Momoli Halifax Kit

philo426

Mamoli is that bad?How do you feel about Artesania Latina or Corel?

Mamoli & corel about equal, both far better than Artist in the Latrine.  Mantua was slightly better--the number of decks would be correct, generally.  They were also about $200-250 more in MSRP, too.

Since John is no longer with us, I feel compled to reiterate one of his steadfast contentions, that, barring only a tiny few of the companies (Calder, Occre, BJ, MSW, & MidWest) none of them were scale models.   There might be a scale on the outside of the $500 box, but it had nothing to do with the parts inside.  Or if it did, only in the coarsest of ways.  Imagine getting a top of the line M4A4 sherman to discover the track was 1/30, the hull 1/36; the turret 1/48, and so on.

My own experience with these kits is, by the time you get a good set of plans, and work out how many changes you need to get some sort of scale representation, you might as well have just scratch-built to start.  (My smack-my-head moment was in building the Dikar Roger B Taney cutter, by the time I was done, I had a box of kit parts that were unused, and had bought the kit again in individual parts--Sigh.)

Just finished mamoli golden hind.  At first when I read the mamoli negative comments, I thought they were harsh, but they are kinda right.  I am pleased with the way the ship came out but I made a  if lot  of changed and upgraded and used slot more wood than came with the kit. The basic layout if the sides near the poop deck are wrong.  Built  as illustrated, the open railing which should be along the top of the poop deck runs below the deck line.  They give you a  cardstock with the colors of the upper haul paint work designed to be just pasted in one piece on the planking I needed to cut it into segments to make if work.  Looks better than I thought the card stock would look.   I was missing a few cast cross trees and just made my own.  Done of the blocks were too large.  Built as designed, there is no thickness to the bulearks-the  innerb planking is attached directly to the outer planking.  But I added ribs and pkanjex over them.  So I am happy with my mamoli...but only because I made slot of changes.  Interesting note,I I have a plastic Revell golden hind from 50 years ago and it is near identical to this model, with the same flawz. I have built two model shipwats and they were indeed well designed kits.

I was given the Corel HMS Bellona once as a gift.  At first glance, the photos on the box look like the references depicting her. However, inside the box, I found plywood false decks and false keel, soft metal fittings, the dummy cannon barrels all of the same size (ignoring that ships of the line used lighter and smaller guns as the gun decks progressed upwards from the waterline), excessively large and out-of-scale blocks, and unclear instructions.  Granted, I could (and did) replace the cannon barrels and blocks, and I used the plywood materials as templates to remake those parts from basswood sheets, but it was expensive to do so. I also scratch built some of the metal fittings with basswood because those fittings proved to be too heavy for convenient attachment.  I have a better model for these efforts and expenses.

I'm sure that there are some good kits from these companies.  But, as the old adage says, "Buyer beware!"  Make sure that the ship you really want is the ship in the box.

Bill

Johnnie, I see that you are from Newington, CT. I live near Groton and teach at Hartford High School.

The wiki article on HMS Halifax includes a nice drawing attributed to Chappelle. One of these days I need to buy the books. In any case the Mamoli model seems to generally represent the actual ship.

One sites talks of an old (good) Mamoli and a new (bad) Mamoli, this being an old one. Heavens I have no idea and less interest. It is really a pity that there isn't much out there from the better kit companies.

The little ship does have some interesting features such as the four weather decks, the tiller and the swivel guns. An experienced modeler could get it to work, although looking at it, like most of these POB kits from Europe, the details do come across as clunky and fuzzy, in particular things like the pins, pin rails, windlass, and the deck furniture.

John Tilley has given these kits the acronym "HECEPOB," meaning "Hideously Expensive Continental European Plank On Bulkhead kits. I will leave it to him to explain further.

These kits usually contain inferior parts with exagerated details and poor quality when compared with the better American-made kits from Model Shipways, Bluejacket, and A.J. Fisher.  The European kits often use plywood parts instead of basswood (or better).  For those ships with more than one gun deck, these kits frequently use only one size of gun barrels, and they tend to represent non-historic ships.  For example, Mamoli manufactured a model advertised as "HMS Surprise," claiming that their kit was based on the actual plans of the real ship, which are well documented. Yet, the same kit was used to depict a French Frigate of a completely different class. The model did not represent the historic Surprise!  Artesania Latinia released their version of Surprise simultaneously, but this version was based on a movie set conversion of an historic ship replica, HMS Rose; Rose and Surprise were of two different classes built decades apart.  In fact, Surprise was originally the French L'Unite while Rose was British designed and built. The two ships were nothing alike!

I could go on, but I will hold off until others comment. My advice is to follow GM's advice; get rid of the kit and buy one of the American kits. They are historically accurate.

Bill Morrison

There's been quite a bit of discussion about those kits in general elsewhere.

I have built a numberof Model Shipways kits, and worked from Bluejacket plans, documents and bought their fittings. I have never had anything but good results from those companies.

Mamoli is that bad?How do you feel about Artesania Latina or Corel?

The thing seems to be on sale somewhere still(?).

eBay etc. they list at about $ 200.00, which is $ 200.00 more than I would ever spend. I do not have knowledge of that kit, nor is there much in the way of reviews online except for the usual stalled half-builds. But I've read plenty of WIP's of other Mamoli kits and they sound like pure garbage.

Take the proceeds, buy a Model Shipways solid hull Sultana and welcome to the world of wooden ship kits.