Infinity Models Aichi D3A Val

[quang]

23 minutes ago, thierry laurent said:

True but all ICM LSP kits are small and quite simple trainers/fighters. For whatever reason ICM waited a loooonng time before releasing a really large scale complex model. They just did it with the CH-54 helicopter whereas they were already producing plastic kits for... twenty years? In comparison, Infinity just started producing plastic kits... three years ago? Very probably, they should have started first with simpler models.

 

To make it short, like in ancient Greek tragedies, Infinity was killed by hubris.

[thierry laurent]

22 minutes ago, quang said:

To make it short, like in ancient Greek tragedies, Infinity was killed by hubris.

or more probably by the misconception that having a long experience in designing very complex resin kits is comparable to the design of complex plastic models...

[quang]

Agreed. Thinking like: I’ve done complex resin kits in the past. What would prevent me to do complex IM kits in the future?

That’s exactly what I meant by hubris. 

[vince14]

1 hour ago, thierry laurent said:

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it is absolutely impossible to release a TOP quality product very quickly. Wingnuts Wings demonstrated this is possible. However, this is not surprisingly a matter of money as you need the best available tooling, the best researchers, the best CAD designers, etc. etc.

Even WNW spent at least four years working on their kits before the whole thing was revealed to the public.

[thierry laurent]

1 hour ago, vince14 said:

Even WNW spent at least four years working on their kits before the whole thing was revealed to the public.

This just demonstrates that even when the sky is the limit (to your investment), this is far from easy!

[Mark_C]

I'm afraid I cannot agree.  One cannot use their inexperience as an explanation.  HpH has been around for decades.  They've had more than enough experience in producing aircraft, so they should be able to make accurate parts that actually fit.  If there are serious issues with their kits, it's on them.  There really is no excuse for messing up the rear canopy on the SB2C, for example, especially when they already had a quite accurate canopy for their resin version. 

 

I wish them all the luck, but if they are experiencing poor sales they honestly need to look at how their kits have been reviewed.  To quote our own Boyd Waechter on his Helldiver build:

 

Quote

Unfortunately, this first effort let us all down to some degree. The major parts (fuselage, wings, tail surfaces, clear parts) are very nicely done, but everything else in the kit suffers from poor fit and soft details. Every part has to be cleaned-up, plus vague instructions, etc. . . . It took me over five months working on it off and on to finally finish this model, one of the hardest kits I’ve built in a long time. Several times it almost ended up sailing out my second-floor hobby room into the backyard for the dog to chew on. Besides the soft details, the runners are oversize and run into each part making clean-up an extended chore. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent just cleaning up each part to make them usable.

 

 

[thierry laurent]

If it is not inexperience or misconception about the challenge, what can be the explanation? I'm surely not saying my standpoint is correct but very frankly I do not see any other logical reason. 

[CRAZY IVAN5]

3 minutes ago, Mark_C said:

I'm afraid I cannot agree.  One cannot use their inexperience as an explanation.  HpH has been around for decades.  They've had more than enough experience in producing aircraft, so they should be able to make accurate parts that actually fit.  If there are serious issues with their kits, it's on them.  There really is no excuse for messing up the rear canopy on the SB2C, for example, especially when they already had a quite accurate canopy for their resin version. 

 

I wish them all the luck, but if they are experiencing poor sales they honestly need to look at how their kits have been reviewed.  To quote our own Boyd Waechter on his Helldiver build:

 

 

 

Well, that kind of sums things up a bit . On top of the fact that their kits cost as much as they do doesn't help either. I don't really mind spending top dollar for a kit as long as it's "top drawer" in the box. I do mind if I have to fight the thing tooth fang and nail every inch of the way, life is too short. 

[quang]

26 minutes ago, Mark_C said:

There really is no excuse for messing up the rear canopy on the SB2C, for example, especially when they already had a quite accurate canopy for their resin version. 

… for the same reason that ICM (or Tamiya for that matter) cannot produce an injected styrene figure with the same details and definition as a polyurethane figure born from a silicone rubber mould. Even ZM offered their Hartmann figure in resin.

Different processes, different constraints and… different results.

[DeanKB]

1 hour ago, Mark_C said:

I'm afraid I cannot agree.  One cannot use their inexperience as an explanation.  HpH has been around for decades.  They've had more than enough experience in producing aircraft, so they should be able to make accurate parts that actually fit.  If there are serious issues with their kits, it's on them.  There really is no excuse for messing up the rear canopy on the SB2C, for example, especially when they already had a quite accurate canopy for their resin version. 

 

I wish them all the luck, but if they are experiencing poor sales they honestly need to look at how their kits have been reviewed.  To quote our own Boyd Waechter on his Helldiver build:

 

 

 

HpH's Walrus kit is an enormous pain in the arse. It looks bloody superb in the box - everything has been included, loads of detail - but HpH's focus has been the design and manufacture of the kit, NOT the experience the customer will have building it.

 

I can only assume they either didn't bother doing any test builds, or the person who did the test build builds complex HpH resin kits for a bloody living!!

[thierry laurent]

1 hour ago, DeanKB said:

...or the person who did the test build builds complex HpH resin kits for a bloody living!!

I think this is probably the case. As far as I'm remembering this is always the same set of Czech names I'm seeing and it looks the guys are not the 'John Doe' average modeller...

[Mark_C]

3 hours ago, thierry laurent said:

If it is not inexperience or misconception about the challenge, what can be the explanation? I'm surely not saying my standpoint is correct but very frankly I do not see any other logical reason. 

 

I do not want to venture into the minds of the designers and builders at Infinity, but I will say that sometimes manufacturers are careless, or decide a problem is not worth fixing, never mind the impression it gives. 

