Advice please......

[Army of One]

Hello all......any one know anything bout kitech/zhengdefu (spelling ?) I have tried cybermodeller but no luck....looking at a Mig 31......1/72 scale,revell one may be better n I got one of those n just wanna see what these (Chinese ?) ones are like......many thanks......H

[ChernayaAkula]

Well, for starters, Zhengdefu often gets renamed to Zhengdogfood. That should tell you something about the quality of their kits. 

[Jschmus]

Several members on Starship Modeler used to comment that their kits were great for stuffing one's parts bins, but that their kits take a lot of work to turn into anything decent.  If you want a good MiG-31, try either the Revell or Zvezda kits.

[Army of One]

Ph bugger!! Knew it was to good to be true....two for less than the price of a revell one.....many thanks again chaps......much appreciated....H

[upnorth]

Be careful buying a Revell one.

The days, what comes in Revell box is usually a reissue of the Zvezda MiG-31 kit.

However, several years ago, Revell issued a kit of the MiG-31 which predated the fall of Socialism. They also put out a MiG-29 and Su-27 at about the same time. While the kits were great at the time, they look pretty woeful now o\in the post Socialist era when so much more is known about the aircraft.

Revell replaced the old MiG-31 and Su-27 kits in their line with the Zvezda and Hasegawa kits respectively.

The chances of you coming across the old Revell MiG-31 kit are rare, but I have seen it surface in EBay and sometimes consignment lots.

Here's the old Revell box art so you know which kit to avoid if you see it:

web photo

I belive it has seen the light of day under the Kitech and Kangnam labels as well. Wouldn't surprize me in the least if it's also what's hiding in the Zhengdefu box.

[upnorth]

My understanding is that the old Revell kit has it's origins in Tsukuda's molds

[ChernayaAkula]

Does the old kit have the downward sloping nose as in the boxart? From a purely aesthetic point of view, that looks downright gorgeous! 

<...> Kitdrek <...>

That's not too bad either!

[upnorth]

Does the old kit have the downward sloping nose as in the boxart? From a purely aesthetic point of view, that looks downright gorgeous! 

It doesn't appear to, going by the pictures of it's Kangnam incarnation at this website:

http://www.modellversium.de/galerie/8-flugzeuge-modern/2618-mig-31-foxhound-kangnam.html

[ChernayaAkula]

Hmm, too bad. That would've been a redeeming feature. At least for us whiffers.