Scary Models.

[CAL]

Hope everyone had a good thanksgiving. I am recovering myself and little tipsy, and this question came to mind as I looked around my collection of unbuilt kits.

Do you have any or wont buy any kits becuase they scare you: e.g. that is to say the scare you because of the kit complexity, unbuildable due to quality or other reasons, is rare, or has a bad past history of being a monster.

I know I have a few.

I am the forth owner of a Testors Ford GT 40 MK II. I take it out of the box every so often... look at all the parts and in horror box it back up. I am not sure it can be built. The previous owner said there was NO WAY he could build it.

I also have an original Heller 917K, which I am the third owner. It's a rare kit and I have heard horror stories about this kit. However, I believe it can actually be built. I am just afraid that if something goes wrong I won't be able to replace it.

I have an original Heller Mercedes 300 SL, second owner, too, but I am not scared of that kit as much as the 917.

Kind of funny how some of these kits get passed around but never built.

And have all three of the AM Mclarens: need I say more.

What are your boogie-models?

[Phil Patterson]

Jo-Han Turbine car, though the one I gluebombed was a long time ago. I may give it another go if I can blunder into a spray bomb of Turbine Bronze to paint it with.

I had about the same result out of a IMC 46-48 Ford too, back in the day.

Edited November 23, 2007 by Phil Patterson

[CAL]

Jo-Han Turbine car, though the one I gluebombed was a long time ago. I may give it another go if I can blunder into a spray bomb of Turbine Bronze to paint it with.

I had about the same result out of a IMC 46-48 Ford too, back in the day.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that one. I have one of those on the self, too, and have been offered quite a bit of money for it.

I know that one can be built. I have seen a really nice job someone did with that kit.

Edited November 23, 2007 by CAL

[MrObsessive]

Jo-Han Turbine car, though the one I gluebombed was a long time ago. I may give it another go if I can blunder into a spray bomb of Turbine Bronze to paint it with.

I had about the same result out of a IMC 46-48 Ford too, back in the day.

Awww c'mon Phil, you can do it! It only took a lot of cursing to build mine a little while ago.............

Seriously though, if you can get through this one, you can build ANYTHING!

One model I have though that I find intimidating, is the 1:8 scale Pocher Mercedes that I've been looking at for the last 4 years! I look at all those myriad of parts and I can see myself in my 80's still trying to finish it!

Edited November 23, 2007 by MrObsessive

[Modelmartin]

Well I have built both an IMC GT40 and the Heller 917. The Heller was worse by a good measure! The worst 1/24-5th plastic kit I have run across is the Heller Mercedes 540 K. The main part of the body is split down the center! The rumble seat is a raised panel - not a raised panel line! The doors, hood sides and door inner panels are all chromed. They think you can paint the body color around all of the chrome trim! Some of the other trim is separate and on the chrome tree and then some is just molded on the body as it should be. The wire wheels are crappy. The hell of it is, it is a cool car and the only kit of a late Special Roadster and the body shapes are right on. The Heller Delahaye is nasty too but not in the same league. I am a highly skilled builder and can scratchbuild most anything but this Mercedes kit is depressing. I will conquer it!!

[LDO]

I have to agree with the Heller Delahaye and Mercedes. I have both. The Delahaye is in progress. The fenders are enclosed, but a seperate part is required to enclose them. The join line is is the worst place possible. The "skirt" is also raised slightly from the body, but since it's in two pieces, the raised line is not consistent. I had to use sheet plastic to the the raised area correct. The front fenders should have a peak down the top center, but it's not there. I laid down a piece of brass wire and faired it in to get the peak. It seems like the designer didn't think anyone would put all those pieces together and make a model car out of them. I'm not sure I'll even try the Mercedes. Between Monogram, Italeri, and Jo-Han, the 1/24 / 1/25 Mercedes market is pretty well covered.

I don't have the Heller 917, but I do have their Ferrari 512 S. It also looks like trouble. Thankfully I got a Fisher resin 512 S in a steal of a deal with a resin kit seller. He wanted a pile of garbage resin kit that I was about to throw in the trash. I warned him, but he really wanted it.

I don't have Accurate Miniatures' McLaren because I read the reviews. I may get one though, just for the big-block Chevy and mechanical fuel injection. That would look wild poking through the hood of a '70-'73 Camaro.

Edited November 23, 2007 by LDO

[ismaelg]

A kit that intimidated me when I opened it was the Tamiya Enzo. I need to tackle it one of these days. But I've always been intimidated by decals. After more than 30 years in the hobby, it was not until recently that I started to face them.

