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This is a re-release of a real “Golden Oldie” show car. The original kit was released in 1970. As the box top art states, this is a Tom Daniels design. Tom Daniels designed 87 model cars for Monogram between 1967 and 1976. As I stated in the review of “Rommel’s Rod” most of his kits could be built in an evening or two.
Thanks to Stevens once again for providing yet another superlative Trumpeter kit for IPMS to review. The best we can do for appreciation is to buy kits they offer; and this one is worth every dime! I’ll go on record as saying this was the best Trumpeter kit I’ve built.
“Hey, that’s a big box”. It’s also a heavy box. Postman is rolling around on the lawn in pain kind of heavy. I go out and do a clean-and-jerk lift…. And it’s off to the workbench!
Editors note: The reviewer has included Cyber-Hobby Models Photo-etched Railing Upgrade Set for “Scharnhorst” Kit Number CHC-3880 ($19.95) with this review.
The Dragon 1/350 scale model of the German Battleship Scharnhorst is one impressive kit, not only in the size of the model itself but the enormous number of parts. The large box was stuffed full with 28 individually bag sprues, 5 photo-etched frets, an upper hull, a lower hull, a plastic base, a decal sheet, and an instruction sheet. If that was not enough, there wis also a supplemental photo-etched set of railings and other miscellaneous items provided by Dragon that was used as part of this build.
This being the second Kinetic kit I’ve had the pleasure to build and review, I have found several similarities in the offerings. First, the instructions could use some tweaking, in that I found some misnumbered parts. It would be of major benefit to the builder to keep his reference material close at hand. Secondly, during construction I encountered what I felt was a major fit issue with the wing to fuselage joints. My kit required completing the attachment in 4 steps with cyano acrylic and accelerator to close gaps in the wing roots (interestingly, I have since had an opportunity to read other build reviews of this subject and their experience didn’t seem as pronounced as mine. Maybe it was something I did wrong.) In any event, these two issues are the only negatives to an otherwise exceptionally nice kit. Third and last, this kit, like the F84F from Kinetic, suffers with extremely fat trailing edges, so get out the wood rasp.
In 1941, the IJN battleship Nagato(already 21 years old and 5 years after her last major re-fit) was the flagship of the Combined Japanese Fleet, flying the flag of Admiral Yamamoto. On 2 December 1941, Nagato transmitted "Niitakayama nobore 1208" to the fleet, which translated into "Climb Mount Niitaka on 12/08" (12/07 Hawaii time).
In mid-2010, Fujimi released a 1/500 scale rendition of Nagato, as she appeared in 1941, at the 'Outbreak of War'.
First, many thanks to Fujimi for providing this kit for review. This kit is well thought-out, engineered and designed and features excellent detail and fit for a 1/500 scale kit.
Inside the box are 21 sprues of gray, black and clear individually bagged parts, a 9 1/4" x 14 3/8" instruction booklet, decals, a metallic nameplate label, a length of anchor chain and a 1:1 size, 5-view color chart for reference.
