1/700 Takao Deluxe version by Very Fire (inbox review)

[Vladi]

I'm just a weak man, I confess. I hesitated for a few weeks – Takao was indeed NOT at Savo Island and the kit is 1944 version - but I just could not resist any longer

The intention of this post is not to provide a thorough review but to provide a quick glimpse of the kit and to share my first impressions.

I placed the order on February 8th and braced for a long wait - the site mentioned up to 60 days waiting period before delivery. To my fascination delivery notices started coming almost immediately and it took less than 2 weeks to arrive from China to Czechia, wow! It arrived packaged in a sturdy protective cardboard box, I´m thinking that maybe it was provided by Very Fire themselves as it is really a tight fit over the kit box. At just 35 x 15 x 6 cm the box is not larger than e.g Trumpeter 1/700 WW2 battleship kits, but the inside is really packed!

The full content of the kit can be seen on the official Very Fire blog page so I've not taken photos of all items but I've picked some interesting details.

The hull plating can be discussed as being overscale for 1/700 indeed, but in reality it looks less pronounced than on the photos and I'm hopefull it can come out quite decent if not exaggerated by weathering.

The same can be said about rivets on funnels. Also these can be sanded off easily if someone feels they're too much.
Note the fine detail on the bridge.

To be continued...

[Vladi]

Some more details of the plastic parts. Treaded metal on the anchor deck and the HAG deck is really fine.
Note: the contrast of the images was manipulated to make the details stand out

The problematic aircraft deck (see noted below)

Very fine detail on the main bridge sides and face:

Here are my notes comparing the 1/700 kit with the excellent review of the 1/350 kit by Dan Kaplan at MWS. Please refer to Dan´s review for context:

• Unlike with 1/350, there are molded horizontal slots for waterlining the kit inside the hull halves and the waterline plate is included!
• There are no placement holes on the inside of the hull for locating and drilling out water and waste discharge pipes, these can only be seen in the instructions.
• There are no rivets around margins of hull plates that Dan did not like in 1/350 - that´s even more than perfectly ok to leave them out for 1/700.
• Metal treading is present on the whole high-angle guns (HAG) deck as opposed to 1/350. I discussed this briefly with Dan, there seem to be no direct evidence for linoleum on parts of the HAG deck for Takao but there is for Atago. With the close similarity of both ships during WW2 it seems likely linoleum was there, the exact division is, however, unknown.
• Like with 1/350, metal treading is missing on the aircraft deck, instead there´s some kind of metal plating (see photo above), which is definitely incorrect. OTOH the PE sheet provides an overlay part that includes metal plating between tracks, which conforms to the Anatomy of the Ship book by Janusz Skulski. It´s interesting that Very Fire took the extra step to make these changes from 1/350 kit – but it´s still not right.
• Rangefinder hoods on turrets 2 and 4 (3D printed) are still the pre-1943 (smaller) version, like in 1/350.
• The decal sheet has the same error in providing incorrect 211-01 numbering for floatplanes instead of 242-01 etc. (same as as in 1/350).
• There are 10 rafts of 3D printed parts included in a slightly different arrangement of parts (some that are separated in 1/350 are combined together, e.g. funnel interiors + TT parts etc.).
• There are fewer turned brass parts than in 1/350 as most of those parts are provided in 3D like e.g. the gun barrels for both main and secondary armament. It´s a pity turned brass is not provided for the foremast (mainmast is fully covered!).
• The main 203mm turrets are provided in 3D with separate barrels incl. blast bags.

The 3D printed main gun turrets are really impressive, with very fine detail:

[Vladi]

Some more photos of the 3D printed rafts:

Last but not least the PE sheets.

The idea of providing the linoleum tie-down stripes in PE seems good, although one can argue that they are indeed overscale, OTOH almost any imaginable kind of representation in 1/700 would come out overscale indeed.

The PE sheets are 0.15mm thick. I would have preferred them to be 0.1mm, especially in case of the one with linoleum tie-downs and railings, but it´s a compromise to make them less vulnerable to damage while handling.

Hope you'll forgive me I forgot to take photos of the turned brass parts and the anchor chain, I may add them later if required.

The instructions are really extensive on 24(!) A4 pages in full colour! It already contains references for PE and 3D parts - that´s much better than having the "detail-up" part separately like in case of 1/350.

I just wonder why Very Fire does not provide foremast parts for the 1942 fit, it won´t take much additional effort while enhancing the possibilities of building Takao in an early war fit. There were not many other differences that would have to be addressed by the modeller: opening sealed portholes would not be difficult as well as not installing single and triple 25mm mounts and their platforms and the extra personnel rooms midships. So the option to build Takao at the time of the Guadalcanal campaign is there, just the foremast would have to be scratchbuilt or provided by an after-market producer.

Overall, it´s a really awesome kit I can fully recommend to the advanced modeller. With the inclusion of 3D printed parts in the Deluxe version this is another great leap from the best kits I´ve seen to date (Flyhawk...) – and at a VERY good price. I paid approx. $60 for the Deluxe kit on Aliexpress + $15 shipping, all incl. tax (VAT) – that´s a real bargain!

[Dan K]

Excellent! Thx so much for posting, Vladi. There is definitely some impressive detailing here for 1/700. That it can be waterlined is a major plus.

[José Miguel]

Thanks for that Vladi.
I hope this will be the standard level ok kit now.......