Defects, short shots and warpage

[bonehead23]

I wanted to share with everyone something John Greczula said to me when i had a short-shot on a White truck cab, a broken bumper in a '55 Nomad, and other small problems. He sent me a replacement cab, and told me that he and other employees like Doug Ridge at Round 2 work endlessly trying to provide a quality product. Some things are out of his control, like rough handling or temperature, but he advised me to inform Round 2 any time there is warpage, missing parts, or other stuff like a short-shot.. He suggested sending photos if possible. I am convinced that John and his crew work tirelessly on this. He said it is difficult to get quality control people to spot small errors, especially when they don't really know what they are looking at!!! (Something to do with China perhaps?) At any rate, I think all of us should realize they are doing their best but things slip by. I buy so many kits that the odds of all of them all being  100% perfect are slim...but bitching about the company is just wrong; simply report any problems to Round 2 and i believe we will get better product. I gained a lot more respect for John and Round 2; they really do care about their product, quirky reissues included...and you have to admit it, kits are better than ever. Stuff happens, and when it does, don't panic, contact Round 2, take some photos, and send in the form for replacement that you will find on their site.

[vintagercr]

That's nice to know.

[oldnslow]

They have always been a pleasure to deal with in my dealings with Revell customer service.

[slusher]

If you really think about it kits are gone thru all kinds of temperature changes and handling before they reach the store. I see many boxes of Revell kits with boxes out of shape from tight shrink wrap in HL..  

[Harry Joy]

Hm. I bought a couple of kits of the AMT 1966 Olds 442, that I just posted finished pics of, and each were from the latest boxing. Both bodies had warping and were short shot in some areas, with excessive flash in others. And on neither body were the short shots, flash, and warping in the same areas. I've been told by several guys that this is par for the course with AMT.

[charlie8575]

With the acquisition of Lindberg and their U.S.-based molding (which, I believe reading elsewhere, does other contract work,) I wonder if we might see re-patriation of production and improved QA. 

Call me what you like, but it's become very apparent to me that the Chinese do not seem to full understand the concept of quality control. 

Nobody is perfect and small errors do occur, but a lot of what I've seen in foreign-produced AMT/MPC kits leaves a lot to be desired in terms of getting the job right.

Charlie Larkin

[PeeBee]

The quality of Chinese 1/1 auto parts is horrible, too.  I doubt they care, either.  I don't think they're too concerned about repeat business because they know that orders for cheaply made parts will just keep rolling in.  I won't buy parts made in China (or anywhere else) anymore unless they're OEM.  The auto manufacturers can't hide behind the internet so they must run Q&A on their suppliers.

What I find astounding is that parts I bought with venerable, name brand supplier's names on them (Monroe, for one), and manufactured in China, were so bad that they were unusable.

PB.  

[Mark]

Call me what you like, but it's become very apparent to me that the Chinese do not seem to full understand the concept of quality control. 

They are capable of making as good a product as anyone else.  The sticking point is, you've got someone else telling them "we want X number of these, we want them now, and we're willing to pay X amount per item".

Good, fast, cheap...pick any two.

[vairnut]

Have jsut seen this with the Moebius Plymouth. Both of the kits I purchased have badly warped bodies. They basically do not fit into the box and were put in on an angle such that the packaging ruined them. 2 unbuildable kits. As I purchased them online I didn;t return them as I would have had to pay the shipping to return them, and ship the replacements. Be nice if Moebius backed up their product like Round2.

 

[Art Anderson]

With the acquisition of Lindberg and their U.S.-based molding (which, I believe reading elsewhere, does other contract work,) I wonder if we might see re-patriation of production and improved QA. 

Call me what you like, but it's become very apparent to me that the Chinese do not seem to full understand the concept of quality control. 

Nobody is perfect and small errors do occur, but a lot of what I've seen in foreign-produced AMT/MPC kits leaves a lot to be desired in terms of getting the job right.

Charlie Larkin

With several thousand model car kits in my stash, I've seen just about every defect one can think of--the vast majority of them in older kits, bought years ago.  Realize that no matter the venue, no matter the country of manufacture, these can happen, and have since the beginnings of plastic model kits.  However, in my experience, warped parts are FAR more prevalent than short shots. even missing parts.  In the 8 years that I owned my own hobby shop here in town, I never refused to replace a missing part from a kit--I never had a problem returning those to my wholesalers for credit.  I used to track defective product compared to products sold, and guess what?  About 1/10th of one percent (of course, I held onto what few defective kits I had (used to simply replace the part in question, retain the now-incomplete kit for perhaps a couple of months) just in case there might be another instance of a defective or missing part--only on a handful of occasions did I have to "rob" that kit for another part to placate a customer.  While the instances of such defects were pretty scarce, defects were scattered across virtually all makes of plastic models.

