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Roden WW1 kits, opinions sought


Duncan B

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I bought a Roden 1/32 Dr1 just over a year ago and all the best A/M for it and decal sheet ... guess what happened :)

Its still a nice looking kit, have a WnW DR1 on order from Hannant's for ages ... am sure it will surface soon as promised.

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1 hour ago, Planebuilder62 said:

Dear Chris

Give it a little time, your parts might just show up in the post by themselves. Plan B is to call a distributor to get their phone number and talk to them.

 

Have you thought of pinning the broken leg to repair it?

 

regards Toby

Hi Toby

Thanks, I didn't add my address details as it was just an initial enquiry. I will see if they reply.  I might well pin it the broken bit is the axle housing at the bottom, so I could bend some appropriate brass rod to replace .  So am not too fussed anyway I suppose.

Thanks Toby.

All the best

Chris

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31 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

Hi Toby

Thanks, I didn't add my address details as it was just an initial enquiry. I will see if they reply.  I might well pin it the broken bit is the axle housing at the bottom, so I could bend some appropriate brass rod to replace .  So am not too fussed anyway I suppose.

Thanks Toby.

All the best

Chris

 

Last time I contacted them was 12 or so years ago, so it could well have changed, but my experience was the same as many others on the WWI Mailing List at the time - normally no reply to a parts request, but after 2 weeks the parts would turn up at no cost. My last contact was over the wing for the 1/48th SE 5a.  in response to having an error in rib number pointed out, they produced corrected ones and sent them to whoever asked, no charge, and no proof of purchase required.

 

Paul.

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3 minutes ago, Paul Thompson said:

 

Last time I contacted them was 12 or so years ago, so it could well have changed, but my experience was the same as many others on the WWI Mailing List at the time - normally no reply to a parts request, but after 2 weeks the parts would turn up at no cost. My last contact was over the wing for the 1/48th SE 5a.  in response to having an error in rib number pointed out, they produced corrected ones and sent them to whoever asked, no charge, and no proof of purchase required.

 

Paul.

Wow, that's great customer service. 

Very impressive.

Chris

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On 01/02/2020 at 18:36, bigbadbadge said:

Never heard anything back so not sure if the right email as used the one on the side of the BE2C kit box. Could not access any address details from their site, oh well I will have to make do.

 Did you try [email protected] ?

Alternatively, Bachmann are the UK distributors.

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  • 1 month later...

I have finished the Fokker J1, mostly built the Camel and Albatros DIII, and got under way with the 1/32 SPAD VII.

 

As the others said.  The decals I've used (the J1 and Camel) are like Academy, 'plasticy' rather than 'papery'.  On the corrugated J1 I got them to conform with a wet cotton tip held in a kettle steam jet. One broke up a bit, but under provocation.  So, not up to the standard of the rest of the kit but not terrible. You could forget about applying them to a matte surface.

 

On issue, common with many shorter-run kits, is the parts 'don't fit' because of the thickness of the parts, so thinning panels down really helps. For instance, an engine will hold the fuselage halves apart, because those fuselage halves are about a scale foot thick.  This is something you get used to if you build some short run but can be a shock for those used to the big brands.  The plastic is brittle and the parts are crammed into the sprue, so you really have to think about how you cut the struts and little bits away.  A small block of wood to properly support the part, and a flat razor, work well.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I bought the Spad VII c.1 1/32 scale a while back, purely because it was available as opposed to Wingnut wings not making a similar model.

 

Have been making it for a few weeks and have just decided to put it back in the box. Admittedly I havent been at my best recently but I haven't been enjoying it, it feels like I'm just bonding some random plastic together. 

 

Maybe what hasnt helped is the fact I've been building pretty much nothing else but Wingnut kits for the last couple of years. The difference seems like night and day to me. The Roden kit has poor fitting pieces and I havent got the energy right now to alter things. Obviously there is a big price difference. I dont like to give bad reviews for anything, books, music etc as I wouldht have a clue how to manufacture a model kit but the standard does seem poor. Maybe one day I will reopen the box.

