Progress Build Photos of Revell's 1/56 Yacht America

Beautiful build so far Phillip.  Looking forward to more.

Steve

This is one of several old ship kits I wish Revell would reissue.  (Instead, they give us that awful "Spanish Galleon" again.)  As Phillip notes, the America is an excellent kit for newcomers to sailing ships - and there aren't many such kits around.  And he also shows us that it can be made into a beautiful model of a beautiful and historically important ship.

Many memories of this kit.

Many of those going far, far, far back to when it had a set of vinyl sails and a detachable keel that it could be free-sailed on pond or pool (often wondered how many foundered for lack of a good seal along the keel joint--or from using tube glue to seal 4-5 ounces of BB's into the hull).

Beautiful work so far. Will love seeing the finished Yacht on her Display Base.......Cheers Mark

That looks great, Phillip!  Looking forward to the next updates!

i build one of these as a kid. still have the wreck. a friend gave me one from his stash, he now does museum quality scratrch-built wood. also got PEDRO NUNES and locomotive GENERALand a bunch of old heller kits. it was an old stash. i am planning on building it this year so i will be following this thread. looks nice. i picked up some deadeyes and may make my own. there are some pics online where a guy added a couple of light cannon for commerce raiding.

i like the white boot stripe. i thionk i will do that too.

waynec/David_K/surfsup/jtilley/docidle-

Thanks for the compliments.  They are appreciated.  I really like looking at well built plastic sailing ships, but do not have the skill set or patience to do a major overhaul on one of Revell's 1/96 scale ships.  If I tried I would end up hating the project a month after I started, and everyone reading this knows if you end up hating the model your are working on you are going in the wrong direction.  I tip my hat to the gifted guys on this forum who have that ability.  I find their posts very entertaining and impressive.  Once I saw Tory Mucaro’s build of Revell's America several months ago, I knew this was the perfect sailing ship model for a "non sailing ship modeler".

Thanks for the photos; such clean paint work!

f8sader,

Thanks for noticing the paint job.  Whenever I am painting any exteriors or large surfaces I apply my paints in thin multiple coats.  In between each coat I use a very soft cloth to gently buff out the finish.  This takes longer and is more tedious than adding a single heavy coat, but the buffing makes sure any wondering dust or hair is removed from the finish.  I use Model Master paints almost exclusively and they tend to be a little grainy (especially when shot into 90 degree corners).  The buffing between coats helps eliminate this as well.

The buffing seems to be doing the job for you.  I always use a tac rag between coats to insure the dust is gone.  But that's me.  Super nice looking job so far.

Phillip,

You build is beautiful. One suggestion I might add for your referance.  The blocks (single or others) can be directly attached the eyebolts IF you make up your own.  Using small diameter wire make an eyebolt and before you close the "eye" put the block on it then close. This will allow freedom of movement with out using rigging thread to fix them on the eyebolt. You can then put the 'bolt"' through the deck or mast and the model will look neater.  Give some though of how the block will be used as a pivot point and lay out the eyebolt correctly.

On my sailing ship stays, I run the riggin through the block eyelet before securing them, then go back and fix the blocks on the stays where needed.

Just a helpful hint I've learned many years ago.

Jake Groby

Great build!

As was mentioned before, this had to have been one of Revell's best kits, especially for beginners.  I built this kit some 20 years ago when in college and it is by far the most commented on in my display, probably because of all the sail it shows.  You will be proud to display it.  Its a show stopper!

Scott

scottrc/Big Jake/Tom Cervo-Thanks for the compliments.  The are uplifting.

Big Jake-I like the your idea of attaching the blocks and eyebolts directly.  It is a helpful hint.  I will save that for future reference.

I hope to be posting addtional construction photos tonight.

Greetings Fellow Modelers,

Here is the next set of construction photos.  Work moves to the final areas of construction: the sails and rigging.

1st Image: Shown are the vac-form sails that came with the kit, molded in a light beige color.  Six were included, although America only had four in her original configuration.  I believe the extra sails are for the “Civil War Blockade Runner” version issued in 1974.  

2nd Image: To make cutting the sails easier, I marked the areas with a #2 pencil.

3rd Image: Each sail was slowly cut out with a sharp pair of scissors to avoid splitting or tearing the thin plastic.

4th Image: Various grades of sandpaper were used to remove any unwanted plastic “lip” around the outside edge of each sail.