[kurth]

What a fun question!

I don't think I have any horrible unbuildable kits, But I do have a few Fujimi Enthusiast porsche kits and I am intimidated by them somewhat. They look gorgeous but getting it right, and not messing up an expensive kit is what prevents me from attempting one. I also have several 1/12th scale Tamiya mega kits that I want to build eventually but , again I don't want to screw them up. the same goes for other hard to find kits I have.

The only "rough" kit I have is the '40 ford that came with my Lindberg L-700. It's just an old tool from a different time when expectations were different.

[Zoom Zoom]

Nothing really scares me, but any model that's like an explosion inside the box or is a real mess to deal with usually gets put into the deep recesses of my "procrastination" file to be obsessed over at a later date. At least I did dig out my Revell Porsche 914 from that stack a while back and tackled it with decent success. And when you do tackle one of these models, the satisfaction of finishing is much better, for me at least, than one that I put together with relative ease.

The one that I want to build the most, but keep ignoring is my Profil24 Gulf McLaren F1; it's a beautiful model when finished, one of my favorite liveries and race cars of all time...but it's a bloody mess of a kit; will be a ton of sanding and finishing..was apparently their first kit, new ones are better but this one is just a mess...certainly not a model that I can build during the 24 hours of LeMans like my Profil24 Jag E Type Lightweight Low Drag Coupe #17 which "only" took about 18 hours start to finish.

[Brendan]

The kit that scares me is the Scale Motor Sports Porsche 956. I have started this car on 20 or more occasions. There's so much to do. It's one of those kits on which you spent the money and want to get the kit as detailed and as perfect as possible. I had two at one time and finally sold one since I felt that I was never going to build it.

[bigphoto]

My fears are the Gunze Cobra Daytona, as I am a diehard Shelby fan and want to do it justice. Most of the old Revell flat panel kits ( just hard to look decent), I also agree with the old IMC Ford GT kits and some of the EM series Fujimi kits (way too many parts).

[CAL]

Another couple good calls.

Fujimi/Testors Enthusiast kits, and the flat panel kits. Eeeeew.

Hey MO which Gen Pochre Merc do you have.

Before or after the individual wirespoke wheels?

I still want to get my hands on a Pocher Mercedes 500/540.

[CAL]

My fears are the Gunze Cobra Daytona, as I am a diehard Shelby fan and want to do it justice. Most of the old Revell flat panel kits ( just hard to look decent), I also agree with the old IMC Ford GT kits and some of the EM series Fujimi kits (way too many parts).

Yeah, I am not sure I ever seen a built IMC GT-40, except the one for the box art.

Speaking of which, here is a trivia quiz.

Where did the GT-40 get it's name?

[CAL]

The kit that scares me is the Scale Motor Sports Porsche 956. I have started this car on 20 or more occasions. There's so much to do. It's one of those kits on which you spent the money and want to get the kit as detailed and as perfect as possible. I had two at one time and finally sold one since I felt that I was never going to build it.

You should have kept it to scare the one you build into submission

[Guest roadkill2525]

Where did the GT-40 get it's name?

GT from the racing class - Grand Touring

40 from the height - 40in tall

Edited November 23, 2007 by roadkill2525

[old-hermit]

One model I have though that I find intimidating, is the 1:8 scale Pocher Mercedes that I've been looking at for the last 4 years!

I had a Pocher Fiat once. After I found out that the drive chain had to be assembled from individual links that had to be assembled one at a time I sold it.

Same for an old 1/12 Harley kit with individual spoke wheels. Guess I'm not that patient.

[CAL]

GT from the racing class - Grand Touring

40 from the height - 40in tall

Correct.

So I argue the new Ford GT-40 should really have been a GT-44.

[MrObsessive]

Hey MO which Gen Pochre Merc do you have.

Before or after the individual wirespoke wheels?

I still want to get my hands on a Pocher Mercedes 500/540.

I've got the good 'ol super duper individual multi piece wirespoked one!

And yes, it's the 500K-AK version. I bought it off eBay for around $400 or so four years ago...............so I guess I should tackle it someday to get my money's worth!

[James W]

The Revell Parts Pack Experimental Turbine Engine.

Bob Paeth had a few of these some time ago. I bought one to put in a '64 Dodge drag car. Thought it would be like a What-If factory experimental car.

Well I took it home and started putting it together. Put a brass screen in the housing end. But the illustration on the package was a little... ambiguous.

Next time I saw Bob I asked him for some insight. He just laughed, thought it funny I had tried to build it.