 

I think I will have to get another wingnut kit out of the cupboard.

 

All the best Duncan, hope you and yours are fit and well, Martin

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6 hours ago, Martin Ford said:

I bought the Spad VII c.1 1/32 scale a while back, purely because it was available as opposed to Wingnut wings not making a similar model.

 

Have been making it for a few weeks and have just decided to put it back in the box. Admittedly I havent been at my best recently but I haven't been enjoying it, it feels like I'm just bonding some random plastic together. 

 

Maybe what hasnt helped is the fact I've been building pretty much nothing else but Wingnut kits for the last couple of years. The difference seems like night and day to me. The Roden kit has poor fitting pieces and I havent got the energy right now to alter things. Obviously there is a big price difference. I dont like to give bad reviews for anything, books, music etc as I wouldht have a clue how to manufacture a model kit but the standard does seem poor. Maybe one day I will reopen the box.

 

I think I will have to get another wingnut kit out of the cupboard.

 

All the best Duncan, hope you and yours are fit and well, Martin

Hi Martin, thanks for your honest opinion on the Roden kit. It's to the likes of your good self that I would have been aiming them so this is very helpful information for me. I will probably give them a miss for now but can get them in if requested.

All the best Martin, stay safe.

 

Duncan B

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Plus 1 to what Martin has experienced.

 

I built their 1/32 F1 Tripe some years ago and whilst it looked good in the box, it was very poor fitting, rubbish instructions and the decals just sat on the surface refusing to confirm as though made of acetate. Even Tamiya liquid glue didn't touch them and in the end I used the decals to make spray masks. All the wing struts needed clean up and adjustment too and the u/c unit was effectively just a 'butt join' weak attachment which I ended up having to insert a pin to stop the 'splayed' look.

 

Bottom line, that was my first and last venture into Roden and for me personally and as much as I like the WW1 genre, there is nothing I am passionate about enough as a WW1 1/32 subject not to wait and see if WNW or CSM bring one out. I have seen some superb Roden kit examples at shows built up and if blokes can achieve these results and are happy to invest hours and hours to do so, then kudos to them but given the plethora of wonder-kits available  these days, then I am happy to be a 'kit assembler' rather than "the model needs a lot of TLC 'model maker'

 

They also regularly swap hands at kit meets / eBay etc. for less than half retail price and so for you Duncan as a retailer, that's what you would be competing against whilst trying to run a business by selling them and turning an operating profit. 

 

Gary

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Just for clarification, and not to start an argument, it doesn't take any more hours to build a Roden kit than anything else. Honestly. What it does take is being used to that sort of thing, and approaching it differently than the competition. I'm sure I'm no better a modeller than the people here who have had bad experiences with Roden kits, but I've built WnW, Roden, Blue Max, Pegasus, Copper State (both old and new incarnations)  a whole rake of earlier vacs and indifferent and good resins, as well as all incarnations of Eduard kits. Not to mention Merlin. In fact probably no-one should mention Merlin. I probably am one of the target audience rather than those who haven't gone that route, and I know there are a lot of others like me. If  WnW and Roden offer the same subject at similar prices, obviously I'll get the WnW kit, not being wilfully masochistic, but many subjects aren't offered by WnW,  so if I like the subject I'll buy the kit.

 

Again, I've no idea, as I said earler, if enough other people would buy from a new source (i.e. Duncan) to make it worth his while to stock them. Id just say that if he wanted to try, then his best bet would be the 1/32nd kits not covered by others, and all of the 1/48th and 1/72nd not covered by Eduard. In addition, most of their armour whatever the scale gets a fairly good press.

 

Paul.

 

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Ive attempted three 1/72 Roden kits of WW1 subjects. I mean ATTEMPTED when I say that. Everything went pretty good good until I got to the Struts then it all fell apart. Everyone of the three kits the struts just disintegrated when looked at. Im going to attempt to salvage the Two Fokker D.VII’s Ive invested time and money into by making my own struts. I will only ever buy Eduard or if i can afford them WNW or CSM kits. I wont bother with another Roden WW1 subject. 
 