5th Image: The kit instructions suggested using a sewing needle to punch holes in the sails for the rigging thread to be pulled through.  I chose instead to drill out the rigging holes, which made getting the thread through the holes much easier.

6th and 7th Image: At this point I had to choose what I wanted the finished color of the sails to be.  When I built Revell’s 1/96 scale C.S.S. Alabama the sails were weathered in very dirty brown/tan colors (see photo).  When I built Otaki’s 1/32 scale Modern Yacht the sails were kept perfectly pristine, with no weathering at all (see photo).  For this project I wanted something different, so the sails were given a varied and dingy light gray appearance.

8th Image: The first step in finishing the sails was to paint all of them Flat White.  

9th Image: Medium gray pastel powder was applied to both sides of each the sails with a soft, sable brush.

10th Image: A very soft cloth was buffed over the part to remove most of the pastel dust, while leaving enough behind to accent the raised and recessed areas of the vac-formed sails.

11th Image: Finally, a weak wash of Flat White was airbrushed at random over the sails to make the color variations more subtle.

12th Image: Two sizes/colors of thread were used for this project.  The main thread was the smaller, tan thread that came with the kit.  The other was a heavy-duty, black thread used mainly for the standing rigging lines.  It was “borrowed” from my wife’s sewing supplies.  The black thread had a coating on it as well that prevented any “fuzzing”.  

13th Image: Thread is used to lace up the jib boom to the jib sail.

14th Image: Reef points were added to three of the sails by cutting thread into 1” lengths, bending them in half, inserting them into the drilled holes and locking them in place with a small drop of superglue.  Superglue was used almost exclusively to lock the thread in place.

15th Image: The mainsail was laid beside the mainmast so the proper gaff angle could be determined before it was glued in place.

16th and 17th Image:  The two masts and their sails are finally glued to the deck!

18th Image: Thread is shown being pulled through multiple rigging blocks before being secured to one of the cleats on the deck.  A technique I used many times over was to gently pull any “slack” out of a piece of thread along its length before gluing it in place.  With any rigging, the key is always to produce a taut line, but not too tensioned where it bends any connecting plastic parts.

19th Image:  The final pieces added to the model were the rope coils made with the tan thread.  Theses tedious pieces were made by gluing one thread end to a toothpick, applying superglue to the thread, then wrapping the thread in a circle (1/2” at a time).  This was more difficult to do than it looks because the thread diameter was so small.  When each coil was big enough it was cut off the toothpick and brushed with dullcote to flatten the finish.  My tired, old eyes gave out after making six, even though more could have been added.

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The project will be done in a couple of days so hopefully the next post will be of the completed model.

Phillip1

Beautiful work Phillip.  I do my Flemish fakes by using a piece of scotch tape, laying the line in the center and start laying the line out as if I was actually coiling a real rope.  The tape keeps the line down without using glue and then I can use a little glue on the topside and then place it where needed with a pair of tweezers and slowly pull the tape off.  That way the side showing doesn't show any glue residue.

Steve

I forgot to ask you Phil, are you painting the boot or what?  If you're painting it what type of brush are you using?  Also, are you using tape?  It's beautiful work and I'd really like to know how you did it

Thanks,

Steve

docidle-The waterline boot was airbrushed on the hull before anything else (see below).  Then a 1/8" wide masking tape strip was place right above the copper plates while the other colors were added.

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Flemishing lines is one of those things that irks me as a sailor.  It--to me--rings of the sort of officer who feels all pathway rocks ought be whitewashed, not as a NJP activity, but as an ordinary task of trained troops.

But, there's a practical issue, too.  Let's say the foremast of 40; tall; that puts about 30-some-odd feet of halyard down on the deck for the foresail, and another ≈30' for the jib.  The topping lift for the jib club will only be a negligible amount.  The main mast will have similar  quantities of line , and the Main topsail's halyard, too.  

Thirty-forty foot of line in a Flemish coil will "behave' tied to a pier or mooring, but, underway, it's sliding about and getting underfoot.  As the coil slides, the belayed end will fetch up short and start going awry quickly, and the coils are going to tangle afterward in a most un-Bristol Fashion.

For my money, the halyards were likely flaked out on deck and lashed up with small stuff (marline and waste rope yarn) to be kept out of the way.  That is, unless they were not just trailed to the nearest hatch and coiled up below.

However, flemished lines are a fixture of modeling, doing them well is a mark of skill and achievement.

