NoelSmith

Absolutely agree Roger. It's why I am trying to find out if the Revell kit hull is correct for Alabama or Kearsarge.

Those two Bluejacket models are reputed to be historically very accurate, so thanks for sharing the pictures of your models alross2. The retracting screw on the Alabama is an interesting feature. Does this feature on the Revell kits where the hull mouldings are shared to determine what ship they based the kit on in the first place? In which place, one of them has to be wrong. Can anyone who has compared the two Revell kits shine some light on this?

Thanks for the further feedback guys. One of those Revell kits has got to more correct. Just a question of which one?

Getting back to the gist of this thread about the accuracy of the Revell Alabama/Kearsarge kits. Basically what hull is correct for which ship out of the two? One of the ships is longer than the other, so one has to be totally wrong. Also I read somewhere some time ago that the Kearsarge model is how the ship appeared after a refit that was done later than the battle with the Alabama. Is this correct?

Visited the Warrior in Portsmouth about a couple of years before covid hit. What an impressive ship! Also William Mowll's fantastic model in the reception area. This model that Phil is building will be a cracking good model from what I have seen of it so far. Looks enormous! Might be on the cards as a build sometime in the future if only I could find a kit in 200th scale! I have heard of another company named Constructo making a kit of Warrior to check out the scale of. The only other Warrior kit I have heard of is a small resin waterline kit. The CSS Alabama also appeals but the Bluejacket one is 1/96th scale, so again an enormous model! I think that the Mamoli 1/120th scale one is not much smaller either. Looking at Andrew Bowcock's 1/192nd scale drawings in his book seems a nice size to make a model in. Not too big and not too small so that it can be fully detailed.

This is coming together very well for a first build. Occre I think recommend it as a good kit to make a nice model for newcomers to the hobby. They certainly follow up well with all their on line help videos etc. Looking at this I would say that Bill has a natural instinct for building that is very obvious looking at the progress of the Polaris here.

A model whaler has to be one of the most complex commercial sailing ships to make well, and this model truly is an example of master modelling at its finest. Brilliant model Bruce!

Nice model taking shape.

OK. So how about doing an unlimited kit of the CSS Alabama at half the 1/96th scale. It could make for a more affordable accurate kit as much of the Photo etched and Laser Cut parts could be easily reduced in scale on your CAD. Understandably there may be a bit of modification to be made to the lasered frame slots to allow for whatever thickness of material is being used, but not insurmountable. The model would be more modest in size but could still be highly detailed. I have been looking at the 1/192nd scale drawings in Bowcock's book. Quite a nice size for display without being enormous. and due to the fame (or infamy depending on your view) of the ship could prove popular as a kit. Incidentally I downloaded the Bluejacket Catalogue but there was no list of scale plans that you sell that I could see in it.

Gary, I too have looked at Scalemates. It is I agree a good timeline resource as to when kits were first made and when subsequent reissues were made. However they tend to have little information about kit accuracy and reviews etc. I see are building the Artesania Latina Sopwith Camel. Impressions so far?

It's that old adage at work here. One must learn to walk before being able to run. Ship modelling is no different to any other skill that has to be acquired, whether it be painting, pottery or any other craft the basics need to be mastered first. I can remember a TV commercial that sums this up where an elderly lady in New York asked a workman digging up the road ' Can you tell me the best way to get to Carnegie Hall?' The workman replied, 'Lady, you gotta practice!'

Airfix at least never resorted to those practices, and have not produced anything new in their classic ships range except a miniature Mary Rose kit. I think I might lobby them to make the CSS Alabama in 1/192 scale. Half the size of the Revell one dating back to the sixties. Airfix could make a fabulous model, not too big and not too small given modern techniques in design, research and moulding.

