Hasegawa 1/350
Wooden Deck for Escort Carrier USS Gambier Bay CVE-73

Reviewed by Sean Hert
HISTORY

Hasegawa's kit of Gambier Bay is a great kit in it's own right, but what kit couldn't use some additional detail. Capitalizing on the interest in wooden replacement/upgrade decks that has been growing over recent years in the ship modeling hobby, Hasegawa has a pre-stained flight deck available for your CVE.

DECK

This set has 4 thin wooden deck peices, of .012" thickness. Each piece is separated at the expansion joints. These wooden pieces are pre-stained in Flight Deck Stain 21, and are adhesive backed for application to the kit's plastic deck. The positions for the photoetch parts are die-cut, and will need some gentle work with an exacto or scalpel to remove.

Each piece of blue wood has great planking detail, and the very fine tie-down strips are an improvement over the ones molded into the kits plastic deck. The planks look to be about .033 inches wide- about four times as wide as a truly scale plank, but this is probably reaching the usable limits of the material- looks like a good compromise, but that's just sitting in the package.


D
C
B
A
PHOTOETCH

The photoetch set also comes pre-painted, and is made from .06" brass. It includes some interesting pieces for the flight deck, some of which were not included in the kit- namely the arrestor wire sheaves and barrier arms. This fret also includes the expansion joints that run the width of the deck, catapult channels, elevator platform and opening edging, and the deck edge lights and arresting wire supports.

DECAL

This isn't exactly a set of decals, but a set of dry transfers for deck markings and some additional draft marks for the hull! (Normal waterslide decals could warp the wooden decks)
INSTRUCTIONS

A double-sided sheet of instructions is included. One side covers the application of the adhesive deck with little detail; the other side concerns itself with the application of the photoetch and tranfers.

CONCLUSIONS

This add-on set has many neat features; the higher fidelity of the wooden decks parts and photoetch over the kit's plastic, and the use of dry transfers instead of decals will appeal to many. While applying the adhesive deck may prove tricky for some, this set would be a great upgrade for your CVE. Unfortunately, like most "name brand" manufacturer detail sets, this one has a steep price tag; a retail price of $99.95 US.

Thanks to Great Planes Model Distributors for the review sample. It is listed as #72146 1/350 Wooden Deck for USS Gambier Bay CVE-73 with a MSRP of $99.95 US. Great Planes is the exclusive US importer for Hasegawa.