Hasegawa 1/350 Wooden Deck for NYK Line Hikawa Maru First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

Hasegawa recently released the first 1/350 scale kit of the NYK Line's Hikawa Maru passenger/cargo vessel that entered service before World War II and remained in service for two decades after the war before becoming a floating museum in Yokohama ( look at the kit first look here).

With each of Hasegawa's more recent ship releases, they've also produce one or two sets of photo-etched details and some outstanding laminate wood decking and the Hikawa Maru is no exception. As with previous wood deck offerings from Hasegawa, this set comes dye cut with some excellent precision and features an adhesive backing that allows the deck sections to literally drop into place. Take a look at this sample image from Hasegawa that shows three of these dye-cut wood sections installed on their corresponding plastic parts:

The fret of photo-etched parts provide the base plates for deck winches.

Each wood section is self-adhesive, simply remove the backing that has the pre-printed silhouettes, and the pre-cut shapes will come off as you manipulate them. Add them one at a time and carefully lay them into place on the deck.

While I've seen some nice aftermarket wooden decks for the U-boats and a few other kits, these Hasegawa wood decks are truly impressive (and not inexpensive). This set will definitely take the already detailed Hikawa Maru kit to another level of beauty with very little additional effort.

My sincere thanks to Hasegawa USA for this review sample!