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This kit comes packaged in a small plastic bag with a cardboard header and a small instruction sheet.
Parts consist of two resin bodies, 8 resin rear fins and 8 photo-etched brass fore fins. There are no decals.
The instructions are very basic but then not much is needed for directions to put this missile together.
There is no painting guide so it is up to the modeller to find this information himself.
Overall casting is decent. In my package one of the missile bodies
was warped and a couple of the resin fins had pin holes. There
were small bumps on the nose portion of both missile bodies that
need to be sanded out. The etched pieces are nicely done.
Attaching the fins to the body was quite troublesome. The area on
the body where the resin rear fins attach does not allow a flush fit
so these spots need to be sanded down somewhat. If this is not
done then there is a noticeable gap between the fins and the body.
As for the steering fins on the fore body these proved to be very
difficult to attach. Each of the etched steering fins has a small tab at the bottom. The tab is supposed to fit
into a small raised bump, with a small hole in the center, located on the body. These holes are too small
for the tabs so they required enlarging with a drill bit. But here is where the real trouble begins. The
surface area of these tabs is much too small to allow either super glue or epoxy to hold them solidly in
place. I tried both methods and in each case the point of attachment was so fragile that the slightest bump
knocked them off. After this happened a few times the holes were all bent out of shape and basically
useless. I finally decided sand off the bumps and replace all of the fore fins with new pieces cut from
some plastic sheet using one of the etched fins as a template. It's too bad this had to be done, as the
etched fins would have looked so much better attached as they were intended.
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Conclusion
I must say that is a most disappointing kit and I can only say that in my mind the work required
markedly reduces its value. This is one best left for those with some experience working
with resin and photo-etched parts.
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