From late 1964 to late 1968, Irwin Allen's Voyage to theBottom of the Sea showed on ABC and was avidly watched by a huge number ofpeople, including a teenager in Illinois. It was one of those shows that I nevermissed. Based on the movie of the same name that was made around 1962, thehighlight of the show was the submarine, SSRN Seaview. This was a nuclear submarine that also had a full complement of nuclear missiles. Strangelyenough, this wasn't a US Navy sub, but one that was operated by civilians. Justhow they managed to get nuke missiles was something that wasn't explained.

The Seaview managed to be liberally tossed about the seas withlittle real damage other than the crew being tossed from side to side. Onoccasion, there would be a leak of some sort, however, on the incrediblyspacious Seaview, there was plenty of room to find and fix the problem.The Seaview was also capable of incredible depths and it was built verystrongly. Many were the times when the sub nosed into the bottom of the ocean,uncountable fathoms from the surface. Strangely, there always seemed to beenough light around so that we could witness these disasters!

Needless to say, it was a cool show for the times, though itlooks incredibly hokey when viewed on the SciFi channel today.

As for models of the Seaview, there has only been the very oldand now pricey Aurora kit that was built for the masses. Since those days, therehave been a variety of resin and vacuform kits produced, all of which haveeither been of dubious quality or incredibly expensive or both. 

The kit comes in a verysturdy box, filled with styrene pellets as well as a number of parts in a creamresin. There is a small bag which contains the upper fins, island and the tworesin blocks with various antenna, dive planes and the rudders as well as thesmall decal sheet. You also get a nice resin stand on which to display yourcompleted Seaview . The overall length of this kit measures at around 13inches. I'll let the mathematicians come up with what scale that makes this kit.I'd like to think that it makes it near 1/350 so it will fit in with other shipsin this scale.

Overallquality is very good. My sample had some of the chine chipped by shipping, andthough I could not find the missing bits, it should be easy enough to fix withplastic card and super glue. The only air bubbles that I found were inside thelower fin exhaust. Repairing them will  call for some interesting methods,or you can just leave them alone. The thin upper fins were also warped, but thatis to be expected and easy to fix by dunking in some warm water. It is nice thatthere are no large blocks attached to the major parts. That will cut down on alot of the grunt work; thanks!

As you can see from the close-upto the right, detailing is quite good and will only require some painting tobring the ship to life. With so few parts, there is no real need for acomplicated instruction sheet. A large exploded view is provided, showing theplacement of all the parts. The decal sheet is for the underfuselage hatch thatholds the flying sub. Though not mentioned on the instruction sheet, this decalgoes on the underside approximately between the two large bumps in the front.Painting is equally as simple with just a gloss light grey being required. 

Thereis room for additional detailing should you wish to do so. For instance, youcould carve out the front and install an interior or you could put in a light inthe nose. Adding hinge detail to the missile tubes is also something that couldbe added should you wish. 

Overall, it looks like a greatmodel. One that would be a great kit for the beginner in the resin business.Best of all, there is no etched brass, so no teeny parts to go zinging off intothe aether!

The kit is only available from Masterpiece Models.Use the link below to get more detail on this and other kits. Go to the Sci-Fisection.

Review kit courtesy of Masterpiece Models

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