mtdoramike

Thanks Mark, I know what you mean, I was quite surprised at no second layer of hull planking and no printed plans. I'm used to 24X36 sheets of plans.

I recently ordered the Artesiana Latina HMS Victory 1:84 scale from Plastic-Model-kits.com for the price of $567.00 with free shipping. They basicallt only sold Latina kits. They are a sub of Oakridge Hobbies, who actually shipped my kit. It took 10 days from the date of order to receive this massive kit. The invoice claimed 21 pounds shipping weight and I believe every bit of it. Upon receiving the kit, I opened the box and did an inspection of the contents. I was quite pleased with the woods chosen for the model and the fit and finish materials supplied. But they included an adendum to the instructions due to a sheet of the laser cut bulkheads were mislabeled and giving the correct sequence in the adendum. Observations so far: LIKES: The building materials are outstanding, the instruction book is quite thick and very detailed with color pictures to follow as well as written instructions. Definitely the price point for a kit of this magnitude. The false keel and bulkheads are cut from some thick plywood, so no worries about breaking anything. As usual with Latina, they include some very nice containers with actual lids to keep all the parts in one bin. They are a lot nicer than those egg carton still containers that are shrink wrapped but the small pieces still find their way into other bins. Dislikes: A major dislike for me is NO PRINTED PLANS, What???, no, you heard right, I can't believe AL cheaped out on a kit this expensive and sent a CD with plans on it rather than printed plans. This is a problem for me, because I build by plans, not by instructions or a CD. So now, I have to locate someplace to get the plans printed off of the CD and bare that added expense and living in my neck of the woods, it's not that easy. We don't have a Kinko's/Fedex or anything like that. The best I can do is Office Depot, so I'll have to check them out. Now, can the model be built with the CD plans? YES, it can and has been and there's a build log on it. But, I'm old school I guess. I could be wrong, but I didn't see a second layer of hull planking, which was Always supplied with AL kits in the past just in case you messed up on the first layer. One of the bulkheads was quite warped, so I had to wet it down and then took a hot air paint remover gun and with enough heat and a bit of cursing, it flattened out fairly well enough for government work anyway. The fit of the bulkheads to the false keel is quite sloppy and some with gaps up to 1/16". This makes plumbing up and squaring the bulkheads quite difficult. Also, you MUST lay the first false layer of decking BEFORE gluing the bulkheads to the keel or you will have a devil of a time getting the deck to fit properly. They floppy bulkheads do help in this instance though. So it may have been planned. They also included a cheap cradle style display board for this grade of s ship model, something besides plywood will be in order to compliment her beauty. With all this being said, so far I like the kit and I have always like Artesiana Latina kits for fit and finish and it's nice to see they are still kicking. Will this kit make into a fine model? the answer is yes, with a little hard work and determination. I know there are doubters about Latina kits, but as long as you remember, kits are not Museum quality models, they make into fine ship models but they aren't unique. If someone is looking for museum quality then they should scratch build, which would be unique. I'm not a scratch builder, I'm a kit basher. I have a lot of respect for scratch builders willing to devote the time, patience and money into a single project. I know a few near me and applaud their efforts, but I was more into building and selling my models at the time. So build time was a premium. But this particular project will be my last model. This model (the HMS Victory) will be donated upon it's completion. So no hurries mates as long as my health holds out and my eye site holds on. I will continue to add to this review as I go along. I was also able to obtain a small piece of wood from the actual Victory ship, which I will incorporate into the Victory model such as anchor collars or something like that.

It pissed me off the other day when I went to buy 8 packs of super type glue and first was told I could only buy 4 per purchase and then they carded me and asked that I produce photo ID, are you kidding me, I'm an old man for goodness sake. I think I'll start ordering it from online, that is if they still ship it.

Also, from what I can tell, there isn't any real source for ship model paint colors any more. Railroad colors are the big thing.

Crap, I kind of figured, after reading your posts, I checked online and yep, they are history. They has this stuff, which was a liquid tar that I loved to use on the ratlines. I guess I will have to try and make my own. Don't these bunch of left wing hippies understand that basically the same solvent that is used in hobby paints are the same thing used in RUSTOLEUM paint.

BY the way, the last time I went to a private company to see if they would make copies of plans that I already had, was a land survey company. A friend worked there so I asked her and she said OK, so I went to her office to drop off the plans, and just when she started to print them out on this huge printer, the owner of the business walked in and started to make conversation with me. I mentioned how much I appreciated them doing this for me when all of a sudden the owner told my friend to shut the machine down immediately. I was escorted off the property with plans in hand and my friend was lucky to have kept her job. It seems she got approval from her supervisor, but failed to let the owner know. It seems that the machine was a rental and they hand to pay a premium for each time the machine was turned on. The bad thing was, she really wasn't MY friend, she was my wife's friend. So as you can guess, I had to hear about this for months. So I'm a bit skitish after that little fiasco to approach any business that doesn't offer this service to the public.

I live in a small town without those type of things. No Kinkos or Staple near me, wish there were. I tried an arcitectural firm a few years ago and they wanted to charge the same fee as drafting house plans at $50.00 per page and with 6 pages of plans, I said no thank you. Most government agencies will not allow their equipment to be used for private business. We do have an Office Depot here in town, I'll give them a try, but odds are they don't have a large enough printer. That is the problem with a lot of businesses around here, they contract out this sort of thing since they can down load the plans onto a CD and send it out to be processed. No, hand delivery to where you live is not an option, but thank you for the offer hahahahahaahaha. I was looking for an on-line source where I can mail the CD to them and have the printed plans mailed to me. I was curious if anyone here might have a on-line source that they use.

