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 Post subject: 3D Wild IJN Soryu
PostPosted: Sun Jun 26, 2022 8:11 pm 
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Joined: Mon May 21, 2007 5:49 pm
Posts: 1586
Location: The beautiful PNW
Finally had a few minutes to go through and have a good look at he IJN Soryu in 1/350 by 3D wild. Just wanted to give a in box sneak peek and a couple of initial impressions as I have not had the opportunity to bust out the calipers and plans yet to check total accuracy.


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Kit comes in a very nice full color box

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Kit contents are very nicely packed

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I understand that 3D Wild is actively engaged in taking constructive feedback about their kits. Since these kits utilize multi part hulls, they reacted to feedback on their Ryujo kit and adding locators pins to help align the hull parts

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With just some quick cleanup, the hull parts dry fit together very nicely. With some more dedicated time, mating the hull parts up should go fairly well

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The amount of detail is very impressive with what is already printed into the hull.

There is several smaller plastic boxes that contain smaller parts, I have not photographed them yet as I have some concerns that I am going to share with the manufacturer before I post them here. I will note that the kit includes an "as commissioned" and a "as lost" Island so you are able to build Soryu at any point in her career.

I will list some Pro's and Con's from the understanding that I am well versed in 3D printer technology and products as well as the various tricks of working with this medium.

Pros:
- 1/350 Soryu... shocking that it took this long and from a new upstart manufacturer when the rest of the Kido Butai has been well covered.
- Very nice details all around, very fine splinter shields and deck detail
- Surface finish in most areas of the kit are very smooth and will present very little cleanup of traditional "print lines"
- Hangar deck option is very well done and nice touch to add dynamic to a kit
- Option of Island
- Lots of areas printed as one which will make assembly easy*
- Locator pins to help hull alignment
- Instructions look nice and should help build the kit well

Cons:
- Hull locators help the hull but some platforms may be tricky
- *The amount of already printed on will make detailing and painting tricky. Example being the aft part of the flight deck is already in place over the boat deck
- The enclosed 12.7cm and 25mm AA guns are molded in place with a set train and elevation with brass rod for barrels included
- The enclosed PE while nice and covering some details is a bit behind the times in design. A supplementary set from another AM will probably be needed to bring her up to par with the Hasegawa or Fujimi counterparts
- The flight deck is very thin which appears to be in scale to make the elevators poseable, they will be prone to warpage and may require some careful reinforcement in out of sight areas. The forward flight deck on my example was very badly warped and broken near where the island is mounted. Perhaps on their future carriers or releases of this kit they can leverage their partnership with Chuanyu Models to have the flight decks etched in thicker brass to help with this issue?

Overall impressions and comments:

If you really want a Soryu in 1/350 this kit sure beats scratch building, with that said however this kit is not an injection molded kit and will require some real modeler grit to finish to it's full potential. I applaud 3D Wild for taking the leap and investing the time into this kit, the Soryu is a great looking carrier with some history behind her. They are clearly committed to getting the designs right and are frankly in my honest opinion leading the way for our eventual future of model kits. I do wish that they would break it down some more, especially on a carrier with all of the eternal catwalks and such. I my opinion these would help serve better as reinforcements to hull joints than another very tricky seam to hide. The price tag can be daunting, but I have Fujimi's Kaga, Hasegawa's Junyo, Very Fire's Taiho and their dedicated detail sets which all cost much more than this kit. Yes those should almost be ready to go and there are few details that I would to add to my Soryu which will add more to the cost, but in this day and age I don't see anything getting cheaper and I am more than happy to support the smaller guy trying to get established. I recommend this kit to any serious modeler who has a lot of experience under their belt, definitely not for the beginner. I almost put this kit in a Craftsman kit type bucket, but mostly due to the work that will be needed getting the seam lines cleaned up and working around some of the printed in structures. I look forward to seeing further releases from 3D wild, yeah Oyodo I'm looking at you!
I am no way affiliated with 3D Wild and this kit was courtesy of my overworked credit card
3D Wild 1/350 IJN Soryu

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1/350 USS Portland CA-33 1942
1/350 Trumpeter Texas with a twist


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 Post subject: Re: 3D Wild IJN Soryu
PostPosted: Mon Jun 27, 2022 2:16 pm 
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Joined: Tue Jan 11, 2005 1:40 pm
Posts: 8159
Location: New Jersey
Nice summary Matt, thank you.

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Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

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 Post subject: Re: 3D Wild IJN Soryu
PostPosted: Tue Jun 28, 2022 9:47 pm 
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Joined: Tue Jan 11, 2005 10:56 am
Posts: 8561
Location: New York City
Agreed. A very nice summary. Much appreciated.


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 Post subject: Re: 3D Wild IJN Soryu
PostPosted: Wed Jun 29, 2022 10:12 am 
This ship has to be one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life! My mom got it for me for my birthday and now my sister is painting it for me. Hopefully it gets finished soon. I want more airplanes so I can glue them to the top and have them fight each other. My sister won't pain those unfortunately :(


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