This ever happened to you ?

I never thought that I would ever find myself in the position of telling a Japanese model manufacturer that they have incorrectly made a part that is intended to go on a model of a Japanese ship, but here I am !!!

I recently purchased an Aoshima wood deck detail sheet that is intended to go on their 1/700 Fuso kit. Upon pulling it out, I discovered that the deck sheet was incorrectly cut on the right side of mid-ship area. Apparently an error occurred in the laser cut process, cutting a straight line down the outside profile (which leaves the deck bare over the secondary casemate guns on that side of the model).... I would have normally written this off to a case of poor engineering of the part, except that the sheet is properly cut on the left side, following the undulating profile of the deck bulges over the guns.

I sent an e-mail to Aoshima, attaching a scanned image of the item, highlighting the affected area (which is fairly obvious, when you compare the right and left sides) After a number of weeks, I received an e-mail from Aoshima stating that this was not a defect. They even included a poor quality photo showing a completed model with the deck in place.

I dont know if I have a lone defective example of an item here or if I have stumbled across a major problem in their manufacturing process (which of course would be expensive for them) but with the response that I have received to this point, I am beginning to feel like I have purchased a "Toyota Prius"


Have any of you had a similar experience with Aoshima ? I would be interested in hearing from anyone who might have purchased this item to see if this is a lone defect or if it is something that they need to correct in the whole enchilada (if I can ever get them to accept that this is a defect).

Hello pagodaphile,

Regarding those wood decks,

I never finish one of them yet but, tried lot of test fits and followed nice builds around internet. For having nice fitting, most of the details on deck must be removed out from the model. Some of the details on those parts are not burning out during production stage correctly. In some cases, modeller forcing to cut wood parts and glue in some distance between parts. This also requires very well done homework about vessel design.

I understood you very well. When I received KA model wood deck for Nagato, felt same things like you. There was lot of burned out details on wood deck part but those were not enough. Please double check for such reasons ( I felt like Fujimi aftersales guys now )

Cheers
Serhan

It seems strange how they could do such a good job on the left side , but then leave the right side cut off completely. Quality control seems to be the problem....I actually have that Nagato deck also, waiting for a ship to go underneath. No fit problems with that one though....