Cutty Sark by Arctic37 - FINISHED - Revell - Scale 1:96 - PLASTIC

[shipman]

David, I've attempted to download the Revel instruction sheets here. If it works, then I hope this is useful to you.

[popeye the sailor]

those are the instructions I posted     the Cutty Sark instructions are the 'most lost' of all.......you would not believe how many folks I sent them to,  before I posted them.   I'm glad to see them in use

 

the rigging sheets should be there too    http://seymore-thecuttysark-abuildlog.blogspot.com/     

Edited November 27, 2019 by popeye the sailor

[shipman]

Apologies Pop, I pulled your posted instructions from my own files (for my own use) some time ago and re-posted them to help David. My intentions were pure, unlike my cheating black heart! 

I do now have a set of the originals, but not a big enough scanner.

[popeye the sailor]

heck no.........use them!!!!   that's what I posted them for.    Revell.......back before they became Hobbico,  posted none of these 1:96 scale kit instructions on their instruction page.  I posted the United States instructions too and I have the Connie.......but I won't post the Connie because they are the same {they are clones}.  the Thermopylae is the clone for the Cutty......both kits are the same.  the Cutty plans are the most 'lost' in in the model world...you would not believe how many copies I've sent out.  I'm glad you found them.......and very glad I've helped.   I've got the Revell page book marked.......haven't looked at it for a while now.  since Revell / Germany has begun reproducing some of these larger kits,  I hope they added them in.  you might have wondered what the measurements around the bow is about.......I measured the decals.   I had sent out to get another set of sails and the decal sheet using the Revell missing parts page.  I got two of the three sheets of sails and a new decal sheet.   but bother........when I went to use them,  they dissolved into a multiple of shards!  they were micro cracked!

   I have a terrible time trying to find a place that could replicate the decals.  giving up,  I happened onto a decal making system..the 'decal it' system, sold by Testors.  they were not perfect....the depth markers had to be done by paint pen,  but I managed to come up with my own set    I've managed to gain some experience with it,  but it does seem to have a transparency issue,  that makes it hard to use......I have some work arounds for it.   depending on how old your kit is,  you might want to get a product called 'decal bonder',  sold by Testors,  sprayed on the sheet,  it will cure the micro cracking issue.  I've built the Cutty twice...love that model  

 

glad to see you believe in pay'in it forward  

[Bill97]

Good morning. Just stumbled on your blog. I recently completed the Revell 1/96 USS Constitution and now getting ready to begin the Cutty Sark. Like you, I prefer to leave the sails off so as to see the rigging, which the Constitution had tons of. On the Constitution I did not paint the deck. Just left it the cream color of the plastic. However, after reading your blog and others I am interested in painting the deck on the Cutty Sark. I am wondering if you would mind explaining in more detail how you did yours?

[Arctic37]

Hello again everybody,

it was a long time since my last update, but I got into some other very time consuming projects (like starting university studies 🙂 ). Now I decided, that this ship collected enough dust on my shelf, and it's finally time to finish it, and give her a glass case and a proper place in my room.

I continued the work, where I left off, namely the boats, their cranes, and some other deck accessories.

When the build was on hiatus, the hand pump was lost, but during that time I got myself a 3D printer, so it was easy to replace the lost one. It looks quite good imo.

Now only some minor parts needed to complete the deck, so after vacation I can start working on the masts and rigging (I'm already a little scared of them 🙂 ).

Since full sails and no sails look equally bad on a model ship, I decided that I will do (when I get there) something in between. The ship will sail with only some jibs, topsails, and a spanker (like on the painting picture)

 

 

 

[Arctic37]

On 5/27/2020 at 2:27 PM, Bill97 said:

Good morning. Just stumbled on your blog. I recently completed the Revell 1/96 USS Constitution and now getting ready to begin the Cutty Sark. Like you, I prefer to leave the sails off so as to see the rigging, which the Constitution had tons of. On the Constitution I did not paint the deck. Just left it the cream color of the plastic. However, after reading your blog and others I am interested in painting the deck on the Cutty Sark. I am wondering if you would mind explaining in more detail how you did yours?

