Rabbit Leader Posted July 16, 2014 Share Posted July 16, 2014 Hopefully you should get a reply from Airfix very soon. I'm building their neat little Zero and whilst gauging where to paint the fuse top decking under the front windscreen, noticed that the front portion of the one piece canopy was moulded incorrectly. One side is square, whilst the opposite is rounded. I almost placed it on the shelf of doom, however thought better and sent Airfix's Spare Parts department an email. Living in Australia, I thought it would take an age to 1. Get a reply and - 2. Finally get a new part (?). Credit where credit is due, within hours of my email, not only did I get a reply, I also received the message that a new transparency sprue has been sent by first class mail.. Now that's first class service and only amplifies my faith in my inherent spending on new red boxes... Congratulations Airfix on yet another satisfied customer. Cheers.. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j_jza80 Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 On a related note, the Duxford Blenheim is listed for the flying display at Duxford September airshow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhaselden Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 Will someone please buy some of the software that I sell so I can come back to Blighty for the show...an order now would be perfect for me to come out with the installation guys and provide user training. Ok...I can dream! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meatbox8 Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 Hopefully you should get a reply from Airfix very soon. I'm building their neat little Zero and whilst gauging where to paint the fuse top decking under the front windscreen, noticed that the front portion of the one piece canopy was moulded incorrectly. One side is square, whilst the opposite is rounded. I almost placed it on the shelf of doom, however thought better and sent Airfix's Spare Parts department an email. Living in Australia, I thought it would take an age to 1. Get a reply and - 2. Finally get a new part (?). Credit where credit is due, within hours of my email, not only did I get a reply, I also received the message that a new transparency sprue has been sent by first class mail.. Now that's first class service and only amplifies my faith in my inherent spending on new red boxes... Congratulations Airfix on yet another satisfied customer. Cheers.. Dave That's good to know, especially as you are the other side of the World. I received an automated reply almost immediately saying that my enquiry was going to be looked in to so fingers crossed. I have been really impressed with Airfix's output of late. In fact they are churning them out quicker than I can build them. There's a red box stash all of its own in my office. It's even got me back in to building WW2 subjects as I mainly build Cold War era stuff. The Blenheim really does look like a fantastic kit and great value for money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alpine_modeller Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 Going to check mine for clear parts when I get home now... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meatbox8 Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 Hopefully you should get a reply from Airfix very soon. I'm building their neat little Zero and whilst gauging where to paint the fuse top decking under the front windscreen, noticed that the front portion of the one piece canopy was moulded incorrectly. One side is square, whilst the opposite is rounded. I almost placed it on the shelf of doom, however thought better and sent Airfix's Spare Parts department an email. Living in Australia, I thought it would take an age to 1. Get a reply and - 2. Finally get a new part (?). Credit where credit is due, within hours of my email, not only did I get a reply, I also received the message that a new transparency sprue has been sent by first class mail.. Now that's first class service and only amplifies my faith in my inherent spending on new red boxes... Congratulations Airfix on yet another satisfied customer. Cheers.. Dave Great stuff from Airfix. Day after I e:mailed them they let me know that the parts are packaged and being posted on Monday. Great customer care. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tbolt Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 On a related note, the Duxford Blenheim is listed for the flying display at Duxford September airshow Typical, the one show I can't make And with no autumn show this year it will probably be next year before I see it fly, unless we can get it to display at Old Warden Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnd Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 With a Frogspawn version already in the stash, I wasn't going to buy this kit (belt tightening and all that) but when I ventured into the BBMF shop, there it was winking at me from the shelf. I cracked. It does look pretty good, the detail is excellent and they've got the hang of the panel lines. The sprue gates don't look as thick (but just in case they provide three Vickers machine guns - result!) and in the spirit of providing something extra such as separate wing tips on the Zero and gun bays on the Typhoon, you get to build it with flaps down if you want. The proof will be in the building, of course, but from the evidence of the pictures starting to appear of the finished article, it looks a winner to me. So much for belt tightening, I'm going to end up with four now, five if someone does a Mk.V conversion. John. PS - transparent parts all present and correct. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hook Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 Just picked up mine up from my local polystyrene emporium, clear parts and all - looks like a serious contenderfor "moving straight to the first place in the to-do pile"! Cheers, Andre Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meatbox8 Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 Missing parts arrived today. Great customer service from Airfix. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabbit Leader Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 Missing parts arrived today. Great customer service from Airfix. My replacement Zero canopy arrived this morning, which is two weeks from my initial enquiry. Considering I live on the other side of the world I'm very impressed with that. Only yesterday my Spit Vb and 24th scale Typhoon arrived and unfortunately I needed to send two more emails - Spit (no clear sprue at all), Typhoon - (canopy crack and dimples like everyone else's). Although it's a little disheartening, I'm confident that more replacement parts will be sent in due course. Cheers. Dave 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meatbox8 Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 My replacement Zero canopy arrived this morning, which is two weeks from my initial enquiry. Considering I live on the other side of the world I'm very impressed with that. Only yesterday my Spit Vb and 24th scale Typhoon arrived and unfortunately I needed to send two more emails - Spit (no clear sprue at all), Typhoon - (canopy crack and dimples like everyone else's). Although it's a little disheartening, I'm confident that more replacement parts will be sent in due course. Cheers. Dave That must be pretty frustrating I should think. Pity about the Typhoon canopy as the kit looks outstanding otherwise. I think the recent Lightning F2A had similar problems, although mine is fine as it happens. Airfix have come a long way since the re-launch and with great customer support, in my experience at least. I hope they can iron out these quality control issues as it will save them quite a lot of time, energy and money I would have thought. