I should have titled this "Does anyone buy duplicate kits for parts"?

I have purchased a second kit on more than one ocassion just to replace a part that I lost or broke at some point during construction.

Do many of you do this or am I a rare bird?

Getting parts from the manufacturer is a bear. Would anyone "buy" parts from a "parts" dealer so to speak?

I know I would consider it. I hate having to buy a complete kit or a whole sprue for one part.

Hey Brent It would be safe to say that just about everyone here lost a part or two, some even more over their modeling years. I know I had my share of lost or missing parts. Replacement Parts :-) :-) :-) sometimes you may get lucky finding that part and that's even the manufacturer has them in stock. As for me...i'll scratchbuild it or try to at least.

Rare bird..doubt it very much

I know everyone has lost parts at one point or another. My main question was does anyone go out and buy another kit to replace the part. The Hobby Lobby 50% off sales have been my saving grace.

Now, to figure out what to do with the remains of the second kit?

I think anyone that says they have never, ever lost a model part is a liar. :-) :-) :-)

I don't think I'd go to the extent of buying an entire new kit, but, yes, I certainly have been known to source a new sprue...

Does a bear............?

I've spent more time than I care to admit crawling around the floor looking for those parts that seem to grow wings and fly off the tweezers into the great unknown. Then of course there is the part you've cut from the sprue tree, placed in a safe place , and a minute later...it's gone. Gnomes? Who knows...

Rare? Naaahhhh

I'd have to say no...I would not buy another kit to replace a part. I would scratchbuild the part the best I could, or box it up for spare parts.

I've never lost a part, to any model I've built.
they're just on the floor somewhere :-) :-)

I've never lost a part, the rug eats mine even though I try to feed it shavings and sanding dust it still hungers for more. :-) :-)

I've lost plenty. As for replacing them by buying another kit...I have done that in the past. Though I am usually pretty lucky when it comes to getting parts from the model companies. I recently started working on an 11 year old kit, Dragon's Hummel. I hadn't touched since I moved out of my parent's house. It was missing the rear wheels (the ones that look like the steering wheels from ships). I e-mailed them with the lit number and sprue. A few days later they called me, I payed $5 for shipping and they sent me the parts. Tamiya is another company I have had good luck in getting parts.

Lately, I've been tring to scratch build the part. If I have to buy another to replace a part, I will try to copy it by casting it in resin so I can still build the other kit.

:-)

hmm lost parts.. yep I think I'm in that club..

my last build was a tamiya 2 1/2 ton truck.. lost the drivers side mirror.. scratched built another from a peice of styrene rod and a bit of a dragon 250 halftrack mirror.. looked just like the orignal so when I found the item 2 days later it went into my parts bin..

lost the decals for a german horch.. but have lots of extra decals to finish it up.. did find the decals later again.....

If I lose a part I try to find it.. build a replacement or just hide the fact that its missing somehow.......

as for replacements.. I just bought a tamiya sherman so I could have better tracks on my M-10 i'm going to build so I will be ordering replacements and I hope I have as good of luck as the rest of yall seem to have.

I have purchased "builder's kits" four times that I can recall. Each time was to either refurbish or finish a kit.

The first time was for a Tauro A7V WW1 tank that I bought and started in Germany. It was in progress and many parts broke in the long trip back to the US. I eventually found one many years later on eBay that was listed as "not sure all parts were there". I bought it fairly cheap, about $5 + s/h. Fortunately the kit was mostly complete and I used it to start fresh and used the parts from my A7V to flesh out the kit.

The second time was for an old Tamiya Hunting Tiger. The kit had sat on my dresser in my mother's home for about 2 decades. She had vacuumed it on occasion and most likely knocked it off the dresser at least once. I found another builder's kit on eBay for around $5 + s/h and scavenged parts from that box to refit my kit. The old kit has sentimental value and I wanted to make the old beast complete once again.

The third time was another old kit that survived from my college days. It was the old ex-Renwal Revell Ontos. It had been stored in a box at my mom's and was in need of repair. I saw a bagged parts kit at a show and a friend purchased it for me as a going away gift as I left my assignment at Ft. Dix.

The last time was buying someone's started Revell Sea Shadow to help finish my kit that got damaged during another move. His cost me a grand total of $2.

As far as obtaining parts from the manufacturer, I have had great success in dealing with Revell of Germany, Heller, Lindberg, Revell-Monogram, Testors/Italeri, AMT/Ertl, Tamiya and On The Mark (photo etch).