This is a question a bit like which came first, the chicken or the egg? OK ! A typical Revellism as I call it using the same hull for both these enormous 1/96th scale kits. Can someone put me wise about whether the Kearsarge or Alabama was released first. I have heard and read that one is more correct than the other regarding the overall hull length. So which hull shape is correct for what ship. as one is obviously incorrect? Plus does anyone know about any other deficiencies in one or both? Why do Revell time and again attempt to cut corners and kid everyone by trying to use the same hull mouldings for different ships eg Cutty Sark, Thermopylae/Pedro Nunes. Bounty/Beagle? They must think that ship modellers cannot see the difference and just want an interior decorator style object instead of a correct scale model. I often wonder if Heller might have done the same as they churned out a lot of sailing ship models back in the 70's/80's. Who knows?

Restoring a model although perceived as being a bit daunting can actually be quite a bit of fun and rescue a model that would otherwise get binned. Yes it will take time, but that is not what this is all about. It is more about the challenge of making a silk purse from a sow's ear. And do you know what? As it's an old model, what have you got to lose by trying apart from some of your time? In fact by doing a restoration, it will make you think in a different way to building a straight kit and the great bonus is by doing, the skills you will get to learn by having a go. Once you get going problems will seem to sort themselves out along the way with a bit of lateral thinking. and what better way to learn about fully replacing masts and yards and rigging a ship model? Good luck with your endeavours as I reckon you will get a very nice model out of this with a bit of application. Looks like Heller's Superbe and is an attractive looking ship well worth restoring. Mike Sweeney appears to like restorations judging by his garage sale acquisitions.

That's interesting Darryl. Electronic zoomable versions. That's worth a follow up. Bought my paper set on the ship about 35 years ago. I wonder what other zoomable plans are available out of curiosity? I will have to check. Guess the National Maritime Museum. Greenwich has the zoomable versions too.

When I was a high school technician I used to help students with their laser cut projects. CAD is great in that you can increase or decrease the scale instantaneously. But in doing so many of the students projects went a bit haywire as they forgot that the material thickness being cut remained the same and their locating slots they drew became either too big or too small when cut.

Your build looks like it is progressing well Darryl. The plans you have framed on the wall look familiar. Are they the George Campbell plans like mine?

Phil has pre empted me as I searched out the Chappelle book about the American Fishing Schooners that I bought in Boston a number of years back when visiting the US. The reference section Phil refers to in the book I have to agree is a veritable treasure trove of diagrams and information.

Howard Chappelle I believe wrote a comprehensive book about the development of schooners and their rigging that may be worth seeking out.

Mr Bluejacket The Alabama and the Kearsarge limited editions look to be the most accurate models of those two ships. Superb kits from what I can see of them. So why make them limited editions? Surely you could amortise more of your company costs by producing a run of say 500 initially and sell them as a regular catalogue item? The other thing is that much as I would love to model the Alabama in particular, 1/96th scale makes for a huge model. Too big for me unfortunately. Would it not be possible to consider a kit half that size? Small enough to accommodate, but big enough to fully detail.

Another extremely good set of plans for the Cutty Sark is by George F Campbell, Marine Architect who I believe was involved with restoration work on the ship. I bought mine many years ago on the Cutty Sark itself, so try looking at the ship's own website or alternatively try the Cutty Sark Society. The National Maritime Museum may well sell sets of these plans too. This is by far the very best set of plans (3 sheets in all) you can obtain. There are two books that come to mind about modelling the Cutty Sark unfortunately both out of print but really good if you can get them from Ebay or specialist second hand transport book sellers. One is by C. Nepean Longridge describing how he built the London Science Museum model published by Model and Allied Publications. (MAP) The second is by Noel Hackney that fully describes rigging and painting the Airfix Cutty Sark and was published by Patrick Stephens back in the 1970's. The Longridge model is quite large and may well be in 1/96th scale. The Hackney model is quite small so his recommended rigging will have to be scaled up to suit.

