1/72 - Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17F & Lim-5 "Fresco-C" by Airfix - released - new boxing in August 2024

[Laurent]

7 minutes ago, sroubos said:

I see Airfix still opt to go with the deep panel lines. Is this a conscience choice to make them so much more pronounced than on other kit manufacturers' models? Even short-run kits have more subtle panel lines than these.

AFAIK it depends on the quality of the equipment used by the mold maker and on the budget allocated by the customer (Airfix). For the MiG-17 the mold maker was World Star Industry (HK) LTD apparently:  

Source: https://www.airfix.com/uk-en/news/workbench/early-classic-jet-project-for-young-airfix-designer

[Enzo the Magnificent]

I know there's a bit of controversy over this kit - long before many of us have actually seen the plastic. 

 

From my point of view, I don't care!  I'm pretty sure I can sort out the leading edge.  I'm very ,much looking forward to this kit.  I particularly want to build an Egyptian one and so I'm hoping that the Special Hobby Super Mystere will be released around the same time so I can do a "dogfight double" build.  

[Max Headroom]

I’m tempted. Plenty of camo schemes and users to whet my whistle.

 

 

Flaw duly noted, so can we all wait until someone actually has it in their hands as we’re going around in circles😃

 

Trevor

[Hook]

15 hours ago, king of men said:

I've got your back, Albeback52...

I also subscribe to the TLAR view.

 

However, if (and it's still an if) the upper wing surface is indeed flat instead of curved, TLAW.

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

[Vultures1]

1 hour ago, Enzo Matrix said:

I particularly want to build an Egyptian one and so I'm hoping that the Special Hobby Super Mystere will be released around the same time so I can do a "dogfight double" build.  

 I like your thinking @Enzo Matrix!!!

[Enzo the Magnificent]

I'm already sorting through my paints to find which ones are suitable for a Nile Delta camo scheme.  I have an old Italeri Phantom that I use as a paint dummy.   It looks surprisingly good in that scheme.

[stevehnz]

8 hours ago, sroubos said:

Is this a conscience choice to make them so much more pronounced than on other kit manufacturers' models?

I believe it probably has to do with mold technology & mold robustness. Very fine panel lines are produced by very fine ribs on the mold surface & possibly wear out faster/get damaged more easily, especially if, as I've long suspected, Airfix is using mold tech of a lesser type that the old style steel molds. I've no concrete evidence of this & would be happy to be proved wrong, but the style of kit & the softer plastic used nowadays leads me toward this conclusion. Will we see these modern kits reissued as Classics in 50 years time?

I can see me up for a couple of these.

Steve.

Edited October 14, 2019 by stevehnz

[Giorgio N]

18 hours ago, sroubos said:

I see Airfix still opt to go with the deep panel lines. Is this a conscience choice to make them so much more pronounced than on other kit manufacturers' models? Even short-run kits have more subtle panel lines than these.

 

Rest of the kit looks pretty good, if the fit is good I'll probably get one.

 

It is in a sense a conscious choice: a deliberate choice of a cheaper product !

I've heard many suggest all possible reasons for deep and wide panel lines, including some who suggested that it was to help in using washes...

But no, the matter is simply that "Japanese" style panel lines require moulds and equipment that generally tend to cost more while other suppliers may not be able to make such surface detail but are cheaper.

There's nothing necessarily bad in such a choice, afterall even within the same company it may make sense to offer certain products of a certain quality while keeping others at a different level. Even the Japanese companies for example don't shy from reboxing their older stuff, some of which is really way pass their sell-by date and even Tamiya see no problem in offering reboxes of less than average Italeri kits side by side with their own masterpieces... However it's a bit puzzling for a modeller to see a brand new kit in the shops and discover that some features are worse than kits made 20 year ago or more... and it's not only Airfix, Italeri and more recently Revell are doing the same

 

[PhantomBigStu]

Personally going to be a heretic and honestly I prefer Airfix canyons to the subtle lines of other manufacturers that I know will be lost under my brushwork 

[madcop]

45 minutes ago, PhantomBigStu said:

Personally going to be a heretic and honestly I prefer Airfix canyons to the subtle lines of other manufacturers that I know will be lost under my brushwork 

 Jeeeeeeeez....You should already be burning in hell....

I guess you'd better paint with a roller than with a brush...😅

 

Most important , have fun !

[Enzo the Magnificent]

4 hours ago, PhantomBigStu said:

Personally going to be a heretic and honestly I prefer Airfix canyons to the subtle lines of other manufacturers that I know will be lost under my brushwork 

He's got a point, ya know!  

[Hook]

2 hours ago, Enzo Matrix said:

He's got a point, ya know!  

Methinks everyone has their priorities. Myself, somewhat wider panel lines don't bother me too much as long as the basic shapes and proportions are correct.

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

[Wez]

I don't know if this is the case but I do wonder whether Airfix assume that the purchaser is going to slap on some paint with a brush, you know like the paint and brush that come with their starter packs?  That way the panel lines will still show up under the paint.

