I found a 1/350 musashi for $58. After reading about the Musashi I was impressed with the punishment she took before sinking. This will be my first large scale battleship model and I am courious about ordering PE for the kit. I am an armor guy who adds PE and resin to most of my kits. I mostly use Eduard or Aber PE. Which set of PE would you recommend, Lionroar or White Ensign Model? I have no experience with either company. Thanks ahead of time! Greg.
I have no direct knowledge of the White Ensign set for this ship, but I can say that White Ensign PE is always my first or second choice for ships, alternating with Gold Medal Models. There have been some questions about whether Lionroar is actually doing their own design work.
For the Yamato set Lion Roar offer many more items in PE then either Gold metal or White Ensign. In addition Lion Roar also go well beyond PE to include items such as metal gun barrels and brass propellers which are not included with other PE sets and which are hard to come by from any other source.
Any idea of the cost of Lion Roars set #LS350003 the Yamoto super set? It is not carried, or in stock at my normal internet sources. Someone said there was also a set of turned barrels for the Iowa class ships but I didn’t see them on Lion Roars web site. Thanks. Greg.
$100+
[sigh]
I wonder what Toms Model Works new PE for the Yamoto and Musashi will be like? The release is planed for late summer.
Ah yes, the Do I build it NOW … or wait? decision. Never an easy one. I faced the same thing when building an updated USS Enterprise for a friend, they needed it by Thanksgiving, so I ended up spending quite a bit on white custom decals and some other things. Of course, six month slater, Gold Medal Models came out with their supercarrier decal set!
As to Tom’s, his sets are always at least adequate to good, and every PE set is going to have some different things in it. It’s your decision on how long you want to sit on that monster before you try to hatch it.
I ended up buying the GMM, WEM, and the Eduard sets for my Yamato. Each set had enough unique detail to make it worth it to me.
If I had to choose only one today I would probably go with the Lion Roar set, if only for the brass barrels and propellors. It looks like a very comprehensive set, a good value considering I priced the brass barrels seperately at one point and they cost 160 dollars all by themselves.