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabbit Leader Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 I really do feel for those hard working people at Airfix. It is a shame that their landmark kit of 2014 has this canopy fault, however you just cannot fault the time, effort and cost that they are all doing to recover the situation. Its this cost factor that has me worried, as hopefully this will not hamper any development of new kits in 2015 and beyond. It is obvious that we are all doing our bit to support this great company, so all I ask is that when things are slightly amiss - we are all courteous and polite in our correspondence. Yes - this sort of thing should not happen, however you can bet you last penny that the clear sprues will be the first thing they get sorted out in future new release kits (I hope anyway). Cheers .. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meatbox8 Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 I really do feel for those hard working people at Airfix. It is a shame that their landmark kit of 2014 has this canopy fault, however you just cannot fault the time, effort and cost that they are all doing to recover the situation. Its this cost factor that has me worried, as hopefully this will not hamper any development of new kits in 2015 and beyond. It is obvious that we are all doing our bit to support this great company, so all I ask is that when things are slightly amiss - we are all courteous and polite in our correspondence. Yes - this sort of thing should not happen, however you can bet you last penny that the clear sprues will be the first thing they get sorted out in future new release kits (I hope anyway). Cheers .. Dave I totally agree. Generally they're doing a magnificent job in my book, either producing new tools of old subjects or just completely new tools of things most modellers wouldn't have dreamed of. 1/24th scale Mosquito and Typhoon!!? And not to mention some rarer items in the more regular scales. The upcoming Swift is the one I'm looking forward to in particular. And an all new (and accurate) Lightning at last. Panel line detail is getting better and better and they have produced my personal modelling Holy Grail, the Vickers Valiant. This must all involve a huge amount of investment on their part, and a certain amount of risk, so I do find it a bit odd when people get so heated about them. Like you I was really impressed with how quickly they rectified the situation regarding the missing parts on the Blenheim I bought. And let's not forget that a few years ago we didn't even have an Airfix to complain about. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabbit Leader Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 And let's not forget that a few years ago we didn't even have an Airfix to complain about. And that Boys and Girls - sums it up in just one line. Great comment Meatbox8. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhaselden Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 My biggest concern with Airfix right now is the profit they must be losing due to all these QC issues. This website is a pretty small sampling rate and yet there seems to be a large number of glitches - canopies malformed, sprues missing, duplicate sprues inserted etc. Airfix's customer service is rightly praised but I wonder at the cost when mistakes seem so common. Really hope they can improve the QC piece - they're making great kits at very reasonable prices so I don't begrudge them making a goodly profit to use for further investment but that profit is being eroded by these quality issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meatbox8 Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 And that Boys and Girls - sums it up in just one line. Great comment Meatbox8. Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Basilisk Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 This website is a pretty small sampling rate But very fussy I would think that many who buy the kit will just live with the crack. Really hope they can improve the QC piece - they're making great kits at very reasonable prices so I don't begrudge them making a goodly profit to use for further investment but that profit is being eroded by these quality issues. I would think that the cost is passed on to the contract manufacturer. Cheers, Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhaselden Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 (edited) Ultimately, you're probably right...but it has to be reflected in profit/pricing somewhere along the line and Airfix owns the brand so they're on the hook to fix the problem. I agree we can be a pretty fussy bunch here but anyone will be disappointed if their kit is missing glazing parts completely, while having duplicates of sprues is just wasteful. QC is one of those awkward activities that can cause costs to spiral out of control if not managed properly. That said, poor QC does create a bad impression that is only partly mitigated by great after-sales service. I want Airfix to succeed. I LOVE what they're doing for the hobby right now and I want them to keep doing it. The quality of the kits has improved beyond measure - detail, finesse and sheer construction design are up there with the best in the market. If they can overcome their QC challenges, they should be well set for a long run delivering more of these wonderful new kits. And that's something that should thrill all of us! Edited August 1, 2014 by mhaselden 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul J Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 Sounds horrifying reading all about missing sprues etc. My one was OK but still have faith in AFX and look forward to the MK.IV Blenheim now as I know that there is going to be a set or two of decals coming from Canada for Bolys!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Boak Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 I have to say that I've not encountered any missing parts or canopies with holes in them since Airfix started doing new WW2 subjects again. Admittedly, I may have to look more closely at the canopies I've bought to check for the kind of flow problems others have described. Therefore I'd suggest that the overall effect of these problems is perhaps less it may appear from than reading a list of complaints on the internet. Not that these complaints aren't justified in themselves, but they may be creating an exaggerated sense of imminent financial catastrophe... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The wooksta V2.0 Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 The only canopy problem I've had is getting two in some of the more recent boxings of the Spitfire IX. Result! And they fit the old Airfix Vb with a modicum of trimming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhaselden Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 Therefore I'd suggest that the overall effect of these problems is perhaps less it may appear from than reading a list of complaints on the internet. Not that these complaints aren't justified in themselves, but they may be creating an exaggerated sense of imminent financial catastrophe... You may be right, Graham, and I'm not suggesting imminent catastrophe for Airfix. However, when it takes multiple attempts to resolve a problem, as recounted several times on these fora for the new Lightning, the Blenheim and even the flagship 1/24 Typhoon, then I think it's time Airfix investigated and took steps to improve its QC methods. If it is a sufficient problem, then I'm sure Airfix are already looking into it. As stated previously, I just want them to succeed because they're giving modellers what they want - high-quality models of varied types at an affordable price. Please, please keep doing this Airfix and make money into the bargain because, after all, that's the lifeblood of any business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Headroom Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 Apart from the flawed parts, there are members here who have no clear parts at all in their kits. Maybe there is a problem in quality control? Horns/Airfix se to have other bases covered so hopefully this can also be addressed. Trevor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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