Bronco

1/350 HMS Vanguard Nuclear Submarine

Kit Number: BOM5014

Reviewed by  Andrew Stanicek, IPMS# 43237

MSRP: $34.98 Kit Supplied by Stevens International: www.stevenshobby.com "A nice little model" is how this kit was described to me before it was sent my way in the mail. And upon receipt of my box, for the most part, I would have to agree. The large box contains three poly bags. The first bag holds the two main hull halves. These come in just shy of the length of the box. The second bag holds one sprue of parts to build up the details of the ship, while the third contains a small sheet of photo-etch brass, and a very small decal sheet. I think that the direction booklet is a little over the top for this model. There are several glossy, full color illustrations of the finished submarine highlighting the black and gray paint scheme, and the placement of the supplied decals. I'm not sure of the reasoning behind the full color presentation of a very monochrome subject, but it looks nice. As I started construction, everything went together fairly well. HOWEVER, on my sample, there were several of the small detail parts - most of the parts for the antennae array, snorkel, and periscope - that were broken on the tree - not broken off of the sprue, I mean snapped in half. They are very thin, and it probably happened in transit, but I would think that maybe a little better packing would have helped this problem a lot. Also broken, and missing was the rear propeller axle, which on the directions looks to be a molded part of the lower hull. I ended up replacing this with a piece of evergreen round stock, trimmed to length. When I went to cement the two halves of the main hull together, I ran into a rather challenging seam where the two parts meet. There is a molded seam detail about a quarter of an inch below the kit seam, and I think it would have been much better to split the parts there or split the hull vertically, and add a cap piece for the upper detail, hiding the seam almost completely. As it is, the two hull halves did not meet cleanly, and I ended up removing the alignment pins altogether to get a relatively clean joint. I'm not saying its old AMT Sci-Fi kit bad, but in this age of computer kit design and hi-tech molding techniques, I was a little surprised at the amount of filling and sanding that had to go into this particular part of the project. One neat part of the kit is the fact that Bronco includes two open missile hatches, and two ballistic missiles. Very cool! Once I got onto the painting and finishing the model, I was much happier. I left the conning tower detail bits off until after painting was complete. I started airbrushing a base coat of medium gray over the entire ship, and referring to the directions and my reference photos, decided that that was way too light. I filled a color cup with Tamiya sea blue, and laid down a nice fairly even coat of that over everything. NOW it's starting to look like a modern day submarine! I masked off the bottom of the sub, and started building up layers of Tamiya smoke on the upper half of the hull until I got a dark neutral charcoal gray. Once that had dried, I removed the masking, and reapplied tape to the upper section of the hull and the conning tower. I used a sharp Xacto blade to trim my mask, following the engraved panel lines; and then sprayed a coat of black onto the remaining upper sections and the nose. A quick coat of clear gloss, and soon the decals were applied without incident. I sealed the decals with another coat of clear, and then applied some healthy weathering with a little transparent white, to lighten up some of the panels. I then used some colored pencil work and my Tamiya weathering pastels to add some wear and tear around the edges. A final coat of Testor's Dull Cote sealed everything up, and this one is ready for display! As far as displaying the finished model, the kit includes a decent plastic stand, and a very nice etched brass name plate. I painted the base with a faux wood pattern to simulate a stained wooden plaque, and painted the mounting posts a bright gold/brass color. Overall, I was fairly happy with this project. If you're into modern day submarines, it's a nice kit of an interesting subject, and it's in one of my favorite scales. The Bronco kit builds up into a fairly nice display piece - Recommended! Thank you to Stevens International and Bronco Models for supplying this sample.