Why aren't all model kits awesome?

[Ace-Garageguy]

Bill, I have wondered over the years, why such components as an engine assembly aren't tooled from the same mockup as a previous kit using the same engine. While of course, it may well not be possible to do that with every car subject using the same engine, given the kit layout engineering that may have to be different one kit to another, but in so many instances (pre-WWII V8 Fords come to mind here, that should not be a problem. But in any event, it's sad (but not a terminable offense) when an engine (or any other major component) that is used in more than one real car cannot seem to be exactly the same when installed more than one model kit, especially when that is both an accurate installation.

Art

Thanks Art, exactly. And I'm not piling on Revell...they've been GREAT about sharing tooling among related kits. Just compare the chassis and suspension trees out of the various '48 Ford incarnations for an example. And they REALLY got the most life out of the old Model A kits, with much cross-tooling.

So a LOT of duplicated effort and un-necessary expense could have been saved by sharing tooling (or at least CAD files) on the Magnum / Challenger.

And then there IS the possibility that Revell caught the discrepancy on the Magnum engine before or during the design phase of the Challenger. Who knows.

Edited March 9, 2013 by Ace-Garageguy

[Ace-Garageguy]

I'm still not sure how the whole tooling insert things specifically works, at least in relation to interchangeable inserts which could be swapped into the exact same size cavity in a mold base for a different kit. I agree with your logic/thinking regarding why/how the same 1:1 engine could and should be shared between kits which use the same engine, but there's probably something we aren't aware of which explains why they don't do just that. Maybe the inserts would wear more quickly than the rest of the individual tools, but then why couldn't they cut the exact same insert and use one in each kit? I think we need a guided tour of one of the model companies molding facilities. Who has an "in?"

Your point is well taken, but speaking as someone who has actual experience designing various types of production tooling, I know that the CNC files, instructions for cutting the engine tool, need not be re-written for every model. A tree can be re-arranged without having to go back and re-measure an engine and change everything from the word 'go', and a new tool can be designed using the original CAD data. It's just like cut-and-paste in Word. You don't have to re-write an entire sentence or paragraph, letter by letter, to move it in the body of the work.

Edited March 9, 2013 by Ace-Garageguy

[Brett Barrow]

How close is "pretty close"? To get the stance I want on my own models, I'll often make adjustments of less than .010". That is 1/4 SCALE INCH. So again, how close is "pretty close"? It makes a difference, ya know??

And I'm still waiting for a convincing justification to "fudge" FOUR SCALE INCHES on the Magnum engine.

Here's how it works. They hire a designer, who makes a set of drawings. Those drawings are used to produce a pattern. That pattern is used to create the mold. If nothing looks odd along the way, there's no need to go back and double check or "proof" what the other individuals did along the way. You hire professionals to do the work and you trust those professionals to do the job. You don't go looking for problems, because you're sure to find a few and make a bunch of extra work for yourself. If they miss something, they miss something. If something's off they have to weigh the options of going back and fixing it. Will the mistake hurt sales? Would the fix help sales? They make a business decision.

Put a little skin in the game. Think you can do better? Get some investors and start a model company. Make 100% dead-nuts accurate replicas. I'll help distribute them for you. Lindberg's up for sale, there you go, brand recognition right off the bat. See how your 100% dead-nuts accurate models do on the open market. I know some people in the biz, I can make a few calls. $250,000 is probably about all it would take. Put some skin in the game.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Here's how it works. They hire a designer, who makes a set of drawings. Those drawings are used to produce a pattern. That pattern is used to create the mold. If nothing looks odd along the way, there's no need to go back and double check or "proof" what the other individuals did along the way. You hire professionals to do the work and you trust those professionals to do the job. You don't go looking for problems, because you're sure to find a few and make a bunch of extra work for yourself. If they miss something, they miss something. If something's off they have to weigh the options of going back and fixing it. Will the mistake hurt sales? Would the fix help sales? They make a business decision.

Put a little skin in the game. Think you can do better? Get some investors and start a model company. Make 100% dead-nuts accurate replicas. I'll help distribute them for you. Lindberg's up for sale, there you go, brand recognition right off the bat. See how your 100% dead-nuts accurate models do on the open market. I know some people in the biz, I can make a few calls. $250,000 is probably about all it would take. Put some skin in the game.

Where did I say "100% dead-nuts-accurate replicas" ?? Your phrase, not mine. I said I'm okay with the two supposedly identical transmissions in the two kits I referenced being different, remember? Go back and actually read WHAT I said.

