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Arma Hobby NEW 1:72 P-39Q Airacobra


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4 hours ago, Tbolt said:

 

Thats the advantage and disadvantage of having a stash - sometimes kits get superseded by a long way but sometimes you end up with great kits that become hard to get hold of.

100% true, you never know if a new tool version of the kit in the stash will be released, and even if it will released it could still take several years or decades. Even not so old kits can be hard to get hold of, for instance Airfix has only a portion of their Hornby era kits in their yearly catalogue, most are out of production. And what we have seen especially this year, is that the prices of the re-releases are considerably higher. I have acquired over 200 kits in less than three years since I started this hobby (excluding all the built kits), but still I regret not getting some particular kits, like Airfix's Swordfish with the floats. And it was cheap too, would look so nice on the shelf. 😭

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11 hours ago, TheKinksFan said:

Suddenly it's harder to continue my build of two Academy P-39s.

I used old Academy to do some weathering test. Do not hesitate to play with spare kits. It will improve your skills a lot.

 

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Old Acedemy N-Cobra was built 20-something years ago. and painted with Aeromaster acrylics. Then broken and left in box. I just restored it and tried some weathering ideas before building new Arma Kit.

More photos on my blog link.

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7 minutes ago, Wojtek Bulhak said:

I used old Academy to do some weathering test. Do not hesitate to play with spare kits. It will improve your skills a lot.

 

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Old Acedemy N-Cobra was built 20-something years ago. and painted with Aeromaster acrylics. Then broken and left in box. I just restored it and tried some weathering ideas before building new Arma Kit.

More photos on my blog link.

That weathering looks great. Good idea, there's not much to lose and no fear when you don't value the kit that much. I have absolutely no artistic talent, and avoid doing any weathering. But I have tried some weathering with oils and washes on 1/72 soft skins, as armour doesn't really interest me, it doesn't bother me much if I'm not so content with the end result.

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17 hours ago, Tbolt said:

Can someone send this to Mr. Muzikant of AZ/KP? And I'm not speaking about the level of detail but at least about product quality. Molding cleanliness and assembly fit with less details is even easier achievable. 

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41 minutes ago, Torbjorn said:

I baffles me why there is no dedicated field of psychology that deals with model builder stash hoarding syndrome. Such a failed opportunity. I dare not count what I have bought since return to the hobby a couple of years back.

Yeah I wondered what I’d bought after returning and so went and took photos of everything I’d bought. I guessed a couple of hundred - I was waaaaaaaaaaay off.  I sorta wished I hadn’t checked.  And I’ve added substantially since then (again, should not have checked). But I will add a couple of these - after all, it looks superb, and I just need a couple. 

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There is to my knowledge only one complete P-39 on display in Europe.

The Finnish Anti-aircraft museum located in a Helsinki suburb has managed to squeeze a P-39Q-15 into a small building.

This aircraft has been preserved, not restored and shows the original Soviet markings on top of the US ones.

The vertical tail surfaces are not from the same airframe, but came from a wreck on Norwegian soil.

 

Otherwise, there are some substantial P-39 parts in at least one museum in England, but I was asked by them not to publish the pictures.

And if I dig into my archives, there should be some P-39 pictures from Chino in California.

 

But, on the usual condition of personal reference use (includes showing in this thread), you can for one week download a set of my P-39Q-15 pictures from the Finnish AA museum.

They were taken in a cramped and dark space using flash and a wide angle lense, so quality is not the best.

https://we.tl/t-RCWIEkBIsp

 

Website of the museum for those who wants to see the aircraft for themselves: 

https://ilmatorjuntamuseo.fi/en/english/

They do also have major components of a MiG-3 on display besides a lot of AA guns and missiles.

Edited by LN-KEH
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On 9/3/2022 at 7:53 PM, Torbjorn said:

why there is no dedicated field of psychology that deals with model builder s

There is - a psychiatrist friend of mine would like to study it in more depth but I have kept her away from model clubs so far................

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3 hours ago, LN-KEH said:

Website of the museum for those who wants to see the aircraft for themselves: 

https://ilmatorjuntamuseo.fi/en/english/

They do also have major components of a MiG-3 on display besides a lot of AA guns and missiles.


