reply to
Mark Schynert

Which is why I tend to do vacuforms, conversions, limited-run kits of prototypes, and so on, and also tend to 'count rivets'--the kits I have that are good enough to do out of the box usually just don't entice me, but I have 'em if I change my mind. If I was serious about competing, I think I'd concentrate on the kits that are OOB-good, and then if I decide to detail, I haven't already got sick of the model just getting decent basics correct. So I must not be very serious about competition. Hey, someone else has to enter for the really good modellers to get the prizes and feel good about it.

Mark Schynert

Reply to
Mark Schynert
50 percent of my kits built are OOB. 12 percent I detail but only that which can be seen at arms length. The rest I build when I get 'that wild hair' that says screw the rivet counting and blueprints and make it and paint it like it was my own plane or car. Mike IPMS
Reply to
Michael Keown

Based on my observations, and I've been attending the IPMS/US nationals every year since 1992, and been a judge there for the past 9 years, building OOTB is the BEST way to improve your chances of winning in a competition, at least one conducted using the IPMS/US national criteria.

The primary thing which wins contests is clean construction and finishing. By clean I mean no errors. Weathering is fine but it needs to be consistent. Items like alignment, quality of finish, elimination of seams, ejector pin marks, mold lines etc. count far more than detailing. Adding details just means there's more opportunity to miss a blob of glue, a seam or something else.

The idea of OOTB sprang up in the days where detailing was primarily done by scratchbuilding the details, and the guys who did this and won knew how to keep the model 'under control' as far as construction and finish quality. Those same guys might still win with a detailed model, but more and more contest modelers have caught on to the fact that detailing often hurts a models chances in a contest more than it helps. If you look at the results from the IPMS nationals over the years, you might be surprised by the percentage of OOTB award winning models which also place in their categories which include OOTB, against non OOTB entries, and the percentage of OOTB entries which win their category outright.

If you want to superdetail your models, have at it, but if you also want them to win in competition make sure you get the basics right. I've seen lots of models with impressively detailed cockpits which lacked in basic construction or finish, as if the modeler considered the detailing to BE the model, rather than just part of the whole picture.

That said, I build models for my own pleasure, even though I do bring them to contests. But I don't usually build them for contests. I tend to put a lot of effort into research to make the model as accurate as I can, although I know that that's not a criteria for competition, and I don't let my perception of the accuracy of a model enter into my deliberations when judging it in competition.

Reply to
Rick DeNatale

Same here. Everything I enjoy about the hobby dissapears when I try to build something for competition, so I don't. Still go to contests to see what there is and to meet others with similar interests.

Tom

Reply to
Tom Hiett

i would never compete. since i reentered this hobby, i have completed about 14 kits. and while i don't suck as badly as i did in feb. i would still be too embarassed to compete. when rufus comes by to go riding, i'll hide my efforst. but that's ok, because hot damn do i enjoy learning new skills and i really enjoy the research. and i really like the people here who share. the old negative comment i've gotten was someone saying that if i was poor, i shouldn't be modeling. i don't know if that was as mean spirited as it sounded or just someone's fearfull thought i might ask them for something. perhaps they had a bad expirience with someone. happily, i don't remember who said it and i will keep depending on this group for great info.

Reply to
e

Whoever said that was an idiot. Model building is one of the cheapest hobbies there is. A newcomer can get set up with paint, basic tools, and a simple kit for less than $50. Even the most expensive of kits returns a cost per hour of building enjoyment that beats most any other hobby.

Reply to
Al Superczynski

As a matter of background I've entered some contests and won some minor awards. Seldom do I even place against quality competition.

It is fun displaying a model at competitions, but the pressure to complete a kit by a contest deadline is not fun. It is probably not a coincidence that I make fewer initial errors when building for fun than for competition.

Building just for fun doesn't provide me adequate incentives to crank up a new model. I think we all like to show off our work, be it a regional contest, a club contest or a club show-and-tell.

However, the most satisfying thing I have done is build for someone else. Last year I built a Skyraider for a friend who flew them. He thought I was just going to slap some glue and paint together. I spent over a year on the kit. It was a sheer pleasure watching him light up when I first removed the finished kit from its box. And it beat any judges' award as he looked at every minor detail of the plane and repeatedly said to his wife, "Honey, this is *exactly* what my plane looked like" or "this is *exactly* how this part looked".

If you've never built for someone else, I heartily recommend it. It's a bit intimidating, but well worth the effort.

Art

Reply to
Art Murray

well, perhaps they misunderstood my intenet. i can't buy a lot of elaborate tools so finding workarounds is neccessary. the funny thing is that learning to make tools to make models makes me look at everything in a different perceptural set. it's fun, i like it and hope that person gets me a little bettere now. no lindbergs, or is the show in the future?

Reply to
e

Icame back into the hobby in 1995. Since then I have built approximately

40 to 50 models. Some I am very proud of and display them in a glass cabinet next to my workshop, others go into a box for spare parts while another category is given to the grandkids to play with when they visit. I have made notes from all the successes and failures but know that there is still a lot more to learn. May be some day I will enter competition maybe I will win and if I do, I wonder if the hobby will remain the relaxing detour it is now, or become a obsession and find myself in another rat race that I came downstairs to avoid? Just a thought, so please don't take it seriously. Mike IPMS
Reply to
Michael Keown

An example: Supermodel BV 138; Base kit $25.00 with shipping. $15.00 for some aftermarket bits. Three bottles of paint, less than $9.00 since I had a lot left. Other miscellaneous expenses (electricity, sandpaper, Evergreen stock, CA, sheet styrene) less than $10.00, and a lot of spares and decals that were salvaged from other models, net cost zero. Totals out to somewhere around $60.00. Well over a hundred hours of hobby time, not to mention getting to show the thing off in various states of construction at five different club meetings, and the opportunity to enter it in three contests. So in terms of hours of hobby enjoyment, I'm at less than 50 cents an hour, and this is one of the more expensive projects I've had.

Mark Schynert

Reply to
Mark Schynert

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.