I've been a lurker for a few years, I figured it is due time to say hello.

My main building love is sailing ships, wood and plastic, but I also have been bit by the armor bug. Just bought my first airbrush.

I often get confused how some kits from a given manufacturer can be old tooling and possibly inaccurate and/or poor quality and other kits from the same company are top notch. It makes me very gun shy about buying kits without finding a review first. It would be great if there was one brand that was consistent across their product line, but it is probably asking too much as it isn't true anymore in most industries. (Remember when you could buy anything from Sears and trust it was good quality?)

Andrew, Welcome aboard! I think most of us were lurkers before signing up. Remember, there's no such thing as a dumb question--except for the question that isn't asked. Fire away if you want answers for a particular kit or have questions about how to do something-- somebody here probably has built it, has one on their shelf, or has a technique that will work. There is one model company I know of where you can depend on consistent quality every time, for every one of their kits. That Company is Wingnut Wings (WnW)--Peter Jackson's (Lord of the Rings Peter Jackson) NZ based WWI aircraft model company. I think everyone else has a "dog" in their inventory someplace, but many have some good kits as well.
VR, Russ

Welcome Andrew! Hope you find this as friendly a group as I have. I wanted to ask if you have seen the http://scalemates.com website that has a kit history for a lot of tanks, ships, planes and the like? Best of luck. Please send photos!

Thanks for the welcome! I've seen Wingnuts kits reviewed in FSM I think; had no idea Peter Jackson was behind them. I'll have to give one a try. I'm usually not to much into aircraft, but have been curious about WW I plane kits lately.

I have seen scalemates, neat site and it does help some with aging the kits, but have found that often their links to reviews are dead. Another problem I'm running into is what aftermarket PE kits and the like are available and which model they fit. Scalemates sometimes helps with that. That missing links site is way cool too for the few subjects the've got tweaks lists for. I'm going to get a Hetzer kit at some point just based on that. Not sure which one yet.

I've got a older Dragon Jadgpanther IV L/70 that I have a PE kit for, but I am having a hard time telling what barrel will fit it. It is kit #9041. I should probably ask this question in the appropriate forum.

Hello Andrew, and welcome!

Usually I look for a subject that interests me, not a particular brand so I am not that much concerned about all their kits are good. Fortunately there are plenty of reviews online to have an idea of what you will find.

As for the Hetzer, you may consider the recovery variants by Thunder Model -they look quite nice and different.

And regarding the barrel, check Jagdpanzer IV (not Jagdpanther IV)