| L'Arsenal | |
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Quad 40 mm Gun (6 mounts) Quad 40 mm Gun Tubs and Racks (6 tubs) |
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kit number AC 350-07 kit number AC 350-15 |
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Reviewed By Charles Landrum, #26328 |
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MSRP: $12.00 USD Review copies provided by L’Arsenal in France Fax 33.2.31.26.86.58 Email: info@larsenal.com Available in the US from Pacific Front Hobbies I would like to thank Jacques Druel for these review samples. If you haven’t heard of L’Arsenal then you should! If you have the Trumpeter kit of the USS North Carolina (or any other ship of the period) then you will want to read further! Based in Normandy, this small French company is producing fine quality resin castings that are breathtaking. The first look is of L’Arsenal’s set of quad 40mm gun mounts and the set of gun tubs for the quad 40s. The small caliber guns that covered the warships of WWII are hard to faithfully represent in 1/350 scale to any degree of realism. Some of the injection molded kit makers try hard, but in the end their guns still don’t quite look as detailed or busy as the real thing. Here is a void that L’Arsenal fills with these sets. Not only do they make a detailed gun mount, but they also make a detailed gun tub to put it in. So the end result is a very busy mount bristling with detail. The 40mm gun set provides enough resin and PE fret to construct six quad 40mm mounts. The mount and the barrels are petite, cast in resin, with the barrels are cast in pairs like the prototype. Yet despite the delicate look of the parts none of my samples were damaged. The gun mount not only provides realistic trunions but the gun crew platforms and prominent shell ejection chutes. To dress the resin up each gun has PE details, which include: a shield, sights, railings, seats and hand wheels to make the mount realistically busy. You get extras of the smaller parts in case your carpet monster swallows one! |
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| While the gun tub set is more basic in its assembly, the kit contains six resin tubs and 18 brass ammo rings, the detail is no less petite. The resin walls are thinly and uniformly cast, much finer that those of the kit. The PE fret is equally fine. The trick to this set is that each tub receives three rings of ammo racks! So a steady hand is a must to set the rings in parallel. I would use spacing blocks cut from styrene strip to ensure uniformity, just be careful not to glue the blocks in place! | |
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| To say that I am impressed with these sets would be an understatement. Free of bubbles, pour blocks and flash, these parts are state-of-the-art. The price is competitive as well. Both of these L’Arsenal sets have my strongest recommendation. Look for subsequent reviews of other L’Arsenal products. | |
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