Sunday 27 February 2011

You get what you pay for?


In between other projects I've been tinkering this Arado 196 together. It has long been a favourite of mine; I was about to buy the Italeri offering in 1/48 when I saw Revell were releasing their 196 in 1/32 scale, and I couldn't say no to that.

But by the time I got to round to buying it, the £20 offer price had expired and I had to pay the full £25. I was a bit put out about the extra fiver, but then I got to thinking about the £30 Hasegawa are charging for the Curtiss P-40 and the P-38, and I remembered that not long ago I was paying only £18 for these kits. What had happened? Indeed, the model shop I visit regularly has stopped stocking Hasegawa altogether on the grounds that customers are refusing to pay these big new prices.

I have included some photos of the 196's interior detail so you can see how much £25 can buy today. Revell's prices are catching up, but they are not stratospheric and their kits represent good value for money. In my view, Hasegawa can't continue to charge such high prices on the basis of their good name. Customers will vote with their feet (and keyboards) and in my experience, modellers are sharp-witted consumers who want to indulge in their hobby and are very canny about what they pay for. It will be interesting to see how this pans out.



Tuesday 15 February 2011

Paint it Black

The thing with the Monogram P-61 is that it's been around so long that it's become almost as big a classic as the one-to-one version. It's an excellent model that goes together really well, and has bags of detail.


What's not so good about it are the raised panel lines and the roughness around the edges, which mean a lot more work for the modeller.



During the build I incorporated the Eduard detail set. I had to be quite choosy here. Not everything Eduard gives you is an improvement on the kit offerings. You could end up throwing the baby out with the bath water. I believe I've made the right choices here and the model looks the better for it.


At this stage, I am halfway towards completing the model. More on this interesting project soon.

Coming up:

The Lockheed F-5 (P-38) from Italeri/Minicraft
The Henschel 129 from Hasegawa
Revell's new Arado 196A in 1/32 scale.

Something to look forward to.