What ships circa 1700 are available in the area of 1:128 scale? (wood preferred, plastic okay too)

[Dan DSilva]

Hello again,

 

Anyone know of decent kits from around the turn of the 18th century?  I'd be especially interested in large warships (a la Soleil Royal or San Felipe) and East Indiamen.  I'd like to display them all together, but the scale doesn't need to be exact, let's say anything smaller than 1:120 but larger than 1:135.

 

Right now the closest ones I know of are the Lindberg Captain Kidd (based on a ship from the 1660s, looks a bit old-fashioned for 1700) and Jolly Roger (guessing this one is mid-1700s).

Edited May 22, 2023 by Dan DSilva

[amateur]

Any country in mind? Or just ‘period’?

Not much available , I think: it is either earlier (mayflower, Wasa), or quite a bit later: victory or cuttty sark (i know, there is more than these four  )

Only one that comes to my mind is Friesland (mamoli), around 1670, but outside your scale range (1:75)

 

Jan

[allanyed]

If it doesn't exist, I'll just have to make it myself.  Doesn't mean I'm not gonna complain about it.

 

Daniel

You said it, not me.   Maybe time to have a go at a scratch build??  I would be happy to send you a full set of drawings for POF or POB for a fifty gun British ship of 1695. in whatever scale you want.   I have an appropriate contemporary contract and full set of scantlings as well.   PM me with your contact information if you are interested.

Two of the 20+ pages are below, including some of the bulkheads for a POB build, to give you an idea of the plans.

Allan

 

 

Edited May 22, 2023 by allanyed

[Bob Cleek]

Building a ship of that period at the scale of 1:120 to 1:135 would be quite a daunting task for most of us. It is a "miniature model" scale. As I'm sure you know, models of that period are most frequently built to a scale of 1:48 or 1:96, 1 inch equals 4 feet or eight feet, respectively. Such modeling is generally the province of a handful of master miniaturists. The only master modelers working in such scales, and even smaller, today of whom I am aware are Phillip Reed in England and Lloyd McCaffery in the United States. Two other Twentieth Century masters of miniature ship models are also well-recognized, Donald McNarry and Norman Ough, but they are now deceased. 

 

All of these masters have written books on the subject of miniature ship modeling. The below volumes specifically address the techniques employed to build miniature scale ship models which, in some respects, are different from building in larger scales and all are quite good. I would urge anyone who was interesting in working at miniature scales to obtain and study these reference works on the subject:

 

Philip Reed, Building Miniature Navy Board Ship Models: Reed, Philip: 9781848320178: Amazon.com: Books

Lloyd McCaffery SHIPS IN MINIATURE: The Classic Manual for Modelmakers: McCaffery, Lloyd: 9780851774855: Amazon.com: Books

Donald McNarry  Shipbuilding in Miniature: McNarry, Donald: 9780668058001: Amazon.com: Books

 

Philip Reed also has an excellent series of YouTube videos on his work. See: Philip Reed - YouTube

 

 

 

[Dan DSilva]

Thank you all.

 

To clarify, the fleet I'd like to build would be English at the start of the War of the Spanish Succession.  (If I could have any ship of my choice as a kit, I'd start with HMS Britannia.)  But the nationality of the ship the kit is based on doesn't matter as long as the period is correct and I can replace the flags and stuff.  (It would not be any particular real-life English fleet, just one that would fit into the setting -- that's why the models don't have to be of any particular real-life English ships.)

 

This is only part of the collection I hope to build someday and I don't mind hearing what other sailing ship kits in this scale are out there.  It's just that the old "wooden wall" ships make for particularly complex models thanks to all the baroque ornamentation and the covered gun decks necessitating planked construction if open ports are to look convincing.  There'll hopefully come a day when I can devote the time to scratchbuilding models like these, and I appreciate the advice and ideas about doing so.  But I like to check for shortcuts before going about something the long way.

 

---

 

Did a little more reading up.  Apparently the Jolly Roger is based on the French Blonde-class of the 1750s.  That definitely puts me on the fence about it.  Anyone who recognizes the class knows what time period and nationality it belongs to, it's also a bit less portly than I would expect for an East Indiaman and perhaps has a lower, simpler stern than earlier ships.  On the other hand, I don't see much other than that to distinguish it, and it's a cheap model and nicely detailed (I still have one that I built -- very badly -- back in elementary school).

Edited May 25, 2023 by Dan DSilva