There are plenty of huge models out there in the RC world. I don’t know where I’d put one, but unless it’s utter garbage I’ll be getting one anyway and will MAKE room.
The pattern for how a kit is produced might include a prototype model such as what we saw here; it really depends on the company and how they choose to work. I can say that with my time as a consultant with Dragon (not paid, not compensated, before people get the wrong impression) there have been no prototype models of ships. It starts with CAD (Computer Aided Design/Drawing), the CAD is critiqued and re-worked, then a test shot is created, and if that is successful then the read deal happens.
CAD is much easier to send around and correct; there is a distributed team of people producing CAD round the world and we can zap screen shots and comments to each other fairly instantly. I had a revision for one project e-mailed out to me yesterday in fact, and ten minutes after opening the photos I had sent back a couple of corrections.
This Arizona model might have been meant more to drum up interest than to plan for the actual kit.
I hope enough interest is being shown that they decide to do a much better job of research. I just noticed on a couple of closer photos that the Range Clocks on the masts are so tiny you can barely see them in the close-ups. The Clocks in the photos of the real ships are readable by the naked eye at a couple hundred yards. Every front or rear view photo clearly shows them.
IMHO there is more than enough documentation available now to finally get this Lady right! And the Lady deserves it! Whether it is Trumpeter or Lindberg or someone else, It’s Time![soapbox]
If Lindberg makes their molds anything like this mock-up, the I-53 may look good by comparison. The closer I look at this the worse it gets. The second link you posted shows a good picture of the secondary armament. The mounts for the 5"/25’s are totally wrong, and the length of the 5"/51’s may be too short. It’s hard to tell with so much of it hidden, but with the panels closed the barrels should be parallel with the centerline of the ship. Not sticking out at an angle. At these angles, the panels would not close properly.
I believe Lindberg needs to quit trying to pantograph some other model and do their research from the beginning so they can get it correct the first time. Hopefully, they will refer to this and other forums for a lot of information that can explain to them how to correctly interpret the plans they use. This model looks like something Lindberg threw together quickly for this show, maybe to take people’s minds off the I-53. Well, it didn’t work. There have been many comparisons to the I-53 already in several of the forums. I will keep my fingers crossed that the actual model will be much better than this mock-up.
The close-up photos of the Arizona mock-up/prototype look crude to say the least. While the size of the model is impressive, the detail, accuracy and level of craftsmanship aren’t very impressive. I hope this isn’t respresentative of the tooled kit. I’m not sure that Lindberg is advancing their cause by displaying something like this at a major trade show.
Now this is one Lindberg kit I am interested in (don’t have much interest in a never-completed DKM carrier, and I’m not enough of a sub fan to devote 5’ of display space to the I-53 even if the kit were any good, but a 1/144 WW1-vintage battleship is another matter!)
Like other posters, though, I really hope the model at the show is a scratchbuilt mockup, and not a test shot. (It certainly looks to me like it’s scratchbuilt from basic materials, not assembled from moulded parts; it looks to me like it even has a planked wood deck). In which case, the errors on the mockup are unlikely to correspond to the appearance of the finished model, unless the mockup is also the prototype for the kit parts (I can’t imagine they’d use a pantograph, especially for a model this large, in the era of CAD?)
Reading statements like these, they either have complete confidence in Mr. Melillo’s work & think the modeling community has no idea of what we’re talking about or they simply could care less.
Once again, I just hope they start listening to the community & fix these glaring errors on what has yet to be released.
From those other threads it’s starting to look like Lindbergs excuse for having the radar screen mounted and the 1.1 guns mounted will be that they must have been blown off the ship by the explosion, because they were supposed to be there. [banghead] Nevermind that they weren’t scheduled to be installed until a week or so after the attack. Silly Admirals! They should have known the attack was coming so these parts could be installed sooner. Then Lindberg would look better in the eyes of their adoring fans! [:-^]
FairSeaes; we don’t know what Charlie Kucera’s connection is, he might be just a friend or fan with no connection. I would be more inclined to wait and see.
Keep in mind folks that this kit was JUST “announced” and Lindberg probably spent the weekend breaking down their booth, etc. and have not had a chance to reply. The whole world does not run on internet time and we should sit back and give them a chance to catch their breath before they respond. We do not know the full story and it is too early to speak with any certainty.
