Model Shipway's Robert B Taney

[KevinR]

I have a chance to acquire an old Model Shipways USRC Robert B Taney. I was wondering how close the model is to the original ship? Would I be better off and going with the Amati Robert B Taney?

[KevinR]

I purchased the Model Shipway Roger B. Taney kit that I found on Ebay. The price was to good to pass up. I was more interested in the plans than in the kit itself. I have included some pictures of the kit content if anyone is interested.

Lots of tiny parts. Metal belaying pins, wood blocks. The deadeys are either metal or a hard plastic.

Anyone have an idea of what type of wood the hull is?

One discrepancy I noticed is the steering. According to Chepelle, Morris Class Revenue Cutters (Roger Taney was of the this class) were the first government vessels fitted with geared steering wheels. He gives a pretty good description in "The History of the American Sailing Navy".

The scale is 1' = 5/32". If I did my math correctly that is 1:77.

The second descrepency is the length is listed as 73' 4". This tells me the plans are not for the Cutter Roger B. Taney. The plans are for either the Cutters Morris, Alexander Hamilton, Albert Gallatin or the Andrew Jackson.  The Cutter Roger Taney was based off of the plans for the Cutter Morris, but was 74' 6" in length.

The instructions are all of 4 pages.

 

Over all I believe the kit would create a nice model. There are some inaccurate details. The Cutter Roger Taney was based off of the Cutter Morris, but it was 1' 2" longer. At this scale it would be hard to tell the difference. The steering is the big issue. In "The History of the American Sailing Navy" Chapelle describes the geared steering mechanism yet in his plans "Inboard arrangement for Morris and class", he shows the barrel type steering.

 

So which type of steering did the Revenue Cutter Roger B. Taney have?

 

If anyone has any opinions, insight, more or better information please chime in.

 

Till next time, see Ya!