Dennis

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I don't know if my opinion or observations will be helpful, or indeed accurate; but we're self-quarantining here in sunny San Antonio, so I've got lots of free time to burn the mb's! I am not a WW1 modeler, although I do have almost all of the injected and some of the better vacform kits of the main types used by France, England, Germany and the USAAC. I have, don't know why, almost all of the Roden kits, but have yet to build one. From everything I have read in kit reviews and build articles, as well as what I have observed when examining each of the kits is:

  • They are pretty well detailed, especially when compared to the old Revell, Airfix, and Pegasus kits
  • They have released a great variety of WW1 aircraft- some an improvement over old releases, some not nearly as good, but certainly less expensive than newer releases from Airfix, Arma Hobby, Eduard, MPM, Special Hobby, or ICM.
  • They sure ain't no 'shake and bake' kits, but I agree with what the others have said- if you can get decent drawings/references, and read what others who have built the kits have found out regarding errors/issues, and treat them like a vacform or  short-run kit, then I think, with some aftermarket decals and parts, and a little scratchbuilding, you can get a pretty accurate model.
  • They definitely take more work than one of kits from any of the above-mentioned makers, but that's how you learn and improve your skills, and it's not like you're whacking away on some 100' span model like a B-29!
  • If your situation warrants, you can buy the best in scale by any of the mainstream makers, and get Roden kits for those airplanes for which there is no state of the art kit.
  • In my certainly questionable  knowledge, it seems a common area of frustration is with the struts and landing gear of  a majority of the WW1 kits- it would be so nice, in my humble opinion, if an aftermarket  maker produced sets of struts/landing gear for specific types- if they were to scale, then a modeler could adapt them to the kit he/she was building. Styrene would be best, but good resin ones, maybe made up of the harder material used for landing gear struts, would be ideal. Maybe a combo of struts and basic cockpit bits would be profitable.

That scraping sound you hear is me getting down off of my soapbox and standing in the corner!

Mike

 

BTW- are we EVER going to get a state of the art Nieuport 28C-1 in God's Own scale? Like one of these?

https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/nieuport-28c1/nasm_A19860276000

https://www.skytamer.com/1.2/2001/1127.jpg

Edited by 72modeler
corrected spelling
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15 minutes ago, 72modeler said:
  • In my certainly questionable  knowledge, it seems a common area of frustration is with the struts and landing gear of  a majority of the WW1 kits- it would be so nice, in my humble opinion, if an aftermarket  maker produced sets of struts/landing gear for specific types- if they were to scale, then a modeler could adapt them to the kit he/she was building. Styrene would be best, but good resin ones, maybe made up of the harder material used for landing gear struts, would be ideal. Maybe a combo of struts and basic cockpit bits would be profitable.

That scraping sound you hear is me getting down off of my soapbox and standing in the corner!

Mike

 

BTW- are we EVER going to get a state of the art Nieuport 28C-1 in God's Own scale? Like one of these?

https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/nieuport-28c1/nasm_A19860276000

https://www.skytamer.com/1.2/2001/1127.jpg

Undercarriage struts for quite a few kits are available from Scale Aircraft Conversions, and the odd interplane strut as well (with their 1/32nd Albatros packs for instance), but having tried a few I really can't recommend them. No more detail than the kit supplies, and the white metal used deforms as badly or worse than the kit parts, with the added disadvantage that it won't go back to the original shape because it has no plasticity. I agree there is a need, but brass or bronze are better materials and AFAIK not yet used for WWI kits (although they have been made for other time periods). It's not just Roden u/c either - WnW struts can also wobble alarmingly. It helps if you use a non stretch thread to rig them, to give some extra rigidity. 

 

Paul.

