A Canopy Rant

[AeroplaneDriver]

I was going to mention this in Mav's Academy F-18 thread, but didnt want to hijack it, but why is it that I can get an Academy kit for a good price, or heck even a cheap Revellogram kit, with a nice, clear canopy, but if I spend $40+ on a Tamigawa kit there's a bloody great seam running down the middle of the canopy.  Can Tamiya not get the man from Monogram to show them how to do canopies?

[Maverick]

AD.

I can sympathise.  I'm 3/4 of the way through my first Profile GB kit (an FAA Hornet twin stick), and unfortunatley I'm using the Hasegawa 72nd kit as a basis. Mind you, this is supposed to be a D model Marine bird, but the D parts are an extra sprue with all the dodgy "TF-18A" (that's how old the thing is) parts thrown into a box.  Nice decals, sure, but still bodgy weapons and simply awful surface detail (all raised).

It continues to baffle me how these supposedly 'uberkit' companies have the audacity to continue to retread their old kits simply with a new decal sheet & if your obscenely lucky, a 'correction' sprue.  One would think with the money they charge, they might actually shell out and sort some new mouldings out.  People poo-poo kits like Hobby Boss's newest but on the same hand extend genuflections and abasement for the "glory" that is Hasegawa.  Some of their gear is good, to be sure, but there's a bloody lot in the catalogue that should have gone the way of the dodo.

Regards,

Mav

[jcf]

I was going to mention this in Mav's Academy F-18 thread, but didnt want to hijack it, but why is it that I can get an Academy kit for a good price, or heck even a cheap Revellogram kit, with a nice, clear canopy, but if I spend $40+ on a Tamigawa kit there's a bloody great seam running down the middle of the canopy.  Can Tamiya not get the man from Monogram to show them how to do canopies?

Which Tamiya kit are you speaking of? They don't do an F-18 and the seam is on their F-16 because it is the only way to correctly mould the
proper blown cross-section of the canopy, it is a matter of the limitations of mould technology, you want an accurate cross-section you'll have a mould parting line. Ditto the Hasegawa F-16s and F-18s.

The Mono/Revell kit canopies don't have the correct cross-section.

Jon