I got some dark-greyish brown (something olive drap, but I don't remember the exact article number), and made three variants. The first one is pure color, wirhout additional paints, the second is with a little added white, and the third is with little added black. After that I painted every plank with one of the three variants. So in the end the whole deck is the same color, but with slight differentiation.

[Cirdan]

On 8/16/2021 at 6:32 PM, Arctic37 said:

Since full sails and no sails look equally bad on a model ship, I decided that I will do (when I get there) something in between. The ship will sail with only some jibs, topsails, and a spanker (like on the painting picture)

 

Nice to see, that there will be some progress. 👍 I personally like models of clippers without sails:

 

 

In general, sails for clipper models are very difficult to make convincingly (especially in such small scale) and even if they were made as real as possible there is a kind of rivalry between the hull and rigging on the one hand and the sails on the other. With such small sails, however, I can imagine that the model will look homogeneous.

 

 

 

[Arctic37]

15 hours ago, Cirdan said:

In general, sails for clipper models are very difficult to make convincingly (especially in such small scale) and even if they were made as real as possible there is a kind of rivalry between the hull and rigging on the one hand and the sails on the other. With such small sails, however, I can imagine that the model will look homogeneous.

 

Nice model you have there 🙂

 

More or less that's my opinion too about the sails. With full sail the hull will disappear under them (also I would have to make around 30-35 individual sails, which is a big no-no 🙂 ). But also there are no sailing ship without sails imo. So the golden mean is to make a sort of storm rigging, with only few sails in use, luckily there are reference paintings, and some photos for that. I will need to figure out though, if the unused sails were just tied up to the masts, or were completely dismantled from the masts and were put into storage.

[Cirdan]

There's a model of the Cutty Sark with storm sails. I think they were made from a sort of paper since the scale is rather small:

 

https://dyn1.heritagestatic.com/lf?set=path[8%2F6%2F0%2F4%2F8604188]&call=url[file%3Aproduct.chain]

 

https://fineart.ha.com/itm/maritime/decorative-art/scale-sealine-model-of-the-cutty-sark-modeled-by-paul-s-reed-in-3-64-scalepresented-in-wood-and-glass-case12-x-19/a/5128-88012.s

 

And a model of Thermopylae by Lloyd McCaffery, also with storm sails:

 

https://www.jrusselljinishiangallery.com/pages/mccaffrey-pages/mccafferyimage-thermopylae.htm

 

 

[Arctic37]

On 8/18/2021 at 11:35 PM, Cirdan said:

There's a model of the Cutty Sark with storm sails. I think they were made from a sort of paper since the scale is rather small:

 

https://dyn1.heritagestatic.com/lf?set=path[8%2F6%2F0%2F4%2F8604188]&call=url[file%3Aproduct.chain]

 

https://fineart.ha.com/itm/maritime/decorative-art/scale-sealine-model-of-the-cutty-sark-modeled-by-paul-s-reed-in-3-64-scalepresented-in-wood-and-glass-case12-x-19/a/5128-88012.s

 

And a model of Thermopylae by Lloyd McCaffery, also with storm sails:

 

https://www.jrusselljinishiangallery.com/pages/mccaffrey-pages/mccafferyimage-thermopylae.htm

 

 

Thanks for the references

[Arctic37]

I continued the build with placing the navigational lights, some rods under it (doesomebody knows the function of them?), the bowsprit, the anchors, and the figurehead. With that the Cutty Sark lays in full length on my workbench. Being 92 cm long its quite big 🙂 also impressive to look at.

Now I only need to make the bow and stern railings, before the ship can start to grow upwards (I already started to glue the masts together, until the paint arrives for the railings)

 

 

 

 

[shipman]

Stunsail Booms.

[Arctic37]

9 hours ago, shipman said:

Stunsail Booms.

Thanks, makes sense.

[Arctic37]

I successfully lost the bow railings, but good thing about having a 3D printer is, when you lose a part, you can replace it in a day, including designing the part.