A FOUR SCALE-INCH DISCREPANCY in an ENGINE is too much. Is that the kind of quality you produce in YOUR profession? It sure as hell won't cut it in mine.

Lots of "professionals" who can't measure, apparently.

And no wonder American manufacturing is a thing of the past, with "business" attitudes like "You don't go looking for problems, because you're sure to find a few and make a bunch of extra work for yourself." Yeah, right. Might cut into the web-surfing time, huh?

Edited March 9, 2013 by Ace-Garageguy

[Brett Barrow]

If a model isn't going to be a scale-model, with ALL the parts in the same scale, then say on the damm label on the box "kinda close to 1/25 or so scale, but artistic opinions and understandings of scale vary, so it's, you know, well, most of the parts are in some scale or other so everything will look right".

Sorry, but what percentage is "ALL"? Last time I checked it was 100%.

[Casey]

Silver engine is from the 2006 1/25 Revell Dodge Magnum SRT8. Can't be a V-10, as it's only got 4 exhaust ports per side and the instructions state it's a "6.1liter Hemi".

Sorry, I left out the , as my comment was stated in jest. It does look about right for V-10 length, at least compared to the V-8 above it.

It comes back to the "How close to perfect do you want it to be?" idea, which always reminds me of: "Speed costs money. How fast do you want it it be?"

How perfect a kit do you want, and how much are you willing to pay for it? Unfortunately for us, it really doesn't matter, as we are in no position to either create our own mass-produced kit by the thousands nor able to directly influence a company such as Revell as far as kit design and production is concerned. That puts the burden of perfecting the kit on ourselves, once we buy the kit and it's in our hands. The sliding scale of "acceptable error" is different for each company, each model, and each customer/end user, so can we realistically expect a narrow range which all would agree upon?

I understand Brett's "fudging" comment, and while it goes against the "true to scale" mentality to increase the size of an engine so it appears to be in better proportion with the rest of the kit, sometimes it's in the best interest of the business to do so. Maybe not other businesses, maybe not even the business in question's direct competitors, but for the business making the decision, it might be, even if it's for strictly monetary reasons.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Sorry, but what percentage is "ALL"? Last time I checked it was 100%.

My phrase "All the parts in the same scale" DOES NOT MEAN THE SAME THING AS YOUR PHRASE "100% dead-nuts accurate", now does it ? Come on, does it ? Really ?

Edited March 9, 2013 by Ace-Garageguy

[Ace-Garageguy]

I guess I'm just too stupid to grasp the concept that doing something wrong is the better business decision.

[Art Anderson]

IT DOESN'T TAKE ANY LONGER TO MEASURE CORRECTLY THAN IT DOES TO MEASURE WRONG. ECONOMICS IS NOT THE ISSUE. IT'S SLOPPINESS, PURE AND SIMPLE.

EXPLAIN TO ME HOW A 4" DISCREPANCY IN THE LENGTH OF AN ENGINE HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH ECONOMICS, OR BINOCULAR VISION.

Uh, if you recall, I made that comment in relation to shapes and contours.

Art

[Ace-Garageguy]

Uh, if you recall, I made that comment in relation to shapes and contours.

Art

Every time I bring up the topic of GROSS, un-acceptable in-accuracies, the topic goes off in the direction of "artistic license", "fooling the eye", "ecomomics of business", etc. etc. I was responding to the general lack of dealing with the topic I was stressing, which for some reason a lot of folks refuse to acknowledge.

Minor in-accuracies and tooling-necessities are fine. I have to make how-good-is-good-enough decisions for my own work, juggling multiple factors, daily, hourly. I get it. If I make a 4" mistake, that's not good-enough, and it shouldn't be good-enough anywhere.

As it stands, I've got an engine from the Dodge Magnum kit that's useless to me, because in my tiny little myopic rivet-counter mind, it's trash and I won't use it in anything. I build SCALE models, or pretty damm close. SO, I'll have second and third thoughts about ever buying a Revell release again. I paid twenty-something bucks for the damm kit, which said it was 1/25 scale. They lied. Only some of it is.

Edited March 9, 2013 by Ace-Garageguy

[Casey]

Every time I bring up the topic of GROSS, un-acceptable in-accuracies, the topic goes off in the direction of "artistic license", "fooling the eye", "ecomomics of business", etc. etc. I was responding to the general lack of dealing with the topic I was stressing, which for some reason a lot of folks refuse to acknowledge.

