Small Scale Military Headquarters

I just won a 1/32 Bandai Puma kit on Ebay:



to complement my 1/32nd collection. I also have the old Airfix Sd Kfz 250 and Monogram Sd Kfz 231/232 kits, also in 1/32nd. None of these are currently made my either 21st or FOV, but I havent seen any interest in them on this forum.

Also, there are a bunch of 1/32nd aircraft kits out there. I just finished a Revell BF 110, and have the Feiseler Storch coming.

I still have some Airfix and Monogram armor kits since I was a kid that I did'nt finish or never started on. I may get around to do the Monogram M-8 Greyhound kit but I prefer the "pre-assembled" and "pre-painted" ones that 21st. has to offer and this saves me alot of time now.

Easy.

Kits=work. Work that I'm not willing to expend when in most cases I can find what I want already assembled. But that's just me.

flpickupman wrote:Easy.

Kits=work. Work that I'm not willing to expend when in most cases I can find what I want already assembled. But that's just me.

What he said.

C2000

Most of the assembled kits I have, Monogram, Tamiya and Testors were from when I was a kid. I built tons of them. I just picked up the Monogram Strumpanzer when the 21st version came out. I looked at the Monogram kit, complete with the Shepard Paine diorama suggestions, and couldnt bring myself to build it. It sits with a Monogram M3 Lee, Pzkw IV Flakveirling, M4 Hedgehog and a M3 Grant. Some of these I bought from ebay and they tend to go for a premium. They have great play value when built, but the 21st versions can be had for much less. I have the Monogram Sd Kfz 231 which I picked up cheap off Ebay and built right away as it was a new issue from old molds. I also have a closet of Academy, Italeri and others which are pretty complicated kits that I have not been inspired to build yet. I did a 1:35 "Karl" Morser recently. It took me a month to build.
I have done aircraft too, such as the Revell Hurricane (In Soviet colors) a F4 Wildcat and a Grumman F3F biplane. They are nice "fill in" models which compliment the 21st stuff. I am sure there are others who do the same as we do with the models but this site is more about the pre-built stuff. The site does welcome details and photos of models you have built though. I have posted stuff here in the past and the forum users have expressed great interest in my efforts...

TJ

Heck yeah. I can fully appreciate a well assembled kit(those guys at missing lynx boggle my mind). I just don't have the patience to do it myself. Heck, I barely have the patience to do the few customs I've made.

flpickupman wrote:Easy.

Kits=work. Work that I'm not willing to expend when in most cases I can find what I want already assembled. But that's just me.

Ditto.....since I work with my hands for a living, the 21C and bbi and AT offerings are FINE with me, now!!

dV

I have always wanted to be able to handle and play with my models. I always found that "kits" tend to be fragile. They are invariably plastic and light weight. The heft of FoV is what I believe drove 21C to what I consider their idiotic cold steel concept; but their plastic was quite tough. Certainly tougher than any kit. But the heft of the mostly die-cast FoV is perhaps their biggest attraction to me. Something virtually un reproducable in a kit. Yes?

ltcbj wrote:But the heft of the mostly die-cast FoV is perhaps their biggest attraction to me. Something virtually un reproducable in a kit. Yes?

I usually cement (with epoxy or Gorilla Glue) a piece of flat steel bar in my kits. It really improves the feel.

Hope you don't drop it.

I've pla....er...handled my FoV a fair bit and they are pretty durable.

-H

FRAGILITY. I hated it. Then parts, no matter how well glued would break or simply fall off. This high impact plastic 21C uses is much more resilient.

Is that so few kits are actually available in 1/32nd.

As others have observed, the companies pretty much no longer market their 1/32nd AFV offerings, even though the molds most likely do still exist. So if you want a 1/32nd kit, your'e stuck with evilbay.

Too bad; Airfix and Monogram offered great kits in 1/32nd, and several Asian companies offered some decent 1/30th and 1/32nd. Even "Ogonek" of the old Iron Curtain USSR offered passable 1/30th scale Stalin-hulled variants.

The Airfix Grant and Crusader kits are supposedly outstanding. Luckily the Airfix Crusader was reissued along with their 1/32nd multi-pose figure kits.

A big part of the joy to me in kit building was, well, the building itself. Laying out the hundred plus pieces, the directions, shaving flash, cursing the piece that broke coming off the sprue, keeping the cats off the table and the kids away from the model as it slowly came together. Carefully gluing the mantlet and the gun, then to the turret to assure vertical movement in the main gun. The sense of accomplishment when this all went flawlessly or nearly so, the frustration when something just didn't fit. And all those tiny little pieces!! Tie downs, hand holds, towing hooks etc. Some things I needed three hands and a tentacle for. And there was always the glue/cement, too little- too much, smearing (looked a bit like a zimmeritt fingerprint) and spewing or even simply running out due to my own preparation error.... And when done the painting.... Mission accomplished was a beautiful highly detailed model with all the running gear rolling and the tracks attached. An error could easily result in frozen road wheels, broken track, snapped parts (sometime major) and tiny holes in the turret/hull where a tiny piece had somehow been lost in the multi-hour process of building. Then the paint itself could too easily mask some of the details on the model itself. And of course- The Fragility, oh the fragility of the entire project from conception to end result.
It does not surprise me in the least the popularity of 21stC and FoV and other models in 1/32 (why not 1/35- were they afraid of the competition?) that are ready built, far tougher, well enough detailed (and in some cases as well or better), very well painted and ready to go out of the box (excepting some FoV that need overhauling). That 1/35 model kits are disappearing is both sad and seemingly symptomatic of our cultural willingness to have things handed to us on a platter, ready made by a factory or a foreigner. I have reached the age where eyesight and steady handedness are diminishing for fine work needed in model building but I would not trade my experiences in building tanks, ships and planes from kits for the comparative ease of ready mades. I felt more of a kinship with and pride in what I built myself than in what I buy today.
But I really like the heft....

And then what to do about all the left over parts you forgot to add.

For me it’s always a big problem I will usually overlook a small detail, something that goes in the cockpit or way inside the model that no one will ever see. And its too late to go back and try to put it in. That normally bugs the crap out of me for weeks at a time,.

Besides I work with my hands also and normally I don’t like to have to make them any more then I have to, in fact I sometimes resent having to make some customizations to my 1:18 aircraft due to poor oversight. Lately my hands have started to fall asleep when I was working an a Me 109 G mod.

Hyperscale just posted a review of the new 1/32 kits by 21st Century..

http://www.hyperscale.com/reviews/kits/ ... ewbg_1.htm

Don't....please, just don't make me make models again.

But this does bring up the disturbing lack of a Puma or M8 from 21st!

EnemyAce wrote:Don't....please, just don't make me make models again.

But this does bring up the disturbing lack of a Puma or M8 from 21st!

I feel the same way (except for conversions), but I just found a Bandai Puma kit in 1/32 on Ebay which I never knew existed. I'll have to build that one!
And Monogram has a 1/32nd M8 kit.

I built several of the Monogram M-8s 45+/- years ago. If they are the same molds, and probably are the only difference would be the price, which was about 89c then. They were simple enough for a 12 year old who just wanted to get them on the road to build, and still well done. I can't remember if they came with figures or not though. I particularly liked the the GI with the submachine gun who came with one of the half-tracks.

I think the M8s came with a sitting GI in a steel pot helmet, making a casual "pointing" guesture. I built my first one in 1972 and I still have it, or at least most of it...

TJ

Could you be talking about the guy who came with the Weasel- seated, pointing and with a radio- I still have him. Not the weasel, but last seen he was downstairs on the garage window sill reporting on traffic I guess.