Chinese gunboat 'Zhong Shan' Trumpeter kit?

I'll make a late, late comment on this obscure Chinese kit (one of many apparently). The pros are that it's in a nice scale since I like larger kits, its uniqueness as an inter-war warship and I even like the simplified lines and blunt profile/bow. Having seen the miniscule info about this vessel on the web (even the sources listed here) and coming up rather short, I lost interest in procuring this kit. Now, however, I'm not so sure:

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzE3NjkyNDQ0.html A nice 360 degree video of the restored vessel in its completed viewing facility show the decks a medium brown and much more deck detail than I had seen previously. I would reckon they have the details right; the shade of gray and the white demarcation line between the above-waterline gray and red hull bottom for instance.

**To those of you who had commenced construction of the Trumpeter/Zhengdefu kit, how have you all fared?

Incidentally, searching for this vessel in English makes one come up short. In Chinese I suggest you copy/paste 中山 into your search engine of choice. It matters not that you may not speak Chinese, the results speak well.

thanks for the replies guys. Basic kit but generally sound- that's what I like to hear!

i must have an older version by ZHENGDEFU. looks nice. build your own horizontal railings from stretched sprue. i will probably use evergreen styrene. the port holes really are that big.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhongshan_(warship)

http://steelnavy.com/ZhengDeFuZhongShanCT.htm

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90783/91300/6419815.html

Billyboy

Hi all,

Would anyone like to comment on the Trumpeter 'Zhong Shan' Chinese gunboat kit (1:150)? built 1913, precious few of these early 20th century ships are available as kits, so I thought I'd have a go.

I haven't had a thorough look at it yet but as a kit, and considering how much I paid for it, it doesn't look to bad.

I'm about to have a lash at the CC Lee version.  As one of the first kits I purchased off e-bay when I got back into the hobby, this one has languished in the stash for long enough.  What do you all think of the deck colour ?  I was going to go for a wood grain, but then I see the restored ship in the museum has the deck a dark gray.  And this original photo it looks to be a semi-gloss black ?

Phil, thanks.

Actually, after a bit of digging all these 'Kitech' (and Trumpeter) kits look a litle crude. BUT..(uh oh...) their Ting Yuen citadel battleship looks decidely 'not rubbish'. The model built here http://mugennzyoukikann.bakufu.org/tien2.htm looks half-decent actually. I'm not aware of a late 19th century citadel ship availableother than in small-scale resin.

Will

The name "Zhong Shan" is the modern phoneticised (or Pinyin) version of the name. You may find additional information under the traditional spelling "Chung Shan" (sometimes expressed concatenated as "Chungshan").