mistakes on plans , bad wood , wrong laser cutting , mistakes everywhere , whats the worst experience
youve ever had trying to build a kit?

I started on a TopFlite F-4 Phantom, the one with a 60 and propeller in the front. Parts missing, and you had to some how figure out how to get an aileron torque rod in an aileron that was inside and acute angle. Sold it off un finished.

Great planes PT- 20.. The wood and die cutting was bad, Terrible experience.

AMR Trainer 26. Of course, it's the ONLY kit I've ever built, so it's also the BEST kit I've ever built!

The laser cut parts are very well done and the kit goes together nicely. From the standpoint of a tecnical writer, the manual could use improvement. Luckily, the folks down the road at AMR are easy to reach and happy to help.

Sterling Real Sporty,,http://www.rcuniverse.com/market/item.cfm?itemId=953069

worst kit ever,, the die crunch was unbelievably bad, not one part came out cleanly, the fit of parts was so bad as hard as I tried the fuse had a bad warp,,I never finished it

Circus Hobbies Reed Falcon biplane. Die crushed wood, bad instructions, and bad engineering. No jig tabs, shims, or provision of any sort for building the fully symetrical wing and getting it straight!

I thought the Sig 1/6th kit was tough when I first built it.
It wasn't a horrible kit, but it was a tough build with OLD techniques. Seemed so frail and strange the way things were built on it. It did however turn out with a wingloading similar to a Sig Senior. I was dumb enough to sell it 20 years ago ! hahahaha
Now it would have been a KILLER electric plane.

That would be the Great Planes 60 size Cub. What a POS. That was maybe 20 years ago. I have only
seen maybe two or three since then. The tail group has to be the hardest wood on the planet. The
landing gear sucked. I never finished the POS.One sorry excuse for a Cub kit.

Without a doubt the Telemaster 40 V2. The manual did not match the build sequence. There were steps that shouldn't have been in there and steps that were missing. The kit was missing a bunch of parts and there were parts in it that didn't go on the plane. The manual didn't have any control throws in it and not a thing about pushrod location or installation or even electronic locations. I have been building and flying for a long time and I only bought a telemaster because I had one years ago and thought it would be cool to have another one. I could figure out everything but I really doubt a beginner could build it. It was just stupid.

1/4 scale Dr1 built from a Laser Lizard short kit and Uncle Willies plans. Lazar Lizard did an excellent job cutting the parts, but the plans are total crap. Uncle Willie says that his Dr1 plans are the most stolen plans on the planet, think he's trying to say that they're so great that everyone steals them, but honestly I think modelers are stealing them to keep unsuspecting modelers from building from them. The majority of the time I spent on the build was reengineering things so the you could actually get the airplane together.

Any old Berkely kit and many of the Sterling kits. Di crunched both Mfg's and the Berkely philosophy seemed to be why use one or two pieces to make a part (aileron) when you can engineer it to use 20 little flimsy pieces glued together to make the same part.

Anything from greatplanes lately.... rock hard balsa wood, warped plywood... Have been forced to replace most of it during builds.

Tidewater Hobbies (sold by Circus Hobbies, now known as Horizon Hobby) Sportee 60. Completely unbuildable. Bad wood, bad laser cutting, plans and instruction manual showed the 40 size instead of the 60, crazy engineering, no hardware and some really obvious attempts to reduce the cost of manufacturing the kit to the absolute minimum.

I do a lot of scratch building, so I was able to substitute, redesign, replace and otherwise get it built and flown. It flies OK, but the ailerons are very slow to respond, even at 35 degrees deflection.

Anyone want to buy it?

Well after 77 years of building starting with Comet kit's peanut size and all most every other brand to 1/5 warbird's I don't remember any kit wood foam and composite that did not have a problem of some sort, but that is why we are called builders we innovate when needed. But I have to say it took about a dozen Comet kits before I figured out how to make them fly more the an arms length, but they sure did crash nice.

Cheers Bob T

So Circus Hobbies became Horizon Hobby. I didn't know that. Thanks for the "news". Now as to the worst kit......I seem to have built something from almost all the manufactures already listed. Tidewater Hobbies, Top Flight, Great Planes, Berkely, and some from others not yet listed, Cleveland Models, Comet, Carl Goldberg, and Harold Debolt. You know what, they all flew, and I learned something with each build. It was those early 50's print board kits that Trained me to be able to assemble and redesign today's modern ARF's so that they also all fly (and usually stay in one piece, at least while still in the air). So my worst kit ever wasn't a kit but an ARF, several ARFs in fact. CMP 60 size Spitfire (main gear retracts were located aft of the C/G on a taildragger), H-9 giant PT-19 (wing didn't fit in the saddle area), and then there were two different World Models Cubs that had serious wing root issues. Fixed them all and made them fly thanks to those 50's print board kits, because if you can build and fly one of those, you can fix and fly anything!

Has to be a Lanier Shrike 40 kit. I swear the fuselage sides moved on the laser cutting table because when you laid one on top the other it had to be off by at least 1/2 inch. Had to cut a new fuselage side using the one good one as a pattern.

Just slapped together a pt-60 with a dle20 for a fun mess around airplane, kit was fantastic

Sterling Ringmaster back in the 60's. I swear Sterling used a dull axe swung by a blind man to cut the parts. Back in that day, who would have ever dreamed of CNC routers and laser cutters.

Bill Hodges

In the past 2 years I've built their RV-4, Decathlon, and have their ultimate and top-flite's p-40. ( top-flite and greatplanes are both hobbico... )

The kits fly really well, they also go together really well, I just hate the wood they are shipping with them

I'll have to say that I've built many, many GP kits. Most all had quite a bit of wood that was entirely too heavy and dense....... so much so that it could barely be cut with a Zona saw! I'm currently building the GP Ultimate .40 and ran into this with the tail wood. Now, the wing sheeting they provided was top notch and I was extremely pleased with it!

Sterling anything. Die crunch wood. Rock hard balsa for one side. Soft balsa for other side. Ect ect

30 years of building. worst plane kit I ever had was a JHH Mirage. So bad, ( mostly horrible glass work and raw materials ) I sent it back and they made me eat a restock for it! Funny thing with the JHH model, I spoke with them directly prior to ordering. The owner praised at the quality of their molds and kit contents. Needless to say, they were horrible snotty lay ups. looked like a toddler played with resin and let it run, drip and puddle all over inside and let it cure that way and tried to include as many pea size air bubbles as possible. Truly the worst glass work Ive ever seen, not worth .02 of the hundreds I paid and then the portion lost on return shipping and restock. complete failure of quality.

Worst boat kit I ever had was a Dumas Bluefish, someone tossed the hot styrene parts around and ruined their shapes before they could cool and harden. I emailed Dumas 3x with pictures and they never responded. never again will I buy JHH Jets or Dumas Boats. .

Now you know why ARFs eventually took over.

A couple of different Sterling kits. They were just horrible.

Any of the Sig Success Series kits. I built 2. One Sukhoi and one ME 109. I built the 109 for a magazine review. The fuse was plywood and weighed a ton. For the review I recut the fuse sides out of balsa to fix the problem. Lost the airplane on the first flight. After doing some measuring I figured the tail was too small so you couldn't slow it up. The magazine refused to publish the review. Then I won the Sukhoi at a contest. That kit was no better. Threw all the plywood away and replaced it with contest grade balsa. Made the tail 30% bigger. The airplane flew great for a lot of flights. Lost it to a bad receiver battery. Was thrilled when Sig stopped making those kits.