I saw two versions of this offering. I read somewhere that the earlier kit was from a Mania release a long time ago. I’m wondering, tho, if the other version is of the same lineage or was it of a newer tooling. I hope somebody helps me out here. Thanx!
The Hasegawa Nates are all from the same lineage, but it’s a very nice kit and builds into an attractive model. If you want a Nate, go for it!
Rick
Yepper, it’s an old Mania kit and I can definately recommend this one, it’s one of the easiest builds I’ve ever had. The kit fits like a glove, with one exception, and holds up fairly well against today’s kits, despite its age.
The only bad point to this kit is the fit of one of the clear parts. There are two options and neither fit perfectly, but the piece for the early variant is a really bad fit. I chose the later variant and it really wasn’t too awful bad, but I wasn’t totally satisfied with it. Looks good, nonetheless.
Now, even though the kit’s been re-issued several times since, I built my Nate from the initial Hasegawa release from way back, when they were still affiliated with Minicraft. Molds will distort with age and fit sometimes suffers, so my experience with the Nate may be different than that of a build from a recent release. Although I’ve talked to three different people who’ve built a Nate from recent releases and they had only minor problems.
Speaking of recent releases, a couple years back Hasegawa issued the kit with parts for a bird with unspatted undercarriage. I never saw one of those kits open but they may have been resin parts instead of plastic. The kit itself remains unchanged.
I’m having problems with my photo host again [banghead] but when they get their act together I’ll post some photos if you like.
Fade to Black…
The couple of Nates I built some time back were from one of the early releases, but I doubt the molds have detiorated much with the latest re-issue. Like Blackwolf said, a decent build and I also used the later version clear parts. If I had a Digital camera I’d post a pic, but sadly I don’t. Thinking about buying one, but then I wouldn’t know how to post a pic anyway. I read the instructions on another Forum thread and my hands got clammy as I broke into a cold sweat. Didn’t have a clue what it meant, but I am “technology challenged”.
Rick