The Worst Instructions

[The Rat]

Anyone who has built the Hobbycrap kit of the CF-100 has had to gotten a laugh out of the drawings in the instructions.

Think they hired some 5th grader who did a great job but still not sure about the slot for the stabilizer.

Building one right now, and I fully concur. 

[Rheged]

Classic 'Chingrish'!

Here's my entry, an absolutely horrid Russian kit that was supposed to be a MiG-19, but actually bore no relationship to any aircraft living or dead. It was a cheap reproduction of an already horrid Lindberg kit:

My little sister, who has interpreter -class Russian language skills, tells me that this is  not very good Russian at all! Slovenly was her word for it!

[Weaver]

Not exactly "worst", but I found out the hard way that the instructions for the revel 1/72nd Marder IFV have an error in them. It has solid, link'n'length tracks, and the instructions show the wrong number and position of individual links around the sprockets to get them to actually match up....

[kitnut617]

The worst ones that I've found in the kits I've got would be the Marquette Vickers Wellington sheet.  The plastic is made from the Not-Released Frog moulds so there's no instructions.  So Marquette just copied the Airfix instructions --- the only problem with that is none of the plastic shapes are the same, and that means everything from wings to small detail parts like u/c.  It's all different and for a first timer would have been very confusing.

Here's an example, the silver plastic is the Airfix kit;



The instruction sheet;



The only thing they added in was the long fuselage window as the Airfix kit doesn't have these.  Everything else explains how the Airfix kit goes together   

[Tojo633]

I think you will find that these are in fact copies of the instructions as per Novo bagged releases or whatever eastern bloc country these were moulded in during the past 10 to 20 years or so. I picked up one of the bagged ones at the Stirling model show (Scottish Nationals) and I am dating that as between 1990 to 1996 I think based on the fact I took my ex along and I have not been involved with her since 1995. Instructions are a mix match of both Airfix and Novo.
Cheers
Sandy

[kitnut617]

I think you will find that these are in fact copies of the instructions as per Novo bagged releases or whatever eastern bloc country these were moulded in during the past 10 to 20 years or so. I picked up one of the bagged ones at the Stirling model show (Scottish Nationals) and I am dating that as between 1990 to 1996 I think based on the fact I took my ex along and I have not been involved with her since 1995. Instructions are a mix match of both Airfix and Novo.
Cheers
Sandy

I have an old Airfix Wellington and the instructions are basically the same, just the windows are different.  But I would agree that they probably came from the Novo kit as that too was from the Frog moulds.  If you look at the instruction sheet, it shows moving ailerons, elevators and rudders, none of which is in the Frog kit as they're all moulded as one.  Same with the engine nacelles, turrets are different, how the undercarriage goes together too, the Frog kit has some sort of friction clip which allows you to either fold or extend the u/c, something the Airfix kit just doesn't have.

[Weaver]

Oh I know it's shooting dead fish in a barrel, but translation errors always amuse me, mostly for the oddball mental images they conjure up. These from the old KP Aero C-3A:

"The airplane C-3A is a self-supporting, all-metal, low wing monoplane with double vertical tale planes".

I wonder what tales they tell eh?  

"A half-stiffened, hydraulic retrectable undercarriage is embeded into the back part of the engine nacelles. The spur is unretractable. A rib-beam, geometric crossed wing with a supporting dural cover is equiped by little wings of mixed construction and up-lift flaps, attached to the rear wing-beam by means of a long hanger."

"The version C-3B differed at first sight from the airplane C-3A with the shoot firers tower with a machinegun 131 N and the same machinegun in a joint on the right side of the fuselage."

"Sporadic existed airplanes of this version with a diverse inner arrangement corresponding to the transport of prominent personalities."

"In the fiftieth these ,,Siebels'' supplemented the aircraft technique of the aeroclub SVAZARM. With the origin painting and a civil marking these airplanes C-3 compiled in SVAZARM their career which is remembered by witnesses with a light nostalgia."

All through the text it uses "fiftieth" instead of "fifties" (i.e. the 1950s).

Mistranslations have a beauty all their own, and the choice of words, which is often merely more "non-standard" than definitively wrong causes you to pause and think about the meanings of words and how you use them yourself. I quite like the idea of sporadically exisiting airplanes with tale planes and shoot firers towers being remembered with a light nostalgia....

[McColm]

I must admit defeat in the Matchbox amt 1/25 Ford Capri II 'American Lincoln Mecury Capri 1974'. The box art shows the Capri with front air skirt and no bumpers. The instructions for the engine build are very vague and include adding the bumpers in the build.
amt are usually very good with their instruction sheets.

[Dork the kit slayer]

Instructions are for the weak. 

I was wondering when someone would bring this up. lol

along with the " we dont need your steeenkin distructions"

[Weaver]

Thought I'd revive this thread, since I picked up some 'classics' at Telford.

From a Piper L-4H by KP

(mostly the translation was fine, but this conjured up images)

The fuel tank and engine are attached to a metal fire-wale in the front fuselage section.


From an Su-9B by Unda (a Moldovan company):

The first feight of SU-9B took place in 1956 and later on it was demonstrated during an aircraft show at Tushino.

It's new constructive elements were verified during the experimental flights: plane cabine, new engine, board equipment and the armament. The first prototype of SU-9B was T-43, alarge number of units and assemlies of which were borrowed from SU-7B and namely: radio-locating drift sight and recognition device. The armaments consisted of 4 rockets 'Air-Air' [2 of them with radio-location control, and the other 2-with infra-red head pointing]. Besdies that, there were 2 petrol tankes of 600 l. ander the fuselage.


From a Sky Powerful Net by Jia Sheng (some sort of sci-fi racing car from a series called Redsun Racers)

• STREAMLINED BODY FOR MIRACLE RUNNING
• EASY ASSEMBLY
• REQUILES TWO UM3 (AA) BATTERIES

IMPORTANT:

• High speed running properly on race-course (pipe race-course).
• Powerful banked steeply to turning.
• Playing with your friends is more exciting than you alone.  
• 2 levels of speed for you "SPEED/POWER"

INTRODUCTION:

• This model is running by 2 wheels properly on race-course.
• Streamlined body for miracle running.
• Be done with "Quick Action" when installing skid wheel on the front.
• Running shaft (back side) by propeller when installing motor on the front.
• 2 kinds of rate of gear for selection.
• Easy saaembly. (by hand & screws)

IT WILL CHANGE THE DIRECTION IN THE DIFFERENT SITUATION OF THE ROAD

[Captain Canada]

Well, I guess that would depend on what kind of friends you have ! lol Good ones tho !

[jcf]

The Redsun Racers are a ripoff of the Tamiya Dangun Racer racing toy series.

http://www.tamiya.com/english/dangun/d_top.htm

[Weaver]

Ah, thanks Jon. I thought they must be some kind of rip-off because of the VV logo that looks Tamiya-ish but has nothing to do with "Jia Sheng", but I hadn't enough info for a Google search to make the connection.

[Weaver]

Okay it's not a model kit, but I feel this deserves to be shared:





From here: https://twitter.com/Whoozley/status/717803813491572736

[zenrat]

That can't be real can it?