This is a good model kit, its a good kit for people just getting into model ships if they are set on 1/350 scale, as i am. This was my second ship kit, i have experience with over 80 WWII Warbird models at 1/48 scale. The problems with this kit is the port side gun platforms are very weak, and break easily. They broke in handling of the ship in final stages before reaching the showcase. Also, these breaks were not at the glue locations, the gun platforms themselves snapped, again, easily. The paint scheme colors are easy to locate, and there are a few good looking schemes, all of which had easily located colors.

I thought that overall this kit was a pretty good kit. The detail was excellent. There were not too many issues with fit. One drawback on the kit is the fact that some of the pieces are very small and thus very frail. I had several pieces damage coming off the sprues. Finally, it is nice that they include the planes, but be forewarned that it can become tedious to get the minuscule decals on the tiny plane parts.

I have recently returned to an old love of mine - plastic model building - and after a couple attempts at some old kits I had lying around, this was my first real foray back into serious model construction. I've been very impressed with the Trumpeter brand so far, but I did encounter one strange problem: the space on the hull for the port side bow gun platform did not match up correctly with the platform - I had to use a Dremel tool to cut away enough of the plastic to make it work, a regular hobby/x-acto knife wouldn't do it, it was a significant amount (not flash, it almost seemed like a factory mistake). Once I got past that snafu, I had a great time putting the rest of it together. I found that I have a lot more patience for this hobby now than I did when I was 10, and this was a fairly complex kit with a lot of parts so my biggest recommendation is to be patient and take your time. The instructions were a little fuzzy in places, I found that it helped to thoroughly test out placement of the parts BEFORE attempting any glue - once again, some minor imperfections here, these could be fixed with a little chop from the hobby knife. Assembling the planes was probably the most difficult part, those small canopies and wings can break easily when you cut them off the trees. I found that setting up an assembly line was the way to go: I separated all the plane parts and tackled them one at a time. I should also note that I added a few extra sets of planes to this model (I wanted at least a dozen of each type). That took almost as much time as building the rest of the ship, but I've always been a little nuts about carrier models - I've got the 1/350 USS Hornet to do with a complete set of 16 B-24s for the Doolittle Raid. My next trick is to try to make my own bombs/torpedoes using a clay cast - my wife is a potter so that gets her involved a bit too!