The 1/400 Academy Titanic kit has a number of improvements over the current Minicraft kit. But some important errors on the new 1/400 kit should also be mentioned:
1. Beginning at the aft well deck, the hull plating near the stern slants abruptly downward toward the stern of the ship. If the interior decks were to follow this closely, they would have a 5 degree downward slope going aft. It appears that the toolmakers got their geometry wrong when trying to wrap the simulated plating detail around the stern. Correcting this will take a great deal of highly skilled labor on the part of the modelbuilder.
2. On both well decks, the bulkheads going up to the forecastle and poop deck are both solid with no recessed areas underneath those decks. This is caused by the company's decision to make the well decks an intregal part of the forecastle deck and the poop deck instead of making them separate parts. This will require some elaborate scratchbuilding to correct.
3. All the cowl vents with fans are essentially identical on the 1/400 kit. And they are also incorrectly located in the same places as on the 1/350 Minicraft kit. This will require even more effort to correct than the Minicraft kit.
4. The No. 1 hatch is identically wrong to the Minicraft kit - flat with no detail. And the deck planking is vastly overscale in width, noticeably more so than the 1/350 kit.
5. The raised roof (deck) over the First Class Lounge, like the Minicraft kit, is incorrectly shaped. The two notches in the deck between the bay windows shouldn't be there. These notches must be filled in with plastic to make an overhanging deck section between the bay windows.
6. The windows in the forward enclosed portion of the Promenade Deck are square on the 1/400 kit. Minicraft's windows are properly rectangular in shape.
7. Most deck hardware (and all benches) on the
1/400 kit is molded to the deck, some in the wrong places. A number of benches are facing the wrong way. There are no spares for people wishing to make corrections.
8. The 1/400 kit lacks the skylights over the officer's washroom and wireless office. And the engine room casing skylight has the covers molded permanently in the closed position (these are engraved in a clear part that fits in the skylight frame.)
The good points of the 1/400 kit have been mentioned by Duane Fowler and others. But IMHO, a serious modeler intending to make a historically accurate replica of the Titanic will have more to work with using the Minicraft kit that any other plastic kit now available. And this will be even more true once Minicraft has completed the corrections now being done to the kit's molds.
Posted on Oct 28, 1998, 11:28 AM from IP address 199.217.72.149