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Monsters In Motion Seaview Review
by John Payne
Monsters in Motion is offering a new all-resin model of everyone's favorite privately-owned, nuclear-armed,
nuclear-powered research submarine, the Seaview, from Irwin Allen's classic 60s series "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea." Anybody visiting this website who didn't know what the Seaview
was, turn in your CultTV t-shirt and hang your head in shame. At Steve's suggestion, I thought I'd share my first impression of this marvelous kit, though I have yet to dig in and build it.
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The first impression comes when you see the kit in the MIM catalog and read the price. It looks beautiful and costs $150! I was
wary - Lunar
Models' Seaview looks good in their catalog too, yet it was the closest thing to Modeling Hell I ever care to build. But good word-of-mouth on the Cult message board prompted me to take the plunge. Hey, it's the Seaview!
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Out of the box, MIM's Seaview looks like a dream - once you get over the shock of all that pink resin! Pink? Whatever. There is
nothing about the kit to
set off any problem alarms, and it looks like assembly will be simple and easy. There are 19 parts to the kit (fig 1) including 3 antennas on a very thin matt. The entire hull is cast as one huge, solid piece. It appears to have been cast in two pours, as there is a slight color demarcation line at mid-hull, and a few tiny bubbles on the keel at the join. I'm a little nervous that this may be a weak point where it could break, but unless I drop it from a great height or bash someone over the head with it, it should be all right. The mold gate is at the extreme tip of the stern, so there isn't a sprue mark to be seen on the entire hull. The mold separation line runs quite logically along the strakes on either side, and with a nominal bit of filling and sanding will vanish easily. The surface of the hull - and of all the parts - is satin smooth and flawless. Edges are sharp and crisp throughout. besides that little bit of foamy bubbling on the keel I found only two other bubbles on the whole kit. I'm gonna try to keep from raving like a loon, but I can't remember the last time I saw a resin vehicle kit this well designed and molded.
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And it has an interior (fig 2)! With a simple and clever technique, the detailed one-piece observation deck in the nose (fig 3)
is inserted up through the bottom, its aft wall forming the forward bulkhead of the Flying Sub bay (fig 4). The insert is detailed with desks and the Flying Sub access hatch (detail fiends should
add a railing around the hatch), and the aft wall, normally open to the control room, is formed by accurate closed "crash doors."
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Looking at the arrangement of these parts makes one realize that the interior of the
"real" Seaview is as impossible as the Jupiter II having three decks. The Flying Sub bay is WAY too deep for there to be anything but a wall behind the observation deck. The recess in the hull (back to fig 2) is accurately detailed with the room's wall map, TV monitor, flashing-light computer panels, and the bow structural braces. There is some minimal but delicate cleanup work to do around these braces and the windows themselves.
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Some very tricky multi-piece molding was done here and there is some small amount of flash and mold marks here. One of the
braces on mine has a rather big chip out of
it (kinda visible in figs 2 & 5), but I see no problem fixing it. The more enterprising out there could probably even light the nose, possibly routing out the FS bay ceiling for battery installation and replacing it with sheet. The FS bay ceiling is the only interior part left completely undetailed - I doubt it was ever seen on the show. At the other end of the boat, a slightly detailed diving bell bay is molded in. They provide no bell, though, so I say glue the hatch on.
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Not everything is perfectly perfect, though. although there are only two parts in the bow, the fit is not as perfect as the
molding and detail (fig 6). The interior piece fits loosely, and it will be a bit of a chore to get the external surfaces lined up to glue. There will be a slight gap to fill and contours to sand
no matter what I do, but hey, that's modeling for ya. The corrugated barn doors are molded as one piece and marked as to which end is which. They're a hair oversized, which is good because you
could trim them to fit. However the doors, like all the parts, have been helpfully sanded at the maker to eliminate sprue, and my doors' aft edge was sanded to a pronounced curve that leaves a huge
gap. I personally don't find this too
daunting since I was planning on displaying the ship with the sub bay open (the hull recess is detailed with the corrugated doors in the open position - these guys thought of everything). Also in figs 5 and 6 you can see the headlight and belly floodlights. They are molded with depth and detail. The instructions suggest painting them silver inside and filling them with Devcon crystal clear epoxy. Pretty good idea, eh?
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All other parts fit fine. The dorsal fins are keyed into slots on the stern, and the propulsion units key into extra-deep
recesses (but with no guide as to the correct angle except the strake-to-fin join). Accurate intake grills are crisply molded into the unit's sides and futuristic star-shaped impellers are molded
into the exhaust ends. Probably the most filler you'll use on the whole model will be to blend the strake into the propulsion unit fin, and that is a tiny gap. Two rudders mount to the units, and
dimples are molded in to locate plastic rod to connect to rudders. The conning
tower is also keyed to the hull, but it needs some material removed before it will fit in the very shallow slot on the deck. The bridge is detailed too.
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The Flying Sub is a little gem. Only two parts and only 2 inches across (fig 7), it still has a detailed ceiling and two pilots.
The top section is divided just like the old Aurora FS kit, which is probably just a handy way to do it, but made me smile anyway. The pilots are barely larger than, um, very large pinheads, but
they are recognizable as people in chairs with shoulder harnesses.
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The only nit-pick I have is that the upper wing surfaces look too flared (at least compared to my aforementioned Aurora model),
and the windshield post is too short for proper alignment of the top surfaces (fig 8) - a miscalculation of only about 1/32 of inch, so let's not hold it against them
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A base is provided in the form of a sea-bottom hillock, also reminiscent of Aurora's stand for their Seaview model. It looks
great, but I plan on building a more formal display stand for this beauty, maybe like the one Admiral Nelson had in his office.
The instructions are as impressive as the kit, with extremely
detailed painting guides. They even include a 3x5 color photograph of a finished model to show you just how good it'll look. Templates are provided for cutting out windows for both the Seaview and
FS1, but bring your own clear plastic. Since the belly of the Seaview is a different color than the rest, I plan on painting the topsides before I install the windows (which go on the inside). Then
I can install the detail plug and finish the bottom, and I won't have to mask the
windows when I paint the belly. At least that's the plan, but as they say, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.
I'm not at all sorry I spent what I spent on this model. It's big,
intelligently
designed, and well executed, and well worth the price (only 150 times what the old Aurora kit cost new, but cheaper than it is now). And I have a Seaview! If only my wife would stop waving the Visa bill at me with a pleading look on her face, all would be right with the world. Since I built the Lunar Models Seaview for someone else, I'm delighted to have a model of the old girl to put on top of MY tv.
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