davits

Hi jrt125,

    Model Expo sells Davits. Some are of white metal and some are of brass. They don't list the scale, only the height in inches. That's the only place I know of,  but I'm sure there are other members who know of other places to get them. Good luck.

Jim

You probably will not find anything commercially available of the correct type and the correct scale.

The attached document is the US Navy's Seaman qualification instruction and test material.   Check Chapter 4 for some line drawings of various davit types.     Google for images of the davits on your subject then match them up with the drawings and scratchbuild your own  (or scratchbuild one and resin cast sufficient copies.)

http://www.hnsa.org/doc/pdf/seaman.pdf

I'm afraid this is going to be a big problem.  That kit is in fact a reissue of an extremely old one, originally produced by ITC.  It has a ... well, pretty dubious reputation in terms of accuracy.  I think ITC had a pretty good excuse for not getting things quite right:  the kit was released while the plans of the real ship were still classified.  (She was built with the help of a huge government subsidy, on the understanding that, in time of war, she would be immediately turned over to the Navy for use as a high-speed troop transport.)  My guess is that the kit designers worked from nothing more than photographs, which probably didn't show the davits clearly - so the davits got left off.

Revell issued its United States at about the same time.  I haven't seen that kit for many years, but I'm pretty clear in my recollection that its lifeboats were molded integrally with the sides of the superstructure.  If Revell represented the davits at all, they probably were pretty crude.  It was on a smaller scale, though, so their absence probably wasn't as conspicuous.

Bluejacket is certainly worth a try, but I'm afraid its davits are going to be way out of scale.  I'm afraid this is a case of "scratch build 'em or learn to live without 'em."

This is one more reminder of how badly represented civilian ships are in the plastic (and resin) ship model world.  The U.S. is an important and beautiful ship; she deserves at least one state-of-the-art kit.  But apparently the market just isn't there.  A few years back, White Ensign Models proposed issuing a 1/700 R.M.S. Aquitania in resin - if a modest number of customers agreed in advance to buy it.  There weren't enough takers.

Good luck. 

I just looked at a couple of images of compleetd models of the Glencoe re-issue of the SS United States kit and they have davits.  I'm guessing that the kit is incomplete - your best approach may be to inventory the kit to make sure that nothing else is missing and then contact Glencoe and see if they will provide replacements.  Some kit makers will do this for free and others charge a fee for replacement parts, but I'm thinking that you are better off with the davits that came with the kit (even if they are inaccurate) than trying to adapt after-market fittings.

Prof. Tilley - I checked the old Revell kit (I bought one of the re-issues about ten years ago and still have not gotten around to building it) and the davits and lifeboats are molded with the promenade deck except for the forward-most boat which is a separate part - and here the davits and boat are molded together.  Sadly, the lifeboats are only partial castings with the inboard hull being omitted (I guess the thinking was that if you can't see it, you don't need to model it) - I can understand their doing that for a kit in the 1950's, but they did it again for thr the 1:570 Titanic kit.

Good luck with the kit!

Mike

Patrick Camilleri used 'fuse wire' to scratch build his davits on the Revell kit:

http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery/service/liners/us-600-pc/us-index.html

Some people think the Glencoe kit looks more like the earlier S.S. America.

If this is in fact the SS United States, thedavits that came with the kit are all wrong.  According to Model Ship Builder magazine, the gravity type davits carried by Bluejacketinc.com are the right ones and I've built the kit with them to very satisfying results.  I don't remember which size but it is one of the smaller ones.  They were recommended by the article and according to pics of the ship, they were perfect.  Try them and you'll be pleased.

Please send pics as your work progresses.