Academy Titanic

Don Stauffer

 

Fortunately for me, though my wife will not allow most of my models to be displayed upstairs in main living area, she does allow ships.  Model ships seem to be considered art objects by many. 

My wife is the same way.  She's fine with wooden ships (including a couple of heirloom wooden ships built by my father), but is not too enthusiastic about planes or cars or tanks.  Most of my built collection is stored in boxes in a closet.

However, she is okay with a models of WWII Navy planes that my father worked on (he was an aviation metalsmith), and she recently surprised me by suggesting that I display my Tamiya 1/20 Lotus 99T in a new bookcase we just bought for our den, knowing what a huge Ayrton Senna fan I was.

Mark

Hi guys,

I can speak with some authority on this kit.  Back in approx. 1995 Mini-Craft contacted me in order to have me give a review of this kit.  The reason for this was that it seems that Academy (Korea/Chinese owned) simply paragraphed the original RMS Titanic 1/350^th scale model, copying all of the mistakes and inaccuracies. Mini-craft took them to court and won an injunction against then for about 10 years I believe. 

I don’t know if Academy ever fixed the mistakes. As usually, they stole property that did not belong to them, seems the way of some of these overseas companies. (Not enough port holes on one side of the bow and too many on the other, missing foredeck sky light, etc.) . I would hope so.

Check the kit out before you buy.

Jake Groby

tankerbuilder

I have the OLDER release of this ship .

You have THE SAME model kit, ONLY WITHOUT additional PE + WOODEN DECK :-).

I have the OLDER release of this ship .It was the first of the " BIG ONEs " I noticed then , the missing collapsables and other discrepancies .My reason for not finishing it right away is simple .I overdid it . Have you counted the portholes in this thing ? I drilled ALL the ports out and installed fibre - optic material .At this point the ship,s hull makes an interesting night-light . The other discrepancy that has been noted is the difference between port and starboard windows in the upper structures . I am at a point ,the TITANIC will again be on my workbench though .      tankerbuilder

crackers

FineScale Modeler magazine has the Academy version of the TITANIC advertised on the back cover of the February 2012 issue. I wonder if their Workbench Reviews in later issues will have the critical analysis as posted in this thread. If the flaws in this model kit are true, then the kit is way over priced.

    Montani semper liberi.  Happy modeling to all and every oner of you.

                            Crackers                        

 

It is not new molds for Academy - ie old kit in new box.

For Minicraft - they issued "new Centennial Edition", the only changes made are to the rigging thread, which is a finer grey nylon, and molds has been cleaned up and made to a higher quality now.

It is called marketing :-)

FineScale Modeler magazine has the Academy version of the TITANIC advertised on the back cover of the February 2012 issue. I wonder if their Workbench Reviews in later issues will have the critical analysis as posted in this thread. If the flaws in this model kit are true, then the kit is way over priced.

    Montani semper liberi.  Happy modeling to all and every oner of you.

                            Crackers                        

Academy 1:400 Titanic has a lot of mistakes. It is "scaled" Entex 1:350 Titanic version, ie from times when Minicraft has bought Entex 1:350 Titanic molds and Minicraft and Academy has same business on Titanic (logo on this kits has two companies mentioned - Minicraft/Academy). When both companies work together molds were not corected.

After Academy and Minicraft decided to go their own ways, Academy released their own 1:400 kit. All Entex mistakes were copied and new mistakes were added which are almost impossible to corect. The promenade deck and B deck are far too high, two lifeboats have been "forgotten", overlaps of the shell plating face the wrong direction. This results in a model that does not really look like Titanic.

Minicraft 1:350 Titanic at the moment is "facelifted" Entex molds version, and almost all mistakes are corected and this kit is today still best plastic model of Titanic that is available. For this 1:350 Titanic model are a lot PE released by Tom's Modelworks, Gold Medal Models.

I will never buy Academy, Revell etc Titanic, when there is on the market Minicraft's 1:350 Titanic...

A note of caution... I think the Academy kit includes PE that IS NOT included with the KA Models packet that can be ordered separately - didn't mean to confuse that point on the earlier response.

Still... The Kit+KA Models deck/PE+Tom's Misc Titanic PE (cranes, ladders, davits, etc) would still probably tally out to a cheaper purchase than the commemorative package...

The steep price, plus the inaccuracies discovered by previous viewers, might deter purchase of this kit. However, a skillful kitbasher might be able to remedy the discrepancies to produce a really impressive model.

  Montani semper liberi.  Happy modeling to all and every one of you.

                                     Crackers                     

mfsob

I'm sure it's going to be a sweet kit, but at 26 1/2-inches long, no place for me to put something that huge    - although I may, someday, tackle their 1/700 offering. It's only 15 inches long.

Fortunately for me, though my wife will not allow most of my models to be displayed upstairs in main living area, she does allow ships.  Model ships seem to be considered art objects by many.  Our local art museum has one model on display, a sailing ship model (Constitution).

AH HA!

I wasn't the only one to notice those two missing collapsables.

Don -

That kit has been beckoning me for some time... My young daughter is fascinated with all things Titanic and I think I need to build this for her considering the centennial year... It lists for $199.00 and I've found it for as low as $129.00 - but shipping charges can level that out...

Very accurate kit, but still a few anomalies - the windows are not quite right (the actual ship had differences port/starboard) and - ironically - the kit is missing two lifeboats.  Looks like  further investment in the Tom's Modelworks window frame PE set is worthwhile (what the heck - you're already out $200 bucks)...

It may be possible to buy the standard Academy kit and the KA Models upgrade set separately and come out a bit ahead - no need for the little book and puzzle that comes with this commorative package - I haven't done the math.

Have a look at the fine effort the wondrous Doris (of paper model fame) made of this kit (you don't need to know Czech - the pictures say it all):

http://www.modelforum.cz/viewtopic.php?f=175&t=49680

I think I will succumb and set aside my Heller Victory and do this kit.

I'm sure it's going to be a sweet kit, but at 26 1/2-inches long, no place for me to put something that huge    - although I may, someday, tackle their 1/700 offering. It's only 15 inches long.