Hasegawa's Hikawa Maru is a fine kit in it's own right, but many modelers today are not satisfied with the fidelity of all plastic parts. Photoetch allows for thinner, higher detailed parts to enhance the scale appearance of your model. Since Hasegawa's first 1/350 ship offerings, they have released supplementary photoetch detailing sets for their kits, usually in "Basic" and "Super"; this set is the Basic detail set.

The Basic detail set is comprised of a single fret of thin brass photoetch. The etching is very crisp, with no signs of over- or under-etching, chemical staining, or other manufacturing defects.

The fret itself is basic, as the title implies. This set is almost completely made up of pre-shaped railings, with some varieties of ladders, watertight doors and life rings. The ladders are interesting, as some have a different set of handrails than the others. It is common to see all the ladders as identical parts, so this is a nice detail.

One item of note is the method Hasegawa uses for mounting the railings. There are a set of tabs which run along the bottom of each length of railing. This tab is intended to be bent over at a 90 degree angle, and then glued to the deck.

A large double-sided folding sheet of instructions is included. These instructions have both illustrations and photos of the parts installed on the kit. While lengths of railings are similar in size, there are different styles of railing used. Make sure to match the part number etched on the fret with the assembly sequence you are building.

Thanks to Great Planes Model Distributorsfor the review sample. It is listed as #72149 1/350 Hikawa Maru Basic Photo-Etched Parts with a MSRP of $64.99 US. Great Planes is the exclusive US importer for Hasegawa.