well it had been a while that i build myself something static so when i saw this thing on ebay i placed a few dozen bids and got me one. the scale is 1/144 or as close as they can get. the ship arrived in one of thoese typicall Revell boxes complete with an artist illustration on the front, something i will save as its not that bad an artist impression. upon opening the sealed box you notice a cardboard divider that adds stiffness to the box and probably prevents alot of damage during transport. all the frames are in sealed bags and grey, the only clear parts are in a small bag as there are only 5 of them. according to Revell the kit contains 500 parts, i'm not going to count them and a whack of thoese 500 are railing posts, 1 of few parts that i will not place on my model as i have seen a nice etched set that looks alot better and is more sturdy. the hull is plastic, and not that thick a plastic but is fully detailled complete with weldlines, the deck has alot of detail already molded in and revell really went nuts by trying to mold some of the superstructure railing, it succeeded. as this kit is designed as a static model there is no running gear and creating the propshafts and stuffing tubes is left to the consumer. the fitting of most parts is nice and crisp and provided the 64 drawing instruction booklet is followed should not be a huge problem. a camouflage drawing is also included but i decided to stay away from that as my vision isnt 20-20 and its already hard to see a small boat in our northern waters a few things to notice, the plastic may contain residu of a release coating, make sure you wash it all of with soapy water before painting, the model is an "early" fletcher with the round bridge, i personally will convert it to a "late" fletcher with a square bridge over time as that gives more naming options. i have put 2 mabuchi 130's in her and with the stock props and a bathtub full of water she seems speedy enough, i intend to run her on 2 li-poly cells (2x 3.7 v 2200 mah) using a small "agile 16" esc and a 9 grams digital servo i have to see how big and heavy i can make a gun for her and if i am willing to risk this nice looking kit to axis guns. more when i have the electronics in and the testrun completed. Krijn
new pics of the ship in the "ships" section, not great but it was late and bad lighting her trials as "rc model" will be july 5th at the funfloat in bobcaygeon where she gets to escort Iowa and Houston,Exeter
Anyone who wants to come to this event feel free to join us, just let Krijn of the OAF know, the more the merrier!