 

I also think that those that criticise Airfix's current panel lines are forgetting the super deep Matchbox efforts, these were compared to trenches which would, by comparison, make Airfix's current output similar to a seed drill or at best a small ditch.

[Enzo the Magnificent]

I also wonder whether the trench effect is an artifact of the lighting when the photo was taken.  The panel lines on photos of the Buccaneer parts looked quite deep but having seen the parts, they are perfectly nice.   I remember a similar discussion about the panels lines on the AMK Kfir, but they turned out to be fine as well. 

[Max Headroom]

Here’s a thought. A quick pass with PVA glue, wipe away the excess and viola! no more Somme trenches.

 

Or am I missing something?

 

Trevor

[madcop]

2 hours ago, Hook said:

Methinks everyone has their priorities. Myself, somewhat wider panel lines don't bother me too much as long as the basic shapes and proportions are correct.

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

 

You  just said it "as long as the basic shape and proportions are correct." So the finest panel lines as technically possible , the better !

 

Madcop 😉

[Vultures1]

23 hours ago, Enzo Matrix said:

I'm already sorting through my paints to find which ones are suitable for a Nile Delta camo scheme. 

Do share your conclusions once you find a good match!

[VMA131Marine]

2 hours ago, Wez said:

I don't know if this is the case but I do wonder whether Airfix assume that the purchaser is going to slap on some paint with a brush, you know like the paint and brush that come with their starter packs?  That way the panel lines will still show up under the paint.

 

I also think that those that criticise Airfix's current panel lines are forgetting the super deep Matchbox efforts, these were compared to trenches which would, by comparison, make Airfix's current output similar to a seed drill or at best a small ditch.

You’re probably onto something with this. The vast majority of modelers brush paint their models and the Airfix surface detail doesn’t not easily get totally obliterated by a layer of paint.

[Enzo the Magnificent]

I almost exclusively airbrush but have still been known to totally obliterate fine panel lines!   

[Giorgio N]

General thought on panel lines, not necessarily related to this kit only: we often talk about overly deep panel lines when mentioning certain manufacturers or certain kits, but in reality the problem is not much the depth but rather the width of the panel lines... Ideally the best panel lines are indeed deep but are also narrow and sharply moulded. This allows surface detail to survive several layers of paint, possibly also some sanding during the assembly process, and still look good when the model is completed. Really what sets the "Japanese" style of recessed panel lines is their sharpness more than their depth (where the term Japanese is meant to indicate companies like Tamiya and others, but similar panel lines are also evident in kits from manufacturers outside Japan, think some of the Korean ones). 

Shallow panel lines do not necessarily look good, several short run kits have shallow panel lines that however are not sharply moulded and so look quite unrealistic. Then there are manufacturers that achieve panel lines that are both shallow and sharp, that can look great but can sometimes be obliterated easily during the construction of the model.

What makes the surface detail of some Airfix and other kits looking "cheap" is therefore not much the excessive depth but more the excessive width and "softness" of the panel lines. Clearly an overly wide panel line will survive painting better however at the same time will look quite unrealistic. The worst part is that while an excessively deep panel line can be filled, there's little that can be done to an excessively wide panel lines. Even filling with thick paint or Mr. Surfacer or similar products will make the recesssed line a bit less wide and a bit less deep but will never give the line that sharpness that is the best recipe for a more realistic look.

Generally sharply moulded surface detail is the result of manufacturing processes that also allow the reproduction of sharply moulded plastic parts in general, something that is of benefit to the overall detail level of a kit. It's great to have a lot of detail but if this is soft it can be quite unrealistic... this is something that can be seen in some Airfix kits: some great engineering ideas that could lead to some impressive detail ruined by a general "softness" of every part, that makes the same detail not as good looking as it could be,

 

Now back to the MiG-17 shown here, after watching all pictures I'm myself convinced that this kit, while not state of the art for 2019, is indeed the best MiG-17 kit around... that tells a lot about how little consideration has been given by the modelling industry to what was afterall a very important Cold War type. This means that I will have to buy one or two, may not be perfect but it's the best around. This is because we're talking of a MiG-17, had this been say a MiG-15, I'd have kept buying the Eduard kit...

[sroubos]

18 hours ago, Hook said:

Methinks everyone has their priorities. Myself, somewhat wider panel lines don't bother me too much as long as the basic shapes and proportions are correct.

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

See that's interesting. I care more about nice surface detail than exact shapes. I did a double-build of the Tamiya and Airfix Mk1. Spit in 1/72 and the Tamiya wins it hands-down when I look at them side by side, even though it is allegedly less accurate shape-wise than the Airfix. To each his own I suppose.

 

Of course there's a limit to this. The Academy FW-190 has great panel detail but I'll take the Airfix kit over it any day of the week because the shape is really off by a lot.

 

17 hours ago, Wez said:

I don't know if this is the case but I do wonder whether Airfix assume that the purchaser is going to slap on some paint with a brush, you know like the paint and brush that come with their starter packs?  That way the panel lines will still show up under the paint.

 

I also think that those that criticise Airfix's current panel lines are forgetting the super deep Matchbox efforts, these were compared to trenches which would, by comparison, make Airfix's current output similar to a seed drill or at best a small ditch.

