1/700 HMS Iron Duke 1918 (Combrig)
|
by David J. Salvin |
1/700 HMS Iron Duke 1918 (Combrig)
The latest from my favorite patron is a great kit from Kajika of the battlecruiser Kongo as seen in 1914.The kit itself is plastic and very well done. All parts are very well molded, and fit together perfectly. I rarely leave the doors along the superstructure, but was able to do so here as they are done well enough for this scale. Directions are pictographic and very clear. I believe that the kit also comes with a length of anchor chain which is a nice touch.
I'm so used to doing the poor quality resin kits which throw you a couple of brass rods and tell you to make up complicated masts and towers on your own.But here, all the parts for the masts are there. They fit perfectly together and fit perfectly onto the ship. (truly a treat).
Also available from Kajika are real wooden decks used in this kit as well as a PE enhancement kit.
The real wooden decks:
The wood deck upgrade kit comes with all the decks shown in this kit. The decks themselves have a very thin plastic backing (not removed) to allow for the application of glue. (no adhesive pre-applied) They are laser cut. Perfectly accurate for the kit, are very thin and look great. I used 3M spray glue on the wood and have not seen any mal-adherence bubbling or other problems with it. The kit also comes with a thin pre-laser cut mask for the deck on the theory that you can apply that to spray all the parts that stick out of the deck and which will go through the wood deck and be seen. However, it just sprayed them all leaving most of the deck unpainted and applied the decking directly to it - paint and all. No problems so far.
The PE Set:
The PE set is not strictly necessary to detail the kit, but it is nice to have all the railings pre-cut to length with bends where necessary. Some of the railing is pre-scored for easy bending where necessary, however, most of the weather deck railing requires very detailed rounding and following the rather ornate shape and curves of the hull, so the detail set is not much use here. It does help a bit and does contain the PE funnel caps as well as detailed items along the stacks. It also has the PE version of the rear observation platform on the back of the hull which looks much nicer in PE than the molded plastic version that comes with the kit. A nice addition, but at about $30.00 it is a bit expensive considering you can get a generic Japanese railing set and get most of the needed railing for less than half that.
