Jakko
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Oct 9, 2024
- Messages
- 614
In what terms? Product range, typical kit prices, quality of moulding, ease of construction?
I'll assume you mean the latter two
Molding quality is generally pretty good, no flash and the parts fit together well or even tightly. Takom's major problem is their instructions: they are well-drawn and clear, but nobody at the company seems to have ever built an actual model kit — they seemingly only assemble them on a computer and base their instructions on that.
For example, in their M29 Weasel kits, they have you build the suspension like this:
This doesn't seem too bad, but you will need to know that each of those little roadwheels, bottom centre, is about 6 mm diameter and at best, 1 mm thick. On a computer, they of course fit perfectly on the axles, while IRL they wobble all over the place, which makes it exceedingly difficult to line all 64 of them up properly. And only once those wheels are on the suspension beam, do they want you to add the pivots (A19 and A21, bottom right) around that beam, which is extremely fiddly: A19 is a little triangular piece maybe 2 mm on a side.
Next step is to add these assemblies to the hull, to which you've attached leaf springs and connecting rods in the previous step of the instructions, and the track goes on in the next step. However, there is no positive locating pin at all to ensure those springs and rods are at the correct angle relative to the hull — and no, the leaf springs don't go all the way against the bump stops, a mistake many people building this kit make because they have never been in a position to take photos like this:
The end result is a suspension that is almost impossible to put together as it should, really because in a computer everything will line up fine. But a plastic kit is not the same as the parts for it on a computer screen
Okay, I admit this is an extreme example of a kit of a very small vehicle (an M29 Weasel is the size of a Willys Jeep) with a very intricate, delicate suspension with too many fiddly parts. More generally, my point remains that if you build a Takom kit, you should look very carefully at the instructions and decide if you want to follow their build sequence or if doing so will make things difficult later on. Anything they have you build as a subassembly, you shoud look at whether this is actually doable, or if you'd rather build it in situ, or perhaps fit it earlier or later than you're directed to.
Aside from that, though, I like Takom kits They build quite well, even if they sometimes include parts that are a little too intricate, and they do subjects hardly anybody else even contemplates.
I'll assume you mean the latter two
Molding quality is generally pretty good, no flash and the parts fit together well or even tightly. Takom's major problem is their instructions: they are well-drawn and clear, but nobody at the company seems to have ever built an actual model kit — they seemingly only assemble them on a computer and base their instructions on that.For example, in their M29 Weasel kits, they have you build the suspension like this:
This doesn't seem too bad, but you will need to know that each of those little roadwheels, bottom centre, is about 6 mm diameter and at best, 1 mm thick. On a computer, they of course fit perfectly on the axles, while IRL they wobble all over the place, which makes it exceedingly difficult to line all 64 of them up properly. And only once those wheels are on the suspension beam, do they want you to add the pivots (A19 and A21, bottom right) around that beam, which is extremely fiddly: A19 is a little triangular piece maybe 2 mm on a side.
Next step is to add these assemblies to the hull, to which you've attached leaf springs and connecting rods in the previous step of the instructions, and the track goes on in the next step. However, there is no positive locating pin at all to ensure those springs and rods are at the correct angle relative to the hull — and no, the leaf springs don't go all the way against the bump stops, a mistake many people building this kit make because they have never been in a position to take photos like this:
The end result is a suspension that is almost impossible to put together as it should, really because in a computer everything will line up fine. But a plastic kit is not the same as the parts for it on a computer screen
Okay, I admit this is an extreme example of a kit of a very small vehicle (an M29 Weasel is the size of a Willys Jeep) with a very intricate, delicate suspension with too many fiddly parts. More generally, my point remains that if you build a Takom kit, you should look very carefully at the instructions and decide if you want to follow their build sequence or if doing so will make things difficult later on. Anything they have you build as a subassembly, you shoud look at whether this is actually doable, or if you'd rather build it in situ, or perhaps fit it earlier or later than you're directed to.
Aside from that, though, I like Takom kits
They build quite well, even if they sometimes include parts that are a little too intricate, and they do subjects hardly anybody else even contemplates.
