Dear CF-FZG, yes it does come with shafts and motors fitted but nothing else. The trouble is trying to ballast it and fix the ballast in the right places like the tip of the bow for example. Also it means keeping all the electronics and wires very very close to each other, my Sharnhorst for example had to have its Action mixer fitted to a bit of plywood glued on top of the motors, it was the only way to make it easy to reach. The coupling for the propeller shafts to the motors is held by some tiny tiny screws and it is very hard to see them (as there is not enough light) so they are easy to damage when maintaining the shafts, trying to fit them again and tighten them up is a mixture of guess work and swearing. I don't know why access was done like this, it would have been better if the whole deck could have been removable, with the Titanic you can take the whole superstructure off. Also there are some very fine detailed parts near the openings and they are easy to damage while you are trying to fit heavy stuff inside the hull. The paint work is easy to damage as it has no varnish/protection, I actually rubbed some hull red off while wiping a mark with a damp cloth.
We are talking almost £1000 pounds here ok and I actually own one and so I'm not an armchair critic.
They must have had over 3 years of customer feed back about these models so far. They are very popular subjects and very attractive to people like me who don't have the time to build one of these so its frustrating that something so basic as decent internal access has not been addressed. Whats the point of all that detail and work if the deck veneer warps and ruins the boat on its first contact with water, why bother with that beautiful colour scheme if it rubs off so easily?!!
