USS Arizona 1/426 Finished!

Nice finish, and it’s a nice tribute to your grandfather, too.

As far as the kit’s quality goes, I won’t bash it, but I look at it in the context of its time. It doesn’t meet today’s tough standards, to be sure. But that kit was the kit of the Arizona for a long time after it was released.

Revell also issued it as the Pennsylvania, and as both sisters in its 1/720 scale ship kit line.

And the Chinese copied it (eg, Banner), so the kit’s engineering was passed down through a couple of iterations to some examples available today. HobbyBoss’ 1/700 kit shows the DNA inherited from the venerable Revell kit.

One of the things I’ve always wondered about was why they went with the odd scale. Whether its 1/426 or 1/429, it’s still an odd scale. Which unfortunately complicates the upgrade / scratchbuilding to correct things.

it was box scale back in 1956-57 as 1/350 & 1/700 did not exist then. also it is 1/429 scale as the 1/426 is a typo error, read this link. http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=84&t=286900

Hi Don,

One of the best resources to find aftermarket for any given kit is Scalemates.com. It’s a huge kit and aftermarket product database. Within Scalemates, on each product’s webpage will be links to any vendors or modelers selling the kit so you can compare prices. You can offer your own products for sale there, too, if interested.

Scalemates can be very addictive!

Cheers!