 

Incidentally, if people are generally interested in what’s available in the Finnish museums aviation-wise, here’s a website that catalogues both aviation museums and their holdings (plus some extras) in Finland:

 

https://www.ilmailumuseot.fi/

 

Best,

-M

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2 hours ago, Tbolt said:

 

 

snip

 

Due to the ongoing war, you asked whether there would be Soviet markings or a box with Soviet aces. We are not planning a special box for Soviet schemes but expect individual, interesting Soviet markings in boxes of particular versions. Let’s remember that not only Russians flew in the Soviet air force, but also many Ukrainians, and one of the most outstanding Airacobra aces was the Tatar from Crimea.

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Very nice to see the tie in with two of Bud’s aircraft. I have the original P-51B/C already as well as the Ki-84, very nice indeed.

 

However, on my last order of the P-51 and Ki-84I just received a bill from FedEx for another fee €12.57 ($16.50 Cdn) on top of the shipping cost of €20 ($26 Cdn). I don’t mind paying the tax, but they charge $10 Cdn for doing that. I will get the P-39 eventually, but I will wait until one of the Polish shops that still use Polish Post, stocks it, usually around $10 Cdn for shipping, much more affordable for a retiree. I find similar with Eduard, and even with Bunny Club discount, I still get them cheaper elsewhere. Shipping costs are going to be a deal breaker for many modellers, especially overseas.

 

Look forward to the P-39

 

Cheers

Jeff

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8 minutes ago, MrB17 said:

Very nice to see the tie in with two of Bud’s aircraft. I have the original P-51B/C already as well as the Ki-84, very nice indeed.

 

However, on my last order of the P-51 and Ki-84I just received a bill from FedEx for another fee €12.57 ($16.50 Cdn) on top of the shipping cost of €20 ($26 Cdn). I don’t mind paying the tax, but they charge $10 Cdn for doing that. I will get the P-39 eventually, but I will wait until one of the Polish shops that still use Polish Post, stocks it, usually around $10 Cdn for shipping, much more affordable for a retiree. I find similar with Eduard, and even with Bunny Club discount, I still get them cheaper elsewhere. Shipping costs are going to be a deal breaker for many modellers, especially overseas.

 

Look forward to the P-39

 

Cheers

Jeff

 

Here in the UK Parcel Force charge a £12 handling fee when you have to pay import tax, that's over $18 Canadian.

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3 minutes ago, Tbolt said:

Here in the UK Parcel Force charge a £12 handling fee when you have to pay import tax, that's over $18 Canadian.

These things are killing it for a lot of people, at a time where most modellers purchase online! There are so few brick and mortar hobby shops around, there is no other choice. Vacation planning that take in a city or two, with hobby shops is something I have done in the past, but sadly many of those shops are gone now. One of ones I worked at is still here, albeit under new ownership and relocated to a large shopping mall, and the prices reflect the high overhead, so I am solely online shopping for %100 of my hobby goods.

 

Cheers

Jeff 😔

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On 03/09/2022 at 21:53, Torbjorn said:

I baffles me why there is no dedicated field of psychology that deals with model builder stash hoarding syndrome. Such a failed opportunity. I dare not count what I have bought since return to the hobby a couple of years back.

"its not hoarding, these starfix kits are useful one day!" 😆

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10 hours ago, Tbolt said:

 

Here in the UK Parcel Force charge a £12 handling fee when you have to pay import tax, that's over $18 Canadian.

The Parcel Force is crap. At the beginning of this year, I bought a few books from a bookshop in the UK. They sent me the parcel twice but in both cases, the PF didn't generate the appropriate form (T1) so the parcel was returned twice to the sender but the second time they didn't receive the parcel (at least so I was informed in the last e-mail).  I was really looking forward to these books.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 9/16/2022 at 6:22 PM, LansVVS said:

Maybe the next one will be the Macchi MC.202...😉

Very likely, although I don't expect much from any subject done by Arma. Despite the overall ecstasy about this producer, where hoards where trying to guess what will come out (Arma guys must have been laughing like hell reading pages and pages about nothing useful for just a small bone they threw), I find Arma to be most overrated producer today. Just if you compare the attention they are getting here vs. what they provide, disbalance is huge. 

I cannot like them, as the majority here does, for the following reasons:

1. making the fools out of the market announcing a no-name new kit way too early. Wow, how great! Who would expect the model making company will release something next!? Let's make pages and pages on BM without any sense. Simply, if you respect your customers and your market you do not let this happen.