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23 minutes ago, 72modeler said:
  • They are pretty well detailed, especially when compared to the old Revell, Airfix, and Pegasus kits
  • They have released a great variety of WW1 aircraft- some an improvement over old releases, some not nearly as good, but certainly less expensive than newer releases from Airfix, Arma Hobby, Eduard, MPM, Special Hobby, or ICM.
  • They sure ain't no 'shake and bake' kits, but I agree with what the others have said- if you can get decent drawings/references, and read what others who have built the kits have found out regarding errors/issues, and treat them like a vacform or  short-run kit, then I think, with some aftermarket decals and parts, and a little scratchbuilding, you can get a pretty accurate model.
  • They definitely take more work than one of kits from any of the above-mentioned makers, but that's how you learn and improve your skills, and it's not like your whacking away on some 100' span model like a B-29!
  • If your situation warrants, you can buy the best in scale by any of the mainstream makers, and get Roden kits for those airplanes for which there is no state of the art kit.
  • In my certainly questionable  knowledge, it seems a common area of frustration is with the struts and landing gear of  a majority of the WW1 kits- it would be so nice, in my humble opinion, if an aftermarket  maker produced sets of struts/landing gear for specific types- if they were to scale, then a modeler could adapt them to the kit he/she was building. Styrene would be best, but good resin ones, maybe made up of the harder material used for landing gear struts, would be ideal. Maybe a combo of struts and basic cockpit bits would be profitable.

 

Ditto.

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  • 4 months later...

After much humming and hawing (and with the demise of WnW) I have decided to get some of the 1/32 Roden kits in stock and see how they go. I have been able to get them cheap enough to be able to put them on at a substantial discount from the Retail price which should hopefully make them a more attractive proposition. Fingers crossed they sell, thanks for all the advice and opinions everyone provided.

I'll let you all know how they get on and if it has been a success or not.

 

Duncan B (once again gambling with No.1 Son's inheritance :) )

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38 minutes ago, Duncan B said:

Fingers crossed they sell, thanks for all the advice and opinions everyone provided.

I'll let you all know how they get on and if it has been a success or not.

 

Duncan B (once again gambling with No.1 Son's inheritance :) )

At the moment, from the punter's end, the Roden kits are listed as sold out. Glitch, or did you get lucky?

 

Paul.

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38 minutes ago, Duncan B said:

After much humming and hawing (and with the demise of WnW) I have decided to get some of the 1/32 Roden kits in stock and see how they go. I have been able to get them cheap enough to be able to put them on at a substantial discount from the Retail price which should hopefully make them a more attractive proposition. Fingers crossed they sell, thanks for all the advice and opinions everyone provided.

I'll let you all know how they get on and if it has been a success or not.

 

Duncan B (once again gambling with No.1 Son's inheritance :) )

I think this a sensible move as recently I've been hunting these on Ebay and unfortunatly prices are going up.

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Answered my own question, they're place-holders. Clicking on one you're then informed on the product page that they're expected to arrive this week. Sorry about that, it's a bit early in the day for me to sow the seeds of discontent, but I was up 2 nights with a sick dog, then last night someone invited us to a massive thunder storm (huge strike somewhere nearby, everything rattled and sizzled, but I'd unplugged everything except the router, which was only lightly fried and seems okay after a hard reset).

 

Paul.

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1 hour ago, Paul Thompson said:

Answered my own question, they're place-holders. Clicking on one you're then informed on the product page that they're expected to arrive this week. Sorry about that, it's a bit early in the day for me to sow the seeds of discontent, but I was up 2 nights with a sick dog, then last night someone invited us to a massive thunder storm (huge strike somewhere nearby, everything rattled and sizzled, but I'd unplugged everything except the router, which was only lightly fried and seems okay after a hard reset).

 

Paul.

Hi Paul

 

My head is a bit fuzzy today after the "light show" last night too. I have previously looked at some way of replacing the "sold out" button with a more appropriate one for "Coming soon" or "Pre-order now" but I know nothing about coding so I just have to live with the Sold Out and then a mention in the description that they are on their way, it's not great but it'll have to do for now. The Tracking says they have just left Edinburgh so will drive right past here on their way to the Aberdeen Depot before returning back down the A90 to me!

I hope your dog is better, I think having a sick pet is worse than having a sick child, at least you can explain to the child what's going on and they can tell you how they feel.

