Rant of the day

[Rubenandres77]

Decided to put this here since I won't ever finish this kit,
and doesn't even deserves a space in the reviews thread.

Very few things are so disappointing as finding a promising kit
that turns out to be a huge heap of crap.





The Steampunk Aero carriage designed by Sirius Artworks (Richard Cherry) is exactly that.
I can only deeply regret the money I wasted printing this kit
and the couple of hours I spent starting it this morning.


I started this as a way of warming up my hands again in paper modeling,
and to try a completely new subject.

Steampunk has its own weird attractiveness.
And this kit looked unusual and interesting.


The first seam looks fine.





But then I crashed into this on the other side:



A quite conspicuous 9mm discrepance.

That produces a most horrible fitting problem:





Death by fire is too big a honor for this abomination.



When I found the mistakes I pondered whether to keep on building
and start modifying/detailing. I believed the kit had potential.

I also found that a Czech modeler managed to build a good part of the kit.
And even though he found some more mistakes and managed to make
a few modifications, there is no photo of a finished model.
Pap



But in the end I thought that such a huge mistake in the beginning
is just a red flag of what would come in the end, and decided that
I don’t love steampunk so much as to work deeply on it.

Patience doing something I can’t trust is not exactly one of my virtues,
and I tend to have zero tolerance towards badly designed kits.

I knew that I would spend many more hours hating the designer as I built,
rather than loving the model as it was completed.

The effort fixing this kit would probably be equal to starting it from scratch.

Needless to say I won’t ever go back to this designer
or anything remotely similar.

Not a great way to come back to paper modelling.
I will rather stick to my usual subjects.

Related - a short video expressing my feelings:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84zY33QZO5o



Yeah, I know I'm probably being childish.

[sgoti]

Originally Posted by Rubenandres77

Yeah, I know I'm probably being childish.

Nah, you're just expressing yourself in the most succinct way possible.

I sincerely than you, as this kit has been on my "must attempt soon" list for quite some time. Now that I see it's... a bit of a challenge due to insufficiencies in design, I will pass on it.

Thanks for the heads-up!

[looker]

Phew!
Remind me never to put a design anywhere you might come across it.

Yes, a few minutes with screen captures in a CAD program confirms there are some severe difficulties. Surely a simple advice of the difficulties you found would have sufficed.

At the same time there's enough info in the kit for anyone with adequate skills to correct the errors and present their own interpetation of an amusing concept.

[goodduck]

OMG! I feel your pain.

[airdave]

Sometimes things happen when packaging up the final model.
A part accidentally gets stretched, or resized without the author realizing.
I've done it myself! ...but I'm usually the one that catches the problem and fixes it.

The fuselage of the Aero Carriage is made up of tubular (ring) sections.
Because of the scale, each fuselage ring is split into two parts(halves).
The Nose is a single part, but with many tulip cut/connections creating a domed structure with a pre-set diameter.

The Nose section connects to the "first" Fuselage ring - Parts B2 + B3
The "first" ring connects to the second ring (Parts B4 + B5)...
as shown in Ruben's original post and photos.

So...the diameter of the first Fuselage ring does not match the diameter of the second.
One of these fuselage sections has been slightly enlarged or reduced in scale.

Trick is, find out which one, and make a simple sale adjustment while printing.

Try assembling and fitting the Nose cone to Parts B2/B3.
If they don't match, B2/B3 is the problem.
If they fit okay, then its possible that B4/B5 have been reduced in scale.
You will need to verify by fitting section three (B6 + B7)

I can't comment on any other fit issues within the model.
I haven't gone any further with my examination.
This could just be a case of one part being (accidentally) incorrectly resized at some point.
Or, as you said, it could be a sign of worse things to come.
But I think you need to analyze and confirm before you condemn the model and designer completely.

Its a good thing you didn't pay for the kit!
But I understand your frustration wasting printing and cardstock costs!!

[Vermin_King]

I thought it was just me. I tried this a few years ago and never completed it. My skills weren't very good back then (slightly better now). At the time, I just chalked it up to me messing it up. And it has been on my list to come back to, but maybe not now...

[Sakrison]

Originally Posted by airdave

I think you need to analyze and confirm before you condemn the model and designer completely.

I understand the frustration of starting a kit that fails to deliver the goods. I've started my share of kits that bombed.

If one has purchased the kit, anger may be justified. Designers and publishers who ask us to pay for their kits have an added responsibility to ensure that we get what was promised. Still, errors can happen.

When it's a free kit, we owe the designer something, if only the courtesy of providing a little constructive criticism. As AirDave points out, gremlins can creep in at any stage of the process and no designer puts out a kit that is purposely designed to fail.

Designers who offer us their kits for purchase or free do us a great favor by expanding our choices and enlarging the hobby. We should think very carefully before telling any designer to pack up his creativity and go home.

[airdave]

I still say "test build your own model before you put it out".
There are way too many designers putting out models with no clue as to how well they go together.
You know who you are.

Some have improved over the years, mainly due to whining and complaining by folks like me,
but they still rely on other people testing their models.
The model might be free, but they forget about the costs involved for those test builders.

The designer should at least build the first one...the first release...
and leave only the mods and "repaints" to the test builders.

In this case, a simple test build of the final product would have revealed the major flaw.
For a small, non-descript, free internet model, that wouldn't be as big a deal.
But this model got a big release, with a lot of promotion, and nice packaging.

Don't go away mad!...just go away, fix the model, and come back with more!

[Graham]

Fully understand your rage, and it does remind me of a purchase sometime ago I made of a British flying boat, similar problems with parts not lining up properly. When I raised the matter with the seller I was told to "kit bash it". Not really the response I was looking for as a novice. G

[Sakrison]

Originally Posted by airdave

I still say "test build your own model before you put it out".

Don't go away mad!...just go away, fix the model, and come back with more!

Amen! Amen!