1/350 YMS-419 Minesweeper (Niko)
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by Richard Sliwka |
1/350 YMS-419 Minesweeper (Niko)
I had built Niko's USS Taney Coast Guard cutter last year and was very impressed with the resulting model. So, when I noticed Freetime Hobbies had Niko's auxiliary motor minesweeper kit, I purchased it. I decided to build it out-of-the-box (There's not much that could be added anyway.).The resin castings are outstanding--minimal, if any, clean-up was required. There are about 70-80 very detailed resin pieces, two laser-cut wooden decks, a brass mast, and a PE sheet with about 50 pieces. Remember, the model is only four inches long so a little pre-planning is required as those thick fingers can easily undo previous work and damage delicate parts; e.g: 20mm resin barrels. The pictorial instructions are excellent and easy to follow. I had no problems with the construction except for the PE inclined ladders. The PE sheet parts are delicate--very thin--and required care in assembly and placement. Normally, that was not a problem except for the ladders. It was impossible to bend the railings into the "U" shape without the railings breaking. I finally resorted to placing a little super glue at the bend points and, then, quickly bend to the "U" shape before the glue set. DON'T attempt to rotate the "steps" as you will end up with many small, loose brass pieces. No decals, except a US flag, are provided; however, a brass stencil with "YMS-419" was provided. I decided to see how effective this method was--NOT VERY as is turned out. The stencil just cannot conform to the hull curves. I affixed the stencil to the hull with tape, painted the edges with the Ocean Gray hull colors to seal, and carefully air-brushed white. The result was still white 'bleed" so after sanding to remove the white and repainting with Ocean Gray, I simply used press-on letters/numbers--they are close. NOTE: I believe Aft Back Models has a decal sheet with the right sized letters/numbers; but, that wasn't available when I built this model. The only thing I added was the rigging for the mast and handling cranes--I used caenis line. I painted the model using Model Master acrylic paints--Ocean Gray with unpainted decks. I spent about 60-70 hours building this model. The result was a very detailed model of one of those many small, auxiliary vessels that performed essential tasks during WWII.
This is an outstanding kit. I would rate it as 9.5 on a 10 scale--the only issue was the PE ladders. I would recommend that a builder have some experience with resin ship kits before attempting this build. With that experience, an excellent, detailed, small model can be built with minimal effort.