Also most of the time, after sanding, it looks better than the molded part from the 70s.

 

 

Dry fitting, not yet glued

[Arctic37]

One step closer to the finish line.

The railings and other missing parts from the deck are now placed, and the anchors were tied up.

 

Any idea how to make the anchors look heavier? Maybe coat the ropes with glue, and tighten them until the glue dries?

 

In the meantime, when the paint dried, I photo-etched a new nameplate from Nickel-Silver (the plastic nameplate in the kit was awful)

 

At the morning I corrected the painting on the masts, and placed them on the ship. Now she starts to look like a real sailing ship.

 

 

[Arctic37]

On the previous day I applied the decals, then coated the hull with semigloss varnish.

 

Then I continued with the shrouds. I used the molded ones from the kit, because they look quite good, compared to other parts of the kit. Also because the ship already have a truckload of rigging, I didn't want to make my work unnecessarily harder and longer, since I'm pretty sure, I couldn't make the shrouds better looking from threads, than the molded version. During the work one support beam of the boats needed to be replaced, because originally I placed it on the wrong place... Luckily it didn't do too much damage, and was relatively easy and fast to repair them.

 

Now starts the hard part: rigging 🙂 Standing rigging is the easier part, but I'm already afraid of the difficulty and tediousness of the job. Also the manual being quite incomprehensible and inconsistent doesn't help. Luckily I have parts of the rigging plan, that will make it easier.

[Veszett Roka]

Wow, and a 424 type steam locomotive at the background?

[Arctic37]

19 minutes ago, Veszett Roka said:

Wow, and a 424 type steam locomotive at the background?

 

That is a 303 class loco (I admit, it's not that easy to distinguish the two).  I'm building the model of the locomotive too, also it's my favourite steam engine, so I bought a picture of it and placed it in front of my workbench.

 

 

[Arctic37]

Yesterday was all about rigging. I've managed to finish the longitudinal stays, now "only" the backstays (all 36 of them) remain from the standing rigging.

It was easier than I tought, but the Revell instructions were unusable. Quite a few wires were missing, others went from a wrong place to a wrong place... I have original rigging plan, so I could work it out in the end, but sometimes I spent more time figuring out the correct layout, than actual rigging.

Also the ropes are quite stiff, so at some places I couldn't tighten the rope enough.

 

But words aside this is the result:

 

 

 

 

 

[Arctic37]

It was a tedious job, but the standing rigging is complete.

 

I already started to look at the running rigging (Revell manual a bit more useful in this regard), altough I will make the yards and sails before the rigging (I think it will be easier to fix the sails to the yards, when I don't have to manouver my hands around a couple dozen ropes and parts)

 

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

  'Love your build of a classic kit I did myself as a lad (model long gone, though).  I've obtained a Revell Thermie kit (cloned from the Cutty), and I'm thinking to make it in the barkentine mode - an option provided for in the kit to represent her time in the timber trade in the Northwest.  She was painted white then, and there are some good photos to model her as she was in that roughly 5 year period.  Of course there were some compromises Revell made, as the ship has the same lines as the Cutty.  The bow below the water line can be shaped to the 'Aberdeen' curve easily enough, but the stern profile represents a challenge - and the transition from the aft deck to the main deck  is somewhat different than on the prototype.

 

 The decision to be made (eventually) will be to either cut away the plastic above the prominent lower shear strake and plank in wood upwards from there (but leaving the forecastle alone) to increase accuracy (a harder way to go), or built her as provided - thus 'respecting' the classic kit.  I can pare away the intermediate rub rail between  the shear and the gunwale, as well as adjust the bow to the Aberdeen profile.  No rush, mates - as there is much to do in the meantime.  A stash of a mere 6 kits for what is hoped to be a 20 year retirement is hardly an excess.  Just thinking and planning how to build (or bash) is for me as enjoyable as actually building.  And it is a pleasure to review the many fine builds available on the forum like yours.

