I am building this kit as a present for a former Coastie. I looked to see if there were any build logs for this one and didn't find any, so I thought it might help others when deciding is this is a good first kit or not. The pre-painted plastic hull can be a major selling point for some, and it does look good. However, it also presents some issues of it's own that will be addressed soon.
The packaging is nice, and everything seems to be well thought out. The instructions took me a minute to familiarize myself with, but once I figured out their method it all becomes pretty straight forward. However, they could go a bit deeper and explain some of the things that will need to be done in order to make parts fit, such as shaping the undersides of the decks to get them to fit down into the hull. I've started making some changes to make it more scale and accurate to the original, but when I do I will try to show how the kit expected it to be built as per the instructions and included materials.
The packaging is nice, and everything seems to be well thought out. The instructions took me a minute to familiarize myself with, but once I figured out their method it all becomes pretty straight forward. However, they could go a bit deeper and explain some of the things that will need to be done in order to make parts fit, such as shaping the undersides of the decks to get them to fit down into the hull. I've started making some changes to make it more scale and accurate to the original, but when I do I will try to show how the kit expected it to be built as per the instructions and included materials.