Figure this thread will be interesting

So what are the worst model kits out there? Whether it be really poor detail, inaccurate models, poor fitting etc?

Jack,
This is really a counter productive question. Every kit has it's flaws. Some minor, some major. Most are fixable, a few not so.

The skills of the modeler is the difference between success and failure many times.

There are rivet counters that find flaws and errors in every kit, even the very best of the best. The majority of modelers like myself are just concerned that the model is a close representation of the subject. Generally, the more expensive models reflect to a greater degree the amount of money and time spent in R&D. In other words, you generally get what you pay for.

Joel

Just remembering a few:

A-model Su-15, Yak-17 and Yak-15.

One man's trash is another man's treasure.I'm sure some modelers have made masterpieces out of kits that I have trashed out of frustration.

The worst kit I've ever had is Airfix 1/72 Spitfire Mk.VC. A great idea to upgrade an older kit but didn't work in practice.
The bulk of the kit was the old Mk.Vb, a decent model if a little bare in the cockpit, with a new set of sprues which included a C wing and undernose tropical carburetor intake. The kit called for the original nose to be cut up and the tropical intaake added along with the replacement wing. Problem was that neither fitted and the wing was roughly the same scale thickness as a B-17 rather than a Spits thin wing. I ended up building it as the Vb and chucking the new parts in the spares box.
The Airfix Westland Seaking is another that's best avoided at all costs. Do not be fooled by them calling it new. Currently they include a few new parts to model later variants. The base kit has been in constant production since the late 60's and is so worn that many parts, particularly around the nose and transparencies, will not fit together. I picked up one of the AEW.2 boxing's last year in a sale just for the new parts and decals to add to the superior Revell Seaking.
I'm not saying that Airfix are bad, just that they do have some horrors still on sale (as do most of the model companies who have been around for years). One of my favourite kits was an old Airfix, the Cessna 0-1E Bird-dog. A few fit issues but it builds into a lovely little model with some work. Many of the newer tooled kits are fantastic and we are slowly seeing the oldies pass into a well deserved retirement. I just wish they'd retool the mighty Seaking!
Best advice is to research if your unsure and never be afraid to ask.

The worst kit ever, the one which sends shudders down modellers' spines the world over at the mere mention of its name, is the infamous Starfix Spitfire.

The last time we had this thread it ran to three pages. My entry was the 1/144 scale Revell Mini F4U, to which I will now add the entire rest of the Revell Mini line, which has been shamelessly reissued without any improvements. I bought a few just to see if...oh forget it.

Joel W. makes some good points above, but even "you get what you pay for" requires qualification. yes, the Revell Mini kits cost only a few dollars, and then, there are some resin kits out there which only barely resemble model airplanes and require monumental efforts to actually finish, and yet command "collector" prices.
Some of these garage resin type products have a certain cachet, which I admit I tend to fall for, but the price disconnect remains.

I think I said this last time Airfix DH88 Comet, flash, shot shots ejector pins, no detail, a 1950s kit never improved, please Airfix do a new one with 3 sets of decals, I will build all 3, but the old one gets my worst build

MINICRAFT F-82: the worst kit that I ever had the misfortune of having a sit down with


Bob

I think you mean Modelcraft. Minicraft didn't have anything to do with an F-82.

I've had that kit stalled in WIP for the past 20-odd years because of propellers. The kit ones are completely fictional. I need 8 Skyraider prop blades and so far I've only managed to collect 4.

Jessie,

my mistake I need to wear my glasses while typing and dust out my memory a little better, but I hated that kit so much maybe my brain is putting up a block to protect me from flashbacks.

Bob

I don't really blame it one bit. It's actually a rather cleaver thing for a brain to do.

Notice that no one thinks that misattribution is any slight on Minicraft's reputation - that company stamps out plenty of agony in pretty boxes.

I don't know and hope I will never find out. I only buy/build kits that are reviewed on the web and found very good.

time is to precious to waste on poor kits

yes and no - There are '[censored]' kits not worth wasting time on - but then also there are 'very difficult' kits made at home by our comrades, and you want like anything to make the most beautiful model from it, because it is a great job to have, and,
I wish I had the chutzpah to be making model kits of rare and interesting aircraft for other mad women and men like me to build.

I'm sure that there are master modelers here will say that few kits are unbuildable, but that many aren't worth the effort. And I've seen fantastic work done on vac-u-forms around here.

But, there are several classes of 'bad' kits.

Poorly marketed kits. Inept or Dishonest? Look at the Testor/Hawk F-84F, it represented a plane once called F-84F, but it was a YF-84F, or a YF-96A, but not an F-84F. I have a Kitech kit marketed as an F-16A, it's actually an F-16C. Most 1/72 T-38 kits are actually F-5Bs, (not exactly the same airframe), with trainer decals. I've been working on a Ace (Korea) A-7D, the box shows it as a Navy plane. Another company was marketing an F-16B as a new Navy Trainer...

Knock offs. That Ace A-7D is a knock off of the Italeri/ESCI A-7 mold. That Kitech F-16 is a knock off of someone's kit (Hasegawa?) and the detail got smushy in the process. I built a Seminar U-2C, it might have been a knock off of Academy's offering.

Badly or indifferently engineered kits. The old Aurora (AMT) 1/48 B-26 had 14 cylinder engines (should have been 18). It also had lots of difficult fits. Hasegawa / Frog F-102 had butt joints for the radome and tail cones. The Airfix F-5A I'm working on had a 2 piece radome, the outlines weren't concentric and needed lots of filing to shape. The tail section was in 3 parts, all butt joined together on an angle, and all 3 parts had different cross sections, OK, too wide, too narrow... I've got a couple of Frog kits on the bench, the engineering is excellent and terrible on the same components, choice of open or closed gear doors, closed ones fit like a dream. But they reproduced the Marianas Trench where the top of the wing and the control surfaces come together...

And I leave commenting on Mach 2 and Amodel kits to the folks who actually tackled them...

I remember hearing/reading someone say that the finish of a model determines how good it is. A poor kit with a good finish will beat the latest and greatest painted with fingerpaints.

Like others said...it's also in the eye of the beholder. I like Accurate Miniatures and Tamiya aircraft, while my brother is ok with old Revell kits from the 60s.

One kit I remember that I never did finish was the ICM 1/72 TB-3 Zveno. Undercarriage was not strong enoigh and my skills were not good enough at the time to fix it. Probably still not good enough..

Oh, and the Airfix Ju-52 I built for the Airfix II campaign had attrocious fit is some places as well.

I think the worst kit I've had the misfortune to "work into shape" is a Kopro Skoda D.1 (1:72) scale. Hilarious amounts of flash, where you more or less had to shape parts by whittling from a lump of plastic. A instruction that looked like it had been held in a holding patern in a old telefax-machine for 10 years and then printed on towel-paper. And decals that disintergrated into an exiting jigsaw puzzle when they came in contact with water.

Sure, the kit only cost a few Euro, but compared with some MisterCraft kits I've built who cost about the same, this was a true challenge.