Airfix something strange

[john3m]

I genuinely like Airfix quality. I received a kit for Christmas the 1930 Bentley 1/12  4.5 liter supercharged. I held off building this kit for a while until I could get my skill up to approach the build since I didn’t want to mess it up  I needed a little more practice on some of the other kits. I open the box and was surprised at how large the kit was. Naturally, I took my time cleaning all the parts being very careful not to lose anything sometimes parts fall off when you washed them, but I was careful. When I got to the build part the instructions asked for some chrome pieces. This is the part that surprised me. This is not an inexpensive kit, and generally Airfix does an excellent job in producing decent parts. It When examining the chrome parts, it looked like they put the chrome on with a spatula. They were not individually chromed but it looked like the chrome itself spread off the spru branches and onto the individual parts themselves. Basically the individual parts were not separated from the spru with a gap. On occasion, chrome parts need to be cleaned or scraped to get the lines removed but in this case I was bewildered at how much Chrome they used on this particular spru. Considering how much was paid for this particular kit. I was shocked to see how much work I was going to have to do to clean up the chrome. I have lesser quality kits with with much better chrome parts. Maybe somebody can explain this to me or maybe there’s some kind of resolution a lot was paid for this kit I expected much more than what I got. This is probably a fluke. Hopefully it is. I’m still a fan of this company. I won’t stop building their kits, but I’m gonna have to go through therapy to get over what I saw when I pulled out the chrome part.

[tcoat]

This is a very old kit with molds that have made untold thousands of copies since 1971. A look at the sprues here www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235091842-1930-bentley-45-litre-supercharged-a20440v-112/ shows that overall the molds are still very nice for the age.

Example:


The exception unfortunately is the chrome sprue. That mold is tired and looking at the flash shows it needs a refresh quite desperately. Doing the chrome plating over top of all that flash and mold lines is doomed for failure.

Looks like the right side of the mold isn't toooo bad but the left side ain't pretty.


Not much to be done about it other than clean up what you can and either strip and paint over or touch up any bare spots with a chrome marker or paint. 

The good news is that a lot of what they have as chrome on the kit is NOT chrome on the real thing.
Take a look at this.

hcservices.be/1930-bentley-blower/

[john3m]

ok so how to avoid these problems in the future or is it possible. i like the kit with some exceptions....

[tcoat]

Jul 18, 2024 11:07:07 GMT -5 john3m said:

ok so how to avoid these problems in the future or is it possible. i like the kit with some exceptions....

The only way I can think of is to find a really old release of the kit when the molds were still fresh and crisp. Of course then you risk other issues such as warpage or brittle plastic so it really is a matter of a trade off. I am a huge fan of building old kits and so, so many of them have some issue or another that just has to be worked around. 

[brandonk]

This is one of those times when I would pull the parts off the tree, strip the chrome with Bleach and clean them up. Then I would paint them with something that is a good substitute for chrome, where needed. It'll look better than chrome.

[brandonk]

Jul 18, 2024 11:07:07 GMT -5 john3m said:

ok so how to avoid these problems in the future or is it possible. i like the kit with some exceptions....

It happens. Sometimes new kits are trash from the get go and old kits are perfect. It's just part of what we do as modelers. To me, part of the fun and challenge is taking stuff like this and making it look like a diamond.

[cbaltrin]

Jul 18, 2024 11:59:41 GMT -5 tcoat said:

Jul 18, 2024 11:07:07 GMT -5 john3m said:

ok so how to avoid these problems in the future or is it possible. i like the kit with some exceptions....

The only way I can think of is to find a really old release of the kit when the molds were still fresh and crisp. Of course then you risk other issues such as warpage or brittle plastic so it really is a matter of a trade off. I am a huge fan of building old kits and so, so many of them have some issue or another that just has to be worked around. 

I always go for the older releases. Scalemates is great for finding the right boxing.

[kyledehart5]

The kit really was quite exceptional back in the 70s and has hold up over time as Tony has mentioned. I’ve seen some exceptionally nice builds of it. It’s just been brutally used and abused. No doubt Airfix have made their money off that kit. Generally any Airfix offering that says “vintage classic” is going to be popped out of some pretty ancient molds. I’d love to track one of these kits down and build one sometime but in this case I’d certainly rather have an older release. Stripping the chrome entirely is the best way forward especially as the real car has way less than the kit. I also utilize scalemates a great deal to just check out when toolings were originally released and how many times they’ve been repopped. Just to give me a heads up on what I’m getting into. Hope to see you building this one!!

[john3m]

Jul 18, 2024 17:02:23 GMT -5 kyledehart5 said:

The kit really was quite exceptional back in the 70s and has hold up over time as Tony has mentioned. I’ve seen some exceptionally nice builds of it. It’s just been brutally used and abused. No doubt Airfix have made their money off that kit. Generally any Airfix offering that says “vintage classic” is going to be popped out of some pretty ancient molds. I’d love to track one of these kits down and build one sometime but in this case I’d certainly rather have an older release. Stripping the chrome entirely is the best way forward especially as the real car has way less than the kit. I also utilize scalemates a great deal to just check out when toolings were originally released and how many times they’ve been repopped. Just to give me a heads up on what I’m getting into. Hope to see you building this one!!

ok is Scalemates the site where i can find out about how old the tooling is  on any kit?

