1/700 USS Arizona BB-39

Pearl Harbor Battleship
Reviewed by Timothy Dike
The hull is molded in the waterline style with a separate bow insert. The molding is on the heavy side, similar to the old Revell Box scale (1/429) Arizona. This kit is 1/700 scale and noticeably longer than the old Revell 1/720 kit. It appears that the tooling used to produce the portholes in the ships hull was a little on the large side, as the end result looks like large tires attached to the side. Before you sand them off, use the existing molding as a locator for your drill bit. There is a raised ridge that runs around the length of the deck that resembles the base of the molded on railings used on the old 1/429 scale kit. I suspect that that old kit was the pattern for this one, and who ever modified it could have removed a little more of the material before basing their new mold on it.
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The decks are also constructed like the old box scale kit, with a half the wall split at the port hole point. This is not really a bad point as you wouldn't otherwise have open portholes. The fit on these parts are pretty good overall. The fighting tops go together in individual levels and while there will be a few seams to fill the overall effect is pretty good.
The  weapons sprue has the correct Kingfisher float planes which don't look too bad for 700 scale. The machine guns and 5" guns are not too bad, though you might want to consider Corsair Armada 5" 25 Cal resin replacements if you are going to super detail your kit. The main guns have rivet detail molded on which really needs to be sanded off. In 700 scale those rivets are about the side of a phone pole!
The kit includes a lower hull option that is a little too flat in the bottom. I think the old 720 kit might be more accurate though. It is nice to have a choice to build a full hull even if you don't use that option.
The Instructions are pretty good, they are the kits high point. They consist of a six page booklet that literally walks you though each step with illustrations.
 
I've included a composite image of the box sides showing the plan and elevations views.
Conclusions:

OK it's not perfect, it's not even that good, but it is inexpensive and has a lot more possibilities than the old Revell 1/720 kit. This would make a great first kit for a new modeler or a challenging kit to upgrade for the intermediate modeler. I suspect serious molders will instead chose the more accurate HP Models 1/700 resin kit of the Arizona.


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