Global Scale Modeller

Good morning all you fine modelling types. First class, the lot of you

Hands up who can't quite believe its May? Its scary how the time flies. I have to say I'm really enjoying the extra hours of daylight and the general uplift in the temperatures. Perfect conditions in which to begin my retirmement.

This month we're all about the kits, dreams of, scared of and memories of. Have a look at the following 3 questions and let us know your thoughts. Lets find out what floats your boat, what brings a tear to the eye and what keeps you awake at night!

The Holy Grail - name the one kit above all others you would like to build, either an existing release or one you would like to see released

Ahab's Whale - is there an existing kit out there you would like to build but think you would not make a good enough job of it so you steer clear?

Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner - the best kit you have ever built and why? Engineering, design, accuracy and fit.

I'll kick us off.

My Holy Grail would be a large scale Star Wars kit. I would live to build a 1/35 Snowspeeder or a half decent model of the second incomplete Deathstar. I'm pretty well served on the military / space history side but I would love to see a decent kit of the Apollo spacecraft. I would also jump through hoops for a large scale cockpit section of any of the famous WW2 fighters, a bit like the Italeri F16 cockpit they released years ago. Similar for a large scale stand alone Merlin engine.

My Whale would be one of the new 1/32 kits coming from Airscale. They are seriously expensive due to the amount of 3d printed resin parts and I just dont think my skill set is there yet. Their Typhoon looks amazing as does their Defiant. They have a Dornier 217 in the works and that would be a whale in every sense of the word.

My Dinner Winner would have to be a Tamiya kit if we're talking injection molded styrene (not resin like Airscale). Their armor kits are an absolute joy and you're pretty much safe with anything released from the 1980s on wards but if you're looking for something truly class leading I would have to say their 1/32 releases in recent times starting with the Spitfire Mk IX. So many innovations matched by superb detail and overall fit and engineering. Widely regarded as the best kit ever made when it came out, Tamiya quickly trumped it with the P51, the Mosquito and the F4U Corsair. The Corsair is now regarded as the best of the bunch and I can understand why. Quality and fit are as expected but its the engineering that elevates the kit. The centre section of the wing builds up into one huge piece which then mates with the fuselage and the folding wing sections in the same way as the real thing. Its an absolute work of art.

There you go, that's where I'm at on the questions raised. Over to you

I'm sure I wrote a longish reply to this before ?

digger303 wrote: Fri May 01, 2026 2:52 pm I'm sure I wrote a longish reply to this before ?

You did Sir, when I proposed it in the Mod's lounge.

My Holy Grail kit would be a full kit of "Firefly." I have a 3D print that I could build, but it is a little on the small side. Something sized like the recently released Razor Crest would be nice.



I own my "whale" kit. It is the PZY Model Lexus LC 500. I would like to paint it up to match my real car, but I am not sure about a pure resin kit with this many parts. It wasn't exactly an inexpensive kit and I am afraid to screw it up.




I don't know that I have a winner-winner kit. I have built many kits whose fit was excellent. More than just Tamiya, too. The engineering on some of the Bandai Gundam kits is amazing. They have figured out how to have articulating finger joints right off the sprue. In general, the fit of almost all modern kits is great.

Like deja vu all over again

Holy grail - This is a long and ever changing list for me. I seem to be collecting more and more kits from my youth and TV and Movies for some reason. I have so many kits now and less time to build them so I am REALLY picky about adding a kit to the stash. Mostly. I don't have something burning in my mind right now, but that can change.

Ahab's whale - I have Matthew's Perfect Grade Millenium Falcon I am a bit nervous with; Also the Border Model's Lancaster that one scares me; Plus an assortment of large 1/8 scale car kits I need to get building. I have not built a perfect model in my mind yet, there is always some compromise.

Winner winner, chicken dinner - This is hard to say as well. I think so far the best overall kit I have touched was the Wing Nut Wings SE 5a Hisso
The styrene plastic in the kit is somehow different and perfect to work with. The instructions are very good with colour photos and reference in the booklet. The fit and finish is extraordinary. Yes WNW wins so far with me, followed by Tamiya and Fujimi car and bike kits; those are super too.

