Reviews : Hasegawa SBD3 Dauntless Aircraft

I wanted to give this kit a 5 star rating, but it fell short in a few areas. First the positives: The detail in the cockpit and engine and the inscribed panel lines make this a beautiful kit that you want to show off - it just looks good. The under-belly bomb is nice and large and looks good in place with the bomb release mechanism attached. The rear cockpit twin machine gun is nice and really looks the part. The side panel inserts for the cockpit really have a lot of detail molded on and makes the inside of the plane look great. The process of getting to a nice finish is marred however by several issues. As other reviewers have mentioned, the dive brake panels have only dimples and not true holes. I drilled these out with a pin-vise and small bit, but it was tedious and took several hours. The wing/fuselage join was poor on my copy and required plastic shims to fit well. Again, this was extra work that I wish I wouldn't have needed to do. The main landing gear joins were very loose with no positive fit location - the gear legs wobbled around loosely and could be set at any angle you liked. This made it difficult to get both gear legs evenly lined up. Once I was satisfied they were even, I used super glue to strengthen the join - it seemed rather weak. The decals had trouble coming off the backing paper, but I eventually got them where they needed to be. Decal setting solution (first microset and then solvaset) hardly touched them and required multiple applications to get them to finally settle into detail. My copy was actually of an SBD4, but the only difference in the model that I could see was that the prop spinner was used on the SBD3 and not used on the SBD4. There were three decal options for my kit, two US Navy and one British Navy. Don't let the negatives turn you away from this kit however. Even though they were annoying, they were all overcome with a bit of extra work and patience. The kit really does look nice when finished, so I think it was worth the extra effort.

This is my 1st Hasagawa kit and I was a tad under-impressed. The molding and plastic work is top notch as is the detail molded into the fuselage and wings. HOWEVER, as someone else stated, their choosing to just dimple the dive break flaps instead of actually molding in the holes was a gross oversight on their part. You can (as I did) drill out the 308 holes with a 1/16 drill bit - but it is tedious work and you have to be extremely careful to keep the holes from digging each other out while you drill. You also have to be careful with the decals - they do adhere well and form well to the molded-in details on the parts.......but MAKE SURE the decal releases 100% freely from the paper or else you will tear it. Also, do NOT use Micro-Sol on the decals - it practically dissolves them into uselessness.

Hasegawa really stumbled on this kit... While the overall kit is up to the usual Hasegawa quality, they really failed in its execution. One of the most recognizable features of the SBD is its perforated dive brakes, and for some reason Hasegawa chose to not open those perforations, leaving a definitely un SBD looking model. The modeler could drill out the holes (several hundred, I reckon), but at the price point of this kit, that is unacceptable. IIRC at some later date they reissued the kit with photoetched dive brakes (at CONSIDERABLE extra cost).

This was my first Hasegawa kit and it went together really nice. The directions were logical, but my only complaint is that some of the pieces were tiny and hard for me to deal with. Could be because of my relative inexperience, but I was able to work through it. Biggest complaint is like the other reviews stated, it was disappointing to not be able to move the flaps and no holes drilled out on them.

This is not a very good kit with numerous design flaws and fit issues. Luckily I have done several hasegawa kits previously and didn't let this one scare me off. This plane ended up in the trash can. If you want an SBD please consider the revell kit, while not as detailed it does build up nice.