floating in

Custom Dioramics' craftsman Ben Jakobsen shows off his skills with kid CD 6139 Sampan#1. The mailman will drop off a cardstock box 13cm X 10.5cm X 5cm. Bob Letterman puts his efforts into the box art. The box art doubles as the instructions.
Inside the box you will find a zip lock bag of parts cradled by packing peanuts. CD has increased their packaging efforts over the last year and your kit should arrive in good shape.

the kit

The kit is molded in nice cream colored resin that all CD products come in. It is firm and workable. Inside the bag are only four pieces: the hull, a seat, a roof, and a push pole.
The hull is 14cm LOA stem to stern. It has an overall beam of 4.5cm and a total height of 1.4cm without the roof. The roof will add approximately 2 to 3 cm to the overall height. The pole is 14cm long.
There are no instructions with this kit because you don't need them. The parts are self-explanatory and the box art give you any nudge you may need. This kit should almost fall together by itself. Each part has it's own resin block that will force you to be creative while removing them. The seat is an easy one, the pole is just long and on a round part, so sand carefully. The roof is on a delicate rounded part. I would use a dremel rotary tool at fairly low speeds to remove the majority of the block then carefully sand down the remaining resin. The block on the bow of the Sampan will require two to three careful cut to remove the entire block.
Assembly will be a piece of cake. You will have to bow and bend the roof to get it to fit inside the gunnels of the boat. Make sure you use strong epoxy to hold it in place. The molded piece should provide you enough flex in the roof for easy assembly. If for some
reason you can't get the roof to bend into place you can use a short hot water bath on the part to increase flexibility.

impressions

This is a great kit. It's a great kit to have sitting in your stash if you do anything from Korea, to Vietnam, to figure work. The detail is top notch. The subject matter is wonderful and versatile. I can see this as a supporting piece or a main theme component. You can use this as a civilian boat in the background, or a VC boat carrying supplies. You can bring it to land and put it on the back of a deuce and a half. You can have a Pibber crew boarding it or tie a couple together for a houseboat type scene. The ideas are far and wide.

Id like to thank Custom Dioramics for providing this piece for review