Customer Reviews

1/163 Robert E. Lee Steamboat

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This is my second attempt at this review. The first review was before I got very far into the build. And after building about 3/4 of this model I am very much disappointed. First I can say that with a lot of detail work this model could be a nice one. But straight out of the box there is no way this could be a good display model. The pieces on the tree are terrible as is the molding. This must be a very old mold. Some pieces are very loose on the trees and fall off as soon as you touch them, while others are molded so thickly on the trees that you have to very careful when cutting them off. Some pieces have large globs of plastic on them. One piece was actually broken and the broken off piece was not in the bag so it had to have been broken off before packaging. I fabricated a new piece from part of a tree. There is flashing all over every piece. Some are the worst I have seen. Deep ejector pin marks on all pieces. So there is a lot of careful clean up before assembly. Much more than average. There is quite a lot of fitment problems. Large gaps and warpage. The Paddle wheels are a real pain. Each individual paddle board must be glued in place. The problem with that is it is almost impossible to keep it straight therefore when you get them fully assembled the wheels are canted. Luckily you won't really see this as they are mostly covered. The biggest complaint as I said before are the huge gaps when assembling the walls. Especially the walls that butt up against the paddle wheel covers. I have about 1/4 inch gap here. The only way to fix this is with some putty and sanding it to shape. I do like the way they did the name ROBT.E.LEE on the sides. It is molded in very nice and easy to paint. The revell kit has decals. It is a shame there is only the Revell and Lindberg companies that make this model. It could be a very cool boat if it were made by other leading companies. I would rate this one only a two out of five. Someday I may try the Revell model to see how it compares in quality. It is smaller though. I know there are wooden kits available but I'm not ready to spend that kind of money. The instructions also are terrible as is the painting guide. And some of the instructions refer you to the picture on the box. The problem here is the picture on the box is obviously a painting and not detailed enough. So I found some pictures on line to help. Also the instructions are copies from copies. Meaning fine detail like in the rigging pictures are hard to make out. It has follow the number and direction style but the numbers are very faint. And one number (6) I can't find at all. In fact I found the instructions on line for the Revell model and printed them. The rigging instructions are very good for the Revell as is the paint although I used my own paint colors.
Hope this helps. I do not recommend this kit.