 

When I read about the issues with the Helldiver, it frankly shocked me.  I expected some problems, no kit is perfect, but a rear canopy that has to be chopped up and remade so it's accurate, when the perfectly acceptable resin canopy - which apparently also fit fine on the plastic kit - was readily available, having been produced by the same manufacturer?! now that is just a bit breath-taking.  Did they not look at their own research when they tooled the plastic kit?  Did nobody there actually build one, and compare it to the real thing?  (Please see Ernie (Clunkmeister's) photos on this thread, comparing the plastic kit's canopy with the resin kit's, and his comments on their respective accuracy and fit: https://forum.largescalemodeller.com/topic/17094-infinity-models-sb2c-4-helldiver-finished-well-ok-maybe-not/page/8/

 

 

I do know that errors can happen.  Eduard, for example, wore egg on its face after it released what it claimed (with enormous fanfare) was the absolute best 1/48 Bf 109-G6 ever, only for the reviewers to find it wasn't even the right scale.  But, 2 years later, they issued a corrected G6.  Similarly, Dragon nearly 30 years ago released a horribly inaccurate tank (either a Nashorn or Hummel, can't remember now).  It was excoriated by the reviewers.  Rumor has it Dragon fired the designer; I do not know if that is true, but they did issue a corrected kit.

 

It would have been nice, in my opinion, if Infinity had acknowledged the issue with the canopy (among other things), and actually fixed it.  Errors happen: it's the response when this is called to attention that matters, I think.  It would have cost Infinity not terribly much to offer to replace the plastic canopy with the more accurate, and drop-fit resin one.  And it would given a good impression.

 

Oh, well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[nmayhew]

On 4/23/2023 at 8:12 PM, npb748r said:

just read on Britmodeller this will most likely be the last IM kit, too few staff, complex to deliver, too much other work and not enough sales of their current IM kits. Unless we buy what people produce they won't continue in the market, there are so many people that knock these kits, personally I'd much rather have them with flaws than not have the opportunity to build them.  Such a shame if true.

neil

yes that will be a shame but the easy way they could have avoided this would have been to make better choices of kit, and make the kits better.

 

As much as I have a soft spot for British post war jets… the Vampire?

the Helldiver just did not look that great - rear glazing from some other mystery scale was enough to make that a hard no for me; i mean, wtf were they looking at??

 

if they wanted sales, they should have done the Val first in my view

 

Kotare is supposedly one man and his dog, and yet first kit out of the blocks they have nailed it 

 

so it’s not as impossible as some people are making out

 

 

[DeanKB]

Infinity have discovered that the 1/32 resin & 1/32 injected plastic markets are very, very different. 

 

Their resin kits were sold to real enthusiasts, who expected the kits to need work, as that's just the nature of resin kits. The people who bought them, by and large, had above average skills and were prepared to put the extra work in, mainly because there was no IP version and the resin kit was the best available. It was very much a niche product, and as such HpH could charge a higher price, because their sales volumes were tiny. The general lack of competition in the subject matter they chose also helped. When competition did arise - Revell's excellent Ar-196A-3 springs to mind - it absolutely annihilated HpH's version. 

 

They've now realised - too late - that the IP market is far more demanding, mainly because you are selling to a far bigger niche. The likes of Special Hobby have shown that limited run IP kits can be made to a pretty good quality, and companies like ICM are knocking out high quality, well priced, accurate kits like fun, Roden as well.

 

But HpH have literally made a resin kit and then appear to have simply got the resin kit directly transferred to short-run injected plastic, obviously using the physical resin masters as the basis for the moulds. This has seriously impacted on quality & accuracy, and they know they've messed up. Instead of investing in injected plastic experts, they've decided to retreat back into the niche resin market. Probably a wise business decision, whereas choosing a post-war British jet as your initial subject was a poor decision, showing they were still thinking like resin manufacturers, as the Vampire was never going to sell in volume in 1/32. The Val should at least garner more interest and sales, as it's an absolutely iconic subject and WWII still sells.

[CRAZY IVAN5]

42 minutes ago, DeanKB said:

Infinity have discovered that the 1/32 resin & 1/32 injected plastic markets are very, very different. 

 

Their resin kits were sold to real enthusiasts, who expected the kits to need work, as that's just the nature of resin kits. The people who bought them, by and large, had above average skills and were prepared to put the extra work in, mainly because there was no IP version and the resin kit was the best available. It was very much a niche product, and as such HpH could charge a higher price, because their sales volumes were tiny. The general lack of competition in the subject matter they chose also helped. When competition did arise - Revell's excellent Ar-196A-3 springs to mind - it absolutely annihilated HpH's version. 

 

They've now realised - too late - that the IP market is far more demanding, mainly because you are selling to a far bigger niche. The likes of Special Hobby have shown that limited run IP kits can be made to a pretty good quality, and companies like ICM are knocking out high quality, well priced, accurate kits like fun, Roden as well.

 

But HpH have literally made a resin kit and then appear to have simply got the resin kit directly transferred to short-run injected plastic, obviously using the physical resin masters as the basis for the moulds. This has seriously impacted on quality & accuracy, and they know they've messed up. Instead of investing in injected plastic experts, they've decided to retreat back into the niche resin market. Probably a wise business decision, whereas choosing a post-war British jet as your initial subject was a poor decision, showing they were still thinking like resin manufacturers, as the Vampire was never going to sell in volume in 1/32. The Val should at least garner more interest and sales, as it's an absolutely iconic subject and WWII still sells.

I agree, maybe they'll get their heads out and really jump into the IM arena. I know they have the talent base to do a great job and they've got some very good ideas for future projects. They really need to listen to us ,the consumers when we have constructive criticisms note I said constructive then things will probably go better for them and we win too!