Some questions about:
Dream Model‘s PLA 071 Class Amphibious Transport Dock LPD-998
 
1) Price? €86.00

2) Where to buy? I bought mine at www.hobbyeasy.com and I have seen it on ebay

3) What’s in the kit? 1 large hull and superstructure resin part, 1 bag of small parts for the LPD, 1 bag with 4 LCAC’s and two Z-8 helicopters. 2 large PE sheets for ship and helis, 1 PE door set, 1 PE for LCAC’s

4) First impression? Although the sturdy box has a very unappealing decoration, even with some typos/mistakes (never judge a book by the cover or a kit by it’s box) the contents are very well packed and protected with bubble wrap. The PE frets have a back protective film. Resin parts are of that dark grey/greenish resin, similar to that of Combrig. PE is very thin and with good details. This is, I might say a kit with five kits (or seven, if considering the helicopters – more on this later).

5) Quality of hull and large parts? The hull is the large part, Very good casting, sharp, no bubbles whatsoever, only some minor fixing areas with sandpaper or file, but that was on the master. A light sanding on the bottom (waterline area) made it even and completely flat. One point that can be improved is the addition of hand rails, boxes and small goose neck vents, fire hose housing and antennae, which I discovered after checking for references on the real ship. 

6) Quality of small parts? Parts for superstructures bridge and aft are similar to the hull casting, good. The smaller bits, like weapons suffer from less cared casting, as do the helicopters  - but the LCAC’s are excellent, even having the lower skirt details imprinted.

7) Decals?.A decal sheet for ship, LCAC’s and helicopters. Dream Model could have included PLA Flag and Ensign, it would be a nice touch.

8)Instructions? This is one of the weaker points of the kit, since when I ended assembly, there where 5 PE parts remaining in the ships fret and they were not spares. No painting guide is indicated.

9)Assembly? Went smoothly with the exception of some of the PE parts, mainly because of the size of the parts and the amount of fold needed to complete the part. Another point where Dream Model could have improved this kit would have been to include the huge amount of ventilation grids in the hull part, right in the master; the amount of these parts that need to be fixed on the hull is strange (55), with sizes from 0.5mm x 1mm to 3mm x 14mm. Also a little bit annoying, for me at least, is that the railings that have the necessary length and need bending have some pre-cuts intended to ease the fold/bend. This makes the cleaning of the part a nightmare, making this task a battle against bending and skewing of the very delicate and thin railing parts. In the end, I succeeded!

10) Does anything need replacing? If available, I would change the main helicopter parts (the resin part), mainly the bottom part is of wrong shape and it could have better details (weapons pylons, winch).

11)What extra parts would I recommend? Only have added a JAG Collective communication radome, as per photos of the real ship and bought a set of decal Chinese Flags on ebay, because I wasn’t too keen on making the flag decal myself.

12) Is there a dedicated PE fret for the kit? It’s in the kit                              

13) Available references? I have this ship mentioned in Kaijinsha’s “World Navies 2011-2012”, and if it wasn’t for Lars link I would be in trouble.

14) Camo patterns  / colour scheme? Only one for this one ship class, as I write this review, and this is the other of the low points on the instructions of the model. No scheme is presented, leaving the research for the modeller. Being the PLA Navy one lesser-known Navy, at least where I live, some digging was needed. With the help of Lars Scharff who send me a link for a PLA ship spotters website, and after eyeballing the colours of the Kunlun Shan, I have decided on using WEMCC US09 USN WWII 5-B Thayer Blue for the vertical surfaces and WEMCC RN02 Royal Navy WWII AP507B Medium Grey for the horizontal areas. Again, I want to say that this is my interpretation of the ship colours from the photos; this is not absolute accurate information. 

15) Rigging? Just the yardarms, easy.

16) Can different versions be made from the kit? As pointed out above, there’s only the Kunlun Shan, so far. I believe that more LPD’s of this class would be built and probably exported (guessing).

17)Would I recommend this to a beginner? Considering the issues pointed with the PE fret and it’s parts I would say no.
There are better resin kits easy for beginners to achieve a great finished model.

18) Is it value for money? I would have to say yes. The resin parts, even with the lesser well-made small parts, are great. The amount of brass in this kit is huge, especially if you want to make the Kunlun Shan with its bay door open allowing the inside of the pit to be seen – the interior is all PE with the exception of the bottom which strangely is absent. Of course this is not an issue for me since I have made it sailing at full speed. The LCAC’s (which I didn’t use for two reasons: wrong type and ship sailing, as mentioned above) themselves help making this a great value and the spare box has now some cushion models for a future project.

19) Would I buy other products from this manufacturer? Yes, if another PLA Navy subject tempts me.
Any other comments? Should Dream Model make better instructions, give painting scheme and colour chart and include a decal flag, this would be a A++ kit, it’s only A as is.br /> The possibilities of making great dioramas with this kit are huge, as long as the modeller does its homework.

For more information on the kit and photos refer to the kit page at the Dreammodels website