I love it when someone writes a review based on facts...

There is truth in all these replies. I think ( in my humble opinion ) that if the finished product is pleasing to the eye , then it's all good. If you need or want 100% accuracy , then get multiple references, Other than that . Just relax and have some fun building.

    Wait.....  what ?      How many rivits were missing... ?

Hi :

It seems my reply was too long . Just to put it in a short missive .If you buy any sailing ship kit , regardless of the material or type ,you will have to correct it ! This is what I've found .

Thank goodness , for practicums and reference material . Now for plastic modern ships .Who wouldn't be disappointed in an old AURORA - U.S.S.HALFORD . Near 1/350 (Supposedly), it shows it's age and inaccuracies .

But , when we were kids the old REVELL and AURORA ship kits were the cat's meow . A large Plastic U.S.S.Constitution ? Wow , with little figures too , and Billowing plastic sails to boot ? Not correct , but an adventure in modeling anyway

Well, that rules out almost every plastic sailing ship on the market. (You can count on your fingers the number of genuinely new sailing ships released since the seventies. I can think of three or four from Revell Germany and a couple from Zvezda. That's it.) 

I think a blanket condemnation of all pre-1980 kits is a bit harsh. It's certainly true that there have been some huge technological advances since then, but companies like Tamiya and Hasegawa were turning out some nice stuff in those days. For instance, that's when the 1/700 "Waterline Series" got started. The modeler who rules out all pre-1970 kits is missing some good opportunities.

But Bashmonkey's basic point is of course correct: it's not reasonable to expect 2014 Dragon standards from a 1970s Airfix kit,

Expecting accuracy in a kit from the 1970's is like expecting reliability from a Fiat from the 1970's. You can get it, but your going to have to put in alot of work to achieve it.

Hi :

I have read all of this and although I , Having been employed in the Marine industry for more years than I care to admit , will say this .

   I have built three of these over the years including the later armored cupola wheelhouse version and the same thing still applies .

   I like to model what if's in any subject . This model in both iterations serves me well .

The hull transforms to a 1930's ,1940's mega yacht very nicely ( i.e. The POTOMAC and others of her ilk ) . I am not worried about this kind of accuracy anymore .I build for me .I do not compete , but I teach anyone how to build models .Not just things that float , but , just about anything that can be found in the world of models , except maybe SCI-FI because I am way out of sync there .

   If I want a ship model that accurate then I get out plans , study them and then based on real world knowledge , build the model out of plastic from scratch .

 At least the old models from the companies we know don't look as bad as something you'd find in the home decorating sections of Micheal's or Hobby Lobby or Pier One Imports !

    I do stress to my students , ( if you wish to call them that ) you want accuracy ? then go to more than one source for information . You Cannot ( and Should Not ) rely on just one source .If you do , then you are making the same mistakes companies do .( It looks about right , It's going to sell well ). As I said I build for me , they look good on the shelves , but I think My what if's look way much better  !After all they are MY babies . Airfix just saved me money , because it's easier to modify to the type than starting from scratch .

Old Person Mega Yachts Rule !     Tanker-Builder     P.S. -- Just ask Al Ross ! When he did the GEARING Model  .How many sources did he use ?There was way more iteration of the FRAM program ships  .Even I had to give in there . And I lived on one of the darned things for three years ( we never even got our little whirlybirds ! ) And the ship changed twice more before we saw the ocean again .

I was referring to the original article on the PrinzEugin site; one I'm not familiar with.

As an analysis of the hull geometry, very well done and a little creative cutting up a kit to make frame comparisons. I've seen that done before- the photoshop aspect was new.

As for calling it a review per Al's post; that's not really a review. It's a worthwhile analysis of accuracy, but a review by it's nature has to recognize the context in which the subject is considered.

GMorrison

Reading this you wouldn't buy the kit.

I'm not sure if you're referring to Al's review, but in case you are, I'd like to add something that showed up in his SteelNavy post but not here:

If Merit produces a Higgins or 77’ ELCO at this level of detail and relative accuracy, I’d certainly get one.

jtilley

My personal opinion, for what little it's worth, is that we should be glad that reviews like this one are out there.

"Little"

I think all sides "behave badly' at times. There is NO HARM in pointing out mistakes in a kit for people to be aware of. But that doesn't mean that the reviewer is trashing and advising against a kit in and of itself. There are those, however, that will pick nits for any number of reasons and never consider or mention the positives of a kit. There is NO HARM in just wanting to build a kit regardless of flaws without having to sink a lot of extra time and money into it.

