Hi,
I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I recieved my kit a short while ago and I'm very pleased with it. The version of the kit I'm planing to build is from Ark models and as I understand it, it's actually a re-release of an old kit that was originally developed by Heller many years ago. It actually took me awhile to get ahold of it, as the first couple places that I tried to order it from either currently no longer had it in stock, had gone out of business, or I had problems getting Paypal to work with. In the end I actually ended up getting my copy from a company in the Czech Republic.
After ordering, it arrived a few weeks later in pretty good shape. There was only a very small/faint dent in the box lid and a couple pieces had come loose from the sprues, but the only real damage appears to be that one piece looks a little warped (as shown in the bottom picture below - its the lower left hand piece).
In general the model reminds me alot of some of the Airfix, Revell, and Monogram models that I had built when I was young. The hull looks nicely molded with reasonably formed port holes. Though one thing I noticed was that the location where the propeller shafts and fairings attached to the hull is not really well defined. I guess I'll have to be very careful about fitting up that part of the model.
With respect to the decks, when I first looked at them I thought that they were smooth, but on closer examination I saw very faint deck plank lines (as shown below). Unfortunately, my pictures aren't all that clear but there are also some pour marks and other such things that may have to be cleaned up, so I'll probably also have to be fairly careful here as well.
With respect to the superstructure, these parts seem fairly simple and lacking in details with respect to scribing lines, port holes or other details. It looks like this is likely due to the way the model molds are formed, and in a lot of ways particularly reminds me of some of the Airfix models that I used to build. I've bought some generic 1/400 scale photo-etched rails and ladders for the model, and I might also look into trying to maybe scratch build some aditional details for the superstructure and maybe try and drill out some port holes, etc if I have the time and feel up to it.
Alot of the other parts like the small boats seem nicley detailed though. The other main thing that I notice is that the color of the plastic seems a little faint in comparison to one of the few other kits that I currently have (a re-release of the Glencoe USS Oregon model). I don't think that this is a big deal though. Finally, I do notice a little bit of flash in some areas, but this too doesn't seem to different from alot of the models that I previously built and doesn't look out of character for a model of this vintage. As shown in the pictires below I think that it all looks like it should be fairly easy to clean up, too.
With respect to the instructions they are more along the lines of just some exploded views of how the parts go together rather than step by step instructions. But this doesn't really look to be a problem, its just that its a little different than what I previously have been used to. But since there does not appear to be any specific starting point I'm probably going to start by scratchbuilding up some of the superstructure parts, based on the helpful info that I have gotten from the posters here.
Regards
PF