 

Some of Airfix' stuff from the early 2010s (e.g. the 109G, Mig-15) is not any better than some Matchbox efforts from the 70s and 80s. Personally I love Matchbox kits, for the day that level of detail was excellent and they go together like a dream in most cases.

 

I love Airfix choice of subjects and I have quite a stack in the stash but if I look at some of the kits I've built over the past few years (Spits Mk1 and 22, Zero) and I see them side by side with similar Hasegawa, Tamiya, Eduard and even Sword kits, I feel they are just not as refined. Still, they are the most prolific major kit producer so I keep hoping  Though by now I think it's clear it's a conscious choice from them and not lack of effort.

Edited October 16, 2019 by sroubos

[Rabbit Leader]

Is it safe to assume that those Airfix kits ‘manufactured’ in the UK are a little sharper in overall detail than the same moulds made in Asia? The panel lines on my B2(R) Victor are really nicely done and IMO are close to Tamiya’s standard of the mid 1990’s. Their kits produced in Asia seem to come in a softer and light grey coloured plastic, which inevitably suffer from wider and deeper panels lines. So aside from production costs, wouldn’t Airfix be the beneficiary of better customer feedback if all new tools (including this Mig-17) were produced in the UK? Just a thought. 

 

Cheers.. Dave 

[Seahawk]

12 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

... It's great to have a lot of detail but if this is soft it can be quite unrealistic... this is something that can be seen in some Airfix kits: some great engineering ideas that could lead to some impressive detail ruined by a general "softness" of every part, that makes the same detail not as good looking as it could be,

For me this sums up where Airfix are at the moment.  TBH I'm no longer worried about the surface detail, who has improved massively since kits like the Spitfire PR.XIX.  It's the softness of the internal and detail components that lets Airfix down, even on the latest all-singing all-dancing wonderkit, the Buccaneer.  If the real thing has a sharp edge, I like the kit part to have a hard edge too, not slightly rounded.  It's not rocket science because Airfix were doing it in the 1960s (albeit with harder plastic) and new kids on the block like ICM can do it now.  It may be, in fact almost certainly is, a matter if how much money Airfix is prepared/able to put into moulds and materials.

54 minutes ago, sroubos said:

.. I see them side by side with similar Hasegawa, Tamiya, Eduard and even Sword kits, I feel they are just not as refined. Still, they are the most prolific major kit producer so I keep hoping  Though by now I think it's clear it's a conscious choice from them and not lack of effort.

Again, agreed.  Pity about that conscious choice but maybe it's the price we pay for the prolific release programme.

22 minutes ago, Rabbit Leader said:

Is it safe to assume that those Airfix kits ‘manufactured’ in the UK are a little sharper in overall detail than the same moulds made in Asia?

With Airfix (and even more Humbrol) it's not safe to assume anything.  I have only the one kit I know to have been moulded in the UK, a Blenheim IV bomber.  It was in a hard dark grey plastic and, whatever the truth of it, the surface detail looked finer.  Fit of parts was markedly better: the infamous bomb-bay join problem was nothing like as bad.  All in all, I felt it was closer to what the mould designer was trying to achieve.  I had a chance to congratulate Airfix's chief designer in person on the improvement and asked if further moulding would take place in the UK.  He said no, because of adverse customer reaction.  I found that frankly astounding but that's what he said: maybe they were listening to the wrong customers.  Don't have a Victor B.2 but it's one Airfix kit I've never heard criticised on the quality of moulding front.

[Rabbit Leader]

10 minutes ago, Seahawk said:

I had a chance to congratulate Airfix's chief designer in person on the improvement and asked if further moulding would take place in the UK.  He said no, because of adverse customer reaction. 

That’s the worst news I’ve heard all week! I agree, they must have been talking to the wrong customers, or buyers that have no idea about mould quality. I’d best buy up all those kits with the ‘made in UK’ sticker and think twice about those Airfix moulds that don’t. 

 

Cheers.. Dave 

[71chally]

Absolutely agree with Dave on this, it's the lack of consistency with Airfix's surface detail that is frustrating.

20 years ago they gave us beautiful panel lines with the 48th Lighting and late Spitfire/Seafire, contemporary with Tamiya I would say.  The Sea Vixen, Javelin, Meteor kits in particular have shown that this can be reproduced, and as said above their Victor and Buccaneer kits are pretty much up their in finesse of finish.

In that time frame they released some turkeys in this regard, Canberra, Valiant, and to a lesser extent Shackleton and Phantom.  If these had the same level of panel detail and surface finesse they would have been absolute winners for Airfix.

I'm not sure that there is any deliberate policy to this, beyond their possibly being an 'A team' and a 'B team', and the molds being sub contracted out to different companies.

 

To hear that UK production might end seems sad news, I was under the impression that is where the finer kits are coming from, just shows that profit shouts loudest.

 

BTW I'm a brush painter, and the size of panels lines doesn't come into it (unless you're using a 6" brush & house hold emulsion!), if your drop a fine hair, or scratch the surface it still shows.

Edited October 16, 2019 by 71chally