Late War (1945) Northampton Class Heavy Cruiser
| Here's a look back at one of the classic kits from yesterday.
Naval Works was one of the original producers of resin kits, they are now
gone, but some of the key players are still around producing kits under
other names.
This kit represents the USS Chester a unit of the Northampton Class. She is modeled in her 1945 appearance after refits drastically reduced her bridge and superstructure to make up for the weight of the numerous anti aircraft guns that were added during the war. |
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| The hull on my kit is cleanly molded, splinter shields are all intact, and the level of detail is pretty good. The hull is close to the profiles in drawings and appears to have the proper sheer and flair. There were a few tiny bubbles in my casting but these will fill in easily. |  |
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| The superstructure parts are nicely molded in shape and detail. They are molded using the open-face style and the overpour on the bottom of the parts is a little thick They will require quite a bit of sanding to get to the proper thickness. The funnels are shaped well and include seperate caps for the top. Gun and director sheilds are includeds as well as some miscellaneuse platforms. There are no light |  |
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| Main guns are pretty good, though there is a casting gate that must be sanded off the back side of the turret. The gun barrels are also cast from resin and are pretty straight, needing only some light sanding to remove the flashing. The 5" 25 cal guns are actually recast Skywave 5" 38 cal guns modifed to look correct. Unfortunatley they don't, so I would replace them with Corsair Armada 5" 25 Cal resin replacements available seperately. The gun directors are pretty good, as are the rafts. The cranes should be replaced with photo etch. |  |
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| The instructions are pretty good with a couple of reference photo's included. There is a plan and elevation view showing where each part locates. A step by step guide also helps you through the assembly process. A seperate sheet shows how to attach some platforms to the aft superstructure. |  |
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| Though this kit is out of production it can still be found in some modelers "unbuilt kit collections" and is not a bad kit by any means. Corsair Armada now makes a much improved sister ship, the Louisville, so it is still possible to build a USS Chester with a little modifacations. If you really want to build this ship I would recomend the latter kit as it is much improved from this one. | ||
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