Your Favorite Brand

Ooooh do they suck! I built a Russian-made IL2M3 some time ago and absolutely not a single part did fit! I wish I had had putty and the courage to paint over the thing.

 

Have to say that Tamiya is 'slightly' the best but Dragon is very close.In fact Dragon is sometimes better with some individual models. I just wish Tamiya weren't so expensive considering all you get is the basic model with vinyl tracks.

Take Dragon's new King Tiger which came out this year. It is better than Tamiya's King Tiger with just as much detail and accuracy BUT you also get individual track links and excellent photo etch engine screens and mesh and it is the same price as Tamiya's in some countries it's cheaper.

Tamiya might have had the edge for most of the time but these new Dragon offerings from the last two or 3 years are superb. The Dragon Panther A and D kits are the best Panther kits on the market.

If Tamiya bothered to include individual links and small etched frets in their kits as standard then that would be excellent but from now on I'm sticking with Dragon with their new kits.

Another company which do a small amount of armour models but are excellent like Dragon is called AFV Club. In some cases you even get a metal barrel. I haven't got an AFV Club model but I've heard great things.

 

I have a son of 6 and was wondering which model kit to buy for him to make.

Any advice is appreciated.

 

An aircraft perhaps. Not too big, but neither too small. You don´t want to start him off with a crappy kit, so stay away from those Airfix kits and the likes of them. Fujimi has a range of very nice 1/48 scale WWII fighters which are quite inexpensive. Check out the link below :

http://www.hlj.com/

And maybe some help from dad ?

 

I have several AFV kits, and they are out of this world
, I mean they are nice, I have an 88 At and a 10.5 cm howitser both have an aluminum barrel

GP
I would recomend any Heller model but I do not know is they are available in your area, they are cheap and simple and have a lot of details

 

For me it's tamiya. I tried several brands and i find that tamiya is for me the most accurate model.The only drawback i find is ( as mentioned earlier) is the price.

 

but tamiya is top of the line and GP is looking for something simple for the child to start from

 

A Matchbox (probably Revell now) Folland Gnat. Very simple kit, but a good result.

It was my first, so I'm sentimental...

 

Thanks everyone.

 

yeap, simple and cheap with good details!!

 

As I said the very recent new Dragon kits (such as their T34s and King Tigers) are as good or even superior to Tamiya and at a better price with more extras. I just got a new T34 model 1940 and it's superb. Dragon easily makes the best T34s no doubt about it. I think in future we will see Tamiya having to up the stakes because Dragon is taking the lead in my view. That should be a good thing.

 

Airfix seems to be getting a terrible slating. The only ones I've done in recent years have been their ships but I was very pleased with my HMS Hood. Currently fighting with a Revell USS Arizona not very impressed with the painting instructions.

 

Airfix are acutally not too bad. The older kits (try the MiG 15, for example) are very very basic indeed, and the parts are a little... chunky. Some kits (again, usually the older ones - try the Bristol Blenhiem) do not fit together terribly well.
The ships are good - I have made the HMS Belfast kit & was quite impressed, really.
However, overall, Airfix give a good enough kit at a fairly cheap price. They also have a good wide range of 1:72 kits.
Good for first time modellers, or more advanced modellers who need a challenge! Many 'upgrade'/'conversion' packages are designed to be used with Airfix.
They are not in the same league as Dragon or Tamiya, granted, but few are...

 

I remember the old Matchbox tank kits had one fantastic feature. There was a loop in one end of the track that the other clipped through so it held itself together. I generally ended up using a stappler on Airfix tank tracks.

Excuse me while get nostalgic for a while .

 

Hey, yeah, they're good!

Still, the Airfix 'melt-them-together' system did mean I got to play with my dad's soldering iron, which was serious fun for an 11 year old!

 

For all starters I'd advise Matchbox. It's cheap and simple but fairly good in detail (especially considering the other factors). Easy to paint, too.

 

Matchbox is good advice, but I though they went out of production years ago. Where do you guys get your Matchbox kits ?

 

Well most of them are still for sale in our local hobbyshops. They seem te be getting them from somewhere... Haven't really looked out for them in the last couple of months though, because I focused on hasegawa models.

 

Although it is probably over 10 years since I made a model A.F.V (I always used 1/72 and H0 00 for wargaming) I am suprised no-one has made any mention of my personal favourite ESCI. They are (were) Italian I believe. Also of suprise was the difference you guys were reporting in the quality of the different brands. I don't remember there being much difference at all between best & worst. (except an M13/40 whose hull would not line up). Simply the best brand for me was the one with the widest range: ESCI.
Although, having said all that, I do now remember that some of the Airfix series 1 kits only had 35-40 pieces, compared to a rough average of 60 for most kits of the same scale(s).

 

I'm assuming he will be the builder.A submarine could be a good start.Not a lot of parts and fairly simple paint-job.You also can't go wrong with a snap together.