For all you sale riggers, here is a helpful suggestion.  Every run into the problem of installed lines sagging or slacking as you intall other lines in the same mast?  What I found helpul is medical self locking forcepts.  Run all your lines for a mast.  Before securing the lines, use the forcepts to apply tension to all the lines.  This allows you to tension all our lines (per mast) equally, eliminating previously installed lines from going slack.

Phillip1 - Nice to see this project. I wasn't aware of a plastic model yacht. What did you use to color your decks? 

Zombie thread, Robert. His build made the magazine about a year ago.

I personally found it quite unexceptional.

The deck on the kit is usable, and looks good with a decent paint job.

This model is up for re-release soon from Revell. It's a nice kit.

To answer the Captains question, the halyards were no doubt all over the deck when sailing, but when things calmed down they were coiled up and lashed, and tossed into big fixed open wire boxes attached to the sides of the several companionways, skylights and other such out-of-the-way places.

fright,

Thanks for the interest.  The Revell Yacht America is still a really good kit for sailing ship beginners.  I painted the deck light tan, then brushed over it with brown pastel dust.  Most of the pastel dust was burnished away and finally a very thin wash of the base tan color was sprayed over the area at random.  All of these steps combined to give the deck a wide color range that is still very subtle.  It comes across more clearly in person than from the photos.

Thanks

Phillip1

Phillip1 - It sure is a nice, clean looking build! I like the scale size as well - I liked it so much, I went out and purchased this kit for a future build. Thanks for your painting advice. 

GMorrisson - thanks and a good New Year to you! I finally finished the show I was in on the 4th, so I hope I can get back to working on my Constitution. My daughter gifted me with the book 'Rigging Period Ship Models' by Lennarth Petersson. I'm sure this will come in handy down the road. 

Nice build. I like it very much.

Happy modeling   Crackers  

Phillip ;

  You are doing a great job so far . I actually R.Cd one of those years ago . I would just like to find another so I could build it O.O.B. Problem is haven,t found one . I do believe as many do that it is indeed , the most beautiful sail ship REVELL ever Boxed . T.B.

Better than the big Constitution?

Mayflower, Golden Hind, Cutty Sark, Viking ship or CWM?

Maybe the last.

I have two entirely objective criticisms of Philips build.

The first is that the yacht did not have a boot stripe.

The other and more important one is the method of display.

Like the pilot boats she was modeled from, other fast schooners of the day; the keel had a lot of draft.

This display has two pedestals of the same length, so that the boat is tipped distinctly forward over her bows. That's hard to see if you aren't familiar with the boat, as the masts are so raked to begin with that less rake is still rake as opposed to having the masts tipped over forward.

But it's really incorrect and should be fixed.

This is a good point "G" ;

 Now there is one place where I have seen others goof on too .When you have a vessel with those hull lines you have to put a level on the deck " as close to dead center " as possible .

 Then measure from the keel to the surface . The base , ferrule or other device will HAVE to be longer at the forward end . Otherwise the ship will be down at the bows forward ! " G " I have many favorites of Sail vessels .In the civilian variety , I think the America is the most beautiful around . T.B.

The kit has been re-released-- in the USS AMERICA version-- the Union Navy blockader.   It is in shops now.  I picked up a copy at my local shop last week.    The current kit is molded in brown, and includes those awful vac formed sails.   But isn't very expensive-- under $50, MSRP.

My only real complaint about the kit is they way they molded the mast hoops on the mast-  I think I'll just replace the mast with wood, that will probably be less work than sanding all the molded-on hoops off.....

The kit does not include the snap-on external keel that the original sailing version included.  I built the original issue kit back in 1970 or so.  It was an amazing pond sailer-- fast and stable.  The keel was a tight fit-- it snapped on, and didn't need to be glued.  I know that other releases of the kit did include it, including the 19080's issue of the kit in the yellow stripe box-- though the instructions didn't mention it. 

Fans of the yatch AMERICA, will be happy to know that there is indeed a real live replica of this famous racing yatch. Sailior and businessman Troy Sears is on an epic nautical tour on the replica schooner, AMERICA. Leaving San Diego will take Sears through the Panama Canal to Cuba, then on vaious stops on the East Coast. On June 2017, the AMERICA will sail to England to recreate her famous nameske 1851 race around the Isle of Wight, then some European ports, the Mediterranean, traverse the Suez Canal to circle the globe back to California. Deep water sailors would love to be on AMERICA for this epic journey.

Source: Cruising World.   Happy modeling     Crackers