I think a good reviewer should think of both sides and those in between. How BUILDABLE is it, is it reasonably accurate, and what gaffs are there that those who like a challenge would be interested in?

Ok, that's not working . . . try this:

cs.finescale.com/.../154026.aspx

and scroll down to the boat! 

Site doesn't work, but I'm assuming it's a Schnellboat from what I've read here, and here's the alternative, made by stikpusher:

Two minds.

Reading this you wouldn't buy the kit.

For me, useful but what's the alternative?

Ok not the problem of the reviewer.

For a beginner, kind of sad because it's a good model.

My personal opinion, for what little it's worth, is that we should be glad that reviews like this one are out there. They tell us, on the basis of reliable sources, facts about the accuracy of the kit. The decision about how important the inaccuracies are is up to the individual modeler. If YOU think the mistakes mentioned are important, either fix them or don't buy the kit. If YOU don't think the criticisms are significant, ignore them. And     if you find evidence that a criticism is just plain wrong, make use of forums like this to blow the whistle. Genuinely unjustified criticisms don't do any good for anybody.

If you think that review of the Airfix E-boat is harsh, you should see the one I wrote about the Airfix HMS Bounty (about 35 years ago, for Scale Models magazine). Or the Heller Soleil Royal review in the same mag. I suspect I may still be on those companies' hit lists. On the other hand, a couple of years later I wrote a review of the Heller Victory - a favorable review with several big reservations. Heller's reaction was to quote the review in an ad.

Steve Wiper, a respected modeler and what I consider as a naval historian, has stated that the bilge area of the Airfix kit is incorrectly shaped and needs to be corrected if a modeler wants an accurate model of an early Schnellboot ...

And, Mr. Wiper relies on primary sources.

Garth

uspsjuan

Kind of expect that from a kit of that age , but would be un acceptable from a kit of todays standards.

Tojo72's post shows why your statement is unfortunately incorrect. The Trumpeter 1/200th ship hulls are at least this misshapen, and they sell. Most modelers don't really care all that much.

TarnShip

seeing constant posts that there is too much info on message boards is getting tiring, just exactly what is a message board for,,,,,,7 million posts that only say "nice model"?

Rex

My exact thoughts that I posted in another thread..........

I'm glad this is out there somewhere now. That article can now serve as a place to point out the error of using those same old drawings and plans when making a newer set of toolings.

I recognized a common problem in the model industry in the second to the last paragraph. Plastic modeling has a huge amount of avoidable errors, caused by the cascade effect of repeating someone else's error. The use of the same misshapen hull shape in a 2002 Osprey cover illustration highlights the problem very clearly. We have past kits affecting today's models in two ways,,,,,,if there is an error, it often gets repeated. To be fair sometimes a company "did it right" back then, and for some reason is doing it incorrectly now.

As to whether anyone *needs* the info from a review or not,,,,,,,,,,back in the day, we didn't have the internet, we only had these buildings called libraries, when we entered one, if we didn't "need" the info in any certain book or aisle of books, we didn't take that book home, or browse the aisle that had hundreds of books we wouldn't want to read.

And I don't remember even once seeing a sign up that some person "didn't need any books from this aisle." Grocery stores are the same, of the thousands and thousands of people that don't like Broccoli, I have yet to see a sign up in the produce section that a sale on Broccoli this week is unfair.

seeing constant posts that there is too much info on message boards is getting tiring, just exactly what is a message board for,,,,,,7 million posts that only say "nice model"?

Rex

(This post was made without reading the Auto section, the Armor section, the SciFi section, etc, etc,,,,,,and without going in those to tell people not to post in them)

Old kit, no problem, it was designed for kids to slap together and blow up with a firecracker.  New high tech kit that costs $$$$, yes problem.

The kit costs $20 and is from the 70's. Its not the Italeri which if you can find it will cost you closer to $300, if that was wrong I'd be annoyed and you always get what you pay for

I do respect the review and he does say what many of us are thinking at the end of the review

Phil

Perhaps that info has it's place with some folks,but I don't need to know all of that.Not really my genre,but for me if it looks like an S-Boat when I'm done,then I'm happy.

Wow, I haven't seen something get ripped apart like that since my Marine Corps drill instructor chewed us up and spit us out. But , If it ain't right . It ain't right.  Kind of expect that from a kit of that age , but would be un acceptable from a kit of todays standards. Just my 2 cents