I no longer build AFV kits, but when I did, I threw nothing away and saved everything for spare parts for kitbashing or Sci-Fi into spaceships, structures, hovertanks, hoverbikes, or whatever.
Do you know how hard and expensive it is to buy donor kits to kitbash Sci-Fi? One can never have enough spare parts to Sci-Fi kitbash and it sure beats buying new kits just to pull parts from them if you have poor kits already in your stash.
So I advise keeping poor quality kits for Sci-Fi kitbashing fodder where “anything goes.” There are Sci-Fi campaigns on ModelGeek that you can use these kits that you no longer desire to build OOTB for.
Take a look at this Sci-Fi modeler and his spaceships all made from spare kit parts like Star Wars. Click on the spaceship photo for a larger image.
The Alan Wespe. I even bought an AM barrel. It’s in the closet waiting to help another kit.I never toss them completely. They go in the spares box. They always come in handy.
I guarantee you that AM barrel is the only straight part in the kit. The Alan Wespe is only underclassed by the Alan SU76. These kits are so unbuildable, they are not worth the match to burn them. And you can’t give them away to some kid, because that would be child abuse.
It’s not my nature to quit anything. If I decide to start one I’ll finish it eventually, just like a bad movie. (Can you say Interceptor?) But there have been a few kits I never started. Most of them bore an AEF Designs sticker on the box.
That said, you can make the worst kits look good, given enough time and effort. But it’s not always tedious or a waste of time. I’m having a hell of a lot of fun with the old Monogram Cletrac kits.
Oh, and three of those AEF Designs kits became contest winners everywhere they went, back when I was into bringing builds to contests.
I was working on the Panda hobby Husky VMMD and the straw that broke the camel’s back was when I realized that they had omitted some of the details that are critical to the operation of this vehicle and in my mind it was unforgiveable and now it sits on my shelf waitin for me to order the AFV club kit and harvest the tires to use there.
Man, that kit almost broke the hobby for me. I really hate the fact that a lot of the subjects that I want to build are from supper old or subpar kit makers.