2. poor choice of markings - either very well known or completely unattractive ones. For example, out of the dozens very colorful Yak-1b schemes, they chose the most boring or well known ones. Sometimes they put interesting schemes in plain boxings (like naval Hurricanes) but you can't buy this kit AND have their photoetched set. So if you want their kit WITH full equipment in combination with interesting schemes - no way. You must either buy two kits or give it up. And no, PE parts available in their Expert sets are not covered by other aftermarket producers so you don't have the alternative.

3. relying on doubtful data sources, like drawings from certain Japanese guy. I mean this time it came back to Arma, while they were making fools out of the customers, this guy made a fool out of them. They allegedly based their Ki-84 on his plans, and guess what. The guy had the guts to butcher this kit in the very same manner he butchers any other kit. Why? Because this is just what he does, no matter if the kit is wrong or not. His butchering has little to do with accuracy, just like his plans don't and he is doing it from pure joy. He never addresses real and known issues of some kits but carves and cuts arbitrary. I already explained his issues in other topic so not going to repeat it here.

4. poor surface finish of parts - either visible surface lines from 3D printing (not sure in which part of their process) or too many sink marks. Also kits are released with serious mold damage not even tried to be corrected. For example the PZL P-7 has several disruptions within the wing surface fine corrugations. It is very visible and very hard to correct by modeler. I asked here directly about it and they confirmed it was a mold damage without even trying to correct it.

5. ridiculous shape of some parts - if you look at the internal parts of some kits (like PZL P-7 and P-11) they look funny. Control column and rudder pedals are so thick that I initially thought they must represent something else. Seats in these kits too - so visibly thick that in reality it would be armor stronger than on Il-2! Their radial engines are a joke and the pipes within cowlings out of proportion.

6. downward trajectory of kits quality - while Yak-1b kit has very nice and fine surface detailing (although not on the entire airframe), the recent Ki-84 looks like Corgi product in comparison to that

and so on and on...

 

I had to let this accumulated frustration out and I have no intention of further discussing my objections as all of this is easily accessible and verifiable to anyone with a common sense, basic knowledge and Google skills.

Edited by MarkoZG
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Plastmodel.pl has the P-39Q as a pre-order, I noticed that they have the same pictures as on armahobby.com, showing the extra 3D parts. So I wrote the customer service and asked if the kits will include also those extra parts. Today I received a reply "yes you will get 3D print parts, we sell the same kits as Arma Hobby in our shop!" I already pre-ordered two from armahobby.com, as I live inside EU I don't have the shipping issue. But for most of you that live outside the EU, this could be of interest, if you wish to get the extra bits. 

But there is a caveat,  there is no 100% guarantee that the kits will actually include those parts. Sometimes something is promised in good faith, but later the information proves to be unrue.

 

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I still don’t have a single Arma Hobby kit in my collection or stash and by the way their prices are skyrocketing lately, I’ll probably never get one.
 

Their 1/72 Expert set P-51B costs more than the Profi-pack Eduard 1/48 Mustang series of kits, which is just ludicrous in my humble opinion. I‘m a modeller who is happy to build in all the popular scales, however cannot justify the cost of some 1/72 kits which simply price themselves out of the market these days. 
 

Cheers.. Dave 

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47 minutes ago, Rabbit Leader said:

I still don’t have a single Arma Hobby kit in my collection or stash and by the way their prices are skyrocketing lately, I’ll probably never get one.
 

Their 1/72 Expert set P-51B costs more than the Profi-pack Eduard 1/48 Mustang series of kits, which is just ludicrous in my humble opinion. I‘m a modeller who is happy to build in all the popular scales, however cannot justify the cost of some 1/72 kits which simply price themselves out of the market these days. 
 

Cheers.. Dave 

Eduard sells so much aftermarket products, which are quite expensive, so they can price their kits competitively.Although lately they have had to raise their kit prices, and IIRC I read that they will raise them further after the E-day. On the other hand small companies like Arma Hobby have to sell their kits at a price they sell, they really can't afford to sell them at a lower price. It sucks that they are expensive, but unfortunately that's how it is.

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I'm happy with the value for money of their kits, which means I'll keep buying from them, investing in seeing good new models.
Modeling products are getting more and more expensive these days, and not just from Arma. But the quality of many companies remains mediocre. So, in my opinion, models from Arma are a great choice. Of course, if you are interested in World War II single-engine fighters.

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