Small and medium vessels are what justify a larger scale, and that is the logic behind this selection. The subjects are armoured river gunboats of the American Civil War, single-turret monitors, British gun monitors, Soviet river craft and armoured boats, and a Japanese midget submarine, all of them ships that still fit in a cabinet at 1:350 while carrying real detail.
The kits are small-run resin, so expect to wash off the mould release, saw off the pour block and true the base of the hull before anything else. Assembly is with cyanoacrylate, and no paints are included.
For a large battleship 1:350 is demanding on space, but for river and coastal craft it works superbly. A single-turret monitor comes out around fifteen centimetres, which is enough to add railings, anchor gear and the pattern of deck planking, and still small enough to sit in an ordinary cabinet or on a plinth on a desk.
The resin hull is usually cast in one piece with a block on the bottom. Saw it away and flatten the seating face on abrasive paper laid on a flat board. If the model is going into a water surface, leave the underside rough, since it will be hidden anyway.
On nineteenth-century vessels the character of the ship is in the casemate and the sponsons rather than in a cluster of fittings, so surface preparation matters more than on a crowded modern hull. Soviet river craft share a family look of shallow hulls and tank-pattern turrets; they were working vessels, so a restrained but honest finish suits them, with rust at the waterline and worn paint where crews walked.
Resin cannot cast railing or ladders at this scale, so that comes from brass. Sets in 1:350 photo-etched parts cover railings and ladders, and a 1:350 wooden deck is an option where the vessel had planking.
Keep contrast lower than instinct suggests and let the detail show through the paint rather than being outlined by it. Prime the resin, lay flat colours with thinned model paints, then unify everything with a light filter so the hull reads as one object. Weather last, and sparingly; a water base will do more for the model than any amount of streaking.
The association's full ship output is listed under ŘOP ships.
