Pre-BuildLog - Quick Review On ZHL Product

I started my first ship with The Black Pearl of ZHL, which is seriously not a good model ship to start with. Not to say the product, but the level of difficulty is not suitable for a beginner like me. So, I strongly recommend beginners to start their first model ship with a beginner model ship.

Let me first make a short review about this product. 

The ZHL Black Pearl 2007 Version

I purchased this ZHL Black Pearl 2007 version (discontinued) through ebay,  and it cost me around RM700 (~USD$240). This ZHL company is actually pirating others famous model ship companies' products, and that's why ZHL products are much cheaper comparing the same size, and difficulty level. So, my pearl is literally a pirated pirate ship, which I feel it sounds very badass. :D

On the first sight, it was real satisfying... box is well packed, woods quality are good, no items missing... But nightmare begins when I started reading the plan!!! It's so Chinglish!!! And even worse, there are still chinese characters there on the english manual! Luckily, I'm Chinese so I can understand those characters. However, the 'english instruction' is still killing me... Here's one example:

Chinglish At Its Finest

Please let me know if you can understand it. :D

Also, if you look closely at upper left you can see 2 chinese character which means "figure".  This was really killing me... I started to find articles and forums about ship modelling in the net, and thank God, with those articles' help, I was still able to finished my Pearl.

My Review on ZHL Black Pearl 2007 version:

Price: Around RM700 (USD$240) including shipping. GOOD

Wood Quality: OK, comes with extra quantity. Only bad thing is the deadeyes, 3 holes not located correctly. ACCEPTABLE

Instruction Plan: Horrible and Awful in both text and figure guides. Missing important instruction, and labels are done wrong. VERY F**KING BAD

So, seriously... don't start this if you're a beginner. You won't really enjoy making this ship! Unless you're already expert, then you can consider buying this product.