Although I have built models for 60 odd years, mainly automotive including some scratch builds since retiring I have built two nautical kits. I built Revell's Vasa that was a kit bash utilising many of the better defined figure works from the elderly Airfix kit. It was a bit challenging to say the least and needed a lot of perseverance to see the project through, but I managed to get there in the end. The other model was Artesania Latina's Titanic's lifeboat that was supposed to be a beginner kit that I bought for the specific purpose of learning to build in wood. Well, that turned out to be a baptism of fire! The keel bow and stern shapes were wrong, but luckily I could correct them using some of the surplus they were cut from. The clinker build was a real challenge as the strips were much too thick in my opinion to bend properly and easily. I ended up cutting strips from ply that was half the thickness in order to make the build a bit more doable. The model did get finished and I learnt a lot about building boats in wood by doing it, although I must admit wanting to throw the thing against the wall at times. A beginner kit it is not. Chris's original post giving advice for a would be new builder is spot on in my humble opinion. Any model regardless of subject needs both time to make and time invested by the builder to gain experience and confidence.

The late Professor John Tilley I seem to remember posted on another site that the Imai Cutty Sark is reckoned to be the most accurate. As the Monogram one is the Imai kit under licence that looks really good. A UK company named Scale Warship has made a set of photo etched parts for the Academy kit. The smaller scaled Airfix one sells in much higher numbers so I was a bit surprised that Scale Warship had not gone for that one instead. Scale Warship do sets of PE for the Revell Vasa Kit, and also for the lovely little miniature Mary Rose kit by Airfix. That is besides their modern warship PE sets.

I think that this kit started life as a model of 'La Flore', a French Frigate. Name should be on the stern gingerbread work if Lindberg have not done anything to the tooling. Their other pirate ship (Captain Kidd's) started life as the 'Wappen Von Hamburg'.

Hi Kris....I am new to this thread and afraid that I have also become a fellow masochist and doing a build of this kit.. So far it has been a slow old slog to sort out some of the simplification problems that Revell have presented us with. I happen to also have the old Airfix version that is 1/144th scale that I bought after visiting the Vasa museum a couple of years before the Revell kit was issued. Having learnt that Revell were working with the museum to produce their kit I was looking forward to something special. Overall it is not bad, but don't ask me why Revell could not have done a lot better with this kit. For example the carved figures on the old 1970's Airfix kit have much sharper definition than anything on the Revell kit. In fact the Revell carved detail looks a bit rounded and undefined. I am using the Airfix kit as a 'Sacrificial Lamb' and retro fitting as many of the Airfix carved details to the Revell one that is feasable to do. The moulded in gammoning had to go, just like yours. A real pain in the butt the reinstate the carved detail under the beakhead. I found it easier to cut it out of each hull half with a fine exacto razor saw, glue the two parts together, remove the gammoning bit and rework the carvings. This will be refitted when the two hull halves are joined. Revell have made both top and bottom cannon ports all the same size. Looking at the Stolt drawings from the museum the lower ports are slightly larger than the upper. The old Airfix kit had this feature correct, so I have carefully enlarged all the Revell kit lower gun deck ports, and Airfix to the rescue as I will utilise all the hatches from their old kit to replace the Revell ones. All the treenails on the kit look like the rivets on the Titanic, so these were rubbed down gently so that they were flush with the hull but I could still see the position of each. I then used an aircraft modellers tool for marking rivets on 1/48th scale aircraft. Perfect for making a small slight circular indent that looks far more realistic than the raised 'rivet' style. Another thing was that the kit had no scarfe joints engraved where the hull timbers meet. Airfix one just the same. Would plastic sailing ship kit makers have us believe that timbers ran the full length of a 200 ft long ship? Revell were working with the museum on this kit so the omissions and errors are disappointing.These are the things to do that I have found so far, and I expect that there will be more! Like Kriss, I agree that the hatches look wrong. Scale Warship make some photo etched stuff for the Revell Vasa. They make a full set of PE Shrouds/Ratlines as one set. Also they make a smaller detailing set with PE Hatch Gratings and Window Frames. I will be having a look at these to see if any good or not. When I start painting I will be looking to use artists acrylics on the model. What paints did you use Kriss? You have obviously honed your painting skills on the Warhammer figures. I will also be looking to use similar techniques that I have used on 54mm figures in the past. Look forward to seeing more of your progress on your model. If I end up painting mine half as well as yours I will be pleased.