 

Duncan B

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I like the Roden kits, they have their place in the great scheme of WW1 modelling. Yes, they don't have the same 'wow' factor as WnW but can still be enjoyable to make if you approach them with that in mind.  I agree with Peter's earlier post:

On 03/03/2020 at 11:17, Peter Lloyd said:

On issue, common with many shorter-run kits, is the parts 'don't fit' because of the thickness of the parts, so thinning panels down really helps. For instance, an engine will hold the fuselage halves apart, because those fuselage halves are about a scale foot thick.  This is something you get used to if you build some short run but can be a shock for those used to the big brands.  The plastic is brittle and the parts are crammed into the sprue, so you really have to think about how you cut the struts and little bits away.  A small block of wood to properly support the part, and a flat razor, work well.

I haven't had much problem with brittle parts on the 1/32 kits, the plastic has generally been good. The 1/48 kits though, yes there has been brittle plastic in some of those. Decals have improved, the earlier release were pretty awful, but recent releases have been light years better.

I've built several 1/48 and a few of the 1/32 kits, with a Nieuport 24 & Spad VII waiting in the stash, The Sopwith Triplane required some extra work, but was still an enjoyable project if you approach it knowing that it won't be 'shake & bake'.  I've also done a couple of their Fokker Triplanes which were light on interior detail, but I enjoyed fixing that, and undoubtedly I caused WnW/Meng to release their kit, as WNW announced theirs as I finished doing mine!

(Mind you, the only 2 kits I have binned half way through in recent years were a Roden 1/48 Fokker D.VII, and an Eduard 1/48 Sopwith Camel).

 

I think it all comes down to price, I would never pay the prices the 'Big H' lists their Roden kits at (£50- &60 plus) unless they were on sale,  those prices are WnW territory. Duncan seems to have got them right on his website, they are worth the prices he has set and deserve to sell well.

 

How about getting some Special Hobby kits in as well? The Morane 'N', Nieuport 16 are both nice.  But ok, maybe one step at a time, before my enthusiasm runs away with me 🙂.

 

Good luck Duncan!

 

John

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1 hour ago, Viking said:

I like the Roden kits, they have their place in the great scheme of WW1 modelling. Yes, they don't have the same 'wow' factor as WnW but can still be enjoyable to make if you approach them with that in mind.  I agree with Peter's earlier post:

I haven't had much problem with brittle parts on the 1/32 kits, the plastic has generally been good. The 1/48 kits though, yes there has been brittle plastic in some of those. Decals have improved, the earlier release were pretty awful, but recent releases have been light years better.

I've built several 1/48 and a few of the 1/32 kits, with a Nieuport 24 & Spad VII waiting in the stash, The Sopwith Triplane required some extra work, but was still an enjoyable project if you approach it knowing that it won't be 'shake & bake'.  I've also done a couple of their Fokker Triplanes which were light on interior detail, but I enjoyed fixing that, and undoubtedly I caused WnW/Meng to release their kit, as WNW announced theirs as I finished doing mine!

(Mind you, the only 2 kits I have binned half way through in recent years were a Roden 1/48 Fokker D.VII, and an Eduard 1/48 Sopwith Camel).

 

I think it all comes down to price, I would never pay the prices the 'Big H' lists their Roden kits at (£50- &60 plus) unless they were on sale,  those prices are WnW territory. Duncan seems to have got them right on his website, they are worth the prices he has set and deserve to sell well.

 

How about getting some Special Hobby kits in as well? The Morane 'N', Nieuport 16 are both nice.  But ok, maybe one step at a time, before my enthusiasm runs away with me 🙂.

 

Good luck Duncan!

 

John

Be wary of SP  kits like the Morane and the Nieuport. The Morane wings will be very fanificanarius to fit and as for the N 16 this just filled me with buyers remorse separate bottom wings coupled with NO location points for any of the struts means I will buy the Copper State model and maybe risk SP decals for a La Fayette scheme. I mean Roden don't even do this.:angrysoapbox.sml:

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