Metal Earth Premium Series USS Midway Aircraft Carrier 3D Metal Model Kit Fascinations

I buy these for my son as he’s a structural engineer. They’re very challenging, but he really loves them and he built this and it came out great but unfortunately, I have no pictures of it, but it looks just like the picture shown on Amazon.

It's a good size model to assemble and it helps with dexterity and easing yourself back into modeling. It's not too difficult and had accurate instructions. I definitely recommend this one!

A few things that people may notice with the kit. The paint does and will chip on the small pieces very easily. The metal for this particular kit is thinner than many Metal Earth kits I have completed. I found this as a blessing at times and a curse at other times through the build. I did find the pin or tab placements in this kit to be fairly user-friendly. Metal Earth lists the kit as challenging the only major challenge was the bottom and back of the ship joining together. If like me you will probably snap the micro-thin line of metal between the bottom and back. Don't worry once it is all tied together it is not noticeable. Apologies for the not great pic the model does have a nice look when finished. Having proper tools and a tweezer set is a must-have item to do this model.

This looks inexpensive, but when you assemble the tools and supplies to build it, not so much. Those included for me, a magnifying light, jeweler's tools, tweezers, toothpicks, super glue, an Xacto knife and touch-up paint (red and copper mixed, dark and light gray, silver and black). I also added another model kit, since I wrecked parts of the first.The parts are so tiny that some are difficult to bend right, particular the two-level bridge at the front of the island. On one Evil Corp toob vid, the modeller broke it off and had to glue it on, same with the bow connection. The thin stern extensions are just about impossible, after twisting them all up, I cut them off on the second try, and glued them to the bottom of the stern deck, which worked well. Other parts that demand glue to stay in position are the crane, the shafts and propellers, and the mast support behind the bridge. All that's provided to hold that in place is a single tab way up on the mast, ridiculous, that would never work. I used Gorilla super glue, which has about the right body.Clippers should be the way to remove parts from the sheet, but the modestly-priced tool I had was not precise enough. I found an Xacto knife to be preferable, it left less sprue behind. I placed the sheet on a desk pad and pushed down on the knife to separate the part.The jets stand too high if you follow the directions, with goofy "landing gear" placement. I cut off the legs, bent one at a 90 degree angle and glued it to the bottom of the jet. When placing the jet on the deck, I twisted the tab, and then applied a small blob of glue to hold the jet in the right position. I ignored the F-14's, which the Midway didn't handle (except once, in an emergency). I thought there were way too many jets crowding the deck, so I just used a few.I was not happy with the empty holes in the island assembly (another of many design flaws), so I cut rectangular gray pieces from the first attempt and glued them to the inside of the island after folding it together. I had to first glue them to wires to insert them into the island, and then cut the wires off and bend them over inside once they were secure. Now those holes are plated over, much better.I didn't like the look of all three elevators lowered, so I glued two at the deck level. That required some work with a Dremel tool (if you want to add that to the cost), as they aren't intended to fit there. To disguise the empty inside of the ship, I cut pieces from the extra deck and glued them behind the hangar openings, one with a jet coming out onto the elevator, a nice touch, I thought.So, overall, is this worth doing? That's a tough call, I found this to be more about not being defeated by an inanimate object than the joy of building a model. I can't imagine that this design was approved by someone who tried to build it. I think it would also look better as a waterline model, seeing the whole hull kind of diminishes the look of the Midway after the modifications, that vast amount of deck space compared to the hull.

Horrible! I got this for my sons project and let me just say your going to need some bandages with this one. The pieces weren’t easy to take take apart and it’s metal so it was hard. Cut me up trying to take it apart before even able to get to start building..

Very small takes time

Only seen the package was in good shape. It was a gift. I’m not opening it or putting it together. My brother loves metal earth.I’m

Nice product