Earlier this year, Tom's Modelworks announced they were going to produce 1/700 resin Yorktown class aircraft carriers. In addition to that excellent news they announced they would be offering a replacement hull for the dreaded 1/700 Trumpeter CV-8 Hornet kit. So when it finally became available, I ordered one immediately. The kit arrived quickly, and very well packaged. By very well, Im pretty sure it could go through something like the scene from
Ace Ventura Pet Detective. Anyways, the instructions included are nice, telling you what you need to do to the resin hull to make it play nice with the rest of the Trumpeter kit (as well as telling you what parts you no longer need to use).
The resin hull feels very solid, heavier than it looks. Please note, this is the upper hull only, only good for a waterline build. The details seem very good, decently crisp with little evidence of flash. Life rafts are molded to the hull, and the hanger bay includes basic detail as well. All hanger doors are molded shut, but are cast thin enough so they're easy to cut and open up.
Lets face it, the most important point here is the hull shape. I dont have any plans in person to compare to, and must resort to visual photos to describe the accuracy. All signs are very good. The hull actually looks like a Yorktown class carrier instead of a Liberty class cargo ship. The sides narrow in nicely from the hanger deck to the waterline. Visual comparison to the revell 1/487 kit is very good, very hard to tell the differences, though I think the Revell hull is still narrower in the upper bow. For fun, I placed the replacement resin hull on top of the Trumpeter lower hull for comparison, and the difference is incredible.
The only issues I find are minor. The rear flight deck supports are incorrectly shaped. You might be better off removing them and using the Trumpeter ones. There are some marks along the upper hull where it seems the casting had a slight issue, and putty will be required to fill these small seams and holes. The rear starboard 5/25 gun port edge had some slight damage, as did a few life rafts. Ive circled the most noticeable ones in the pictures below.
At around $30, this replacement hull is worth it if you plan on building a good Yorktown class carrier with aftermarket parts. The shape is nearly perfect, this is the hull Trumpeter should have came out with in the first place. Between the correctly shaped hull and the nicely detailed parts from the rest of the Trumpeter kit, its easy to make a great build.
For higher res pics, here they are -
https://picasaweb.google.com/1120765102 ... directlink
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