OUT OF THE BOX
This kit was originally produced in 1984, and shows its age to a certain degree, but it still produces a fairly nice model. It consists of 54 pieces, molded in gray and 3 more molded in clear. The panel lines are recessed. The interior is very simple, which is fine, since little of it is visible through the greenhouse canopy on a plane in this scale. You get the pilot's stick, 2 seats, a 13 mm machine gun used by the 2nd crew member, who also had a window through the belly of the fuselage which was used for siting before dropping the 800 kg torpedo the plane carried. There are also decals for the control panel and a very small clear piece for the pilot's gun site.
CONSTRUCTION
In general, the part fit was decent, but
when I aligned the fuselage halves, if I ensured the cockpit
opening lined up correctly, there was a slight offset at the
front of the plane. Instead of being the typical two
fuselage halves, there was also a separate piece for the belly of
the plane. This piece had mediocre fit, and required some
filling. The wing halves went together
well, but left some gaps at the wing root that required filling.
The fit on the tail surfaces was reasonably good.
The instructions and color guide are
excellent. Paint numbers refer to Gunze Sanyo, but I used
Tamiya IJN Green and IJN Gray for the primary colors. The
interior calls for metallic blue green paint, which is the Aotake
coating used on some Navy planes. Gunze Sangyo H63 works
great for this color. The one annoying aspect of the finish
are thin blue and red lines that go on the landing gear
covers. These stripes are not provided on the decal sheet,
so you are left to mask and mix up a few drops of paint to spray
the stripes that are no more than 1/16-1/32 of an inch
wide. It is difficult to tell from the small drawings just
how big to make the stripes. I would have preferred Fujimi to
include the stripes on the decal sheet. If you have blue and red
decals sheets around, you could cut your own stripes. The wing
tip lights are also a problem. The instructions just tell
you to paint a small section of the wing tips red or blue, with
no effort to actually provide detail parts to represent the
lights.
CONCLUSIONS
This was my first aircraft kit, and overall, it was an enjoyable experience. I don't think you're going to win many contests with this model, and Hasegawa has now released a new kit of the Grace in 1/48th. Modelers wanting to build a model of this plane now have another choice. Still, if 1/72nd is your scale, and you enjoy building Japanese naval planes, it might be worth picking up this kit. They still seem to be pretty easy to find at swapmeets for less than $10.