Tennessee Class Battleship
Reviewed by Timothy Dike
| Here's another old Pearl Harbor Battleship that has been gathering dust in my unbuilt stash. It has been out of production for quite a while as Naval Works closed shop years ago. But I plan on reviewing everything I have so here's a look at What's in the Box. | |
| The hull is nicely cast for such an old kit. The detailing is pretty good and the only problems were on the bottom of the hull in an area that gets sanded away anyway. The hull differs from the old Classic Warships version in that it has locators for the turrets. |  |
| The Superstructure parts are not bad considering the age. They are actually better than some of today's kits. The various parts have a fair amount of flash to trim away and some resin sprues to remove. Once cleaned up they look pretty good and actually have pretty good detailing. |  |
| The turrets are cast resin and pretty well done. The barrels are separate cast metal parts that look good once the flash is removed. |  |
| Secondary parts look like Skywave copies, I would replace them with Skywave originals and Corsair Armada 5"-25 cal replacements. There are several parts that would be better off being replaced by photo etch replacements such as the cranes and catapults. |  |
| The Photo Etch Cage Mast is included and is sized for this kit. It is actually a Tom's Modelworks part that was supplied with this kit. Simply remove it from the fret and roll it into a tube and secure with superglue. A length of plastic rod and brass rod (not shown) are also included. |  |
| Instructions are OK, though much better then some old kits
they don't show the subassemblies very well. They do call out lengths of
gun barrels and note the modifications needed on the kit. The back side
has the ships history and a parts break down.
Conclusions: Another good kit in its time but far out classed by today's Hi-Mold Maryland kit. It is probably more valuable to the collector, than the builder but with a little work will make a pretty accurate Tennessee or California. |
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