Favorite Company for 1/144 WW2 planes

[skyking20]

You guys gave me a list of companies to look at in my previous post. Great stuff. I have found a good selection of 21st century planes for $5 or less a plane. But I was wondering whose stuff do you consider to be the best?

[pbhawkin]

Best in terms of what?
If there is too much detail (like gun barrels, aeriels and antennes, radar, undercarriage legs etc) it WILL get broken or bent during play!
A model that just represents the basic shape of the plane (ie a silhouette or ID model) would do too but most of us want some details. part metal and plastic models like IXO, Atlas, Altaya and others found on Ebay are very robust and good for the bigger planes.
There are some great gasaphon plastic again on Ebay kits that are very strong like Takara and F-toys as well.
Resin models will always be brittle and more prone to breaking than plastic.
Shapeway WSF is super strong and can easily be dropped from table height onto a floor and no damage. BUT there are issues with surrface roughness and lack of details.

HTH

[skyking20]

Best meanswhatever you want it to mea. You explanation was great! And very useful.

[richard m schwab]

Lance

I have a few of each of the 21st Century planes. I picked up six Zeros at a WalMart for $2.00 each. I still have one or two in boxes from that trip! You cannot beat the F-Toys for cost and quality of ready to go planes. I long ago stopped worrying about gun barrels antennas and undercarriages. I build all my planes gear up and attach radio masts and antennas if kit supplied as well as gun barrels. When the break off as they all will i forget about them. The only real alternative is using straight pins as gun barrels and antennas. They are sharp and people do not tend to play with them more than once!

Rich

[kaufschtick]

Lance

I have a few of each of the 21st Century planes. I picked up six Zeros at a WalMart for $2.00 each. I still have one or two in boxes from that trip! You cannot beat the F-Toys for cost and quality of ready to go planes.

Rich

I gotta back Rich on the F-Toys, they are superb. There is a little assembly required. Bandai & Cafe Reo are also in this group of superb, pre painted companies. If you don't build or paint yourself, you can't go wrong with these outfits. Oh yeah, add Takara to that list, I probably spelled the company name wrong, but they did a line of German planes.

21st Century kits are awesome for the price, but they are OOB as I understand it. Their kits are fully painted and 100% assembled...well, you might have to attach a bomb or fuel tank here and there, so we'll call them %99.9 assembled.

One thing I noticed on the pre painted stuff is every once in a while, you get a model that the painting got a little sloppy on, so you have that every once in a while. You have to watch some of the 21st Century stuff, they suffer from "the sloppies". I'd say they are about 80-85% awesome, and 15-20% sloppy. But even their sloppy paint jobs are worth it with their usually low, low prices. Most of their sloppy painted planes can be "cleaned up" too, if you're handy with a paint brush.

Speaking of that, if you build & paint yourself, Sweet models & Platz are the top companies for build em' yourself kits. Both of these companies offer 2 planes per kit. Platz kits may be out of print right at the moment (or possibly OOB???). I choose Hobby Link Japan to buy my Sweet kits, terrific prices and great shipping. I wanna say that recently I build a couple kits from another company that I would rate as good as Sweet & Platz, but it escapes me right at the moment.

Getting old sucks. ;)

If you build & paint yourself, be fore warned about: Kami de Korokoro, they are for advanced model builders. You can find them at HLJ for decent prices. I got a pair of P-40Bs & D.520s from them, and the kits took me forever to build. I'm only a "C" to "C+" model builder myself, and I had a tough time with them.

Also, aside from Sweet kits & Platz kits, a lot of the build em' yourself kits are older molds, and some of them can be pretty rough unless you have mad model building skills.

One recent addition I'd like to mention in the build & paint them yourself group would be Zvezda kits. They have a wargame called Art of Tactic, and they offer a few planes for their game, with more coming down the road. I get them on CoolStufff for only $2.99 each, USD (shipping is free on orders of $100 or more). They snap together in just a few moments, have clear canopies, option landing gear up or down, but only come with very basic (but good quality) decales. You can't beat them for the price if you paint. Not crazy mad detail in the kits, but terrific for just $2.99 - $4.99 a plane. They have currently in 1/144 scale: Hurricane Mk I, LaGG-3, Bf-109F (G? maybe), Il-2 (single seater), Ju-87 (I think it's the D?). They also have in 1/200 scale, Ju-52 & the Russian version of the C-47 (DC-3), it has the gunner's position on the top.

Personally, I have not like much from Arii & AHM (also sold as Crown kits).

Mincraft generally get a bad rep online, but I have had pretty good luck with the Minicraft planes I have built. They are also rereleasing their kits recently, and they have been including super decales (from Italieri) and have been offering variants. For example, they recently released their B-24J with a B-24D conversion kit included. I grabbed three of these, and they look super, although I have not started work on them yet.

[Lloydthegamer]

I agree with most of what Rob has already written, except I've never built a Platz kit. The Sweet kits are great display models which happen to pass as great wargames planes too! Zevezda are also very nice plastic kits, very simple to build, few parts, and very robust. Of resin kits Petersplanes, Kami de Korokoro, Airlex, and others are another option. Unlike Rob, I haven't had problems building them, most of them are actually one piece castings with a few bits to add to whole plane. I have had some problems with Kami de Korokoro when painting, whatever release agent they use really needs to be thoroughly scrubbed off of them before painting or you will have problems.

