Faa di Bruno [GPM] - 1:200

[Fattal]

Hello, here is my first report on this forum.

I saw this "ship" on GPM sites when I was shopping. It was so strange and ugly, so I decided to buy it and - maybe - build it. And here is result of it...

You can find something about this ship on wiki; in short - it was Italian WWI design, they had some guns from canceled battleships, so they put it on few barges - and one of them was Faa di Bruno.

The model is supplied with laser frames and details. Fit of frames is good, that part was without problems. But author should use another style of frame - instead of classic ship design would be beter something like "tank" design - here are mainly flat surfaces... (now you can have potencional problem with visible frames on upper part of ship)

Covering of frame is not so easy, because you have 2 really BIG parts and few smaller on front and back side of ship and its all. But result was "OK"... (on few places you could see frames, it was my fault, too much of glue :-/ )

Until here everything could be OK. But after you build the base of turret, you will see major flaw of this model. It has nice camouflage, its really beautifull. But it was made in MS Paint or I dont know... Its totally random, it doesn't fit to another parts,... (it also doesn't fit to second end of one part). Yes, I was blind, it is visible also on cover of this model.... You could repaint it, or "close your eyes" and finish it (my case)

Another stupid flaw is placing of almost all joints on most visible places. Why place it to back side of ship (or on some short edge), when you can place it directly in front :-) And know you, where are placed joints on gun barrels? On TOP side of it, I really dont know, why designer did this. Front of turret is under angle and guns has to be placed on it (on big black surface), so you have only one option. So I "tunned it", I cut out black surfaces, turned barrels to "correct" orientation and added "sleeves" (is it correct word for it?) from paper tissue.

Rest of build was OK, fit of parts was without bigger problems. Laser details on black paper was very good, I used all of them. Parts on colored paper have different colour, so I used parts from kit.

It could look like this model is "really, really bad", but its not true. Problems are only "cosmetic". After finishing it, its interresting addition to your collection ;-)

(Sorry for my english)

[Ckendzierski]

It my be ugly but have to beleive it going down some of those small rivers and lakes there would have been a lot of white flags going up on those little fishing boats.