How come aftermarket manufacturers can't include decent instruction with their products? I'm spending $20 or more, and all I get is a crude copy with some black & white photos or bad line drawings. Obviously companies put lot of work into these products so get some decent instructions.
I'm building the Black Box 1/32 scale cockpit for my Academy F-16 and the directions are inscrutable especially with regards to where to trim the fuselage to make the resin kit fit.

Dude, I am with you on that. However, some companies are doing better like Eduard and Blast models.

welcome to the world of AM resin. Tech manuels not included so you can see where the parts go! :-)

Buy a few 100 buck+ resin kits, get photos you can't see, and a drawing that looks like a kindergarden kid drew them.
Wonder how the guy can scratchbuild the masters, make the molds, cast the parts, but can't manage to get decent photos or art work, or adjust his copy machine...... Kind of cheapens the over quailty of the kit.

I agree that most AM sets seem to lack in the instructions department, but having said that, I suppose that they reason that those who buy these kits, have quite some previous experience, and would either know the kit they are upgrading/converting well, or will be able to work from a simple exploded view instruction. What I find more irritating is the poor translation of some Asian or East European manufactures...
Cement please not left doowhat till previous before.
:-)

Cheers
Henk

Quite. I'm working on AccA's Abbott at the moment and the instructions leave a lot to be desired. Parts that are wrongly identified, and vague locations; but a few minutes on google and a printer and I had most of them tagged.
The quality of the kit itself though is never in doubt and the biggest problems are very small parts, big clumsy fingers and the tendency of superglue to stick things before I have them properly in place! Any shortcomings in the final model will be down to me, not the instructions at the end of the day.

It seems I have lucked out so far... the Blast en CMK instructions are excellent. In fact I like the CMK instructions better then the DML photo-thingies.

I guess most of these AM manufactures sometimes assujme that once you spend the $$ on their sets you'll have the literature and pics yourself.

IMHO I think you have to remember that alot of AM kits come from Garage companies. This is a couple of guys pumping out resin kits from thier homes and dont have the budget to invest in a graphic artist to produce Tamiya quality instructions. NOw I have been stuck with a few dogs in my time but I also never went into a kit without the proper reference material to aid me. IF you think they are bad now 15 yrs ago they were absolutely horrid. Also, the resin kits I am seeing these days are pretty well covered instructions wise, I can mention Resicast, Accurate Armour, Leadwarrior and Maple Leaf Models as AM manufacturers putting out good and decent instructions with their kits. ALL of that said.. I agree that when you spend 100 bucks on a kit you would like at the very least a good clear photo copy and not something that was cranked out on a 1970's highschool surplus mimeograph machine :-)
Cheers,
B

I've done several conversion and 1 100% resin kits. Generally instructions are kinda weak. Just got a conversion kit for My 350 scale Lexingtn from Yankee Modelworks and was floored by the detail and effort put into it. Yes they are starting to get better....even Verlinden :-)

I feel your pain I did a Cromwell ARV from accurate Armour Great product,but could have had better,clearer pics I lucked out I have a Military Modeling article from a few years back that helped out in parts placement