For a long time my top of the heap pick was the "1/35 Dora railway gun''. This thing is huge and impressive, but in recent times my love of this rail gun has waned. It's just too big to be realistic and I don't like to build my armour in smaller scales.
So now I don't have a holy grail so to speak, but have momentry peaks in interest in various subjects from armour to aircraft.

Ahab's whale.....Plenty of those, but what quickly comes to mind is WNW and Copperstate biplanes.

Winner winner, chicken dinner...........This is a bit harder to qualify due to the fact I have built more of some manufacturers than others so it hard to give a more definitive answer, but Tamiya is a easy pick. There are others though that I might have only built one kit of like the Asuka ( Tasca) Sherman that is almost done that is as good, Meng whippet was a easy build,Type 98 4t Prime mover Shi-Ke by Pit Road was as good as Tamiya. Thunder Models produce good kits, but I've only built the 8 inch howitzer and it was great all round.
I do remember AFV Club kits requiring a bit of sanding to get parts to fit, but not excessively so. However their workable tracks for the Stuart are horrible.
Hobbyboss has been Ok for me generally with a caveat on the Ba as the instructions were a little busy around building the brakes for the rear axle, very fiddly and hard to work out which way they went together.
This would be a lot easier to answer in a table format where I could allocate points to various aspects. Tamiya for instant goes together well, instructions are clear yet accuracy is often sacrificed to ease of build or manufacture and they do that to keep the kits to a price point...imho. Also with the leap in technology judgement would have to be based on modern kits say 2005 onwards and a special category to those manufacturers who still produce kits from 1965 and shouldn't really be even considered IMHO.
So to recap for buildability,,fit
1.Tamiya, Asuka, PitRoad and Meng
2. Dragon, Trumpeter,Hobby boss, Takom,AFV, ICM, Miniart and Bronco

For accuracy.
1. Asuka, maybe Dragon,Bronco and Miniart
2. Icm,Tamiya
I don't do a lot of research so I'm not really sure about my picks.
I will say with certainly most instructions could do with a big improvement. To often they get too busy, mostly provide only one angle of view so it's hard to work out exactly how a part should be placed.

Instructions.
1. Tamiya, WNW, Copperstate Models,ICM, Meng and Takom
2. Special Hobby, Miniart, Bronco, Trumpeter
3. Dragon

bfrd wrote: Fri May 01, 2026 6:08 pm My Holy Grail kit would be a full kit of "Firefly." I have a 3D print that I could build, but it is a little on the small side. Something sized like the recently released Razor Crest would be nice.



I own my "whale" kit. It is the PZY Model Lexus LC 500. I would like to paint it up to match my real car, but I am not sure about a pure resin kit with this many parts. It wasn't exactly an inexpensive kit and I am afraid to screw it up.




I don't know that I have a winner-winner kit. I have built many kits whose fit was excellent. More than just Tamiya, too. The engineering on some of the Bandai Gundam kits is amazing. They have figured out how to have articulating finger joints right off the sprue. In general, the fit of almost all modern kits is great.

Fantastic kit subjects. That Firefly ship looks amazing, can it be scaled up? Forgive my ignorance. As for the car, a whole kit from resin would be a daunting task to be sure.

Twokidsnosleep wrote: Fri May 01, 2026 10:22 pm Like deja vu all over again

Holy grail - This is a long and ever changing list for me. I seem to be collecting more and more kits from my youth and TV and Movies for some reason. I have so many kits now and less time to build them so I am REALLY picky about adding a kit to the stash. Mostly. I don't have something burning in my mind right now, but that can change.

Ahab's whale - I have Matthew's Perfect Grade Millenium Falcon I am a bit nervous with; Also the Border Model's Lancaster that one scares me; Plus an assortment of large 1/8 scale car kits I need to get building. I have not built a perfect model in my mind yet, there is always some compromise.

Winner winner, chicken dinner - This is hard to say as well. I think so far the best overall kit I have touched was the Wing Nut Wings SE 5a Hisso
The styrene plastic in the kit is somehow different and perfect to work with. The instructions are very good with colour photos and reference in the booklet. The fit and finish is extraordinary. Yes WNW wins so far with me, followed by Tamiya and Fujimi car and bike kits; those are super too.

