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Hobbycraft (Canada) Models


chrisov

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Hello

Just saw a review of some resin for the Hobbycraft 1/72 DHC 4 Caribou in the July Scale Aircraft Modelling where there is mention of the 'newly reborn Hobbycraft'. A quick google gives this link http://www.hobbycraftcanada.com/hobbycraft...da/Welcome.html. Contact page gives an address but no link for the e mail address anyone know more? The pages mentions 'After a long hiatus, the newly tooled AVRO ARROW is back. This 100% newly tooled kit contains more than 40 parts, includes new decals, new instructions and great new box art. Look for them at local hobby shops or contact us to find one!'

While I know there has been critisism of some of their models they do have plenty of unique ones in their list.

Cheers

Chris

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hope they are going to do the 1/32 early Bf 109s. Also hope they retool a lot of the planes they did have like the Banshee and the CF-100 Canuck.

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The rumour is true. The new tool Avro CF-105 is out and in the stores here in Canada. It is very much better than the old kit, but still with some minor faults (to my eyes) such as the placement of the

aileron actuators, now shown, correctly, beneath the wings but not quite correctly aligned. Cheers

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  • 6 years later...

This is good news indeed. Try as I may, it’s hard to obtain a 1/72 Caribou without depriving the family of my inheritance, so (fingers crossed) this will be one of the first kits to be rereleased at ‘normal’ prices. 

 

Cheers.. Dave 

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A new tool Avro Arrow!  I’m in.

I hope next up is the Canuck.  The old mould is hot and it’s really a jet with a good history but overshadowed by our mates down south.

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18 minutes ago, Ka-Efka said:

The thread originates from 2012, the site is dead. So I guess hc remains 'dead' for now. 

Now that’s disappointing! I should have picked up the 2012 thread year! Bye bye Caribou plans (once again). 

 

Cheers.. (with a dropped bottom lip) Dave. 

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The Hobbycraft Canada name is definitely dead and buried.

 

The company tried branching into model railroading in the 1990s when they entered some sort of partnership with the Life-Like train company and produced a series of specifically Canadian railroading subjects. They also redesigned their scale model packaging a few times through the 1990s and 2000s

 

Though the specifics of the next step seem hazy, Life-Like at some point sold the model train division to Walthers and Hobbycraft Canada's assets became part of a new company called True Line Trains. True Line still exists, but have not produced anything new for a long time. They claim Hobbycraft Canada as part of their legacy on their website.

 

All of Hobbycraft Canada's scale model moulds were kept in South Korea and probably remain there if they still exist at all.

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I've got one of the Avro Arrow kits... the last re tool with a different parts break down and more of them and the coloured instructions.

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I'm about to start a Hobbycraft Beech C-45. Still about the only game in town apart from the PM kits. It's not too bad, but not so easy to find these days and sadly little aftermarket for it. Some of their kits were pretty much the only option so a shame if the moulds disappear for ever.

 

Steve

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42 minutes ago, fightersweep said:

I'm about to start a Hobbycraft Beech C-45. Still about the only game in town apart from the PM kits. It's not too bad, but not so easy to find these days and sadly little aftermarket for it. Some of their kits were pretty much the only option so a shame if the moulds disappear for ever.

 

Steve

For some time Hobbycraft's C-45 has also been available under Kitech label.

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6 hours ago, MarkoZG said:

For some time Hobbycraft's C-45 has also been available under Kitech label.

I wasn't aware of that! Does it come with any new extras?

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26 minutes ago, MarkoZG said:

Nothing new. Everything is as in Hobbycraft including the boxart and decal options.

 

Thanks MarkoZG! That's good to know. Funnily enough, I managed to pick up a second Hobbycraft C-45H on eBay yesterday. They don't seem to appear very often for sale.

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I've got a couple of those one of each variant of the Beech with the different upper wing nacelle shapes an leading edge extensions.

Also have an Otter and a couple Beavers..plus the last version of the Arrow as mentioned a couple posts ago.  ALL for future builds.

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On 5/22/2019 at 9:30 AM, upnorth said:

The Hobbycraft Canada name is definitely dead and buried.

