|
U.S.S. ANTIETAM-1/700 angled deck carrier-DRAGON -kit
As many of you who do finagle your way through my posts have found , I do not really care for 1/700 scale ship kits . After acquiring a magnifier visor I jumped in .I wanted angled deck carrier , it,s that simple . The ANTIETAM is the only game in town . DRAGON kits, to , me , anyway , seem to run the gamut , between good models , terrible instructions or fair models with absolutely useless instructions. This kit fell in between .I still can,t post photos , but , bear with me ,I will be able to soon .Back to the model , Point one . There are so many tiny parts it,s driving my eyes nuts , even with magnifiers . Point two . the instructions right at the beginning give you a confusing situation where the island parts are concerned . There are two (fits) or versions that can be done from this model ,1953 or 1956 . That,s nice as the 53 fit has a BUNCH of tiny deck support pieces . The 56 fit has a nice sponson in clear ? and solid grey plastic for under the deck overhang . They also give you two decks .Yup . One clear and featureless and one solid grey with all the details molded in . Point three . The island ,minus the overhangs windows etc , is a single molding NOT a twopiece unit .This is nice and it,s NOT .If it shrinks in the middle before you get your stick little model building hands on it you get problems .SOLUTION .Find a piece of brass tubing just slightly larger in o.d. than the inside space in that molding . Cut a piece and insert it in the piece .If it spreads it to far take a pair of pliers and squeeze the tubing slightly .The point is , you want it to fit over the locator on deck , not just one side but completely even . Now once you,ve done that ,gather all the parts you need to build the island .There are four that are clear and used on both versions .This regardless of what the instructions indicate . Paint the deck color and the light haze grey on all parts BEFORE assembly .Now carefully put all these parts together . Watch out for the sequence ! Don,t deviate ! If you do the window units will not fit without pulling everything loose and starting over .How do I know ? well who,s writing this ? Yup , I boo-booed !! Anyway . this ship doesn,t look so bad when you start making progress . The other thing is for those who want a full hull . All the parts are supplied . All in grey plastic . The bottom unit , (for the bottom , screws rudder etc. Does not fit the hull very well . I had to use SUPER GLUE as well as TESTORS CEMENT (liquid) and lots of scotch tape and a heavy dose of patience . Even with that I had to resort to filler ,TWICE ! Now it,s all grey so I can stop for today . I will chime back in on this in a day or two. tankerbuilder . I forgot to mention that you also get , in the kit , TWO in scale tugboats ,my question WHY ??
|