U.S.S. South Dakota

It's a simple kit, but suffers from an innacurate bow and poor representations of the 5 38 turrets. Looks fine in profile, but a plan view shows the bow too narrow by far.

Just finished the model and thought it came out pretty darn good. Did some research regarding the ship's camo coloring, but decided to use a light gray paint for items that went above the stack level. Used a medium gray for the superstructure, turrets, etc and the hull from the boot-topping from waterline up. Also decided to stay with the red colored waterline hull and added a think flat black strip just above the red waterline. Main battery guns are painted in Model Master Steel not gunmetal. The majority of the parts were pretty clean and not much flare and sprue cutter makes it very easy to remove from the sprue. Only problem I had was with some of the 20mm's as the barrel part had snapped off on a few so ended up using not full compliment of them on the ship. Good detail on the 40mm AA guns and the 5 in. turrets also. Next project is the USS Bogue and then the USS Hancock (Hasegawa).

This kit of the U.S.S. South Dakota battleship was probably one of the more straightforward battleship kits I have built. It still contains a good number of smaller parts, particularly the antiaircraft guns, but even these were fairly easy to place because the kit is large enough. This made it quite a bit easier to build. The parts are also relatively easy to detach from the molds making assembly easier.