Regarding Heller Soleil Royal issues referenced in the now-departed I-53 thread

John,

My apologies.  It was late at night when I posted.

Bill Morrison

Link works fine. I read it through. Funny in that I noticed the draft appeared unusually shallow for such a large vessel. Dutch-Built perhaps as was mentioned regarding the Sutherland in the Hornblower novels?

I appreciate the read. I suppose there was a different market for shipmodels in the 1960s. Adult males mostly did outdoors stuff for hobbies, smoking, drinking, frequent bars and clubs, drive fast cars, chase women.

Now we build shipmodels and sit in front of the computer. Progress?

  

 

Bill, that's the thread for which I inserted a link earlier in this thread.  Is there a problem with the link?  It worked right when I tried it a minute ago.

I agree with those who have a high opinion of the Heller Victory.  I guess I'd even join those who call it the most accurate of plastic sailing ship kits.  (It is, in fact, a much better reproduction of the real ship than any of those awful HECEPOB kits.  [HECEPOB = Hideously Expensive Continental European Plank-On-Bulkhead.]   In terms of accuracy the only kit that can compete with it is the enormous, 1/72 wood one from Calder/Jotika, which, in the U.S., costs more than $1,000.)  It does, however, suffer from some problems that really need to be fixed. 

The biggest of those is that it suffers from one of the same silly, irrational omissions that afflict the Soleil Royal kit:  it provides no means of fastening the yards to the masts.  And the rigging instructions, though certainly better than those of the Soleil Royal, contain quite a few deviations from reality.  And the English "translation" of the entire instruction book is a scandal; it apparently was written by somebody who neither could read French nor had attempted to build the model.  But that's another topic.

As to whether the Heller Soleil Royal is a better or worse kit than that Lindberg submarine - I'll have to leave that to some other curmudgeon. 

Felix C,

Check out the thread called "Soleil Royal . . . The Ultimate Building Guide"  It makes specific recommendations concerning overcoming the kit's shortcomings.  Good luck!

Bill Morrison

I would say there's a difference between defending a kit and defending a manufacturer. I'd never consider a kit "not worth building" unless it has been superseded by a newer, better kit in the same or similar scale. There are many flawed and inaccurate kits, both new and old, that can be built into very nice models with some added work on the part of the builder.

However, I have no problems with a manufacturer being criticised when their model is seriously flawed, especially when it would have been relatively easy for them to get it right (or at least not get it as wrong as they did). Many kits often have minor errors resulting, for example, from confusion between features of different versions of the same subject, or alterations made to preserved examples in museums - but the flaws in Lindberg's I-53 appear to go very far beyond "rivet counting"; it looks like the manufacturer either did very little research at all, or based their model on a single, inaccurate source.

My personal opinion of both the Lindberg I-53 and Heller Soleil Royal kits is very similar; they're both seriously flawed kits that nevertheless can be improved into a reasonable if not perfect replica with some scratchbuilding and kitbashing work, and despite their flaws are worth considering if you have a serious interest in the subject matter and scale (otherwise, avoid); and, in both cases, they're the result of what appears to be inexcusably poor research on the part of the manufacturer (even more so with the I-53, given that photographs and plans exist of the real vessel).

If Heller released their SR kit now (or if I had been around 35 years ago when it was first released) I would be even more critical of Heller than Lindberg; whilst the I-53 has many features, starting with the hull shape, that don't much resemble the real thing, at least it doesn't have things like a nonsensical rigging plan and a bow/beakhead structure that would collapse under its own weight!

No worries regarding another thread on the SR. I wanted to read what was said.

Only wish to see what the results were of the review. I read where Heller's Victory was reasonably accurate, (have also read where is is the most accurate plastic sailing ship rendition) but did not know regarding the SR.

I wil post a Lindberg thread response in the other thread of "What happened to the..."

 

 

 

Well, here it is - for what it's worth:  /forums/1/984674/ShowPost.aspx#984674 .  This isn't the only thread in which that kit is discussed, but I think it's the longest and most comprehensive.

I do hope this doesn't lead to another discussion of the Heller Soleil Royal (unless, of course, somebody has found some additional genuine primary sources about her).  In the absence of such new information I don't feel like I have anything more to say about the subject - and if I did, I suspect most of the Forum wouldn't want to hear it.

I will say this much.  In the last few pages of the great Lindberg Japanese submarine thread a few people did come to Lindberg's defense (sort of), suggesting that the sub kit isn't quite as bad as its critics claim and pointing out that the inaccuracies won't matter to some categories of purchasers.  For better or worse, the gulf that I noted in that thread between the standards of sailing ship enthusiasts and those of modern warship buffs doesn't seem to be quite as wide as I thought.