by David Salvin
1/700 San Giusto (L 9894) (Delphis Models)
I built this ship on commission for a patron with exotic tastes. I had never heard of Delphis Models before or even seen this ship or its class before he sent it to me to build.
The Kit
The kit comes courtesy of Delphis Models in Rome, Italy. As with the other Italian MAS kit I reviewed, the resin casing is good, but not great. However, still much better than Midship Models though not as good as Com Brig. The pieces were well cast, but not perfectly crisp. The hull and large components were well enough done, but the smaller parts like the landing boats, radar parts and small armament pieces were rather poorly done, and unfortunately, were not well attached or packaged and came hanging of the frets or just off entirely and rolling around in the box.
Fortunately, being a modern ship, the San Giusto doesn’t have much in the way of detail along the hull etc. Casting included basic watertight doors and major structures and not much else.
The instructions give the highlights to construction and assume the modeler knows exactly what to do and when to do it. Being an Italian kit, at least the instructions weren’t in Japanese. I could at least make out most of the words (thank you high school Latin!)
The big failure in this kit (always has to be a failure doesn’t there?) Is the lack of decals. The nature of this ship means the "money" is in the deck painting. The stripes, edge markings and hull numbers etc. The kit came with a few lines and circles etc, but nowhere near enough white or yellow lines or even the ships’ L9894 numbers which the Italians seem to feature very prominently on this ship from every angle. Many thanks to STARFIGHTER DECALS for the help with the custom decals.
The Build
Pretty much out of the box except for minor scratch building, the addition of Lion Roar railings and netting and a single 20mm mount on the superstructure (from my WWII PE parts) And, of course, the addition of decals for the deck markings and hull numbers. Rigging and vertical antennae were done with stretched sprue.
The ship is seen mounted to my customary plexiglass shipping platform with wood screws from beneath.
Overall a fair kit in comparison to other brands, but the only version of this particular ship I am aware of.
