thunder1
I paid $2.99 for this "beauty", I almost tossed it in the trash, the kit is really a toy.
But I like the "looks" of this pre dreadnaught, so I had to build it. I only used the hull, part of the superstructure and the torpedo boats, scratch built everything else. If you have the mind to, adding a wood deck adds a lot of detail to this dog.
Wow! You certainly made a good job of improving that kit. I built it a few years ago and detailed some areas but didn't do as thorough a job as you. The decks and superstructure bulkheads with their crude moulded detail were one area that defeated me; the only real way to fix this is to build new ones from scratch, as you have done.
I bought another kit last year intending to do a more comprehensive rebuild, but now Bronco's 1/350 kit is out there doesn't seem much point
Sprue-ce Goose
Does anyone know what country supplied the original ships to the Imperial Chinese navy ?
The two battleships (Ting Yuen and Chen Yuen) were German-built. The light cruiser Chih Yuen - which Zhengdefu also produce a kit of - was built by the British shipyard Armstrong; it had at least one sister ship whose name I can't remember. No idea of the origin of the other Imperial Chinese warships.
Back to the thread's original subject, Zhengdefu's kits seem to fall into several categories and vary hugely in quality:
- The "Beiyang Fleet" imperial Chinese ships - incredibly crude + heavy mouldings, the only plus point is the unique subject matter (no longer unique in
the case of the battleships). Basically only two different kits (battleship and light cruiser) reboxed under different names.
- The "30cm" range, mostly post-war US and Soviet ships, all box-scale with an overall length of 30-33cm. Most of these kits are scaled up copies of Skywave kits (the aircraft carriers are scaled down from the Otaki 1/800 kits) with inaccurate motorised lower hulls added. Hence they're quite well detailed and (above the waterline) accurate. The destroyers scale out at around 1/550 whilst the carriers are about 1/900.
Along with the post-war ships, the "30cm" range also includes a Bismarck, Yamato and Iowa-class BB, all around 1/800 scale. No idea what these are copied from but they are AWFUL and should be avoided at all costs.
- The 1/260 modern Chinese ship range. These kits are, surprisingly, excellent and much better than the Trumpeter 1/200 scale kits of the same ships (they even accurately represent the differences between ships of the same class). Not "box scale" (the kits are different sizes but a common scale) but no idea why they picked such an odd scale, even 1/250 would have made more sense!
- The "fast attack craft" range of various Osa missile boat variants operated by the Chinese navy (I think there are 3 or 4 different kits). These are also very nice kits though a bit crude in some areas; about equivalent to the Airfix 1/72 MTB, RAF launch etc. These are also 30cm "box scale" and scale out at around 1/110.
Finally, the 30cm range also includes a few "oddballs" including the Nanchang, an ex-WW2 IJN gunboat (built this last year, converted back to its IJN fit) and a Chinese coast guard patrol boat.
Zhengdefu kits also appear under the "Kitech" name, which I assume is simply a different label used by the same company.