USS George Washington

It's a famous (or perhaps infamous) kit. I can remember building it when I was in about the fifth grade - and several times thereafter.

Revell and Renwal both released cutaway nuclear subs at almost exactly the same time. Renwal's was considerably bigger; it cost three dollars, whereas the smaller Revell one cost two. (Ah, those were the days!) A few years ago Revell acquired at least some of the old Renwal molds. The one you're talking about is the former Renwal kit.

They may well have been the biggest headline grabbers in the history of model building. Admiral Rickover, head of the nuclear Navy, went ballistic over them, claiming that the model companies were turning over secrets to the Soviets. Just what was actually going on there is unclear. The kit designers had worked from widely available published sources (e.g., Popular Mechanics magazine), and had filled in numerous gaps with their imaginations. They had no idea, for instance, how the propulsion spaces were laid out. Rickover surely knew, if he took more than a glance at the kits, that they weren't telling anybody anything that wasn't already public knowledge. Maybe he blurted out his gripes before thinking about them; he was known to do that kind of thing. At any rate, Rickover's accusations about the kits made the front page of my hometown newspaper, the Columbus Dispatch. Revell and Renwal rode the publicity all the way to the bank.

People who know more than I do about submarines say that these two kits bear scarcely any resemblance to reality. The reactors and engines, as I understand it, are pure fiction. And I suspect the other compartments aren't much better. But what an exercise in nostalgia! I remember in particular the blobby little people sitting on stools in the control room, and what seemed like an unbelievable detail: a rack of meat for the meat locker! And those little metal springs that fired the aftermost Polaris missiles! The biggest challenge was mustering up the patience to paint all the interior parts (with Testor's glossies, of course) before building the thing.

This kit is an intriguing part of plastic modeling history, and building it now would be great fun. Just don't make the mistake of believing that the inside of the real sub looked like that.

My mothers best friends husband was commander of SSBN 630 a following class.

Dad and I built the Renwall kiit.

Lived all through the Cold War very interested in that subject.

I went to the inflation calculator and did a calculation of the difference in prices between the Renwal kit and Revell kit in today's dollars.

Renwal kit $3.00 --> $24.11  

Revell kit $2.00 --> 16.07

The current issue price of $28.06 is $3.49 in 1960 dollars.

The price before reduction of $35.07 is $4.36 in 1960 dollars.

Geez...there's a flashback!! I remember doing that kit as a youngling back in the "lets see how much tube glue and Testors enamels we can smoosh into every nook and cranny. As for the 'firing' missiles? Certainly due to not knowing what I was doing, mine never fired, LOL!! Sorry can't be much help on doing a real job on this one, but, I do remember it being fun! Thanks for that!

Well, Squadron has it on sale for about $30.00 at the moment. Mathematically, that's pretty high. But the world of plastic kits is a lot different today. Something tells me that not many parents will be buying that kit for their 12-year-old kids.

When I was that age, $3.00 was the price of an 18"-long Revell sailing ship - the Constitution, Santa Maria, or Bounty. That was about as much as my middle-class parents would spend on my brother or me, except on special occasions. A birthday present was $5.00. The most expensive kits on the U.S. market were the Revell Cutty Sark and smears argue [that was supposed to be Kearsarge; I-phone spell corrector strikes again], at $10.00, and the Thermopylae and Alabama, at $12.00 (including vac-formed sails). Christmas presents.

And $15,000 per year was an eminently respectable income. Those were the days. Or were they?

And, one could get a new car for under $1,000 and buy a new house for under $40,000. My 50 cents per week allowance was enough to buy a new Pyro Table Top Navy ship model kit or a Pyro sailing ship model kit.

As far as those being "the days", look again at the quality of those kits. I far prefer it now!

Bill

Well, I intend to buy the kit simply because I wanted it as a child but don't recall having an income of sufficient means . The money I did have was spent on 29 cent AIRFIX WWI and WWII fighter aircraft. 

I did receive the Renwal Visible Auto Chassis and happily built that kit. Unfortunately, the kit didn't survive playtime or my first childhood move and I can't recall seeing a re-issue of the kit.

I would not be surprised if the Renwal sub kit is inaccurate. 

It's pretty cool. I never painted the exterior of mine.

This thread makes me think about Lee (subfixer).

Has anyone talked with him recently?

John that's a classic iphonism "smears argue".

Heh - it even says it fires missles. Cool!

The last two tubes fire. IIRC, there's a sort of ballpoint pen spring that goes down the tube, then you pressed the missile down on it. The hatch over the tube was pushed down on the warhead, and it caught with a latch. There is a little lever that you depressed to release the catch, hatch popped open and out comes the missile. Mine I think (and this was a LONG time ago) maybe popped up about a foot.

My dad is a retired aeronautical engineer. At the time he was in the DC-6 part of his career. We mixed up a batch of light green paint ala zinc chromate aircraft primer. I think maybe the interiors were cast in green plastic?

Thanks, GM for shaking my tree. I've moved out deep into the country and have the worst internet service in the USA (HughesNet) and have just about abandoned my computer and do everything on my phone.

I remember a discussion we had on this subject around ten years ago. It is in the website's archives somewhere...

I have had the opportunity to have worked aboard many, many classes of US submarines during my career with the USN (I'm retired now) and am very intimate with their reactor and machinery spaces.

The two models being discussed are in no means accurate in their duplications of a GW class missile boat, but are really cool anyway. I wouldn't discourage anyone from building them unless what they are looking for is true authenticity because they are definitely not that. As for a general duplication of the components of this sub, they will suffice. As for me, I would like to build one and detail it in what my memories of the real thing would allow. And let old Hyman Rickover (curmudgeon extraordinaire) spin in his grave like a turbogenerator!

Well I would have hated my parents too!

Good to hear from you Subbo.