The Worst Instructions

[Snowtrooper]

As everyone remembers, the old Italeri kits had this short piece of the subject's history on the box, translated to several languages. Mind you, this was before Google Translate, but somehow, whoever was responsible for the Finnish translation managed to do even worse. The text did have Finnish words for the most part (with plenty of funny spelling mistakes) but at best it was extremely clumsy, at worst (ie. most often) unintelligible. Sometimes the translator invented new words that did not mean anything - quick comparison revealed that the word was not in the other languages' versions, so this must have been a genuine effort to translate but gone horribly wrong.

Oh well, at least the instructions themselves were drawings instead of verbal descriptions...

[Weaver]

That can't be real can it?

Have you read the rest of this thread? 

[The Rat]

This is the back of a package of a product for cleaning computer screens. I think we may have bought it just for this alone, it has to be shared:

[NARSES2]

I'm convinced half these things are made up, half the funny/strange photo's you see are photo-shopped for sure.

[Dizzyfugu]

I currently fight with the instructions of my Heller Jaguar A kit. While every part is listed in the diagrams, the latter are so inconclusive in detail that you have to guess how the parts are supposed to be actually mounted.

[Gondor]

Most early Hasegawa kit instructions, usually from the early 70's or so as usually quite bad. Had to look over the instruction sheet, just the one folded page, several times to find the painting instructions for some parts not to mention the vague location for some parts.

Gondor

[JayBee]

A little bit off subject but still to do with the problems of translation from one language to another.

Many years ago I read an issue of Punch magazine which was a special issue for the British Motor Show.
It had an article concerning the pre WW2 British Highway Code which had been translated into either Japanese or Chinese (I can not remember which).
For this issue of Punch they had done a littoral translation back into English.
I do remember two absolute classics in it :

"If a passenger of the foot hove into view, Tootle on the horn.
If they do not take notice, Tootle melodiously on the horn."

..and the one that I regard as an absolute classic :

"Beware the muddy places, for there lurks the skid Dragon!"

[Weaver]

"If a passenger of the foot hove into view, Tootle on the horn.
If they do not take notice, Tootle melodiously on the horn."

Wow - my mum used to quote that one for a laugh but she could never rememeber where she'd read it! Cheers! 

[zenrat]

That can't be real can it?

Have you read the rest of this thread? 

Yes (well, skimmed it and a lot of the pictures are missing), but those were model kit instructions.  Now I don't know about how you build but if I get it wrong my models don't explode and kill me like a gas powered heater could.

As it's been raining i'm off down the end of the garden to look for the skid dragon...

[Weaver]

That can't be real can it?

Have you read the rest of this thread? 

Yes (well, skimmed it and a lot of the pictures are missing), but those were model kit instructions.  Now I don't know about how you build but if I get it wrong my models don't explode and kill me like a gas powered heater could.

As it's been raining i'm off down the end of the garden to look for the skid dragon...

Well we don't know how bad the rest of the heater instructions are, just that they used 'plague' for 'plaque' or 'panel'. The other instructions are for a camping table that might inosculate but probably won't explode either.

[NARSES2]

I've still got a few old Japanese kits where the instructions are in Japanese but the drawings are fairly self explanatory. The worst instructions are on some older Czech resin kits where the "instructions" are one very poorly hand drawn exploded diagram of all the bits with arrows showing where they go. It's when the bit fits underneath the aircraft, the underside is very rarely shown, where it gets very interesting 

Ah the glorious days of the 60's when the instructions actually named the parts so you learned as you built  And yes I know why that no longer happens

[Old Wombat]

Ah the glorious days of the 60's when the instructions actually named the parts so you learned as you built  And yes I know why that no longer happens

You do?

Care to enlighten a brother modeller who missed that memo?

(Being out of the model-making fraternity loop for most of your life doesn't help with these snippets. )

[jcf]

Ah the glorious days of the 60's when the instructions actually named the parts so you learned as you built  And yes I know why that no longer happens

You do?

Care to enlighten a brother modeller who missed that memo?

(Being out of the model-making fraternity loop for most of your life doesn't help with these snippets. )

Common with Revell back in the day.






From the Drastic Plastics collection of instructions, this one posted by a character calling himself Fred zenrat. 
http://public.fotki.com/drasticplasticsmcc/mkiba-build-under-c/revell-instructions/straightline-competition/revell_mickey_thomp/

[Old Wombat]

Oh, I remember the educational instructions fine & wish they were still around.

I'm more interested in this sentence.

And yes I know why that no longer happens

[jcf]

Oh, I remember the educational instructions fine & wish they were still around.

I'm more interested in this sentence.

And yes I know why that no longer happens

Because it's cheaper to use non-language specific symbols and illustrations for multiple markets
and it avoids having to print multi-lingual sheets where those are required by local laws.
A few lines of bumpf at the front or on a separate sheet covers those requirements.