Reviewed by Timothy Dike
January 2014
| The Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm was
one of Germanys first Battleships. The fourth ship of the Brandenburg class
was launched in 1893 in Wilhelmshaven. The ship served as the flagship
of the German Navy until 1900. Most of her career consisted of training
missions and showing the flag. Kuruerst was deployed to China during the
Boxer rebellion of 1900. Modernized in 1905 the ship was later sold to
the Ottoman Empire and renamed Barbaros Hayreddin. The ship saw extensive
action and was later sunk in 1915 by the British sub E11.
Combrig has released this kit in the original as built condition as
of 1894.
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| HULL | |||||||||||||||||
| The hull on this ship is nicely cast in waterline style. The hull features the distinctive curves of the Brandenburg class. Portholes are molded open and the deck planking is nicely done. Recesses are cast into the hull for the superstructure parts. Turrets fit nicely in the sockets with no fitting required. The hull has only a trace of flash along the waterline. the only thing I don't like is the plain hawsepipes, they need a little work. |
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| SUPERSTRUCTURE AND DETAILS | |||||||||||||||||
| The superstructure parts are nicely detailed and well cast. The main superstructure part fits perfectly into the socket in the hull. No sanding or fitting needed. The other bridge parts are cast on a resin wafer and some flat sanding will be needed to free them. You will notice that many are nicely engineered to for fit. The funnels are hollowed out and undercut on the bottom to give a good fit. The rest of the parts are virtually flash free and nicely detailed. Combrig supplies many of the mast parts in resin. I would suggest using these as templates for brass replacements (not included) if you intent to add rigging. |  |
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| WEAPONS | |||||||||||||||||
| The three main gun turrets are well cast with separate resin barrels. The light guns are cast with a separate shield and barrel. |  |
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| SHIPS BOATS AND SMALL FITTINGS | |||||||||||||||||
| The ships boats are very finely cast with lots of detail inside and out. Combrig is known for producing some of the best ships boats available in this scale and this kit does not disappoint. |  |
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| PHOTO ETCH | |||||||||||||||||
| A brass photo etch fret is provided with platform braces and latticework. inclined stairs, mast parts and other fine details are provided. |  |
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| INSTRUCTIONS | |||||||||||||||||
The instructions consist of a plan and elevations with
rigging shown on page one, and an exploded view of the assembly on page
two. This is the weak point of the kit. More sub assembly views would have
been helpful here, especially for a nice kit like this.
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| CONCLUSIONS | |||||||||||||||||
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