Anyone familiar with Disar Models?

[leclaire]

I received my annual catalog from Model-Expo today and noticed several pages devoted to Disar Models. I guess what caught my eye was their Marieville Paddlewheel Steamer. Since I am working on the Chaperon at the moment and have been faithfully following the wonderful builds of Cairo, Arabia, etc., anything looking remotely like a river steamer is of immediate interest. I am also contemplating a scratch build of the Lone Star, an old sternwheel tow boat on the Mississippi.

 

I have not seen Disar Models advertised before and wondered if anyone has any knowledge or experience with this company. I sure hope this is not another pirated model issue. We have enough of that going on right now to suit me.

 

Bob

[Paul Le Wol]

Hi Bob, I don’t know anything about Disar but if you decide to go with one of their kits , Ages of Sail also sells them

[leclaire]

Thanks for the tip Paul on Ages of Sail. I'll keep that in mind in case I break my promise to myself not to buy another kit until I finish the ones I have. Any bets on how that will turn out?

 

Bob

[Janelle]

I am struggling with the Disar Whaleboat kit. Instructions are useless, with microscopic text and poor translation. The booklet lacks many sections/descriptions and the illustrations are not very helpful. If I didn't know how to build a whaleboat already it would be near to impossible with this kit. If you don''t already know how to build a line tub, there is no way to figure it out from their "instructions," the topic is ignored completely.

 

I am hoping to find some information on tips for the build...

 

Janelle

[Matt D]

On 11/23/2022 at 8:19 PM, leclaire said:

Any bets on how that will turn out?

Stay strong, Bob.  They’ll keep making them if they’re worth buying.  That’s what I tell myself.

[BMT]

I just got the Japanese junk by Disar and, like Janelle, have found the kit institutions a lot to be desired.  

 

While I can appreciate the instructions being in several different languages translating to English is terrible.  Maybe if they had a few better photos, that would help.

 

I did email Disar but do not expect to hear back.

[Hamburg Navigator]

Hi, I am a 64 years old German, have built around 100 1/72 scale ships so far, from "out-of-the box" via from "plans-only" to own historical research and design and reconstruction by AutoCad and laser cutter. My biggest current project is the 1/72 scale (4.58 meters long) "USS Constellation" aircraft carrier (CV64). But big projects need small intermissions for quick successes. So I came about the Disarmodel kit of the "Marieville". And I had never before built a paddle wheel steamer.  I bought this kit out of simple curiosity, not expecting more than information on typical stern wheelers, a quick build and of course at least its truth to "my" scale 1/72.

 

To resume first: I found more shadow than light. For a modeller seeking historical truth and detail: forget it! It is a very much simplified phantasy ship without any concrete original and historically questionable. But for all those who just want to have a nice first-glance-eyecatching piece of romantic decoration it would probably serve that purpose. As a consequence I could not convince myself to build the "Marieville" but used some of its parts and principles as additional reference for scratch building my own sternwheeler, the 1861 "USS Silver Cloud", a so-called "tinclad" of the American Civil War in the Union Navy, which I researched and which is now under construction after having drawn 80% of its blueprints myself.

 

Back to the "Marieville". It is definitely not 1/72 scale. If parts are to scale, they are 1/75 or smaller. The multilingual instruction sheets are so filled with mistakes in any of the used 4 languages that they would be useless if there weren't the excellent photographies which make that up. The parts are very well and sharp precut by laser. The material however is partly not wood but some kind of wood fiber plate or pressed paper. The main problem is that the 3 mm spruce wood decks (of which the ship has 5) are too stiff and (out of scale anyhow) too thick that you cannot give them the correct shape being concave/convex. To explain: Those were light draught river ships with a very flat hull only 5 to 6 feet deep, cruising in an area with frequent heavy rain but hardly ever waves on the water. Other than sea-going ships they did therefore not roll and did not make you seasick. But a non-moving stable deck has to be longitudinal very convex to get rid of the rain water and at the same time it has to be concave so that the front and rear ends of the ship do not get flooded at higher speeds (4 to 7 knots was fast around 1860). The "Marieville" kit does - apart from the main deck - not reflect this very typical element of those ships which gives it a look like a few LEGO-blocks one upon the other.

 

So in my eyes, the kit is not a scale model kit but may form a nice part of decoration. Try it if you are into that. Then it is worth the price.

Mathias

[Cold_Fire]

Disarmodel is or almost bankrupt, I know a supplier of theirs who has several unpaid invoices at the moment. I suppose this is interesting for anyone considering buying a kit from this brand. I doubt that the after-sales service works, and it's a miracle a disarmodel kit is complete and correct...