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[click here to return to Part I of my rant]

Upon receipt of the replacement kit, I was beginning to feel (much) better about this ordeal. Yes, it took nearly a month to complete, and yes, I feel YMW's Customer Service could have been much better (NOTE: the representative I dealt with was reasonably responsive and professional - my impression is that the company overall is either resource-limited or is not yet mature-enough to understand the importance of ensuring customer problems are dealt with swiftly and completely), but hey, I had my replacement parts and remember: I really want a CAG!

The first thing I did was to unpack the hull pieces and do a quick-up check of how they fit together: the result was a vast improvement over the original parts. Lining up stem and stern as before left no offset amidships - the apparent "bend" or kink in the lower half of the hull was essentially non-existent. My relief and sense of euphoria seemed to be well-founded.

Next up, I looked at the deckhouse components. Beginning at the bow, the first piece is part R4a. Here is a photograph with the original "prototype part which should never have been put into a production kit" side-by-side with the replacement part.

Click any photo to see a larger image: use your browser's BACK function to return to this page.

The Comparison

If you look carefully at each part you will quickly convince yourself that they came from the exact same mold. Again, not to be sarcastic, but at this point I'm starting to say to myself... "WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!" Note that I posted a large photo this time (20" at 72dpi) so you can see the details for yourself.

So much for my earlier state of euphoria... Anyway, in a bit of a panic I decided to grab what I felt was one of the worst of the parts from the original kit and run the same quick comparison.

This time the results were much better (original part on the right) - in fact the replacement part is very satisfactory, and not in comparison to the original one - it's a good part, period. This is good and bad: good because YMW does know how to produce quality parts; bad because YMW shipped me sub-standard parts in response to my complaint about sub-standard parts.

Since I was now at a "tie" I decided to go for a best-of-three. I selected another part which was really bad in the original kit - this time part number R10b, and once again compared the two.

Again, very positive results! The original part is in the back, while the replacement is in the foreground. Note that I again posted a large photo this time (20" at 72dpi) so you can see the details for yourself.

I have to take a break at this point to attend to the rest of my life. But in summary I believe I made some headway with this issue, but I am also disappointed at the lack of consistency in the quality of Yankee Modelworks' parts, and at their slow response to customer issues. More later, and thanks for reading. If you have questions or comments about this experience, feel free to contact me at 'rlacm at cox dot net'.

[click here to return to Part I of my rant]