I've called on the phone, sent e-mails, used online order forms, mailed letters and even filled out the Heller Flash Service coupon. Whichever method the company normally used. All methods succeeded for me.

Tamiya was the only one where I had to actually purchase the parts, but in all fairness the parts I purchased were extras and not missing or damaged.

Have used parts from another kit and scratchbuilt. The question remains... what to do with the 99% complete kit that the part used comes from? Now days, I try to scratchbuild first so I won't have to later on the donor kit.
capnjock

I swear the carpet crawls up on the work table and gulps down a part once in a while.

I haven't bought another kit to replace the part, but I have been known to beg for parts from other modelers or scratch and/or modify another part as a replacement. I have also purchased sprues from Tamiya.

For finding those small parts that fly into the carpet, I use a piece of the wife's old panty hose over the nozzle of the vacum sweeper hose, works great.

Rare bird? Not a chance. :-)

Yes, I have bought an entire kit just for replacement parts. As I am justing re-starting this hobby and am prone to mistakes this may not be a one-time solution. As to commercial and economically viable business opportunity I think spare parts market would not be very lucrative.

The last model I lost parts for was the Italeri Steyr Ost. The little headlight just disappeared like a magic trick. Not having anything handy to replace it with, or scratch build it with, I drilled out the mounting hole, punched out 3 "bolt holes", and added 2 small pieces of wire to simulate it being bashed off the vehicle. Lost is lost.

I've spent my fair share of time crawling around on the floor uttering "colorful phrases" looking for the renegade part that seems to not want to co-operate.

Well,

when I went to live on my own, I decorated my modeling-room with as little furniture as possible, got some smooth linoleum on the floor. Since the I haven't lost as many parts as when I had thick carpet and a room full of furniture. Still I lost a beautiful L'arsenal 1/350 machine gun for my 1/350 minesweeper. AAAAAARRRRGHHH

I've never had to buy another kit to replace kit parts that have been tweezer launched, but isn't that what God made mud, battle damage, and extra storage for? I wonder how many missing parts are covered up by those three items.

I laid laminate flooring down in my kitchen (where I build) for
aesthetic reasons,but it did cross my mind that finding parts that fly off into the great unknown would be easier to find.
Yeah right.
Bits still disappear on a regular basis,and I do try to fab
parts if possible,but my prefered (lazy) way of covering up the gap,as long as it is in a logical place,is to attatch a stahlhelm
to the area as if it is stowed on the hook etc that has joined
that huge pile of parts we all sacrifice to the God 'ping'.
Have to say next time a light goes I'm going to use the'fitting
sheared off' idea.Thanks for that.

I had to buy a second kit just to get 2 small parts for my German M88 Flak 36. But most of the time maybe 90% of the time I am real lucky because I have a bright light that I can shine on my floor or carpet.

But it takes me awhile sitting on the floor sectioning it off so I don't do the same thing twice. Sometimes it'll take me 2 days and I tell my wife not to clean that part.

But the hardest thing is you don't know where it bounced and you have to look in draws and under the table etc.

I just recently started to cut all the parts off at once and put them in a organizer and pay close attention not to get them lost. And since I did that and knock on wood that none has got away yet.

Happy Modeling
(++) 1:35

Many times, for the less expensive kits, I will actually buy two kits to build one, figuring there may be some kind of wastage (particularly if I am gonna hack something heavily). The extra kit, depending on cannibalization, may get then get built differently (hacked in another way) or just become spare parts.

Now, for some resin aftermarket, I have had major problems & had to buy a second to fix up errors ....

The big bucks resin stuff is buy one, build one, regardless.

I think, historically, my cut-off averages about $70 -- below that, I will/might buy a 2nd, above that NO.

John

I have bought an entire new kit just get one replacement decal! It was a revell 1:72 thunderbolt, so it wasn't an expensive one. I messed up a star insignia and I was looking at aftermarket decals in my local hobby shop and us decal sets that had just those star insignias cost about 5-6€. The revell kits cost 6€ so I just bought another one. Actually, I used one part from that kit too. It was the part that goes inside the rear canopy. I had lost the original part. I had a scratch-built part but when I then messed up with the insignia and bought a new kit, I just used the part from that one.

I have not made duplicates, at least not yet. What have to now though is rob a convoy-light from the set for my Wespe. And I have ordered the extra sets of hinges.

THe originals have been offered to the carpet-god.