Short shots (where the mold cavity doesn't fill completely, leaving a gap or a void) can be very hard to see in the production process, unless it involves a section of a body shell, chassis or interior--the smaller the part that's short-shot, the harder it is to see, even at first glance by discerning modelers.  A missing part, particularly a small one, can happen at almost any stage of kit production--again very hard to spot in the production process, although with more and more newly tooled model kits coming along--the concept of a fully framed sprue (in which all the parts and their attachment points are surrounded by an outer sprue "frame".  That right there has been a huge step in reducing the missing parts problem.

Warped or broken parts, most notably body shells, hoods and chassis (be those engraved detail plate-style or the more modern frames separate from floorboards) can happen at any point in the production, packing and even in the shipping process:  Cram too many parts in a kit box, or not taking time to develop a packaging sequence which doesn't put major parts under stress or strain.  (I'm sure there are more than a few of us older modelers who still remember the original issue AMT 1959 El Camino with its crushed top).  In the case of the mentioned Elky kit, that resulted from too many parts being stuffed into the then-standard AMT Annual Series model kit boxes--simply not enough room in one of those for what was perhaps the most complex and highest parts count kit done by AMT to that point (1964).  The solution?  AMT went to the wider box used by such as the '25 Model T Double Kit and the '29 Model A Roadster/Ala Kart Double Kit:  Problem pretty much solved.  While that El Camino has suffered from squashed roof posts, that is nowhere near as seemingly universal as it was in the summer of 1964.

Art

[Harry P.]

I seem to remember certain kits (JoHan?) back in the old days when I was a kid that were engineered in such a way that the parts trees actually stacked in the box in a sort of precise, interlocking fashion... the trees were engineered to stack and "lock" together to each other in a certain sequence. No crushing, no warping, no parts trees sliding around in the box.

They could do it then. They can't do it now?

[AC Norton]

Have jsut seen this with the Moebius Plymouth. Both of the kits I purchased have badly warped bodies. They basically do not fit into the box and were put in on an angle such that the packaging ruined them. 2 unbuildable kits. As I purchased them online I didn;t return them as I would have had to pay the shipping to return them, and ship the replacements. Be nice if Moebius backed up their product like Round2.

 

.....you know, I keep hearing Moebius problems like this, not to mention other issues with their ford pickups.....and I usually sit back on these type of threads and rarely jump in, however as far as I am concerned, this Moebius stuff is over priced , poorly packed, and highly overrated, as far as I'm concerned.  they will never see one cent of my dough, I can assure you...........the Ace........

[mike 51]

My new Revell 29 Fords came with bubble wrap between the chrome trees that were enclosed in the standard plastic bags...nothing rubbing together.

A very thoughtful approach,I've never seen that before.

Edited September 2, 2015 by mike 51

[Harry P.]

[XJ6]

.....you know, I keep hearing Moebius problems like this, not to mention other issues with their ford pickups.....and I usually sit back on these type of threads and rarely jump in, however as far as I am concerned, this Moebius stuff is over priced , poorly packed, and highly overrated, as far as I'm concerned.  they will never see one cent of my dough, I can assure you...........the Ace........

I myself am feeling the same way I pay a lot of attention to what I read here and pay close attention to the advice 

Cheers Don aka XJ6 ? 

[slusher]

I seem to remember certain kits (JoHan?) back in the old days when I was a kid that were engineered in such a way that the parts trees actually stacked in the box in a sort of precise, interlocking fashion... the trees were engineered to stack and "lock" together to each other in a certain sequence. No crushing, no warping, no parts trees sliding around in the box.

They could do it then. They can't do it now?

I would like to see that in our present kits...

[Harry Joy]

Short shots (where the mold cavity doesn't fill completely, leaving a gap or a void) can be very hard to see in the production process...

Warped or broken parts, most notably body shells, hoods and chassis (be those engraved detail plate-style or the more modern frames separate from floorboards) can happen at any point in the production, packing and even in the shipping process...

Art

Just addressing these two points.

