The Ship Model Forum

I'm going to do a build review of the Fujimi Hiei kit in 1/700. It's the special edition kit with the KA models PE parts in one package with the classic box art. That saved about 40% off the earlier releases of the kit and PE as seperate (which I also bought) and is very good value indeed.

First let me get out of my system my main gripes with current batch of Fujimi kits:

It is my belief that some of the products are having a bit of an identity crisis. Why? the obvious drawcard on first glance is detail, and Fujimi kits has plenty of detail from porthole rain covers to various supports. Of course these molded on detail may not be as consistent/crisp as PE replacements but it will satisfy most casual builders - which suggests Fujimi is catering for the shake and bake crowd. On the other hand plenty of small parts have awkward, and thick injection points that removing them without damaging the brittle plastic is a painstaking and delicate procedure which I'm 100% confident a newbie will not be able to do (I ended up using an etched saw for most of those jobs). Tere are many more small 'fidly' bits specific to Hiei (reminds me of some Taiho sprues) in particular spouson supports of various levels. Various pieces need ejector pin mark reduction for pieces above and below to sit flash, and other parts need some good filing. As none of these are likely to be obvious to a newbie, I can expect a kit that's buildable but not quite 'right' like a tamiya kit all the time. So my feeling is Fujimi has taken the Trumpeter approach - detail and over engineering (rather than reasonable or clever engineering) to produce something that predominately look nice in the box but difficult to build (my opinion) People complain about Dragon's fiddly bits, wait until you try 8 aux vents varying in length between 2mm to 6mm aux to be glued around the funnel? Yep I lost one of them and didn't even bother replacing it. I thought Dragon's in comparision is straight forward.

The deck and hull needs some sanding to go down flash so do plenty of dry fitting before gluing but nothing unexpected. The one piece Hull is also a little big warped causing a raised midsection which is not easily fixable even when then base plate is on, so I reduced it as much as I can with hot water/weight when gluing the baseplate to minimise impact to PE railings. it is expected but I feel for hull pieces a 2 piece hull is preferrable as they tend to have less warping of this nature. There are a few ejector pin marks below the various main bridge parts that needs shaving if a good fit is to be obtained.

On to the PE parts:

KA model PE are thick, which can be a good thing for certain parts (davits, doors) but not others. The 2 sided instruction page are functional but does not cover all parts (80% covered) and some guess work is required. It also have some overscale parts as KA model tends to, in particular the mast arms of the progoda tower with those giant pulleys for the signal flags, which I ended up cutting off. I think the PE platform braces around funnels are interesting because the PE parts are not quite the same as the plastic parts and the plastic parts are, as far as I can tell from references correct.

The guard rails in general are a bit thick especially for the bridge levels. But because they are pre-cut to length and even pre-etched for the folding points it makes life a lot easier in the build. The PE bits in general fits quite well aside from slight 'oversized' parts that some dry-fitting and adjustment can minimise.


I opt not to use the funnel grill PE, mainly due to difficulty in bending a 'concave' shape from a flat piece which ends up blocky and that the funnel seperator piece is overscale in my opinion. Picture instruction of the antenna mast placement on turret 2 and 4 are a bit off position, but fit well to the correct spot regardless.

Pictures to follow..

The IJN Hiei deluxe edition(a complete set of PE) in 1/700 by Fujimi, is at the moment, and in my opinion is the best value for money release of a battleship in 1/700 by any major manufacture has to offer.
Same with the Deluxe edtions of all the 1/700 IJN Myoko class by Fujimi.

I look forward to your build progress. I certianly agree that Fujimi has shown a tendency to overengineer certain aspects of its kits. There is also inconsistencies in the quality of certain sprues versus others. Fortuantely, there are afetermarket alternatives available.

Although I guess I could start a separate thread for this, I'd like to say that Dragon has a similar problem to this in one regard. While I think their 1/700 Z-39 is one of the nicest looking kits around, the sprue connections are gigantic on some of the delicate parts and I've actually lost details just trying to remove them. I hope this isn't a fallout of the nicer, crisper detail.


~Chris

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a constantly shifting fleet of half-starts and near finishes.

The only solution at the moment for this particular problem is a laser cutting device for models !

hi there!

I'm working on this ship too. i agree on the excellent value. I have supplemented with in box PE from my own stocks, such as Veteran models armaments





Regards

Andrew

How's your painting coming along Andrew?

I nibbed those rollers for the flags as they look a bit odd, and replaced the kit machine guns with with finemold ones. Other than that OOB. I think it looks better from behind!

Both look great.

Potchip, I appreciate your detailed comments: I agree with you about the new Fujimi kits and you have confirmed my suspicions about the Fujimi/KA PE railings.