What I really hate is the prep time spent on indy links. Like cleaning off sprue from DML's why do they do that so many attachment points? Tamiya did a great job with their indy links easy to clean up. Drilling out the holes on Fruili tracks drives me nuts! I'm doing a set for a 38t and and a t 26 god are they small! it takes a ful day to prep them all. why do I do this to myself. LOL I like the way they look I guess. Oh well back to drilling!

#:-)

The whole clean up process. Many times I spend more time removing flash and molding lines than building the kit itself. Although these babies are getting better and better.

Two big things that drive me up the wall are

1. The really big difference in plastic/material quality from company to company, and even within kits made by the same company it seems

2. Any time I have to use super glue to stick resin, photo etch, or any other type of non styrene plastic part on as part of an assembly. It will never fail, ALWAYS end up gluing to gether my finger or tweezers to together.

The thing that bother me at the moment is parts molded smaller than the bit of sprue holding it... meaning I break it when trying to get it off...
(I was warned about the brush-guards of the M88, but still it happened....)

I'm with Sabot and the others: poor fit. There's just no excuse for that except laziness on the part of the manufacturer.
I don't mind road wheels, even painting them, since I use a circle template. Just a matter of mass production. I once had at least 3 Tamiya Panzer IV vehicles going at once for a collection I did.

Sort of agreeing w Rob here.
I really dislike kits that you have to be a 47armed hindu goddess to assemble. Kits that seemingly no one built one as it appears in the box.
The Academy Blackhawk 1/35th seats come to mind here..

Or when you do not get a positive fit location for a part that then , if not accidentally done exactly done right, will interfere with a major component later. OH58 instrument coaming step 3-4, canopy glass glass 17 steps later.

My US$0.02

Mike

So many good previous choices and don't know what to choose
For me I have to go with first rule of 'Newton's Modeling Law" --
1.) All your perfectly test fitted and perfectly fitting pieces fit perfectly.....UNTIL....
you put that drop of glue on and want to attach it to the kit.

Wayne

What do I hate the most in a model????

Usually bad breath and hairy arm pits!!!!!!!

Couldn't resist that one folks...........

A few eastern european kits I built, had one or two exploded drawings...... must have been 20th generation photocopys ..... arrows and explanations were illegable. It was just guess work as to where small parts went.
The thick sprues attached to small parts is another.
My lates grievence and the one that has annoyed me most since I started modelling is italeri tracks. I like Italeri, as far as value for money goes and their interesting line of kits, but their tracks do suck!

I also have many of problems with ill-fitting models...especially armor. Its also really bad with figures because you can loose many necessary details sanding and filing...
I have a t-18 tank that I've been working on for what it seems months. I havent even gotton to the painting yet. This was a very bad kit, and many of the peices did not properly fit. Also for the size of the many there were alot if peices, and they were all tiny, but none of them went into place right. The turret (that is usually 1 or 2 peices), consists of 11 peices, and thas without machineguns, periscopes, ect. There are gaps in some parts of the tank that I could almost fit my brush th rough. Also the tracks (single peice) dont fit together correctly at all. I have a feeling that I will be going through a few tubes of filler for this one (Its not that big either).
One other thing that gets me, is when I have a model fully assembled and painted, when I realize that I did something wrong.

Katyusha

The things that bug me most are repetitive tasks, like having to build 10 of some assembly or painting roadwheels, and over-engineered subassemblies. I can't stand it when some mold maker appears to want to show everyone how well he can make tiny parts by turning a five-piece assembly into a 31 piece nightmare. My basic requirement is that a subassembly look right. If I want every last detail depicted, I'll do it myself. I don't want this sort of assembly forced on me by some too pleased with themselves kit manufacturer.
Okay, I'm done with my rant. I'll get off my soapbox now and take my medication.

I don't like kits with bad fit and lots of deep, exposed ejector/sink marks, because these need putty to fix - and I'm not good with putty!

Tiny little parts and fragile subassemblies, though great for detail, are incredibly annoying to put together! It's not exactly the manufacturers' faults that not everything in the real world scales down to things that can be built nicely, but c'mon!

As an example of this, I was working on my Academy M113 Fitter the other day, and it had a (plastic) tool rack that you folded into shape like you would a photoetched part! It was incredibly frustrating to put together (the damn racks kept snapping and it turned into a mess VERY quickly! Hope the paint covers it up!), one of the few low points of the kit (the other being an interior riddled with ejector pin marks)

Individual links may be favored for realism by a lot of people, but kits with them tend to be more annoying - those things are fragile and tedious to put together. I can see the added potential for realism they give, though.

I think more companies (DML, this means YOU!) should follow Academy's trend of giving BOTH indie-links and rubber-bands! If they can do it, and still deliver at a reasonable price with boatloads of detail, then there's no reason everyone else can't!

Bad fitting in major parts as hulls, halfs of fuselage and stuff like that . You can make it ..but is a pain always

What I hate most well.......

My no.1 enemy would be Flashing and Mould Lines!
I know there to be expected, but some times its a bit OTT

2nd Would be Poor Detail.............that frankly.........Sucks!

With todays meathods surely it can be easier to stop or improve on such things?

I agree with the original post. The fit og the kit is the most important thing for me. If the model looks like what it's supposed to be I'm happy. But I hate filling and sanding with a passion. Especially if I'm working on an expensive kit.
Chuck

Try one drop of CA glue to fill the ejector pin mark. Then hit it with one drop of CA Kicker. You can sand it immediately and I find this easier than the whole putty process.

Patrick

I hate sink holes, especially on leaf springs, and wheels that come in two halves

On AFV road wheels , on planes, masking canopies, on ships, getting that perfect waterline

Sean

When it says For ages 9 and up and I can't figure out the stupid instructions

In a word INACCURACY

Nothing makes me madder than plunking down my hard earned bucks and after the box is opened realizing I going to spend a heck of a lot of time on making this dog accurate. I'm not talking about grab handles molded close - that pretty easy to fix. No I'm talking its just plain wrong. Like the Dragon KrettenKrad - they forgot the muffler, the handlebars attach in the wrong spot - things like that.

Trying to accurately fold up tiny PE assemblies. Makes me want to swear off PE every time!