Academy 1/700 RMS Titanic Kit First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

I won't bore you with yet another rendition of the ill-fated liner. While I had thought that everyone on the planet knew the story of the Titanic, I was rather surprised by the outraged reaction of two teenagers (sporting an interesting variety of body-pierced jewelry) in line to see the movie Titanic.

They overheard a couple standing in line ahead of my wife and myself wondering why so many folks were flocking to see this movie – the boat still sinks in the end. The teenage couple was outraged and left the line, complaining that these folks had spoiled the ending. Oh well, there are always a few that don't get the word!

Whether you build ship models or not, you've probably seen Academy's 1/350 release of the RMS Titanic. The kit is nothing less than impressive when completed. It is also rather large as well. This latest release is 1/700 scale, and the model measures over 15 inches when completed.

As you can see in the accompanying photographs, the kit is a masterpiece of molding. The plastic is molded in white, black, and tan, styrene. What is very masterful here is that the parts are laid out in such a way that they are molded in their representative colors on the actual ship, so one could build a very attractive Titanic with minimal painting. More importantly, the parts are broken down so that they can be easily painted with minimal masking involved. Way to go Academy!

The molding on this kit is extremely crisp, and while it is nicely detailed, the builder isn’t overwhelmed by hundreds of parts. Those who must have perfection can wait for a photo-etched set to be released for this kit. On closer inspection of the parts, I could not find any flash, no ejector pin marks on any surface that would be visible, or any sink marks.

The one interesting glitch is the US flag - it has 32 stars signifying the period when we had 32 states in the Union. The only problem with 32 stars is that the 32-star flag existed between 1858-1859, whilst the Titanic sank in 1912. By the time Titanic did sink, the US had accepted its 48th state so we finally had a flag that would remain constant between 1912 and 1959. Our current 50-star flag has existed since 1959. A minor historical point that continues to ellude non-US manufacturers.

As I said in the beginning, this is a very impressive kit. There is a significant level of detail in such a small scale. If you're itching for something even more detailed, the Academy 1/600 scale kit (slightly larger and definitely oriented towards the intermediate-level modeler) will fill the bill.

The ultimate detailed Titanic kit is Academy's 1/350 scale release and there are quite a few photo-etched detail sets available for the 1/350 scale kit, including deck chairs! Now this would be a useful prop in my office as I could quietly rearrange my photo-etched deck chairs on the model as a sign of futility whilst others are running around the building in high-anxiety mode.

I recommend this kit to anyone with basic modeling skills.

Thanks to MRC for the review sample.