The format on the CD is PDF.

Model Expo used to sell them, but I see they no longer.

to scale at a reasonable price? They are PDF and should be 1/84 scale.

I bought the Billings Danish Training ship Danmark kit off of Ebay for $99.00 a while back. I built the Danmark, which took me about 1200 hours give or take an hour or three. It was a wonderful kit and I would not hesitate to buy it and build it again even at a higher price. The fittings package came with the kit and quite extensive. I can't recall a single issue with the build. The plans are quite good and left little to the imagination. I can't really speak for the directions, because I don't usually use them. The kit came with pre-printed sail material as well. Here are a few photos of the kit as it arrived to me. All in all, it was a pleasure to build, yes, they do use quite a few plastic parts, but if you like to kit bash, that isn't an issue. Now, this kit is an advanced level kit, but with a little help, a novice shouldn't have any real issue with it. The finished model is currently sitting in the lobby of a Danish West Indies trading company in Ft. Lauderdale Florida.

Thanks Bob, but that big piece would have been great, but no certificate of authenticity other than what someone wrote on the wood with a sharpie. I found a piece on Etsy and it should be here within a week or so. It ran me Close to $60.00, but the museum wanted about $300.00 for a small 4" X 2" X1/2" size piece. Hell, I could have bought one of their bowls they advertised on their website and got a lot more than what they were wanting to send me. They said they were protecting their brand and you have to submit a request for the wood and state why you want it and what you intend to do with it and then they decide whether you are worthy of a piece of Victory wood or not.

Absolutely beautiful job, not a gap at all in any of it. Perfection takes time.

Great looking job. What glue did you use to lay the second layer of planking?

If this is your fist kit, all I can say Is WOW, I'm going to love to see your work after you get a couple more under your belt. Like I said, WOW!

I have to agree, with all the Constructo kits that I built, bending the wood was the worst part of it. It's beautiful wood, but tends to be a bit brittle and they usually don't do a double planked hull. I found that wetting the wood thoroughly with hot water and lemon juice seemed to help break down the fiber a bit and helped it bend a little easier. But for those tighter bends, I would use a pair of plank crimping piers with just enough force to help the wood bend a little more and without causing too much damage to the wood. This was done after soaking for a couple of hours.

WOW, what beautiful work.

Get to building that model, don't worry about it, you got's plenty of help around here so nap to it:) I have built a couple of mamoli kits and like them. The plans are great, instructions are quite good depending on which level ship model kit you get, if it's for beginners or intermediate level the instruction will reflect this just as if you were building an advanced level kit. Use this as your guide which kit better suits your ability. But there are people all the time building advanced level kits with little to no experience. Mamoli's wood is quite good depending on the price of the kits, I have found with kit manufactures, the cheaper the cost of the kit the cheaper the materials. I too built the Mamoli Constitution and ditched the metal galley stufdf and built my own from wood.

WOW, they must think they have gold. I don't mind paying $50.00-$60.00 US for a small piece the size of 3 or 4 inches long by 2 inches or so wide and about 1/4" to 1/2 inch thick. I would just like to make a few mast heads or anchor collars out of it. I could probably get away with half that size really. I have gotten quite a few pieces of the Constitution in the past from their gift shop and got good chunks for like $15.00 + a few bucks for shipping. But that has been close to 10 years ago, they may have also changed since then.

I'm looking for a Piece of wood from the real HMS Victory ship. I have tried getting some from the Victory Museum and gift shop, This is the response I got from them with no further word: "The National Museum of the Royal Navy is now the sole supplier of authenticated wood and copper that has been removed from HMS Victory, and indeed is now the owner of the ship itself. We do indeed sell arisings to enable them to be turned into a variety of products, examining each request to ensure that it falls in line with our objectives. If you could let me have some rough details of what you are after, and for what purpose you require it, I will get back to you." So if someone in the neck of the woods or has a piece of Victory wood that they are willing to, part with and willing to help a brother out, it would be appreciated. I'm willing to pay for a small piece, I would just like to incorporate the wood into the Victory model that I'm building. Thanks, Mike

The planking job looks very good on the Deck(s)

I love the planking process when I'm not cursing up a blue streak hahahahahaha.

Wow, what a beautiful planking job. That wood coloration is gorgeous. May I ask, what is your opinion so far on this victory kit? I love Constructo kits for their materials and have built several over the years.

I have found most all kits from Manufactures like Latina, Occre, Mamoli, Constructo, Mantua are usually questionable about accuracy and some have decent materials while others have great materials. To me, out of all the manufactures kits that I have built/kit bashed Two stand out as of the highest quality as far as most of the materials and believe it or not, Constructo and Model Shipways top my list. But out of those two kit manufactures, accuracy goes to Model Shipways hands down. When I buy a kit, the first thing I do is ditch the instructions, then I look through the wood and see if there is anything decent and in most cases I use most of the wood from all of the kit manufactures. Now the metal pieces are questionable, if they look good and seem to be some what historically accurate, I will use them, but chances are I will fashion my own quite often out of wood rather than metal. To me, I prefer a bit more accuracy than quality of the kit, but I'm not going to beat up a kit manufacture if they aren't spot on. I'm building a model from a kit whether bashed or strictly kit built. It will not be museum worthy no matter how much time I put into it. Now, if I'm going to scratch build something that to me should be museum worthy then quality and accuracy would be paramount. People spend way to much time worrying about the small stuff when they could be modelling something nice to donate, give to their children or sell.