 

The company tried branching into model railroading in the 1990s when they entered some sort of partnership with the Life-Like train company and produced a series of specifically Canadian railroading subjects. They also redesigned their scale model packaging a few times through the 1990s and 2000s

 

Though the specifics of the next step seem hazy, Life-Like at some point sold the model train division to Walthers and Hobbycraft Canada's assets became part of a new company called True Line Trains. True Line still exists, but have not produced anything new for a long time. They claim Hobbycraft Canada as part of their legacy on their website.

 

All of Hobbycraft Canada's scale model moulds were kept in South Korea and probably remain there if they still exist at all.

 

Thanks for letting us know something more abot the end of Hobbycraft !

Regarding the tools, many of these still exist and have become part of the Academy catalogue. Kits like the 1/72 Sabre and Banshee or the 1/48 Bearcat and Bf.109 were all originally sold by Hobbycraft.

Hobbycraft also sold kits coming from other tools, like the Esci/Ertl F-14 while others looked like Italeri knockoffs

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6 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

 

Thanks for letting us know something more abot the end of Hobbycraft !

Regarding the tools, many of these still exist and have become part of the Academy catalogue. Kits like the 1/72 Sabre and Banshee or the 1/48 Bearcat and Bf.109 were all originally sold by Hobbycraft.

Hobbycraft also sold kits coming from other tools, like the Esci/Ertl F-14 while others looked like Italeri knockoffs

Giorgio are sure about those kits rebrands?

In 1/72:

The Tomcat boxing with VF-143 and VF-51 birds on the cover was a poor copy of the earlier Hasegawa F-14, the latter rebox with VF-213 bird on the cover was the Kitech/Zengdfuwhatever kit which was an Italeri copy with recessed panel lines, the only good thing about it were the decals as you could used them together with Twobobs VF-213 sheet

The EA-6B was once a messed up copy of the Hasegawa tooling, had less parts, wing panel lines were raised, crew access ladder was blanked off with a blob of polystyrene and the decals were a mess

The A-10A was quite something, basically a copy of Monogram A-10 tooling and they didn't get anything right, you could get better results by baking a birthday cake and shape it like an A-10

The F-15 once again I think it was a copy of earlier Hasegawa F-15

Jaguar didn't look like Hasegawaish at all

Hornet was something shaped like it

 

Luigi

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The Banshee was almost a dead ringer for the Airfix kit but the the rear end modified to have different tail feathers, Even the u/c and some panel lines were the same. Not too bad a kit though.

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Ok so most Hobbycraft kits were Idea knockoffs of other kits.

 

I just scavenged codes and kit pics through picclick and spanish markets, did a pic comparison and sprue horrors from Hobbycraft do match Idea box pictures.

Correcting what I said about the F/A-18 as it was a clone of Italeri kit because Italeri early F/A-18A and RF-18 boxes always had bombs and camera fairings on the sprue tree, Idea just omitted the camera fairing and drop tank's dent, also drop tanks look more slim and a tad longer

Then when SHTF and their released the War on Terror boxes they started to switch tools and use Kitech knock offs, and as I said the decals on the F-14 and also on the Venezuelan F-16 were good enough to justify the purchase especially when everyone else was ignoring or starting to ignore the 1/72 scale market.

 

Luigi

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21 hours ago, Paul J said:

The Banshee was almost a dead ringer for the Airfix kit but the the rear end modified to have different tail feathers, Even the u/c and some panel lines were the same. Not too bad a kit though.

The Airfix Banshee is the short fuselage -1/2 whereas the Hobbycraft kit is the long fuselage -3/4. The HC also has recessed panel lines while the Airfix one's are raised. 

Edited by VMA131Marine
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5 hours ago, Silverkite said:

Ok so most Hobbycraft kits were Idea knockoffs of other kits.

 

There were a fair number of original releases from Hobbycraft as well:

 

1/72 DHC-4 Caribou

1/48 P-59 Airacomet

1/144 B-36

1/48 P-35

 

Although some were let down by poor research

 

1/48 P-40B/C

 

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