With my sights set on building my first 1/200 warship, and several kits in my collection to choose from, I picked Modelik's Flower class Corvette (Modelik Nr 12/03).
I chose it partly because I had the laser-cut frames. The frames fit very precisely and the hull plates and decks fit very well on the assembled frames. There were no joiner strips for the hull plates, so I used the technique described by jkrenzer for his USS Porter (http://forum.zealot.com/t153163/), 3/8-inch strips over each of the frames. It worked like a charm and my first-ever hull looks much smoother and cleaner than I expected it to. Thanks, jkrenzer!
I left the rudder and screw for later (so I wouldn't knock them off) and moved to the superstructure. That's when things started to go south on me. The main deckhouse takes up almost half the length of the deck. The sidewalls of the deckhouse have a definite fore-and-aft curve to them to conform to a deck that (supposedly) slopes up at each end. But the main deck itself, supported by the laser-cut frames, is nearly flat along a line from fo'c'sle, nearly to the stern.
Thinking I might have made an error, I checked the curve of the deckhouse walls against the top curve of the kit's long hull formers. They don't match.
I did some trimming and fitting to get the deckhouse to mate with the deck. I also encountered several problems with deckhouse walls not fitting together correctly.
Assembling the deckhouse took some guesswork. There are lots of drawings but some critical(?) details are left out, and I ended up prying apart and reassembling a couple of small walls that weren't clearly shown on the drawings. In one case, the parts were not clearly shown and L and R were reversed in the numbering. At least I think they were--that's the only way I could get the parts to fit.
I also spent about 20 minutes searching for a couple of parts; their numbers were identified on the drawings but the parts themselves were not shown. (Numbered arrows indicated parts on the back side of the sub-assemby illustrated.)
Parts for sub-assemblies were not always grouped together on the kit's pages. It's frustrating when the part numbers are in 5-point type and you don't actually know what the part you're looking for looks like.
At this point, I have set the kit aside. I might come back to it someday but I'm worried about what other frustrating surprises it has in store for me. And, at the least, I have to conclude that this is not a good "first ship kit."
I have GPM's "Tashkent," "HMS Chadsworth" from GPM and Gremir, and the "Orp Piorun" and "Orp Burza" from Maly Modelarz in my pile of unbuilt kits. On close examination, these all look like better choices for a first ship kit. I'm open to suggestions...
Also on my shelf and somewhere in my future, possibly this winter, is GPM's "Prince of Wales," and after that, GPM's "Graf Spee" and "Halinski's Jeremiah O'Brien (the latter possibly scaled up to 1/160). And once I get really demented, GPM's IJN Carrier "Zuikaku." But I need to cut my teeth on some smaller ships first.
No worries,
--David
I chose it partly because I had the laser-cut frames. The frames fit very precisely and the hull plates and decks fit very well on the assembled frames. There were no joiner strips for the hull plates, so I used the technique described by jkrenzer for his USS Porter (http://forum.zealot.com/t153163/), 3/8-inch strips over each of the frames. It worked like a charm and my first-ever hull looks much smoother and cleaner than I expected it to. Thanks, jkrenzer!
I left the rudder and screw for later (so I wouldn't knock them off) and moved to the superstructure. That's when things started to go south on me. The main deckhouse takes up almost half the length of the deck. The sidewalls of the deckhouse have a definite fore-and-aft curve to them to conform to a deck that (supposedly) slopes up at each end. But the main deck itself, supported by the laser-cut frames, is nearly flat along a line from fo'c'sle, nearly to the stern.
Thinking I might have made an error, I checked the curve of the deckhouse walls against the top curve of the kit's long hull formers. They don't match.
I did some trimming and fitting to get the deckhouse to mate with the deck. I also encountered several problems with deckhouse walls not fitting together correctly.
Assembling the deckhouse took some guesswork. There are lots of drawings but some critical(?) details are left out, and I ended up prying apart and reassembling a couple of small walls that weren't clearly shown on the drawings. In one case, the parts were not clearly shown and L and R were reversed in the numbering. At least I think they were--that's the only way I could get the parts to fit.
I also spent about 20 minutes searching for a couple of parts; their numbers were identified on the drawings but the parts themselves were not shown. (Numbered arrows indicated parts on the back side of the sub-assemby illustrated.)
Parts for sub-assemblies were not always grouped together on the kit's pages. It's frustrating when the part numbers are in 5-point type and you don't actually know what the part you're looking for looks like.
At this point, I have set the kit aside. I might come back to it someday but I'm worried about what other frustrating surprises it has in store for me. And, at the least, I have to conclude that this is not a good "first ship kit."
I have GPM's "Tashkent," "HMS Chadsworth" from GPM and Gremir, and the "Orp Piorun" and "Orp Burza" from Maly Modelarz in my pile of unbuilt kits. On close examination, these all look like better choices for a first ship kit. I'm open to suggestions...
Also on my shelf and somewhere in my future, possibly this winter, is GPM's "Prince of Wales," and after that, GPM's "Graf Spee" and "Halinski's Jeremiah O'Brien (the latter possibly scaled up to 1/160). And once I get really demented, GPM's IJN Carrier "Zuikaku." But I need to cut my teeth on some smaller ships first.
No worries,
--David