The Kit

Round 2 Model Company purchased the rights to the entire Lindberg line and they have been releasing selected kits gradually. In the past, “real modelers” disparaged the Lindberg Line as being inaccurate and simplistic, but these kits were never designed to be the be all and end all of accuracy, even at the time long ago when they were released. They were designed to generally represent the subject and do so in a kit that was easy to assemble and reasonably priced. By today’s standards, they are not what most ship modelers are looking for, however if you’ve got a youngster you’re trying to get involved in the hobby or maybe a Brownie or Cub Scout group, they would make great projects and teaching tools. Or, maybe you want to try out some new techniques. These kits would make great test beds for that.

This kit is of a Kennebec Class U.S. Navy oiler. There are two paint schemes given for two different ships and decals for several more, although there is no list of which serial numbers correspond to which ship. There are 37 parts, counting two stands, a nice decal sheet, simple instructions and even a spool of thread for rigging. It’s a one-piece hull and deck, so that simplifies assembly greatly and there’s a nice amount of molded in detail on the deck showing all the plumbing present on these ships and deck and hull plating is represented by raised lines. Unfortunately, due to the age of the molds, there are mold seams on almost every part and flash is frequently encountered. But, given what I said above about how these kits can be used, those problems probably won’t matter.

Assembly

This is very straightforward. For the most part, fit is fine, although you may need to open up locater holes a bit or clean up attachment points. The deck fits down on to the hull instead of inside it, so any gaps are easier to deal with. Old kits are kind of my specialty. I like to try to get the most out of the, so I removed all the molded on railings and sanded off the hull plating lines. I substituted some generic PE railings and used stretched sprue instead of the overly thick provided thread for the rigging. I also chose the camouflaged paint scheme, which added to the complexity of if all as it involves four different colors as well as the anti-fouling red below the waterline.

Conclusion

When finished, it’s a nice looking model, if you don’t get too close. It would look ok on a desk or shelf as a decorator item, but as I said, that’s not what this kit or any kit in this series can best be used for. As a sort of personal testimony for the Lindberg Company, I use to be the person who solicited companies for raffle prizes for our local contest. Every time they were asked, Lindberg responded not with just one or two models, but with one or two CASES of models. Even when times were tight and other model companies were cutting back of such donations, Lindberg always came through. And you know what, the young modelers that won those kits were excited to get them and who knows how many went on to build more and more models because these kits were simple enough so they could complete them, but detailed enough to be a little challenging.

Thanks to Round 2 for supplying the sample kit and to IPMS/USA for the chance to review it.