Seems with the popularity of turbines in the mid 60's they wanted to have something to sell the kiddys. The thing started as a starter motor for some large scall engine, add a few odd shapes and call them things like "fuel control cap","relief valve" and you have a unique kit. No one bothered to engineer the thing.

Emphasis on Experimental.

I know it's a little off topic, but this kit really is impossible to build. I get a good laugh out of it now too.

[Phil Patterson]

Awww c'mon Phil, you can do it! It only took a lot of cursing to build mine a little while ago..

It's on my to-do list. I've also got one of the curbside promo kits that Okey reissued not long ago that I may fool around with some as well. Too many projects lined up first, waiting for inspiration, all teh typical excuses....

I remember doing the Gypsy dune buggy reissue, which while fiddley, not near so troublesome as the one I did back in 67 when I was 11, amazing things happen when you look at the instructions!

[Dave in Seattle]

Well, based on what made it off my bench in the past year, I'd have to say that they ALL seem to be scary to me right now! But seriously folks......

While I could go into a long rationalization as to why my building has slowed to full stop, the last thing on my bench got there EXACTLY because I had always found it a bit scary: The Wills Finecast Bugatti Type 59 kit in white metal. It's a beauty of a car, but that kit is oh so intimidating to me......

Just gotta pull 'em up and get at it!

Dave

Edited November 24, 2007 by Dave in Seattle

[jbwelda]

i built an imc gt40, wasnt too bad. built one of the chaparrels too.

but one thing i never built or finished anyway is an orange crate. probably tried that one two or three times when i was a kid and looked at starting one as an adult. just too much fiddly parts with too thick of plating and too many ejector marks. i always loved the car though and always wanted to finish up a nice one for the shelf.

anyway whats hard about a lot of parts if they are well engineered (in my experience those fujimi 356 kits have some fit problems at least the details do)? we all add a bunch of stuff anyway, and typically more fiddly than straight out of the box. i just build discrete components and to me the more parts the better, given decent engineering and production values.

[CAL]

Awww come on now folks.... You all are a bunch of lightweights. You wanna know what real scary is????

Let me tell ya.

Take a TKM resin blob of a car, clean up all the basic bodywork, remove all of the cheesy molded in front and rear bumpers, sand off all incomplete and pinhole riddled trim, fill in about 2000-3000 pinholes, add material to any inner wall thickness to bring all panels up to about the same depth, cut out window openings, cut open and hinge all the panels, scratchbuild an interior, then scratchbuild an entire chassis, add in a detailed engine, replace all body trim with styrene strip,source new bumpers and grille, send them out for plating, recheck and adjust all body work as neccesary, {and it will be neccesary}, cut in or fabricate window frame channels for front and rear glass, recheck all body work,{cause I told you it will be neccesary}, fill in some more pinholes, then hold the body under hot water or run a hairdryer over it, because by now all of your efforts in the bodywork will have warped, and the car will no longer sit with all 4 corners touching the ground...............Do I need to continue here, or has everyone left the forum running for their lives? ...LOL....HOW'S THAT FOR SCARY?

That's pretty scary.

I think I would have gave up at resin blob of a car.

[Steve D.]

Scary is REVELL'S Mickey Thompson's Challenger , the four engined land speed car !!!!. I built that car a little over a year ago . It was one of those kits that gets put away in frustration over and over again . Although if you battle it out till the end , it does build into a nice piece . But between the exploded view directions and the high parts count along with a fairly complex build , and I have to wonder how many of these monsters got built .

Accurate Min McLarens ? the only problems were the headers , as long as you made sure the flanges that go flat against the engine block were aligned the problem ended there . I built all three , and while the 1st was missing a strut or two around the headers , by the second two , I had figured them out . These kits are still among my favorites of all time .

Ismael go on and build that ENZO , those kits are so well engineered they almost build themselves . WE are talking about the Tamiya kit right ? I have not built the Revell kit yet , but was thinking about a Batman 2020 version of that kit . Anyway the Tamiya kit is a real smooth build , just the decals and paint , no problems for you .

Take care and see you around the clubhouse ,

Steve D.

[Paul Payne]

J. Sauber, I had a similar experience with a Miller Memorabilia 1956 Continental MKII, but never got nearly so far into it. First, the body was cast from a warped promo, chassis was a resin slab, pinholes everywhere, especially nearly unrepairable areas like the scripts, gauge nacelles, etc. I primed the body, but that's it- still sitting in the closet, still trying to yard sale it.