I really fancy the perfect grade Falcon. By all accounts its a beauty of a kit so no scares there. The Border Lanc defeats me on size and that so much detail disappears when the fuselage is closed up. I think I would cry. I think I would put WNW as Whale kits, the rigging frightens me, along with some of the paint schemes.

Interesting topic of discussion.

I don't really do Grail kits as such, I float around subject to subject too much - but I do have one, and it's the same kit as my Whale kit - Amodel's 1/72 Pitts S2A, specifically this boxing (Which I now have - took me years to find it).



Whilst Amodel Pitts's aren't especially hard to find, this boxing is - and the reason why I wanted this one specifically was it has decals for the old Firebird Aerobatics Team's 'Microlease' livery.



And the reason why I wanted this livery is that my Wife used to work for the team - in fact I could say it was this job that gave her her love of flying, which in turn lead to her getting a PPL at the airfield I used to work at, which lead to us meeting. So if she hadn't got the job, chances are we might never have met.

So yeah, a grail kit. However it's also my whale kit because I in no way have the skills to pull it off at the moment. Yeah I could build the kit, I could probably even learn to rig it - but that paint scheme is well beyond me, or at least I feel it is. Those cheat lines would be a masking nightmare, especially as this thing in 1/72 is tiny!.. Thinking about it, whilst I type this, I suppose what I could do it buy the more common kit with the Rothmans markings, and practice.

As for a Winner Winner.... That's a hard one I really, as I generally build a lot of older kits. The Tamiya P-38 I'm building at present is sublime, the fit of the parts and the ease of assembly is everything I read it would be. The Tamiya Ford GPA I built was also a great kit. However the most fun kit I've built to date was probably the Monogram P-47D Thunderbolt. The fit was pretty good for it's age, and it just 100% looks the part. I also painted it in the RAF SEAC scheme which is always fun.

So yeah, there you go - my two pennies.

Portman wrote: Sat May 02, 2026 8:03 pm Interesting topic of discussion.

I don't really do Grail kits as such, I float around subject to subject too much - but I do have one, and it's the same kit as my Whale kit - Amodel's 1/72 Pitts S2A, specifically this boxing (Which I now have - took me years to find it).



Whilst Amodel Pitts's aren't especially hard to find, this boxing is - and the reason why I wanted this one specifically was it has decals for the old Firebird Aerobatics Team's 'Microlease' livery.



And the reason why I wanted this livery is that my Wife used to work for the team - in fact I could say it was this job that gave her her love of flying, which in turn lead to her getting a PPL at the airfield I used to work at, which lead to us meeting. So if she hadn't got the job, chances are we might never have met.

So yeah, a grail kit. However it's also my whale kit because I in no way have the skills to pull it off at the moment. Yeah I could build the kit, I could probably even learn to rig it - but that paint scheme is well beyond me, or at least I feel it is. Those cheat lines would be a masking nightmare, especially as this thing in 1/72 is tiny!.. Thinking about it, whilst I type this, I suppose what I could do it buy the more common kit with the Rothmans markings, and practice.

As for a Winner Winner.... That's a hard one I really, as I generally build a lot of older kits. The Tamiya P-38 I'm building at present is sublime, the fit of the parts and the ease of assembly is everything I read it would be. The Tamiya Ford GPA I built was also a great kit. However the most fun kit I've built to date was probably the Monogram P-47D Thunderbolt. The fit was pretty good for it's age, and it just 100% looks the part. I also painted it in the RAF SEAC scheme which is always fun.

So yeah, there you go - my two pennies.

Great stuff. You have your Grail which is also your Whale and it comes with a romance too! That's modelling heaven!

There's a familiar thread developing here. I'm afraid of rigging too and its why I steer clear of biplanes. Interesting comments about the Tamiya P38, I've seen similar said about it and one of the guys on the forum has said its the best engineered kit he's ever built.

From what I've built of the P-38 so far I can believe that - the fit of the cockpit and nose parts has been very good indeed. The detail out of the box is nice too - certainly good enough for me.

Rigging! I'm sure once you've done it a few times and got the knack it's probably not that hard, but I think it's probably a steep learning curve. I might try it on a few 1/48 kits before I attempt this tiny Pitts though.

Yeah, aviation and romance - that was a nice combination!

For some reason I read these but rarely respond to them. So here, goes....