I think (gosh I HOPE!) we all would agree that gross inaccuracies are something we all agree should not be acceptable in a bi-scale car kit, and I will use Monogram's 1/24 scale '69 Camaro Z/28 as the whipping boy in this case:

Nobody can honestly deny the body in this kit is innaccurate. Nobody. It's fact. That said, once we get past the gross inaccuracies, it's gets tricky, and I think that gray area is where we're at in this discussion. When it comes to things like the roof crown on the Moebius '56 Chrysler 300B, where does that fall for each of us on the acceptability scale?

[Ace-Garageguy]

If the box-art photo of that poor little Camaro is accurate, in MY mind, it's about as good as a Palmer kit, as far as building a scale-model of the real car goes. I can also see it could be useful as the basis of a custom, a funny-car, something....but not as a scale-model of a production Camaro.

And I'm sure it's just fine for a lot of average, casual modelers.

But I think if we, as the more knowledgeable builders and critics of kits, if we fail to harp on glaring errors when they're made, with the hope that someone in the management loop is listening, we're doing a dis-service to the hobby and the industry.

Edited March 10, 2013 by Ace-Garageguy

[Greg Myers]

If the box-art photo of that poor little Camaro is accurate, in MY mind, it's about as good as a Palmer kit, as far as building a scale-model of the real car goes. I can also see it could be useful as the basis of a custom, a funny-car, something....but not as a scale-model of a production Camaro.

And I'm sure it's just fine for a lot of average, casual modelers.

But I think if we, as the more knowledgeable builders and critics of kits, fail to harp on glaring errors when they're made, with the hope that someone in the management loop is listening, we're doing a dis-service to the hobby and the industry.

and ourselves.

[Craig Irwin]

When I first got back into modeling about 25 years ago the first 2 models I bought were the Monogram 69 Camaro and 56 Chevy because I had owned actual ones. Both were so inacurate I put them back into the box unbuilt. It's only Revells new 69 Camaro comming out that talked me into a second try in modeling. Wrong don't make it with me, but I have improved to where I can fix most things that bother me.

[MAGNUM4342]

Wow! If the pic of that Camaro is accurate it looks to me almost as if it were photographed through a fisheye lens. With the exception of a huge honkin blower thru the hood it could almost be a zinger!

[Brett Barrow]

Every time I bring up the topic of GROSS, un-acceptable in-accuracies, the topic goes off in the direction of "artistic license", "fooling the eye", "ecomomics of business", etc. etc. I was responding to the general lack of dealing with the topic I was stressing, which for some reason a lot of folks refuse to acknowledge.

Minor in-accuracies and tooling-necessities are fine. I have to make how-good-is-good-enough decisions for my own work, juggling multiple factors, daily, hourly. I get it. If I make a 4" mistake, that's not good-enough, and it shouldn't be good-enough anywhere.

As it stands, I've got an engine from the Dodge Magnum kit that's useless to me, because in my tiny little myopic rivet-counter mind, it's trash and I won't use it in anything. I build SCALE models, or pretty damm close. SO, I'll have second and third thoughts about ever buying a Revell release again. I paid twenty-something bucks for the damm kit, which said it was 1/25 scale. They lied. Only some of it is.

What do you want me to do? I know Ed Sexton at Revell, head of R&D, you want me to find out who was responsible for that error in the Magnum kit and see that they're properly flogged for the mistake?

Seriously, you've got people in the business trying to explain the business side of things. Sorry if that's not good enough for you. I just sell these things for a living, sorry if the folks who actually are employed in the industry don't take it as seriously as you do.

You want to point out that the emperor has no clothes? Go ahead. Just don't get pissed off when 99.9% of the rest of the board says "we know that and we don't care".

[Greg Myers]

Brett, maybe if you'd tone it down a bit. You come across as a know it all. Give a little. There are others here that have been in this hobby a long time in one from or another with just the same knowledge and expertise as you purport to have.

[lordairgtar]

Stamp and coin collecting are hardly "dead or dying" hobbies. They're probably among the most popular hobbies in the world.

Collecting dust, on the other hand... not a lot of people into that, but as far as cheap hobbies go, you can't beat it!

Or saving ear wax

[Craig Irwin]

Think about Revells 70 AAR 'Cuda, two botched attempts that were torn apart on the forums and in print. Finaly we get an all new tool all of these years later. I can only guess that "poor sales" of a subject that should have done well may have inspired Revell to try again.

