Arizona Issues..WEM

Have you tried contacting WEM? In my experience they have been very responsive to problems and questions.

No, this is not the way things usually work with WEM photoetch products. I have never had the type of issue you describe, but I deal with 1/700 exclusively.

If it had cost me more than 5 bucks I would be talking to WEM about it.  I was just wondering if that was a common experience with photo-etch pieces.  I have used some before on aircraft and they, more often than not, were spot on.  I wasn’t expecting to have the fit issues like that but I wasn’t sure if it was an anomaly or the norm for ships so I thought I would ask.  I will try and post some pictures of the whole debacle-in-the-making this week. 

Thanks

I would not let that scare you off of PE. Go to the Ship Model Forum and do some searching. Someone is bound to have some advice.

WEM is usually top notch. There's lots of cheaper, some good but many not so much. I always like their stuff.

I haven't read the directions on mine yet, but as a general rule, one is supposed to sand down the area of the deck that the PE part is replacing.  Trumpeter may have made their casting slightly oversize, so once it is removed the PE replacemant will look perfect.  And before you point out that WEM might have made their's undersized, while possible, it is more likely that Trumpeter made the goof.  Anyway, if you don't sand off Trumpeter's plating, the PE will sit too high.  Good luck, and don't forget the pics!

I'm eager to see the results. A fairly tasteless observation is that Tracy disposed of everything below the waterline, now it sounds like whats below the deck is wrong, so pretty soon the most accurate version will be 12/8/41.

But as far as PE, usually whether or not its correct, it should be made to fit the kit. I think that removing plastic should help.

tucchase makes a good point, especially with the larger scales and the bigger, flat pieces of PE - you have to get rid of the "excess" plastic underneath/on the sides/above/wherever for the PE to fit. It's all an exercise in patience and dry-fitting, over and over and over and ...

Tasteless?

One issue you may find with aftermarket (not limited to photo-etch) is pieces not designed for the KIT.* For example, it may very well be that WEM had copies of the plans for the Arizona and based their piece off of that, which would mean that if the Trumpeter kit were wrong it wouldn't fit. I happen to know that they use kit parts when designing the PE, so I'm not sure what the issue is, but I would definitely check in with John.

* For example, I had a wood deck that was designed using the ship's plans... it didn't fit the model at all because the kit was all wrong.

Me being tasteless, not anyone else. Something along the lines of a joke that maybe the model is only accurate from the boat deck up.

Anyways, right, PE always should be designed to the model. My misadventures with PE tend more to have to do with sketchy instructions and lots of parts that aren't address in the diagrams in the instructions at all. I had a particularly hard time on Borodino I think it was, because the PE mostly was only identified by it's part number showing up in a written list: "replace kit part L45 with 28" and so forth. But, the kit was one of those where the parts can only be identified by a sprue diagram, and the PE could only be identified on a fret diagram. Oh, it took a while, but it all came together.

I have used JOHN,S stuff before . Therefore I must say there is a problem with the ship MAYBE . I used the same plates on my client,s model with no problem . Of course any time I put something like that on a deck , I REMOVE the molded on part .        tankerbuilder 

hi adam, i just made a post on this kit(got today). i don't know what WEM is, but could you help me on getting started with this?  it's only my 2nd try at a ship, so i'm looking for help and guidance.

thanks,  Humper

Humper,

  Adam is referring to White Ensign Models (WEM). They are located in the U.K. and provide their own line of aftermarket photo etch, parts and resin kits. They do ship world wide.  I have their Arizona p.e for the 1/200 Arizona and a few other set and I highly recomend them. BTW, they also produce a line of paints called 'Colourcoats' that are accurately matched to offical paint chips. I also recomend the paints by the way.

That piece is meant to be used with a wooden deck, so you would need the KA-Models wooden deck or the Nautilus one. And as stated by others usually the plastic part is filed down and replaced with the PE brass piece.