A couple of months ago I received at home what appeared to be a long shoe box!
It was what I have ordered directly to Yiannis Sagiadinos from YS Masterpieces a week ago. I had promised a review for this model as soon as possible, and a “little bit” tired of waiting for a reference book to arrive, I decided to make this in-box review with what I had and with some online references (which by the way, are not that much!)
The Big Shoe Box
The model come in a big blue box, well packed with air bubbles plastic protecting the resin parts. As usual with me, the Portuguese (?) postal and mail services had the pleasure of making a big fall with the box, resulting in the well protected hull to have a relatively big chunk in the bow!
The smaller parts are packed into three zip lock plastic bags and for the middle size parts a sturdy cardboard box makes the trick (torpedoes and wheel house).
The instructions consist in eight A4 pages with history, plans (from the wanted book?) and some diagrams for part of the assembly areas. On a further analysis of the Instructions, I could say that these could be improved, especially because there are several parts very similar and no identification or placement location is given – although I already know where they are all meant to be, but for a not so experienced modeller it could turn into mayhem!
Starting to salivate
The model consists of 130 grey resin parts, from a 1,2Kg hull part to a pin head size part. The Casting is excellent both for the big parts and for the smaller ones. Some parts that catch my eye are the rendition of the Dshk Machine Gun (only missing the star on the ammo box) and the huge hull part. The casting for such a complex shape, full of details and intricate sections it is not easy and they did it! The level of detail is just…Mad! Rivets, millions and to scale, panels, the interior of the wheel house, with its instruments and wooden floor, rivets in places you are not going to see anymore once you build it!
No air bubbles are visible, no flash, except on the parts where it is supposed to be there, like the steering wheel (and this is easily removed with a brand new x-acto blade), no parts warped…
My only point here, is the location of the pouring blocks for the hull part, because you will need to perform a surgery there, to rebuild the razor edge like keel and also some dozens of rivets (but I am being “picky”).
It would be nice to include a display stand or at least some templates to scale in the instruction leaflet.
Another point that could be improved is the inclusion of a painting guide for the boat. I know that the Armada Book Nº19 “ТОРПЕДНЫЕ КАТЕРА СЕРИИ Г-5” (no I cannot read Russian!) roughly translated to “The PT boats of a series G -5” covers all the variants, including the painting schemes, from the debut of the Tupolev G-5, the Spanish Civil War, until the end of it’s days back in the 60’s! The Second World War and the Korean War were the other conflicts that the Tupolev G-5 participated in.
Conclusion
I have to congratulate Master modellers Vagelis Patakis and Chris Apostolopoulos for their wonderful work, and also Yiannis Sagiadinos from YS Masterpieces for having the courage of creating the new branch YS Custom Series and releasing this model!
The Tupolev boat it is not cheap (I won’t state it here, Mrs Skipper could read the entire article), it is heavy and very well casted, and for what I can tell so far, accurate. I hope that the Master modellers used as reference the book I am looking for (which, by the way, it is stated as reference and it is OOP).
It’s a rather interesting subject in this scale, but what would you expect from someone who has as main obscure interest 1/35 Midget Submarines and Manned Torpedoes?
I’ll recommend it to anyone interested in big scale resin boats, with some experience in this medium!
It will make a very good companion to MIG’s BK1125 Bronekater Soviet Armoured Motorboat!
A built article will appear soon(er or later)! I promise!!
Book:
“ТОРПЕДНЫЕ КАТЕРА СЕРИИ Г-5” - The PT boats of a series G -5
Series: Armada Nº19
Publishing house: Eksprint, 2001.
Soft cover, 48 pages
ISBN 5-94038-010-7
by Boris Solomonov, Constantine Kulagin
SUMMARY
YS Masterpieces through its new branch YS Custom Series released their first model in 1/35: a Tupolev G-5 series X Russian Torpedo Boat. They aimed high and hit the bulls eye! More models like this are most welcome!
Hi all Crew Members!
Rui Matos, 39 years old (in 2006), married, former Portuguese Navy Fire Control Radar Operator , and "owned" by two cats - James, Stripes (Riscas in portuguese, now deceased) and Moon (Lua)!
I've been modeling since I was 6, but only have turned to Submarines in 1991 o...