Edited March 10, 2013 by Craig Irwin

[lordairgtar]

But wouldn't it be kinda cool to see an Abrams tank in NASCAR livery, or a B-58 in Reno air race markings? I remember an article in Car Modeler waaaayy back in which a 1/32 Monogram Jeep kit was converted into an articulated vehicle; two halves with a common driveshaft. One of the pictures showed the finished model, in civilian colors with two occupants, towing the kit-supplied 37MM anti-tank gun. The caption read something like: "Two true sportsman out for the hunt". Maybe not politically correct but somewhat amusing.

Along those lines (and inspired to some degree by my reading of "alternative history"), I have built in my head an F-14 in early WWII US Navy colors and a P-47 in current air superiority colors- just because I can and I think it would be cool. But I do build military subjects and do try to keep them as accurate as possible without suffering a brain hemmorhage or whatever else might happen from too much research.

Also, I would venture to opine that those who build 1/43 scale automotive subjects lean toward the historically accurate, much like most military modelers.

Aurora did just that. They marketed their auto kits with WWII markings. I remember building the jaguar with Spitfire type markings and camo paint.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Think about Revells 70 AAR 'Cuda, two botched attempts that were torn apart on the forums and in print. Finaly we get an all new tool all of these years later. I can only guess that "poor sales" of a subject that should have done well may have inspired Revell to try again.

Yeah. So the smart money is to get it pretty close the first time, get a strong seller from the get-go, and not HAVE to re-tool down the road when you can capitalize on GOOD tooling for the re-issues.

I LIKE Revell. I LIKE the recent '50 Olds. Is there stuff wrong with it? Yup. Is it plenty good-enough to make an outstanding model without having to completely re-engineer it? Yup. Close enough. There are minor problems with the '09 Challenger too, but it's a fine kit, again plenty good-enough to make a beautiful, no-excuses model. Get them all that good, I'll shut up.

You have to remember, I'm the guy who still likes the old Revell Model A kit (woody, sedan, pickups, etc.) that a lot of builders complain about for flash and fiddly assembly. None of that bothers me, because if you build it carefully, it's a pretty damm fine looking model (every version) and accurately gives the impression of the real thing. The engine bay is scaled correctly, so you can do engine swaps just like the real deal. The engine itself is scaled correctly, so it works in other builds the way it should. That's all I think we deserve.

[Casey]

Brett, maybe if you'd tone it down a bit. You come across as a know it all.

I can vouch for the fact Brett has inside info very few of us (save for maybe MrKnowItAll and John G from Round2, who are both members here) would ever know or have access to, and I don't think he's coming across as a KIA-- he simply knows the facts.

[Ace-Garageguy]

What do you want me to do? I know Ed Sexton at Revell, head of R&D, you want me to find out who was responsible for that error in the Magnum kit and see that they're properly flogged for the mistake?

Seriously, you've got people in the business trying to explain the business side of things. Sorry if that's not good enough for you. I just sell these things for a living, sorry if the folks who actually are employed in the industry don't take it as seriously as you do.

You want to point out that the emperor has no clothes? Go ahead. Just don't get pissed off when". 99.9% of the rest of the board says "we know that and we don't care

Almost 200 posts on this thread because "99.9% of the rest of the board says "we know that and we don't care"" ?? Interesting theory.

Edited March 10, 2013 by Ace-Garageguy

[Craig Irwin]

Yeah. So the smart money is to get it pretty close the first time, get a strong seller from the get-go, and not HAVE to re-tool down the road when you can capitalize on GOOD tooling for the re-issues.

I

Exactly. But Revellogram knew that doing an out of proportion body to fit a chassis with the wrong wheelbase and having to fudge everything else to fit was wrong. They expeced it to sell anyway. I think the model companys under estimate how serious model car builders can be.

[Casey]

Exactly. But Revellogram knew that doing an out of proportion body to fit a chassis with the wrong wheelbase and having to fudge everything else to fit was wrong. They expeced it to sell anyway. I think the model companys under estimate how serious model car builders can be.

That kit definitely falls under the "gross error" category, should never have proceeded, and is probably Revell's biggest blunder in 25+ years. The new '70 Hemi 'Cuda should win a few jilted modelers back over to their side though.

In Revell's defense, they did correct the "chopped" roof on the Pro Modeler '69 Charger R/T kit soon after it was first released, so they do sometimes fix things, but not everything.