I’m an armor modeler, but I will say I love watching your videos! Your ship building videos are fun to watch because I love seeing your scratch building techniques. Looking forward to your next video.
Bought the Pola today for $30 and yeah it's pretty rough but at the end of the day it's a great starter to practice on before you start those more expensive builds.
I built the Pola earlier this year, got it as a bargain from BNA models for roughly $25. Ended up buying the wooden deck from Artworx as well as the etch set you showed. Wasn't the greatest ship I have built but looked a lot better than if I had built it out of the box. But do like Trumpeter / Hobby Boss ships, just finished the Condorcet and that was a terrific and well detailed kit.
Watching this review Harry I have a Revell Prince of Wales part started & might pick up again, had issues with the bow section. Great review & advice. 😀👍🏼
That’s the old 1974 moulding in 1:570 scale? A wood deck would hide a lot of problems on that one. There is a lot of aftermarket to help improve that kit. Just depends how deep into the rabbit hole you want to go.
Well Harry you did inspire me to do something water related , I will be blaming you for some time , I'm doing an International models asia, 60ft British power boat company motor torpedo boat in 1/35 scale .
Awesome video Harry. Was that a photo etch set of figures? The wooden deck looks outstanding really makes the kit pop. Ship building has really come a long way when I built them. Oops forgot are you going to add that great looking camouflage?
Yes they are! But I always add a little PVA white wood glue mixed with water to allow slip, which helps position it, and the extra adhesive makes sure it won’t lift later.
I'd build the Fiume or Gorizia but Pola has family connections. Did you know that the ships are named for towns that were in Italy at the time? Pola is now Pula in Croatia and my wife has family there. That's why I want to build the ship. In fact we're still hoping to go there for a holiday in a few weeks. Fingers crossed.
Yes, I knew about the town names... The Pola is not a horrible kit, just under detailed, by modern standards. So just depends on your expectations and skill level how the end result will be.
The 1/350 Pola is a very poor copy of the 1/400 Tauro kits, which had some issues of their own. These issues were amplified in a scaled up, poorly done copy with more introduced when they attempted to modify the kit for motorization. The Tauro kits didn't offer that as they were intended to be proper static models. If I recall, this was one of, if not the very first Trumpeter kit back in 1999. I threw mine out and stuck with the 1/400 Tauro kit. That said, the new 1/350 Zara and Fiume kits are completely new and have nothing whatever to do with the Pola abomination. They are in every respect what you'd expect from a current-issue Trumpeter kit. Now repeat after me: go-REE-zee-ya. :)
@@HarryHoudiniModels I would add that the Pola is completely screwed up in shapes and even the aftermarket deck is badly done. If you confront the bow and the stern they are badly sculpted, the positioning of the main guns, particularly the rear one is off by almost 1cm, the wooden deck extends through the bow by almost 2cm. the whole assembly of the main turret is particularly crude and nor the main turrets nor the secondary ones resemble the real thing. I spent so much time trying to address the thousand of problems until I got stuck (and I still am after 5 years)trying to redo the weirdly shaped parapets all around the upper decks of the forward and rear bridge. The Pola kit is cheap, but it's not even worth that price IMO: it's a toy, marketed to be motorized and to came out with a half decent model you have much more work to do then on the legendary Nichimo Yamato 1/200
Hey Harry. Great video, you've inspired me to do a warship. I'd like to build HMS Mauritius (Royal Navy Light Cruiser), which was my grandads ship on D-Day, except no such model exists. As you're the man with the expertise can you recommend an alternative that would make a good representation of this ship. Not worried if its exactly the same but as close as possible would be great. I love to to detail up so more than happy using aftermarket parts like PE, gun barrels and decking etc and I'm happy to do some basic scratch building if required. Any help would be much appreciated.
A quick bit of research shows the HMS Mauritius was one of the Colony Class light cruisers. Not a lot of kits of that type are available. Best I could find was a small 1:700 resin kit of the Jamaica, which is very similar. www.scalemates.com/kits/larsenal-700-17-hms-jamaica--1004832 That may be both hard to find and a challenging kit to build. For a similar looking ship, but of the Town Class light cruisers, is the HMS Kent. Trumpeter do a very nice kit of it which could be fettled to look a bit like your Mauritius with some scratch and patience. www.scalemates.com/kits/trumpeter-05334-hms-belfast-1942--209582
The Trumpeter Belfast is the better kit, well moulded and will fit nicely, but has a number of accuracy issues. However if you are modifying it anyway this won’t matter. Prices vary for the kit. Retail here can be up to 15 shekels, but Amazon had it for only 10 shekels, with free delivery. So it pays to shop around.
The actual ship Pola does have one on the starboard side of Turret A on the deck at the bow. However the Hobby Boss kit does not supply this part. It would be an easy scratch job made from some thin tube sprue and rigging line.
After watching this video I think maybe I should finally finish my 1/700 scale Bismarck that is 90% complete only missing railings, life boats, float planes, and two 1/700 swastikas. I gave up on completing the kit because of those bloody swastikas and I cant justify spending even more energy than I already had spent trying to come up with a way to stencil or paint 1/700 scale swastikas.
You should be able to source some swastikas the size you need as decals. I know you can sheets of them in various sizes. The red flag with white circle centre at the bow and stern should not be too hard to mask. Then add your aftermarket decal.
I have only dry fit a few parts so far, they were perfect, so looks like another great Trumpeter kit. I have built other Trumpeter ships and always found them a pleasure to make. The photo etch can be daunting, but it really is not that hard. For me, it’s an easy build. For you, it all depends on your experience and skill.
Just plan ahead with the painting, especially if you decide do do the red stripes on the foredeck or even the camouflage pattern for the hull and superstructure. As with all ships, it’s best to paint parts before assembly, or as sub assemblies, then put it all together and just touch up any joins afterwards.