One area Rob didn't address is metal kits. Reveiresco and Skytrex are the main makers of lead kits. There are other makers, but I haven't built any of their models except for a couple of Mamoli kits, which have been out of print for a long time. Lead kits can be a challenge, but they turn out decent models. The main thing I don't like about them is their weight. I like to glue a ball bearing to the bottom of the kit and use a ring magnet on the stand letting the model be banked, nose down/up, etc. Many lead kits are too heavy to allow this. Just a minor complaint. Cheers, Lloyd

[Dom S]

Also worth mentioning the excellent Revell Mini Kits - eight of these have been rereleased after about 20 years out of production. They've easily stood the test of time, and at £1.99 each in the UK are a fantastic deal. The range had 28 models back in the day, iirc, so hopefully we'll see more in 2013.

http://www.themodellingnews.com/2012/07/micro-wings-for-micro-cash-from-revell.html

Not available, but hopefully back some time are 8 US and 8 Japanese models; not sure what the missing 4 were.

[Doug]

I also have a few WW1 Skytrex planes which I get made and painted up for me. The resulting models are excellent, though a bit fragile as a result they mainly end up for display rather than gameing.

[Lloydthegamer]

Dom, how could I forget Revell? I just today finished 4 Spits. Nice kits, needed a bit of filling, but turned out fine. Lloyd


Also worth mentioning the excellent Revell Mini Kits - eight of these have been rereleased after about 20 years out of production. They've easily stood the test of time, and at £1.99 each in the UK are a fantastic deal. The range had 28 models back in the day, iirc, so hopefully we'll see more in 2013.

http://www.themodellingnews.com/2012/07/micro-wings-for-micro-cash-from-revell.html

Not available, but hopefully back some time are 8 US and 8 Japanese models; not sure what the missing 4 were.

[richard m schwab]

Lloyd

Were these new production Spit? If so how are the decals?

Rich

[Lloydthegamer]

Yep, new stuff straight from Poland via Japan. The decals are quite nice. No problem with register, colors sharp, and they went down quite nicely. You thinking about getting some? Lloyd


Lloyd

Were these new production Spit? If so how are the decals?

Rich

[pbhawkin]

speaking of metal aircraft, Creation Chaubet in France does a great range of WW2 planes. He even has a couple of my models he does in Metal (we did a exchange of masters).
See http://jacques.chaubet.free.fr/index02e.htm

[Lloydthegamer]

Peter, thanks for bringing Creation Chaubet up. I knew there was a French maker, but couldn't remember the name. I don't have any of his models, but they look great on his website. Are his planes solid castings? Cheers, Lloyd
speaking of metal aircraft, Creation Chaubet in France does a great range of WW2 planes. He even has a couple of my models he does in Metal (we did a exchange of masters).
See http://jacques.chaubet.free.fr/index02e.htm

[richard m schwab]

Lloyd

I have some of the old Revel Spit`s in my BOB fleet. Do they offer more than one plane marking on the decal sheet?

Rich

[pbhawkin]

Are his planes solid castings

YES, very solid!

[Lloydthegamer]

Negative, Rich. There is only one marking in this kit. I trimmed off the plane letter and substituted other letters. Unfortunately, the new numbers are not quite as large, but are workable. I'll get some photos up in the next day or so. Cheers, Lloyd


Lloyd

I have some of the old Revel Spit`s in my BOB fleet. Do they offer more than one plane marking on the decal sheet?

Rich

[Lloydthegamer]

And I imagine very heavy!
YES, very solid!

[Kaiser]

Search eBay for "fabbri italeri" and you will finde some nice pre-painted 1/144 die-cast aircrafts :)
I have no idea where else youcan obtain them as the shop of Italeri doesn't list any 1/144 aircrafts.

[Baldrick62]

*double-post*

Easy fix; it's a little used feature of the site called the 'delete' button.

[Kaiser]

Works :D

[richard m schwab]

Lloyd

No shock there you really get used to Sweet and Platz kits and their great decal sheets! As long as the roundels and tail markings are good, i have a cure for the radio codes. I bought a set of RAF radio and rear fuselage band codes. They are for Spitfires and Mustangs!

Rich

[Lloydthegamer]

If they are the ones from Scale Specialties they are for 1/160 and will be too small. I bought a sheet of them and the letters just don't match because they are small. Lloyd
Lloyd

No shock there you really get used to Sweet and Platz kits and their great decal sheets! As long as the roundels and tail markings are good, i have a cure for the radio codes. I bought a set of RAF radio and rear fuselage band codes. They are for Spitfires and Mustangs!

Rich

[pbhawkin]

What about these ones (also from Matt (Methusla) but are actually 1/144);
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/1-144-1-100-Decals-BR-123-WWII-RAF-Squadron-Codes-/120722889479?pt=UK_ToysGames_ModelKits_ModelKits_JN&hash=item1c1ba51b07

BUT I agree that it is frustrating when the same decal sheet is advertised as 144-160:confused: WHICH one is it for:mad:! It suggests the maker of the decal is just trying to make a sale to anyone and doesn't care about accuracy or their customer:hmm: