Thank you both for the compliments.!
Jim21680 wrote:
But a quick question about the KA kit: Are you happy with it regarding the results & price? I'm mainly interested in how the deck turned out.
Overall, I am happy with the KA kit. At the time I was looking, there were 3 wood decks out and only 2 I could readily aquire. The Artwox was out, but out-of-stock perpetually. The other (forget who it was even) was not well recieved. So I went for the KA Models set. Since it came with photoetch, I stopped shopping for any further etch parts. While I'm happy, the kit does have some weakness.
The wood deck is not one of them. The fit of the deck is excellent and I have had no problems with adhesion using the self-adhesive that it came with and nothing else. I understand it has the proper planking pattern (I wouldn't know it if it jumped out and bit me...comes with being an airplane guy). It can be criticized for not having the perimeter board for drainage built in (Artwox has it I understand). A minor point to me, but others care more. It does have some of the perimeter boards around the turrets and the aft deck access panels. I did run an 11 blade around many of the cut out slots for locating just to make the fit a little less snug, but this was not completely necessary.
The photoetch that is present is excellent to work with. It is a strong brass, but bends easily and holds the bend. Parts are well designed to fold up from a single piece rather than assemblying multiple pieces with glue. I suspect WEM is a more complete set, as they usually are. However, pretty much everything I expected to be there was. I do have a few criticisms of the etch though. The bend lines in the railings are accurately placed, however they also have bend lines at the start of a curved section. This means the railing has a tendency to bend at a sharp angle rather than a curve. It can be worked with, but annoying. The railings are also measured to fit on/at the lip around the superstructure decks. This means you either need to remove this lip or make some small adjustments to fit it inside the lip (I chose the latter for ease of assembly). The instructions simply consist of a series of pictures with the parts installed. It works well 95% of the time, but there are a couple places I spent some time scratching my head to figure out just how to make the 5 or 6 pieces look like the picture. I am a bit suprised they did not include any detail pieces for the OS2U Kingfishers (sway braces for the floats, radar antenna masts, etc.). This is one of the places I wouldn't be surprised if WEM includes a bit more. The final is my pet peeve with almost all photoetch companies, but there are no extras of anything. You have
exactly enough railing, but if you need to make any patches (I had to make a couple to the stanchions around the deck perimeter), you have nothing to work with. I fashioned what I needed form the kit photoetch. A couple of the very small things like the grab irons on the launches took great care to ensure I didn't lose a single one while trying to glue a ridiculously tiny piece. There are a few of these where I would have preferred to see the design such that you drill locating holes and pass the grab iron in to these holes. However, the KA design is such that you simply glue the photoetch filament (to give the image of how small they are) directly on the surface while hoping you have enough glue to hold it in place. There is no extra length to be able to insert in to a drill hole.
All-in-all though, it's a pretty good kit and works well. It comes in at roughly the cost of a seperate wood deck and photoetch kit, so price is reasonable. If I purchased things seperately, I might have gotten a bit more from the WEM set.
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