This was my first experience from the JSC range of kits. Having
built some Wilhelmshaven ships some years ago and found these
kits very good, I was curious to find out how JSC stood in comparison.
After a bit of confusion regarding the somewhat awkward construction
of the hull structure, the JSC turned out to be a really pleasant
experience.
The assembly went on very smoothly thanks to the English instructions
(my Polish unfortunately is non-existent) and the sparse but instructive
illustrations. I found the precision of the design very good and
the parts fitted together very nicely.
I built the kit almost directly "from the box" except
for a few details. The packs of styrene rod and tube from your
accessory stock came in very handy. I used styrene rods for small
cylinder details, gun barrels and masts. Styrene tubes were used
for the main artillery gun barrels, with conical cylinders from
paper added for thickness at the turret end. The second artillery
pieces proved a bit more difficult to put together out of the
originally two part design so these were cut out in smaller details
to make it possible to glue them together in steps.
The kit comes with two Vickers-Supermarine Walrus aircraft launched
from catapults. The parts that make up the aircraft are very tiny
but were surprisingly easy to put together. Again, I used tiny
styrene rods for the struts between the upper and lower wings.
The most difficult part of the whole building project turned out
to be the "rigging" (radio antennae etc.) I tried thin
copper and stainless steel wire but couldn't get that acceptably
straight. I remade the whole thing using cotton thread, remade
it once again using cotton combined with stainless steel wire
for the wires over the fore funnel. I decided to leave it at that,
although I probably should have redone it again since the rigging
shows pretty well on the finished model, perhaps taking advantage
of some tips and tricks from other builders.
All in all though, I'm pretty pleased with the finished model.
Bo Magnusson