Disappointing Midship Models Arizona

Yeah, its much harder and more expensive to change a mold than to make it right the first time.  Oh well.... Life goes on.

searat12 wrote:

Sounds like a pretty small problem to me, but then again, everyone's measure of what is 'accurate enough' is pretty variable.... Is this a case of 'rivet counting?'

Nah, more a case of counting something that was never there in the first place.  Kinda like putting a section of deck planking on top of an Abrams turret (would armor builders put up with this? I don't THINK so).  My feeling is that, at the time Revell first cast the Arizona, someone figured these were hatches so they should be similar to all the other hatches.  The pictures we have now had probably not been found at that time. And nobody stopped to think that these hatches were Engineering hatches and would only be opened when major repairs were needed in the Engineering spaces, ergo, they needed to be flat deck at all other times. Since then, other model manufacturers have just replicated this error.  In spite of all the current evidence to the contrary.  The popular opinion seems to be "So what?"  So put a Sherman turret hatch on an Abrams turret.  So what?  A hatch is a hatch, right?  Yeah, right!  I can just see that scenario as going over real soon!  But builders of the USS Arizona have been putting up with this for 50 years.  Enough!  The first time I built the Arizona (abt 1966) I wondered why something like this would be on a ship where people would trip over it, since it appeared to be much lower to the deck than the other hatch covers.  And these are not small hatches.  They were designed to get large pieces of engineering in and out of the ship.  Both together cover nearly the same surface area as a main turret base.  Very visible.

Anyway, I keep hoping that somday, someone from one of the manufacturers, or someone connected to someone, will read one of my diatribes and actually do something about it.  The 1/200 from Trumpeter is probably my last hope, if it ever appears.

usmc1371 wrote:

You know, sometimes you just gotta say "Oh well, close enough".  No kit is perfect.  I remember doing the Banner kit.  There were a few glaring problems in that kit.  For this 1/700 kit, I would either scribe the panel lines or just leave it.  I wouldn't try to sand the plateing down to deck level.  If I were to try and fix this, I would completely remove the engineering hatches by cutting totally through the deck.  I would then frame out the hatches with stryene.  Finally, I would drop in a scribed piece of sheet styrene.  I would be a lot of work.  I think using this approach would cause the lest damage to the surrounding detail. I just took a look at my Dragon 1/700 Arizona and ...Drum roll, please... it has the same error.  Oh well, close enough. -Jesse

If I do try to fix this at this scale, I will probably need to make a cast of the existing deck (if I can find a big enough section of clear deck) with the raised lines, cut out the hatch, cut the new casting to size and then fit it in.  The pictures of the Arizona and the Idaho that I have seen show these hatches were indicated by three rows of deck planking surrounding the hatch.  Whether they were two rows on the edge of the deck, and one row around the edge of the hatch, or vice-versa, I don't know.  Haven't seen any pics with the hatch open.  There is also a smaller rectangular hatch (personnel?) in the middle of these large hatches with a two board outline of it. The pics show several small holes in these hatches, I presume for attachment point to lift the hatches up.  I agree with you that all this detail would probably be a waste of time to try and duplicate at this scale, but at 1/350 or larger, this detail would be really noticeable.  Manufacturers are casting finer detail than this on the newest castings.  If you can see it clearly in a picture, you should be able to see it on the model without a magnifying glass on a 1/350 model.  It is very easy to see on the new model at Pearl Harbor. To me, a simple outline of all four hatches on the deck would suffice. At 1/700 scale, just a single line for each hatch would be "close enough" to truly represent the actual hatches. As long as the hatches are scribed (or raised) planking, and not flat metal.  To have these hatches represented as thick metal plates (the smaller hatch actually sticking above the larger hatch), with bolt heads sticking up like some bolt-on armor on a vehicle, for so many years, IS JUST NOT RIGHT!  No warship would have things like this on the deck for everyone to trip over, and you know someone would! Probably sooner than later.

OK, I'll get off my soapbox now......

RedCorvette wrote:

Not to sound like an old curmudgeon, but: 1.  Why trash a kit for something that can be added in five minutes with a card template and a scribing tool? 2.  What does the economy have to do with it? 3.  Unless you went to the Dan Quayle school of spelling, it's potato, not potatoe. Mark

1. As Tracy White said, this is a molded section of the deck that, at 1/700 scale, is probably a scale foot, or more, thick, above the surrounding deck.  The deck around it is all cast as raised deck lines.  I would be interested in seeing the results of your 5 minute correction of this problem. It would have been far easier for the manufacturers to have done a simple representation of these hatches than for individual modelers to scratchbuild a replacement (but that is part of #2, also).  Also, it is difficult to do scribed lines when the rest of the model is raised lines. Tends to stand out like a sore thumb, as bad as the original problem.

2. Right now, the economy has everything to do with what changes can be done before a new mold is created.

3. I was repeating the spelling Tracy White used so as to not suggest that it was misspelled in the first place. Anyway, both spellings are correct. And why would it matter to the subject at hand as to whether potato has an "e" on it or not?

Tracy, I vaguely remember seeing something years ago about vegetable bin, but I don't remember what it was. I'll look back in older posts and see what I can find.  Thanks!

You know, sometimes you just gotta say "Oh well, close enough".  No kit is perfect.  I remember doing the Banner kit.  There were a few glaring problems in that kit.  For this 1/700 kit, I would either scribe the panel lines or just leave it.  I wouldn't try to sand the plateing down to deck level.  If I were to try and fix this, I would completely remove the engineering hatches by cutting totally through the deck.  I would then frame out the hatches with stryene.  Finally, I would drop in a scribed piece of sheet styrene.  I would be a lot of work.  I think using this approach would cause the lest damage to the surrounding detail.

I just took a look at my Dragon 1/700 Arizona and ...Drum roll, please... it has the same error.  Oh well, close enough.

-Jesse

RedCorvette wrote:

Not to sound like an old curmudgeon, but:

Sounds like my kind of guy!

It's a bit more complex than card stock and scribing, particularly in 700th scale. The ship had "soft patches" that show up on most plans as metal plates. The metal plates were covered by planks of wood that were flush with the rest of the decking, but the metal plates are typically represented as raised pieces that must be sanded down. Not so fun on a small kit... My Banner kit was bad enough!

Not to sound like an old curmudgeon, but:

1.  Why trash a kit for something that can be added in five minutes with a card template and a scribing tool?

2.  What does the economy have to do with it?

3.  Unless you went to the Dan Quayle school of spelling, it's potato, not potatoe.

Mark

EdGrune wrote:

Remember too that Midship Models resin kits were originally released by Classic Warships.  The masters are 15 to 20+ years old and may not reflect current research.

 That would explain the descrepency! 20 years ago, nobody cared. Just copy the Revell original and everyone will be happy!  Right?  Oh well.  I had thought Midship Models were more recent castings.  At least they are more reasonably priced. Thanks for the info EdGrune.

Tracy White - I haven't heard what is wrong around the potatoe bin, or I've forgotten. What is it?