by JHS » Wed Jan 18, 2012 10:03 pm
Bought it for $35 from a US eBay dealer postage free. It is a spectacular model. It arrives in a very small box, smaller than the one for Trumpeter's 1:700 SAN FRANCISCO. Some might not buy it because they might think no proper 1:700 QE could be packed in such a small box. It can be! Trumpeter has clearly mastered the Dragon slide mold technology. The model blasts White Ensign's chunky, inaccurate, and expensive effort out of the water. It is sharply detailed with an almost razor thin bow. The kit comes with parts trees hand-wrapped in padding to protect the delicate parts. Amazing. Only the Japanese-made 1:700 resin 1915 QE of almost 20 years ago beats it by a hair because the screens on its bridge were onion paper thin. What astounds is that the Trumpeter kit achieves that rarely met standard for scale fidelity in its parts which is never achieved by 1:700 scale ship models, most of which look pretty but hilariously over-scale in details. The detailing of the ship's boats is mind-boggling.
I am traveling and my John Roberts 1:192 QE plans are not at hand. I can't give an accurate review of its detail fidelity, but it looks almost entirely dead-on. For some reason Trumpeter turned the little (siren?) platform beneath the foremast spotting top into a gigantic pizza box. The part is not molded onto the main strut so you can simply leave it off. Trumpeter could not resist the tradition of molding what looks like colossal French ticklers on the ends of the 15-in barrels. For some reason the 15-in rifles were not done as well as the rest of the kit so you will have to fix them or buy aftermarket items. It has two jack stays on the mainmast. Dump one. The yards on the fore mast are missing. Simple job to add them with sprue. The breakwaters ahead of the 6-in battery are photo etch. Fine work T. Even the galley smoke pipes for the quarterdeck (fitted when the ship was in port) are provided and they are not grotesquely out of scale.
This is a taster. I recommend the kit 1000%. It is the finest plastic 1:700 scale ship model I have ever seen. It has taken 97 years to get a plastic QE class model that does justice to the ships. I hope they do a 1916 WARSPITE in both 1:700 and 1:350.
Bought it for $35 from a US eBay dealer postage free. It is a spectacular model. It arrives in a very small box, smaller than the one for Trumpeter's 1:700 SAN FRANCISCO. Some might not buy it because they might think no proper 1:700 QE could be packed in such a small box. It can be! Trumpeter has clearly mastered the Dragon slide mold technology. The model blasts White Ensign's chunky, inaccurate, and expensive effort out of the water. It is sharply detailed with an almost razor thin bow. The kit comes with parts trees hand-wrapped in padding to protect the delicate parts. Amazing. Only the Japanese-made 1:700 resin 1915 QE of almost 20 years ago beats it by a hair because the screens on its bridge were onion paper thin. What astounds is that the Trumpeter kit achieves that rarely met standard for scale fidelity in its parts which is never achieved by 1:700 scale ship models, most of which look pretty but hilariously over-scale in details. The detailing of the ship's boats is mind-boggling.
I am traveling and my John Roberts 1:192 QE plans are not at hand. I can't give an accurate review of its detail fidelity, but it looks almost entirely dead-on. For some reason Trumpeter turned the little (siren?) platform beneath the foremast spotting top into a gigantic pizza box. The part is not molded onto the main strut so you can simply leave it off. Trumpeter could not resist the tradition of molding what looks like colossal French ticklers on the ends of the 15-in barrels. For some reason the 15-in rifles were not done as well as the rest of the kit so you will have to fix them or buy aftermarket items. It has two jack stays on the mainmast. Dump one. The yards on the fore mast are missing. Simple job to add them with sprue. The breakwaters ahead of the 6-in battery are photo etch. Fine work T. Even the galley smoke pipes for the quarterdeck (fitted when the ship was in port) are provided and they are not grotesquely out of scale.
This is a taster. I recommend the kit 1000%. It is the finest plastic 1:700 scale ship model I have ever seen. It has taken 97 years to get a plastic QE class model that does justice to the ships. I hope they do a 1916 WARSPITE in both 1:700 and 1:350.