I wondered abt that. His email is generic .aol, not a .com address. I think this model looks fab, although no doubt errs in details, but it looks like it would be a real attention getter hanging in the family room!
I have no intention of posing as an expert on the *Arizona’*s configuration as of December 7, 1941 - or any other date. And I certainly don’t intend to nudge this thread in the direction of the notorious Japanese submarine discussion. But I have the impression that the 1.1" “Chicago piano” mount had four equally-spaced barrels. Aren’t those weapons on the model’s quarterdeck Bofors 40mm quad mounts - which weren’t introduced until fairly late in the war? They look, in fact, as though they might be manufactured parts (H&R, maybe?) - and seem to be assembled incorrectly, with their platforms reversed. (Isn’t the platform supposed to project aft of the mount, so the loaders can stand on it? And shouldn’t it have a railing around it?)
Maybe that suggests that the modeler was just using what was available, and looked more-or-less right, for this highly preliminary step in the kit development process - with the assumption that the kit will contain 1.1" mounts - or, better yet, empty tubs.
In any case, even if this is a truly magnificent kit (as I hope it will be), I have to confess it won’t be on my wish list. Even if I had a place to put it, I’m sure the price will be completely beyond my budget. (At the moment I’m sort of drooling over Tamiya’s recent announcement of a 1/32 Spitfire Mk. IX - one of my favorite airplanes. The price of that one apparently will be somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 - more than I’ve ever paid for a kit in my life, but maybe, just maybe…)
I’d like to repeat my comments that I made on the Steel Navy forum in that I don’t understand what the purpose is of displaying a scratch built model of the Arizona built by a master modeler. This to me seems misleading as it does not represent the model kit that Lindberg will be producing and can only be used to drum up interest in purchasing “a” model of the Arizona. I think there are better ways of doing this such as a maybe a painting of the Arizona done by a maritime artist with a small sign saying coming “soon at Christmas time 2010”. After all Hasegawa didn’t display a model of the Akagi built by on of the Japanes model masters at the Tokyo Toy Show and purport it to be derived from the upcoming kit! This reminds me of the Detriot Car Show with all those concept cars on display that you just knew they would never make it to actual vehicles. A company I recently worked for did extensive molding of plastic parts for various Medical Devices they manufactured and the process was for any part a CAD drawing was first produced/reviewed. Then it was sent to the actual mold manufacturer to produce the mold either in aluminum for short run items (several thousand parts) or in tool steel for parts that would run in the hundred of thousands. They would then require the mold maker to run test shots from the mold and these would then be dimensionally compared to the original drawing of the part. If this was satisfactory then the mold was sent to the company and more test parts would be run on their molding machines. If all went well then the mold would be qualified and actual production parts could be made. In this manner an accurate molded part could be produced. Lindberg should be doing something along the same lines. After all they’re not trying to produce something that had dimensional tolerances as low as +/-.005" such as some of these medical parts required.
I wish L/H all the success with this undertaking…and if it is not a total abortion, I’ll be buying that monster. I bought the I-53 sight/review unseen, but it now it sits at the very bottom of the pile. IMO…I consider that a total abortion.
Just as the emails posted on S/N from “master modeller” Richard Melilo stated…HE is RIGHT…I got that exact same “I am correct, you modelers don’t know what you’re talking about” when we corresponded on the I-53…even though he never stated specifically what and where his rendition came from other than “his research and documents used is out there and available to anyone that wants to get it”…that was his mantra…but never provided any substantiating evidence. It’s also painfully obvious that Mr Pettit thinks the sun rises and sets in Melilo and he IS their man. They are still leaning towards the RC / big toy modeler and NOT the true scale model enthusiast.
I’ll wait and see, but I bet Trumpeter is burning the midnight oil to put their’s back on track…heck maybe even switch to 1/144 to go with their Gato subs.
Until we see true test shots and / or the final product…I’m putting this one to rest…
I’ve got one big question about all this. Did Lindberg, at the show where it displayed this model, actually say, in print or orally, that it was planning to release a 1/144 Arizona? Or is it possible that the model we’ve been discussing was intended as some sort of generic promotional tool - or maybe to promote an Arizona on a smaller scale?
