Hi Ya'll;
I got to thinking about this whilst perusing how far I have come on REVELL'S Oriana kit from 1959. This kit is very unusual in that I forgot how poorly it was molded. Firstly is the scale.1/485? Then the lifeboats for instance are so shallowly molded they are going to have to be replaced to look right. They are Flattened units that only the top tells you what they are supposed to be.
Now I have a lot of Box scaled kits from days gone by. Scads of Box Scale warships from REVELL. Now this is acceptable because of the timeframe in the hobby. Trouble is, The ships are buildable except where P.E. is concerned. Yeah, I can get some P.E. for Carriers. But what about all the 1/400 and other plastic ships out there?
There are a lot of ships and even some aircraft that would benefit from P.E. Mainly the ships that were support vessels for the U.S.N. I don't know about others, But eventually they even made a set for the old " Shell Welder"
It is very frustrating too. In that there many ships in specifis scales in Paper1/250, 1/200, and yes, even in 1/350. But no one has seen fit to do P.E. I have to wonder why. My Andrea Doria and Stockholm are really coming alive with the P.E. I can mix and match for it. This is what Got me thinking about it, As many paper models are on the market in Europe that it surprises me no one has gone there. P.E. can be anchored by White Glue, Really great on paper!
And they do have 1/350 and 1/200 kits believe me! Laser cut details are okay, BUT the Stairs and Ladders fall way short of looking realistic. Vertical ladders are fair , but the Inclined stuff looks like vertical ladders at a slant and there are no handrails!
The typical modeler has two things to overcome in the two media( Plastic and Paper) Inclined ladders that look like Inca or Mayan Temple stairs in plastic ( with overly heavy handrails if any) and then the opposite is true in paper. A strip with a bunch of lines on it with no handrails or ways to create the actual steps.
I have examined some of my newer ships and Yes! Mable there are Aztec stairs still on some! Now railings, That's another matter. Revell's typical Walls on the inside with a pattern resembling rails on the outside! This looks terrible when finished. And, The old Revell instructions tell you to paint the rails silver! Have you ever seen silver colored rails intentionally on Warships!
A generic set of say tewnty five inclined ladders, Ten vertical ladders and three or four sets of rails that are in say a generic size would help. Or do like the manufacturers of some ships in 1/700 and 1/350 and some larger ones do, No rails at all and no stairs either! Revell at least tried with the Cambelltown and the Buckley!