[kyledehart5]

Jul 18, 2024 17:26:18 GMT -5 john3m said:

Jul 18, 2024 17:02:23 GMT -5 kyledehart5 said:

The kit really was quite exceptional back in the 70s and has hold up over time as Tony has mentioned. I’ve seen some exceptionally nice builds of it. It’s just been brutally used and abused. No doubt Airfix have made their money off that kit. Generally any Airfix offering that says “vintage classic” is going to be popped out of some pretty ancient molds. I’d love to track one of these kits down and build one sometime but in this case I’d certainly rather have an older release. Stripping the chrome entirely is the best way forward especially as the real car has way less than the kit. I also utilize scalemates a great deal to just check out when toolings were originally released and how many times they’ve been repopped. Just to give me a heads up on what I’m getting into. Hope to see you building this one!!

ok is Scalemates the site where i can find out about how old the tooling is  on any kit?

Yes. The vast majority of kits can be researched there. Most will have a timeline that leads back through all the releases. On the timeline it will show the years of release and the first one will say “new tool” Not every kit but certainly a lot of them. I like to look up kits I have just to see if there is any information. 

[tcoat]

Jul 18, 2024 17:54:23 GMT -5 kyledehart5 said:

Jul 18, 2024 17:26:18 GMT -5 john3m said:

ok is Scalemates the site where i can find out about how old the tooling is  on any kit?

Yes. The vast majority of kits can be researched there. Most will have a timeline that leads back through all the releases. On the timeline it will show the years of release and the first one will say “new tool” Not every kit but certainly a lot of them. I like to look up kits I have just to see if there is any information. 

The timelines are also very helpful in identifying what is in the kit, if it has changed over the years (new parts/decals notations) and even if it is a rebox from or was reboxed by another company. 

[kyledehart5]

Jul 19, 2024 6:11:32 GMT -5 tcoat said:

Jul 18, 2024 17:54:23 GMT -5 kyledehart5 said:

Yes. The vast majority of kits can be researched there. Most will have a timeline that leads back through all the releases. On the timeline it will show the years of release and the first one will say “new tool” Not every kit but certainly a lot of them. I like to look up kits I have just to see if there is any information. 

The timelines are also very helpful in identifying what is in the kit, if it has changed over the years (new parts/decals notations) and even if it is a rebox from or was reboxed by another company. 

Yes indeed. Forgot to mention that. A kit can have many divergent branches but come back around and get repopped either by the same company or different ones. Good point about the possible different iterations as well

[tcoat]

Jul 19, 2024 6:32:28 GMT -5 kyledehart5 said:

Jul 19, 2024 6:11:32 GMT -5 tcoat said:

The timelines are also very helpful in identifying what is in the kit, if it has changed over the years (new parts/decals notations) and even if it is a rebox from or was reboxed by another company. 

Yes indeed. Forgot to mention that. A kit can have many divergent branches but come back around and get repopped either by the same company or different ones. Good point about the possible different iterations as well

The best I have ever seen is that poor old Italeri jeep kit that has about 1,000 different variations and 50 companies boxing it (hyperbole of course).

The tracking for that thing is like looking at the history of humankind. 

www.scalemates.com/kits/italeri-314-willys-jeep--110048


 

[kyledehart5]

Jul 19, 2024 8:13:43 GMT -5 tcoat said:

Jul 19, 2024 6:32:28 GMT -5 kyledehart5 said:

Yes indeed. Forgot to mention that. A kit can have many divergent branches but come back around and get repopped either by the same company or different ones. Good point about the possible different iterations as well

The best I have ever seen is that poor old Italeri jeep kit that has about 1,000 different variations and 50 companies boxing it (hyperbole of course).

The tracking for that thing is like looking at the history of humankind. 

www.scalemates.com/kits/italeri-314-willys-jeep--110048


 

Excellent! I love when the timeline looks like that. 

[tcoat]

Jul 19, 2024 13:09:47 GMT -5 kyledehart5 said:

Jul 19, 2024 8:13:43 GMT -5 tcoat said:

The best I have ever seen is that poor old Italeri jeep kit that has about 1,000 different variations and 50 companies boxing it (hyperbole of course).

The tracking for that thing is like looking at the history of humankind. 

www.scalemates.com/kits/italeri-314-willys-jeep--110048


 

Excellent! I love when the timeline looks like that. 

Did you notice that Tamiya boxed it twice?  

[kyledehart5]

Jul 19, 2024 15:10:45 GMT -5 tcoat said:

Jul 19, 2024 13:09:47 GMT -5 kyledehart5 said:

Excellent! I love when the timeline looks like that. 

Did you notice that Tamiya boxed it twice?  

And as recently as 2021. I always thought the Tamiya and Italeri relationship was an odd one because Italeri’s quality isn’t always the best. But that kit is a great choice for a reboxing.