New to ship Modelling!

ww2psycho

I'd like to get into ship modelling. Since I build armor and aircraft models from World War 2, I think it'd only be right to do ships as well.

My local hobby store is down sizing their model inventory and I seen some on clearance. One brand is Tamiya and the other is trumpeter.

I love Tamiyas 1/48 tanks and aircraft, how are their ship kits?

I have never bought a Trumpeter model, are their ships worth it?

Any info would be very well apperciated!

The molds for most of the Tamiya (1:350) ship kits are 25 to 30+ years old.   They were state-of-the-art for their day but the art has overtaken them.  They are still well engineered but are now a bit dated.    Within the past few years Tamiya re-released most of their 1:350 ships with new procuct numbers and an inflated price tag.Tamiya's newer 1:700 scale stuff is excellent while their older stuff is exSkywave, dated and a bit clumsy.   

Trumpteter's ship kits are spotty.   They've been in the business for about 10 years.  They've been steadily improving their products but there may still be a stinker in the batch.   For example their USS The Sullivans (1:350) and USS England (1:350) are about the same vintage.   The England was done by their A-Team while the Sullivans was a B-Team effort.

Trumpeter also works in cooperation with PitRoad on their 1:700 scale products.  PitRoad has first dibs in the Orient while Trumpeter has first crack in the West.  Same plastic -- different instructions & boxing.  PitRoad has long been a leader in 1:700 scale ship models so I really wouldn't hesitate on a 1:700 Trump offering. 

I built the USS San Francisco in 1/350 from Trumpeter and I liked it very much. And I don't usually like Trumpeter. The color call outs are worthless, but that's easy to research. It needed PE but that's normal. One thing I like is the way the kit is made so there's not much to have to chop off to replace with PE. Old Revell and Tamiya kits can be a pain that way. I'm just getting into the Jeremiah O'Brien and I like it too. There's always stuff that's wrong in all models, but I don't let it get me down.

So Trumpteter's USS England is a decent kit?

I am looking into possibly getting the England to build as the USS Haynes from The Enemy Below.

They used the USS Whitehurst (DE634) for the movie

Eric...

The Tamiya kit was the USS Missourri, and the Trumpeter kit has already been mentioned, the USS The Sullivans. Would anyone recomment the Missouri? For the price of them i'd hate to pass them up but I dont want to waste my money on them if they arent worth it.

The Tamiya Missouri is well worth buying, especially at a reduced price.  You will want to dress it up with some photo etch sets and it will build into a great model of the ship.  Same goes for their New Jersey in the more modern post reactivation fit.  The only thing about them being a bit dated is that they are not up to the standards of the newest kits, that doesn't make them bad.   WS

Cool thanks, I'm thinking of picking it up next week when I get paid. Is there a smaller ship that someone, or a few members would agree on, that would be a better model to have as my first ship? I'd love to build a battleship for my first one but I'd rather start out smaller and work my way up.

You can't go wrong with the Tamiya 1/350 USS Fletcher.

subfixer

You can't go wrong with the Tamiya 1/350 USS Fletcher.

Second the Fletcher or perhaps the Trump USS England.  

The Trump Sullivans has issues.   The mat walkways on the decks are raised sidewalks,  the stacks have big honkin' grates,  the 20mm Oerlikons are 10 feet tall,  the 40mm are sticks on boxes.   It is all fixible with time and aftermarket -- but don't subject yourself as a NOOB to having to do it. 

Larger subject kits are fine but for a NOOB they may be daunting.   They have a big parts count with a lot of repetitive subassemblies with a lot of small parts.    Then there can be an expense factor -- fear of starting for fear of screwing it up and wasting money.  Never start; never finish = disatisfaction with ship modeling.  Start smaller.  Learn techniques then transfer that knowledge to larger subjects or other scales.

Tamiya ships are usually fairly good, fit is good, the models pretty easy to build.

Trumpeter kits have good detail, fit okay- maybe not quite as good as Tamiya.  One thing that makes Trumpeter a bit harder to build is that  they make many parts as subassemblies.  For instance, a deckhouse.  Many mfgs would cast as one piece, Trumpeter breaks it down into five pieces, four sides and a top.

Whichever brand you pick, be prepared to spend more time on a ship than other genres.  Ships are arguably the most complicated and time consuming genre of models to assemble, especially if you do any rigging and/or PE detail.

I did see the USS Fletcher on Tamiyas website and I do like the smaller ships too (Dog Fights: Death of the Japanese Navy) got me interested in them. I'm going to go to another Hobby store thats much bigger next week to see what ships they have there. I've never done any kind of PE or aftermarket parts for anything before, so it wont happen on my first ship. I've figured that ships would take a lot longer to make, I'm not as fast as others on this forum with models start to finish, and I'm pefectly fine with it.

I do think that USS Missourri will be added to the stash next week till I feel I'm ready to give it a shot. Its on clearance for like $90? and its origonally like $130? $140?

Try Hobby Lobby ,it will only be about $60.00 with their 40% off coupon .

gpal

Try Hobby Lobby ,it will only be about $60.00 with their 40% off coupon .

It is at Hobby Lobby, so I cant use a coupon with it already being clearanced.