A 1/144 injection-molded styrene Arizona would be a pretty revolutionary development in the industry. The hull would be well over four feet long; I don’t think the industry has ever produced an injection-molded object that big. (Even if it was broken up somehow into sections, like the Matchbox/Revell corvette or the various big submarines, the sections would be enormous and horribly prone to shrinkage, warpage, and other fit problems.) And what on earth would the price look like?
If this actually is a project that’s on Lindberg’s drawing board, I wonder if the designers may be thinking in terms of a fiberglass hull - the sort of thing that the RC community takes for granted.
Lindberg supposedly intends to release this model sometime late 2010 or 2011. They displayed it at the recent hobby show which I believe was in Chicago? There is quite the extensive thread on this over on the Steel Navy forum including correspondance between some of the members and the gentleman who made the displayed prototype (his response was rather condescending/“snarky”). Here is a link from cybermodeler showing pictures of Lindberg’s booth (www.cybermodeler.com/special/ihe09.shtml. Scroll down to Lindberg). My point parallels the question you’ve asked namely why display this at all? If it was the initial test shots out of their new molds of the model that would be fine and very relevant but it’s not.
Thanks, Mr. Lacey. I took a look at the Steel Navy site. It does indeed look like Lindberg is serious about this project.
Emotions appear to be getting rather hot in the SN forum. I hope that doesn’t happen again here. But now I’m really curious about those anti-aircraft guns. Am I the only one who thinks they look more like 40mm Bofors guns (with backwards platforms) than 1.1" “Chicago pianos”?
One possibility that’s occurred to me is that the modeler may have started out with some parts of the poor old Lindberg *Fletcher-*class destroyer. (It’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 1/144, isn’t it?) Or maybe the new Revell one? Again, I’d see nothing particularly wrong about doing that for a basic “concept model.” But if this kit, which presumably will cost several hundred dollars, does indeed have anti-aircraft guns of a type that hadn’t even been introduced before the ship was sunk…
In one of the other forums, one of the posters said he talked to a person in the Lindberg booth who told him this kit would have about 1000 parts with an MSRP of about $400. The parts count presumes a lot of good detail, so why would they have this scratch-built model, that was obviously thrown together in a hurry out of whatever parts were readily available (as long as they looked somewhere in the ballpark of what the real item looked like), built to represent what was to come? An actual picture blown up to scale size would, to me, have served far better! To have a model made that has so many things wrong with it, when the documentation is readily available to make it correctly, just tells me that Lindberg doesn’t really care about scale modelists. They seem to be going after the RC crowd, who it seems will accept nearly anything (case in point, I-53) as long as it has the general appearance of what they want, which this model does. At first glance you can tell it is the Arizona or the Pennsylvania. It isn’t until you look closer that you notice all the anomalies, such as items that were never installed, or were removed long before Pearl Harbor was attacked. I am sure that if they make the model anything like this mock-up, they will sell a whole lot of them. However, if they make it accurate, I believe they will not be able to make them fast enough to meet the demand. I guess we’ll see in a year or so. As I said before, I hope they do it right so as to finally give proper honor to this Lady. I think she deserves it, don’t you?
On the subject of the model’s size, an injection-moulded 1/144 Arizona is definitely practical with today’s moulding technology; Nichimo’s 1/200 Yamato, first produced in the 1970s (which has a single-piece hull) is actually a bit larger, at 132cm long (AZ in 1/144 would be 129cm).
A quote from Steelnavy, which confirms that the model at the show is definitely a scratchbuilt mockup, not a test shot:
Tracy White also mentioned on the steelnavy.com forum that the model appeared to have been built from an out of date and inaccurate set of plans:
Anyway, I’ll reserve judgment on this model until I see some actual kit parts/test shots. But if the kit’s issues are limited to “fit” inaccuracies - wrong AA guns, radar, etc. - as appears to be the case on the mockup, at least these will be fairly straightforward to fix with scratchbuilding (unlike the fundamental shape errors in the I-53 kit). Especially in the case of the never-fitted radar and light AA, which you can simply leave off.
I certainly hope Lindberg get it right, though!