question for prof. jtilly

Look at Billing Boats model range:

http://www.billingboats.com/

My colegue, that doesn't like plastic ship models at all (i'm not supporting him at this point ), and has about 35 years experience in wooden ship modelling (scrachbuild) preffer this company.

Caldercraft - Jotika is not worth such money at his mind, i.e. price  to quality ratio is too big for model kits of mentioned company.

Hi-PROFF Tilley:  I would just like to add. I recentlyacquired the H.M.S.SURPRISE and boy, whatta pile of wood. It, the plans anyway seem to indicate the ship is rigged in the manner ascribed to in Patrick O,Brian,s novels! I am not sure of the original rig ,But, it seems fairly accurate. I am going to build according to the descriptions set forth in the O,Brian books so it doesn,t really matter.I just think that the hecepob outfits need to get their stuff together.The steamboats they offer for instance are way off in proportion except for the CHAPERON.I have always wondered about that as the info on AMERICAN steamboats is not really scarce. You just need to know where to find it! A good for instance is, if I wanted to do a steamer from the CALIFORNIA delta ,There is a HISTORIAN by the name of HAL SCHELL who has written two books about the area.He has many photos in the books about steamers on the delta.The pictures are very good as is the history.The books are DAWDLING on the DELTA and MORE DAWDLING on the DELTA. I believe they still can be found in the northern CALIFORNIA area. I had the privelidge of meeting Mr. SCHELL some years back and both books are signed by him. I was amazed about the amount of info about the steamers he included.The books outline the idea of living on the delta, which I did in a forty foot steel houseboat put out by DELTA QUEEN. Enough of that. Just wanted to touch base on the SURPRISE.       tankerbuilder

my thanks to both of you . i deal mainly with plastic if you discount the r/c portion of my hobbies.but i have wanted to do a wooden ship for a long time. what i dont want is to spend the majority of my time correcting mistakes from the mfg. just to make things fit,much less historicaly accurate. my hobby time is limited for now, so i want to spend it constructing not correcting . i did notice that some kits are now claiming laser cut parts and such so maybe the rest of the kit might be advancing as well. thanks again for the onfo from both of you.

I don't actually disagree with any of the above.  In fact, I'll go so far as to say that I think I can see signs (albeit not very strong ones) of a shift in the behavior of wood ship kit companies.  The HECEPOB world (that's Hideously Expensive Continental European Plank On Bulkhead) seems to have been remarkably quiet recently.  I haven't heard of any new and outrageous products from any of those companies for - well, maybe it's been as long as a couple of years.  (Caveat:  I base that statement on one, and only one, source:  the Model Expo catalogs.  For all I know, Corel, Constructo, et al may be unleasing all sorts of horrors on the market someplace else.)  And at least two of the HECEPOB companies, Amati and Mamoli, have released products recently that actually appear to have been designed by people who know what a scale ship model looks like.  That's a major change for the better.

Anyway, when I'm asked questions like uspsjuan's I usually respond by recommending the products of three companies:  Model Shipways, Bluejacket, and Calder-Jotika.  Please bear in mind the following caveats, though:  One - I'm not actually much of a wood kit enthusiast, and can't claim to have personal experience with more than a few of them.  I have, for instance, never had my hands on a Calder-Jotika kit (and I'm not at all sure I'll ever be able to afford one); my opinion of that company is based entirely on published pictures and reviews.  Two -  all these companies have been around for a while, and their products have varied considerably in quality (generally getting better) as the years have gone by.  Some Model Shipways kits, for instance, are conspicuously more sophisticated than others.

The new "Admiralty Models" line of eighteenth-century British warships from Amati also appears to be excellent.  (As I understand it, those kits are designed by a gentleman who used to work for Calder-Jotika.  Much of the standard Amati line looks like typical HECEPOB garbage, but with the Admiralty Models series the company seems to be trying to reach a different, more knowledgeable audience.)  And I've seen pictures of an H.M.S. Surprise from Constructo that looks like it deserves to be taken seriously.

That's about the best I can offer.  Good luck.

Some of the wooden kits on the market look quite dodgy even when built by a professional modeller for the box-lid! 'Constructo' springs to mind for one! However, it is not always evident what is accurate from looking at the box-lid picture- particularly in terms of her lines etc.

I have always thought the Caldercraft 'Nelsons Navy' range to look very accurate from what I have seen of them and the HM Cutter 'Sherborne' from this range is usually cited as a good introduction to the wooden ship modelling game.

Perhaps more than plastic modelling though- the eventual accuracy of a wooden ship kit is usually down to the skill of the builder. With most kits having notoriously vague instructions (and whoever drew the kit plans usually don't cite sources - a good exception to this is Model Shipways's 'Sultana' which discusses sources in re-assuring detail) it is the quality of the sources the builder uses to work through the inevitable areas of vagueness in the kit's instructions that is usually the key. For example I bought a Constructo HMS Bounty as my first wood model (because it was cheap!) and a copy of the Conway 'Anatomy of the ship' book. After reading the book I immediately sold-on the Constructo kit- it just wasn't worth trying to make an accurate model out of it!

If only kit manufacturers- at least the chaps who draw the kit plans would cite their sources, life would be a great deal easier! The aforementioned Jotika-Caldecraft series obviously really pay attention to this issue- using admiralty draughts, contract documents and ship's logs. Here's an example of the research used for the kit of HM Schooner Pickle- a ship for which lines don't survive. The detailed research from other sources convinces me that as accurate as possible portrayal of the schooner will result! http://www.jotika-ltd.com/Pages/1024768/Research_Pickle_01.htm

good luck,

Will