I just finished putting one of these together. Some say this is a good kit for beginners but I don't completely agree with that. The reasons are that, this being a late 50's revision, the molds have seen a LOT of use and as such I encountered problems with my kit. Several sprues looked to have had mold halves that had slipped 1-2mm causing the halvs of individual pieces to be offset. On some parts this did not cause an issue but on others it took quite a bit of trimming, filling, and reshaping to make the part look and fit right. this was especially true of the anchor chain reels. This kit also suffers from some old assembly methodology which REALLY stands out when you go to put the superstructure together. You'll note that the pieces meet halfway up the bulkheads leaving with a bunch of oddly misshaped windows and nasty seam lines that need attention. And beyond that the quality of the details in the molded pieces is average at best. Coupled those issues with the fact that the hull halves didn't fit together correctly and had to be braced, clamped, and then filled and smoothed and I believe this to be a kit for the intermediate or better modeler. Now with all that being said I did find this to be a fun kit to build. And once it's done a fairly good representation of the ship overall. But I did spend most of my time fixing problems. But the kit was cheap so it's really just a practace of getting what you pay for. you could buy two of these kits for what the next least expensive kit costs. And that one is probably 1/700 scale. And anything in 1/350 scale will set you back anywhere from $50+ depending on manufacturer. So would I personally buy this kit again? For $15, ABSOLUTELY! But I wouldn't buy it for a young modeler or somebody just starting. Wait till they have a few kits under their belt before handing them one of these. In the right hands this can be a really nice build with a dirt cheap buy-in.

The USS Arizona is probably one of the most popular battleships engraved into the public's mind. Destroyed at Pearl Harbor in the famous attack by Japanese forces, the battleship's wreck today remains a popular destination for any and all Americans. This kit represents the ship as it looked after it's 1930s re-build, and can easily be made to look as it did during the day of infamy. (By the way,the biplanes were not in service during the Pearl Harbor attack.) The kit comes with injection molded plastic parts colored grey. The railings are molded on but do not look bad. The decks stack much like a cake, and the tripod masts also snap together easily. The deck plank engraving looks great and painting is strait forward and easy. The Hull comes in two peaces that are glued together. There is some flash, but it was easily removed and it did not effect the mold process. The detail on the plastic parts are crisp and easy to paint. none of the parts where too fiddly and the whole ship came together in one night. I highly recommend this kit for beginners. Once built it makes a very attractive model of the famous battleship and one which you can proudly display.

This was my first ship build in the modeling world, and being the novice ship modeler that I was at the time. I took on this challenge thinking it would be easy. But it turns out I was wrong, there are a quite a few small pieces and I lost a few and made a mess of the model. BUT! After bettering my abilities with more models I came back to this one and perfected it on my second try! LOVE the model and the american dreadnought type battleships!