Right now I’m building a 1/24 Renault 5 Alpine. It came in an Italeri box but is a 1981 Esci offering. Easily the worst kit I’ve ever built- about 2/3 of it simply doesn’t fit properly, everything but the body shell and fenders is inaccurate and it’s missing both passenger and driver side windows- not simply missing from the sprue- just not on the sprue or the instructions- just non-existent. This is the kind of kit that would (perhaps should) get binned! There are some kits out there like that.
Other times it’s like people have said- reasons vary. What I would say though is try not to be too hard on yourself if you do bail on something.
I bail on mine about 3 seconds before it hits the trash can with a bang.
When a ship starts to sink, You work hard to keep it afloat. There is a point you reach when you realize it is going under and you have to abandon ship. Save what flotsam you can and trash the rest.
when it’s obvious that it isn’t going to look right. a couple of Attack kits because of poor instructions and part fit and the Matchbox HE 70 that even finished was too much of a dog to bother to put on the shelf. into the bin it went
I’ve bailed on kits in the past not because the kit was bad,but i lost interest in it and a kit i may have bought just may have started an idea in my head.My last kit finished was my Abrams and i started that about 2yrs ago.I noticed thats been my problem over the last few years.I just cant start and finish 1 kit when i start
Very rarely, I see it as waste of time if I completely bail on a project I’ve already put significant effort into. They simply go back to the cabinet until the interest returns.
If I come across a build that needs a lot of work, I usually do some then shelve it for a while, then go back. I usually have several builds on the go at the same time so it becomes more of a merry go around situation for me. Often the paint shop is where the builds back up. But I do go back and finish them usually, some times quite some years later.
I have only ever ditched a handful of kits - Italeri’s Schwimmwagon for one. Intentions to correct it meant I might as well have scratch built the whole thing. With much better other OOB options I decided it was not worth pursuing. The Italeri M107 another. Not so much the kits fault as mine. I had just got back into the hobby and decided to build it with corrections. My scratch building was out of practice and I made a mess of it. It went in the bin with intentions to buy another eventually to do the better job. Who knows, maybe AFV Club will release one after their M110…
I find that joining in a group build gives me an incentive to finish, although I have missed the end date on a couple of those in the last few years.
Ditto with the Italeri Schwimmwagen. It is a pig of a kit and the figures are truly awful, especially the female Helferin. Only place for it was the bin.
best regards
John W.
Sometimes it depends on the setup of the molding process.
If the parts are taken out of the molds too soon they can distort and ruin the fit.
The previous production run may have been perfect and the one two years later may also be perfect.
Same thing though really,just makes one feel less guilty.Kinda like leaving stuff that you didnt like in the fridge,then throwing it out after it goes bad,saying oh this has got to go
Just keep seeing the kit and saying,yea gotta finish that kit…some day.
The eduard kits are good but the instructions…
You are not supposed to do half the work on the interior if you will button it up. No engine, no supercharger, no machineguns. Just close it and it looks good. Made that mistake myself since the instructions are not clear. The problem is that the cowling on the real thing is very thin and to make everything fit you either have to have PE cowlings or an undersized engine. So either build it cowling off with the engine visible or cowlings on and put the engine on a stand next to it.
I seem to have a perverse nature so long after a superior, say, Trumpeter kit comes on the market, I will (for example the T-64) still pursue the original Skif kit; I also like getting the best from, the by now, ancient Heller kits. Quite simply, if it’s in my stash I will build it, or do my very best, and not replace it with the latest, often improved version; my big problem is going off at a tangent as something takes hold of my ever fertile imagination - which seems to be a by-product of the hobby! I think my half started/completed kits are now in double figures, to my eternal shame.
I think the only one I’ve ever binned as in actually put it in the bin, was an Esci 1:35 T-72, and it took along time for the penny to drop that it was really way off, and that the turret was unworkable.
Sooooo, having been re-enthused from attending the Belgian IPMS Plastic & Steel show recently, I now resolve to tackle some of my shelf of doom(!)
Speaking of bailing on a kit…long ago I bailed on two unstarted AFV Club model kits. The parts trees in the kits all had 30 to 40 sink marks on each tree. Tossed both of the kits in a raffle.
Sometimes, its best to quit on a bad kit before you start it.
Would not be AFV Club (or Italeri) without more than a few sink marks. More than once I have finished builds that were more than 20% putty… but I hear you.