I mentioned above the issues I saw in the two different AMT kits, recently boxed. I did not catch some of the short-shot body areas until I sprayed primer. I imagine that renders those flaws invisible in the packing process. Also, I am currently building a Hasegawa Fairlady and some part were factory shrink-wrapped with broken parts. The missing parts were not inside with the sealed sprues, so the breakage happened before the trees were wrapped. The parts were fine, detail parts - and again, only a highly sophisticated computer on the assembly line would have caught the issues.

I'm not bent about any of the issues - I fixed them (with basic modeling practices). Just found this to be noteworthy - especially with the AMT kits. If I bought two kits at random times from different retailers, it's something I'll know to look for again in the future.

[Silver Foxx]

I got a Revell Penske Corvette kit which had a bad short shot body , Through the Revell customer service a new body was sent to me ( I sent the bar code off the box and some pics of the body ) , good service from a company which backs their product . A friend lost some suspension parts from a Trumpeter GT 40 , he did not expect to get the parts for free but despite repeated emails to Trumpeter he did not even get a reply ( that is not good service ) .

[charlie8575]

I seem to remember certain kits (JoHan?) back in the old days when I was a kid that were engineered in such a way that the parts trees actually stacked in the box in a sort of precise, interlocking fashion... the trees were engineered to stack and "lock" together to each other in a certain sequence. No crushing, no warping, no parts trees sliding around in the box.

They could do it then. They can't do it now?

It probably requires intuitive design, something many of today's engineers are scrupulously taught to avoid, lest a lawsuit result.

Remember, John Hanle (I think that's how his name is spelled,) was a machinist by trade, and a very good one, and (to my knowledge,) not an engineer by education. The people with the hands-on ability to do these type of products and tools can see these things that today's over-educated/under-intelligent/under-smart types cannot see. 

Charlie Larkin

[charlie8575]

Have jsut seen this with the Moebius Plymouth. Both of the kits I purchased have badly warped bodies. They basically do not fit into the box and were put in on an angle such that the packaging ruined them. 2 unbuildable kits. As I purchased them online I didn;t return them as I would have had to pay the shipping to return them, and ship the replacements. Be nice if Moebius backed up their product like Round2.

 

I will say this in Moebius' defense. 

They do have super customer service. 

I would suggest blowing the $5, carefully wrapping the bodies and putting them in a 2-day mail to their offices in Florida with their requested $2.95 to cover postage. You'll get your new bodies, I would think. 

Or, simply send them some pictures to their customer service by e-Mail. 

I buy Moebius kits for a bunch of reasons. I like their subject matter, they make a real effort to make a better product, and even with some hiccups, most of which can be fixed with a few file swipes, they're doing state-of-the-art work. 

I will agree, however, that slightly larger box (say Galaxie-size,) might fix a lot of the problems. Even in the other kits, it's a pretty tight fit.

Charlie Larkin

Edited September 3, 2015 by charlie8575

[Art Anderson]

I seem to remember certain kits (JoHan?) back in the old days when I was a kid that were engineered in such a way that the parts trees actually stacked in the box in a sort of precise, interlocking fashion... the trees were engineered to stack and "lock" together to each other in a certain sequence. No crushing, no warping, no parts trees sliding around in the box.

They could do it then. They can't do it now?

Those were the JoHan "Gold Cup" series of kits:  Chrysler Turbine Car, three 1931 Cadillac V16 cars, and the two Mercedes Benz 500 K's

 

[sjordan2]

Those were the JoHan "Gold Cup" series of kits:  Chrysler Turbine Car, three 1931 Cadillac V16 cars, and the two Mercedes Benz 500 K's

 

I have the Mercedes kits. Good luck repacking the box after checking out the parts trees. 

Edited September 4, 2015 by sjordan2

[1930fordpickup]

That is for sure Skip. 

[1930fordpickup]

It probably requires intuitive design, something many of today's engineers are scrupulously taught to avoid, lest a lawsuit result.

Remember, John Hanle (I think that's how his name is spelled,) was a machinist by trade, and a very good one, and (to my knowledge,) not an engineer by education. The people with the hands-on ability to do these type of products and tools can see these things that today's over-educated/under-intelligent/under-smart types cannot see. 

Charlie Larkin

This is a result of the modern frame of thought Charlie. Push out the old minds and bring in the new computerized educated minds. Not always a bad thing at all, but some things are as much art as they are a skill. 

[Harry P.]

I have the Mercedes kits. Good luck repacking the box after checking out the parts trees. 

It's meant to keep things from being damaged before you get it. What you do afterwards is your problem!

I have the same problem with Pocher kits. Somehow the ebay sellers manage to pack everything in the box, but I can never do it after I take everything out and look at it!