iamsuperdan

You nailed it! Looks awesome!

Not what I was expecting when I clicked on this thread, but I dig it. I dig it a lot.

I don't care what anyone says, I dig the El Camino. Especially the SS version, aka Monte Camino! I have the AMT El Cmino SS kit in the stash, as well as the old school Monogram Monte Carlo SS. Should be a good looking pair when I finally get around to them! I like the colours you chose on yours.

Here's the most irksome thing I have going right now. I went to the grocery store and the sensors on the automatic doors are slow, so the doors didn't slide open fast enough. That caused me to have to slow down when walking out. I hate that.

I've always loved the 928. Looking forward to seeing more!

Have had some excellent transactions lately with DrKerry, JollySipper, and #1 model citizen. Would trade with all again.

D'Oh! I knew the Doblo was one of the Promasters we get. The big Promaster is actually quite common here. My company leases out a bunch of them, and I have three on my lot right now. The Promaster City is a turd, and is pretty much sale proof!

As an aside, we do sort of get new Fiat vans here in North America now. The Ram Promaster is a Fiat Doblo with a different grille.

I was out buying some beverages for the weekend, and the liquor store had a poster advertising the return of the stubby. Pretty sure it was Bud. I like the stubby bottles, but not enough to resort to drinking Bud!

I'm having an internal debate as to which kit is worse. HKMiya Mercedes 600sEL vs AMT Super Stones Ford F-series. It's pretty even right now.

Back in elementry school, I built both the dump truck and the cement truck. Wish I still had those.

Colin will be just fine, doubt Jamie will give him any real grief over it. That Pete is a good looking truck. Makes me want to build a wrecker. Did they scavenge Bruce's old truck to build Mighty Moe? Didn't see MM on the show this week.

Rat Rod Mercedes! The Welderup guys would dig it. As for wheels, the rubber tires might be usable. The actual wheels though? lolz

I have two knock off versions of this kit. This one is the HKMiya, the other is a Lee. I may just try that. Build one with paint and that's it. build the other with some real effort. Hmm... I think for less than $10, it's still a good value. At the very least, you could use the V12 engine, clean it up, and use it for some nutty engine swaps. V12 Camaro, V12 Ford trucks, etc.

My "On The Workbench" for this kit has been posted!

As some of you will have seen in the “General” section, I recently picked up a knock off kit. This is a copy of the Tamiya Mercedes 600SEL. A copy I can only assume is unauthorized. This particular kit is made by an outfit called HKMiya. Even the logo is a blatant copy. But I figure, for $10CDN, how can I go wrong? So going in, I knew the quality wouldn’t be at the Tamiya level. I mean, other legitimate brands can barely get to Tamiya quality levels! So, without further ado, join me on this adventure… When still in the plastic bags, and you haven’t taken anything out of the box yet, the kit doesn’t look too bad. It’s packaged like a Tamiya kit, so all is good. The first thing I notice are the instructions. They’ve obviously scanned the Tamiya ones and just replaced the logos. However, they appear to have scanned a used copy, as there are random check marks next to the paint codes, and there are some things circled. I took everything out of the bags and got to work. Some people will say this is horrible and that the lack of detail is atrocious. I like to think that HKMiya has decided to go for a more simplistic casting, and that they want the advanced modeler to add correct details, instead of just going the easy route and providing them. Case in point: the front of the engine in the instructions has all kinds of detail. Now look at the part. Nailed it. I’ve got the basic structure of the engine put together. Look at those tolerances. Look at the fit of these parts. My friends, you may think you’ve built horrible kits. You may think you’ve built the world’s worst kit. I’m going to respectfully tell you that you're wrong. You’ve haven’t truly experienced build quality until you’ve tried an HKMiya. In fact, I’m reasonably confident that in Chinese, HKMiya translates to “Quality? Screw that, model guys will buy anything.” Just wait until I get to some of the other stages of this build! Also, the wizards at HKMiya have been thoughtful enough to include glue in the kit. What?! Stupid Tamiya makes you buy a jar of glue. Look at this high quality item. Actually, I'm kind of afraid to open it, as who knows what kind of chemicals live inside. So, I've established the horrors, the amazing levels of quality. And now here comes the M. Night Shamalayan twist… It's fun. I’m having a blast with this kit. It’s so laughably bad, that’s it’s actually a lot of fun trying to see what I can do with it. And really, isn't that kit of the point of this hobby? To be enjoyable? So, with that in mind, I am stubborn. I am going to finish this thing, and I am going to see how nicely this can be finished. There will be sanding, filling, more sanding, more filling, etc. Stay tuned…

I've started this kit, and will be posting up part one of my "On The Bench" tomorrow. I won't say too much here, but I can say that this will be an interesting adventure!

Only if you're wearing a toque, eh?

I think the resin guys could do a better job! I opened up the bags and had a good look at the HKMiya kit. Holy Moses. You wait until I post up an "on the bench" about this thing. I definitely had a certain look when examining it.

I think you did a fantastic job on that!

FYI, if you're at work, maybe be careful if you plan on googling "Cougar model."

How are the Palmer kits, I found two over the weekend at the same antique show I found the above. One was a Courgar XR-7 "spoiler" and the other a Cougar convertible. Bot hstill factory sealed, and I'm assuming 1.32 scale based on box size. Do they build up into a decent kit? As for the Merc, I'm going to throw one onto the bench tonight and will see how nicely it goes together. And yes, the detail is far below that of Tamiya, but could still make for a decent curbside.

Just for curiosity's sake, I'm going to bump one of these up and get it on the bench next. I'm not expecting Tamiya quality, but for $10 you can't go wrong. And if I could find Tamiya kits for $15 around here, I'd be stockpiling!

I still find it bizarre that the only two knockoffs I've ever stumbled across are of the same kit! I saw that one yesterday and thought, "Tamiya kit for $10?! Done!" It wasn't until I got home that I noticed the reality. I'm still happy with it, the tooling looks pretty good, except for the glass, very hazy, may just end up tinting the windows when I build this. And I find the colour choices of the plastic...interesting. Some engine details could be better.

So last summer I found myself a kit of a Mercedes 600SEL. It's a very obvious copy of the same Tamiya kit, just with all Tamiya logos removed and Lee logos inserted. Even on the instructions...except for the recommended paint section. It's obviously not Tamiya quality, but looks to be a good kit. Fast forward to yesterday. I was at an antique sale, and picked up another Mercedes 600SEL kit for $10. THought it was the Tamiya original. Whoops! This one is an even better knockoff, this time from HKMiya. At a glance, the logo even looks like Tamiya. So now I have two versions of the same kit, from two manufacturers, and I have still never seen an original Tamiya version. Which got me thinking... How many companies do this? What is the most commonly copied kit? I wonder what else is out there? Anyone else have insight into this? Or any experiences with these knockoffs?