Just wondering what the opinion is of Hobby Boss 1/48.

I like the Eduard kits but a few of the Hobby Boss offer some additional details, though I have noticed they miss others?

How would you rank airplane manufacturers?

I heard, in one of the local hobby shops, that Eduard and ICM are the best, is that true? I am really impressed with the 1/72 BF 109E-7 I am building, nice little kit, but there are some Tamiya that are really good and same with Hasegawa. Then there is GWH and Meng.

Richard I've built several HobbyBoss offerings and I've found the fit and level of details to be really rather good. But like most manufacturers they have their issues that the rivet counters discover but nothing that stops me from building them.

Price point is usually pretty good compared to the Tamiya and Hasegawa offerings. I've also found that their offerings have been improving with time as they are still quite a "new" manufacturer.

i would have to agree with chris for the most part. i would like to see their price a little lower on some kits though. i did have a problem getting the fuselage closed up on a 262 kit and i didn't like how they designed the gun bay cover but that's just me.they do get their colors wrong though so be aware. i never heard anything about icm being one of the top companies. in fact i have heard just the opposite. i have stayed away from them because of that.

joe

Hi Joe I've built quite a number of ICM kits and they've also been improving as they go along. Quality control was an issue in the early days but they seem to have that licked for the most part. I find that with careful attention to putting the subassemblies into fuselage etc that usually everything goes together quite well. I can personally recommend their 1/48 I-153 I really enjoyed the build and fit was good.

I've just picked up their 1/48 scale He111H-3 and I'm really impressed with the level of detail they've managed to squeeze into it. I agree with you that I wouldn't call ICM one of the top kit manufacturers that would have to go to Tamiya and Hasegawa.

However there are other kits from different manufacturers that do come close. Several of the new releases in 1/32 by Revell (Fw190 and Arado Ar196), Zevda's 1/48 Pe-2 Peshka, Gaspatches 1/48 He123 series to name a few off the top of my head that have my undivided attention.

Thanks for the feedback.

Yea the ICM kits are a very pleasant surprise, in both armour and aviation.

Got my hands on a fair number of kits now, so I can start saying my piece, but I do like to hear other opinions.

Then there seems to be a category of super kits, saw one the other day by Zoukei-Mura, which go for incredible prices.

Funny how some have stood the test of time very well, while others, not so much.

Ricard,

I've built several 1/48 scale kits, and enjoyed those builds. The kits generally have a very good fit and quite a lot of detail. Here's two of them.
Joel

Both look really good, I have the TBM on order. The LHS stated that Hobby Boss makes the best ME 262 there is.

An there is another one:




Minimal issues during the build but major issues with the decal accuracy, painting schemes and stencil placement. So big issues, that I decided to re-do the build from step one (pending). The plastic is gorgeous - I had a blast building this one.

Cheers!
Gabriel

Richard, in general Hobby Boss kits are nice to build. I've build a few of them and some had their issues, but it's nothing you can't deal with. That's why we are model kit builders, aren't we? But I have noticed that the stencils on their decal sheets are more or less all crap in 1/48. I don't know how the stencils look like in 1/72 - if there are any - but in 1/48 they are unreadable. Here I would suggest to look for aftermarket decals. Sometimes they also flip over. So beware of them .... Here are a few of my HB kits
Saab J 29 Tunnan 1/48

Saab J 32 Lansen 1/48 (really big bird!)

Blohm & Voss BV 141


Happy modelling!
Torsten