Hello,
This is my first time posting on this forum so forgive me if I am posting in the wrong spot. I just started my first wood ship model, the Model Shipways Armed Virginia Sloop and have already ran into trouble. I am not new to modeling as I have experience with plastic kits so I was not expecting a perfect kit and figured I'd have to do a lot of reshaping and fixing things to get the model to work. When I got my kit, I put the parts on the plan sheet to check sizes since I have heard this is sometimes an issue. Sure enough, the bulkheads looked fine but the basswood center keel was short by over 1/8th of an inch. Since it was so short, this threw off the alignment of almost all of the bulkheads and by differing increments as well. I figured that since the bulkheads were right, and because of how the error didn't just look like a scale issue, that the part was certainly wrong. I began reshaping it to make it work (shimming and sanding) when I was told that MS would send a new piece if I inform them of the error.
I sent MS a request for a new piece with an explanation and they responded that due to the way the plans were printed they may not match the physical part and that the keel was fine. I responded to MS that because the other parts matched the plans I thought the keel was just wrong and I was already halfway through reshaping the keel. I have not heard back from MS as I just sent the reply but I wanted to know if anyone has had experience with something like this? I thought all the parts were supposed to at least be close to the plan shapes and I am not sure what MS plans to do. I am now worried that I will have effectively destroyed my kit before even really starting.
Thank you for any help or insight you all can offer. I've been a lurker of this forum for some time now and I am always impressed with all the knowledge on here.