The Holy Grail - This is very difficult as it seems to change as my modeling preferences change. The time while I was being a strict car guy I suppose my Grail kit(s) were some of the 1/12 MFH racers, the old Bandai 1/12 Indy Turbine racer, and the new 1/12 ABC Brainza super Ferrari 512 kit. For my aircraft grail it might be the 1/32 Border Models Lancaster, or the Airfix 1/24 Hellcat, while adding a quality / detailed 1/18 A-10 to the wish list. Regarding model Ships, it would possibly include 1/250 DeAGOSTINI Akagi kit with full PE, the 1/200 USS Missouri with full PE detail.

Ahab's Whale - Most likely, all of the above. But if I had to pick one, it would have to be the any large scale plank on frame super detailed kit of the classic ships of the line like the HMS Victory or Spanish fleet. If I could get past the wood bending and fitting, I think the proper rigging would do me in for sure. I love the look once finish, but I think it is beyond my modeling mojo at this point in life.

Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner - the best kit you have ever built and why? I simply cannot have a simple answer for this. Like digger, I have a "winner" for each modeling subject. Add to that the fact that from one subject to another my experience and depth of knowledge changes greatly. And with this being highly subjective and bias, I think this question is a trap for me (smile). So I will say that for fit and engineering, it is hard to top Tamiya, as I still have some great memories building the 1/16 Kubelwagen, it was wonderful. Like some have said, in the last decade, others have been raising the bar and challenging them. As for kit accuracy, it depends on what you're looking for. Believe it or not, some Revell of Germany models have surprised me too (in a good way) such as the Arado Ar 196A-3 Seaplane. For accuracy, it is difficult to beat the Das Werk 1/16 Sd.Kfz.251/1 Ausf D. as the chassis is a museum piece in itself. So what is your Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner will all depend on your personal interest and experience.

Next person please.....

DRUMS01 wrote: Mon May 04, 2026 1:24 am For some reason I read these but rarely respond to them. So here, goes....

The Holy Grail - This is very difficult as it seems to change as my modeling preferences change. The time while I was being a strict car guy I suppose my Grail kit(s) were some of the 1/12 MFH racers, the old Bandai 1/12 Indy Turbine racer, and the new 1/12 ABC Brainza super Ferrari 512 kit. For my aircraft grail it might be the 1/32 Border Models Lancaster, or the Airfix 1/24 Hellcat, while adding a quality / detailed 1/18 A-10 to the wish list. Regarding model Ships, it would possibly include 1/250 DeAGOSTINI Akagi kit with full PE, the 1/200 USS Missouri with full PE detail.

Ahab's Whale - Most likely, all of the above. But if I had to pick one, it would have to be the any large scale plank on frame super detailed kit of the classic ships of the line like the HMS Victory or Spanish fleet. If I could get past the wood bending and fitting, I think the proper rigging would do me in for sure. I love the look once finish, but I think it is beyond my modeling mojo at this point in life.

Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner - the best kit you have ever built and why? I simply cannot have a simple answer for this. Like digger, I have a "winner" for each modeling subject. Add to that the fact that from one subject to another my experience and depth of knowledge changes greatly. And with this being highly subjective and bias, I think this question is a trap for me (smile). So I will say that for fit and engineering, it is hard to top Tamiya, as I still have some great memories building the 1/16 Kubelwagen, it was wonderful. Like some have said, in the last decade, others have been raising the bar and challenging them. As for kit accuracy, it depends on what you're looking for. Believe it or not, some Revell of Germany models have surprised me too (in a good way) such as the Arado Ar 196A-3 Seaplane. For accuracy, it is difficult to beat the Das Werk 1/16 Sd.Kfz.251/1 Ausf D. as the chassis is a museum piece in itself. So what is your Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner will all depend on your personal interest and experience.

Next person please.....

I loved reading your post, your level of experience and how you like so many different types of modelling is always fascinating. I would book a seat in the royal box to watch if you ever built one of those massive WW2 ships. The Akagi would be amazing and far less familiar than the more well known Iowa class monsters.

Your whale sounds fascinating, almost like real shipbuilding if you're working with individual timbers.

I feel the same about tall ships - I have a couple in the stash and I've yet to attempt to start one, and those are plastic. one of those wooden kits would be mind boggling.