 

  Fair sailing !      Johnny

 

[Veszett Roka]

Szia Attila,

 

it is coming along very nicely. How do you plan to display the sails, on full tack or furled?

[Arctic37]

15 hours ago, Snug Harbor Johnny said:

  'Love your build of a classic kit I did myself as a lad (model long gone, though).  I've obtained a Revell Thermie kit (cloned from the Cutty), and I'm thinking to make it in the barkentine mode - an option provided for in the kit to represent her time in the timber trade in the Northwest.  She was painted white then, and there are some good photos to model her as she was in that roughly 5 year period.  Of course there were some compromises Revell made, as the ship has the same lines as the Cutty.  The bow below the water line can be shaped to the 'Aberdeen' curve easily enough, but the stern profile represents a challenge - and the transition from the aft deck to the main deck  is somewhat different than on the prototype.

 

 The decision to be made (eventually) will be to either cut away the plastic above the prominent lower shear strake and plank in wood upwards from there (but leaving the forecastle alone) to increase accuracy (a harder way to go), or built her as provided - thus 'respecting' the classic kit.  I can pare away the intermediate rub rail between  the shear and the gunwale, as well as adjust the bow to the Aberdeen profile.  No rush, mates - as there is much to do in the meantime.  A stash of a mere 6 kits for what is hoped to be a 20 year retirement is hardly an excess.  Just thinking and planning how to build (or bash) is for me as enjoyable as actually building.  And it is a pleasure to review the many fine builds available on the forum like yours.

 

  Fair sailing !      Johnny

 

 

Looking at the quality of the molds, my model is probably from the same era, as yours long gone, sadly.

Apart from leaving the hull as it is, the easiest method (for me) for the stern would be, to cast a resin block to the back of the ship, then carefully carve and sand the correct shape. Also unlike resin, wood have quite a different texture, compared to plastic, so I think it would be visible, that the stern was made from a different material, than the hull.

[Arctic37]

2 hours ago, Veszett Roka said:

Szia Attila,

 

it is coming along very nicely. How do you plan to display the sails, on full tack or furled?

 I'm planning to make a storm sail, so only the lower topsails, one or two jibs and the aft spanker would be hoisted, the others will be lowered or put into storage (so not visible at all). Something like on this picture:

 

[Arctic37]

Yay or nay?

First try on sails.

 

[Cirdan]

What material are they made of? They are looking good an not too heavy. 

[Kevin-the-lubber]

I too stumbled across your log just this morning - I saw a part-built kit going cheap on eBay, hadn’t realised it’s available as a 1:96 (the smallest scale I’ll ever use!). Very nice work there. How do you rate the kit in terms of quality, fit accuracy etc? Like you I don’t mind doing a bit of resin printed part replacement.

 

[Arctic37]

19 hours ago, Cirdan said:

What material are they made of? They are looking good an not too heavy. 

Batiste

[Arctic37]

18 hours ago, Kevin-the-lubber said:

I too stumbled across your log just this morning - I saw a part-built kit going cheap on eBay, hadn’t realised it’s available as a 1:96 (the smallest scale I’ll ever use!). Very nice work there. How do you rate the kit in terms of quality, fit accuracy etc? Like you I don’t mind doing a bit of resin printed part replacement.

 

 

Well, if you can get the kit for around $70 I would say it's worth it, but above that, the value for money starts to sink rapidly, in case you view it as a plastic kit, and don't compare it with wooden kits of the Cutty Sark. In the latter case (i.e. you want to build a tea clipper model) it could worth around $100-150.
Even the newly boxed kits use the same mold as the ones from the 80s, and they are starting to show their age. Lot of, if not all of the molds two sides are shifted, sometimes just slightly, but 0.5-1 mm shifts are not uncommon. There are lot of leaks between mold sides, the edges are not as sharp, and there are a lot of too deep or too high pinmarks. Also the fit is not that great for bigger parts you will need to sand for quite a while, to even be able to put them in place (except for the hull and mast-deck connection, which have good fit even for todays standard)