An informal polling on opinions of the quality of different manufacturers.
I'm thinking along the lines of fit, quality of plastic, detail, etc.
The reason I bring this up while sitting at work is that I have been working on the Monogram 1/48 A-10- and quite frankly, the quality leaves alot to be desired.

I'd rate most Monogram kits average to below average, at this point I'd only build a Monogram kit if there were no other option- like the B-24J that I'm slowly working on. I'm probably going to finish the A-10, but in the future will avoid Monogram unless it's a model I really want to build.
My skills are good to very good- but I loose patience with poorly molded kits that require hours upon hours of work just to remove a seam line.

Smer- shudder
MPM/Condor- really nice from the FW-189 A I've been working on
Tamiya- well, it's Tamiya

What are your opinions on these and other manufacturers? Do you find poor kits a challenge or a chore?

Probably, the best manufacturers would be Tamiya followed by Airfix. Academy models sometimes don't fit well and some are in a different angles. If you're doing Anime models, the best is Bandai then Wave.

Sorry, these are the only manufacturers I've encountered so far

I agree about Tamiya being very good. I'd put Hasegawa up alongside them. My one reservation about Airfix kits is their raised panel lines, I've spent hours scribing them out. However they are comparitively cheap and with a bit of scratch building can be made into reasonable models.

For some of the best aircraft kits (at a higher price) are from Accurate Miniatures

Without a doubt, Accurate Miniatures is the best, followed by Tamigawa.

A lot of it has to do with the age of the moldings too. I have a Tamiya Zero molded in 1973 that is significantly lower quality than the 1996 molding of the Corsair.

To throw my 2 cents in, I find Airfix kits to be awful. I've tried to build a couple and all of them ended up in the round file. The fit was okay I guess, but the attachment points were bizaar. i.e. the verticle stabs on the F18. Most companies have you put a tab into a notch. Airfix had a huge tab that glued into a matching indentation on the side of the fuselage(the outside of the tab became part of the fuselage) leaving a HUGE area to be puttied and sanded, killing those wonderful raised panel lines that we all love.

You have to remember that the Monogram B-24 is a model that is around 30 years old. It is still the only kit of the Liberator in that scale and Monogram did two different boxings of it, one with a nose turret and one without.

Many of Monogram's aircraft kits hail from the 1960s and still hold up well like the P-40B. Monogram also puts out some higher end aircraft kits in their ProModeler line.

Monogram's 1/48 scale A-10A is the most accurate production A-10 in that scale as well.

For a long while (until Tamiya's 1980s M4A3 Sherman and Italeri's M4A1 Sherman), Monogram's M4 Hedge Hog Sherman and M4A1 Screamin' Mimi Calliope armed Sherman were the top Sherman kits made. Same with their M48A2 Patton tank. It's only recently that their ancient P-39 Airacobra has been surpassed by the Eduard kits. It was just too hard for a US based company to compete with the cheap labor found in the far east.

Be glad that if you really wanted a 1/48 scale B-24 (or B-17 or 1/72 scale B-29 or B-36) that Monogram made them. If you ever see the Shep Paine diorama inserts, that man did amazing things with those kits.

I'm also working on the B-24D from monogram. I'll agree with you that the fit everywhere leaves a lot to be desired but just think of it as a challenge to your modelling skills. It is actually a fairly well detailed kit for how old it is. I'm finally ready to paint now that I've gone over the seams for the hundreth time!

Monogram is almost all I have done and I am starting to desire a better fitting model. I have a Tamiya Spit so I'll see how that goes.

P.S. I made the Pro-modeller Helldiver and was quite impressed with the fit and it was also the first time I got to use photoetch(included with kit).

P.P.S. Gotta love that seam one the rear turret of the B-25 hey! Right in the middle of the clear dome!

I gotta side with Rob on this one, and maybe go further out into left field.

Yes, I certainly appreciate how headache-free some of the newer Tamiya and Hasegawa kits are when it comes to assembly. But that comes at a cost, in case you haven't noticed the prices.

I grew up in the late 60's to early 80's, with Monogram, Aurora, Matchbox, Frog and Revell being the most available kits on my "budget," and those Tamiya and Hasegawa beauties being reserved mainly as Christmas and birthday presents until I got a real job and moved out of the house.

That said, in addition to the B-17/24/29/36 examples offered by Rob, where are you going to get in 1/48 scale a new-mold:

* P-61?
* TBD?
* Typhoon WITHOUT a mold offset around the cockpit?

Monogram, I think

I still haven't seen Hasegawa's TA-4 series yet, so there goes the Monogram OA-4M as the only game in town to make a TA-4F/J.

And boys and girls, the Monogram P-38J/L may have raised rivets and panel lines but, for $13.50 on retail shelves, where else are you going to get aJ/L/M/F-5/Droopsnoot with a still-acceptable outline?

And a 1/48 Kingfisher? Monogram, again.

By the way, the Hobbycraft Sea Fury is almost 2 decades old - anybody know of an alternative kit?

And I finally found my dream kits at Nats last year - close your eyes and hold your ears if you're a Tamigawa fan - a FROG Avro Shackleton and a MATCHBOX Handley Page Victor in 1/72 and a great set of SAM plans to correct all the trenches and heavy-handed details!!!!!

Thankfully, mainstream and limited-run companies have paid more attention to the dearth of decent kits of some fundamental subjects with an abundance of Bf 109's, Spitfires, Mustangs, Hellcats, Corsairs, Thunderbolts, P-38's, Mosquitos and Beaufighters. Some less well-known subjects have and are popping up as well - Gloster Meteors, Vampires, ragwing Hurricanes, SM 79's, Fairey Battles and Fireflies, Blenheims - even though those kits may not fall in the shake-and-bake category.

The point is, if you want to build kits, that's fine. If you want to build models, that's fine too. But a little elbow grease and some older kits can still bring a spectacular result.

But when I was growing up, I had to walk 20 miles to school, in the snow, uphill both ways. And once i had to kill a grizzly bear with my looseleaf binder!.

(with apologies to Bill Cosby)

I agree with the other posts. Tamiya, Hasegawa, Accurate Miniatures are all excellent. However, Monogram, Dragon, and Academy in particular, along with Eduard and others can be excellent as well depending on the kit and the date it was issued.

The new Academy F/A-18C is being hailed as the finest jet model ever made. Some of the ProModeler kits such as the F-86D and the Helldiver are every bit as good as Hasegawa.

Hence the power of forums like this one!!! You can ask about any kit...

Scott

Recent Eduard kits are just beautiful... most of all in the profipack version !