Good first saling ship?

Hey Lisa, I just started doing my first sailing ship after doing nothing but airplanes and ww2 ships. I'm currently building the 1/196 USS Constitution by Revell, it's a really good model. Pieces fit nicely, relatively good detail for the hull, and plenty of cannons! Now the ratlines are plastic so it's nice and then a bummer at the same time but the rest of the ship will have rigging. Kit comes with both black and tan pieces and then the two types of rigging lines. Hope you find a good one to start, best of luck!

LucatielofMirrah

Steve, I remember now that I actually bought the Revell Golden Hind around the same time as the Santa Maria. My high school had a good history course, so I was really interested in that era. It was the original boxing and the instructions were a world of difference between the Santa Maria which was a Revell Germany boxing. It was totally my fault that I didn't do inventory on the kit till months after thought about working on it. And found it was missing some pieces and was marked complete when bought. Oh well live and learn I guess.

The Revell Viking ship actually sounds like something I'd like. Right now I'm just starting to research Norse culture so that goes hand in hand.

Also the two Zvezda ships sound like something I’d like. The Dark Ages and Medieval History have always been my major passion.  And I wrote a few thesis years ago for school, so anything around that time period I love. Thank you for replying!

Mr. Stauffer, thank you for replying also. After some quick browsing couldn't find the model of the bomb sloop, maybe a Pyro kit? I looked at the Midwest kits they look really nice, however just a little more money than I care to spend at the moment.

Best regards, Lisa

 

Lisa,

I'm glad I could help. The Revell Viking Ship model is a really nice model and GM and Prof Tilley's thread are a must. You might have already seen this book, especially if you are getting into Norse history..... There are a few historians around here by the way..... But a nice book which is a quick read and has some cool pictures is is "Viking Longship" by Keith Durham published by Osprey. 

After you do the Revell ship, you might want to consider the Heller 1/60 Drakkar Oseberg Ship model. Although it is nowhere near the accuracy of the Revell model it does have some beautiful scroll work on her. I have one in my stash that I plan on building at the same time that I do another Revell Viking Ship.

If you are interested in English Medieval history then I would probably recommend the Zvezda Thomas. Historicaly it is supposed to represent the Flagship of Edward III during the battle of Sluys in 1340 at the beginning of the Hundred Years War. I actually used the thick as heck plastic sail so I could use the the decals that represent the coat of arms of old Eddie.

Steve

If you are interested, you can check out my WIP here:

http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/7/t/155458.aspx?page=1

Hi-

It looks like you've gotten plenty of replies already, and I'm sure you have enough info to make a choice....all good advice, by the way.

If I may, I'd like to add a couple of things to keep in mind when choosing a model kit.

Pick something you're very interested in....

Pick something of a good quality manufacture, and with good clear instructions.

My favorites are old Imai kits (only available online from eBay, etc., but so worth it when you can find one!) , Zvezda has good quality, and Revell has quite a few good choices.

Of course, difficulty level is important to consider, but if you find rigging to be daunting, you can easily avoid the more complicated ships, OR simplify the rigging on any model you end up building.  I promise that, no matter how difficult or out of your league you may think it is, anyone can find their way through the process of building a kit...and you will learn a lot with every project.

By the way, we've been seeing quite a few new members to the forum here lately, and I am very happy to see the community (and the hobby) growing....

Dave

If Lisa is on Finescale, here's one on eBay for less than an hour.

Mike

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1988-Lindberg-War-of-Independence-Schooner-Classic-1-79-Scale-No-711-Vintage-/301908437298?hash=item464b252932:g:pWkAAOSwZ8ZW9HNZ

The old Pyro/Lifelike/Lindberg revenue cutter ("Independence War Schooner") would indeed be a great starting project. The problem would be in laying hands on one. E-bay might be a possibility.

nice build mike , might keep an eye out fot it myself

Mike- perfect! Thats the ticket, and hey if the OP gets into this, that same sort of topsail schooner is an abundant subject in solid hull wood models, which IMO would follow a few tries at small craft in wood, then wood schooners.

Lisa,

Here's the thread I started a while back on a ship where the rigging is not too complex and the scale is reasonably large:

http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/7/t/165284.aspx?page=1

If you can find one on eBay I feel it's a nice project for testing and expanding one's skills. Just make sure that if you do decide to build it, pay attention to the comments in the thread regarding where the yard/mast placement should go. John Tilley, in his extremely helpful manner using his vast knowledge of things nautical, offered his advise on how the rigging should appear with furled sails - I wish I would have asked for advise before finishing the rigging!

Mike

Hi ;

 There is one that is fairly simple in terms of rigging . It's name slips my old brain , but it is by Mirage models And it's a single masted vessel .It is very simple and builds into a really nice little sailing vessel . I have mine partially done , but commission demands meant I had to shelve it . T.B.

I don't disagree with any of the above. Lindberg sailing ships fall into several categories. Some are reissues of kits that started with other companies (like Pyro and Marx). To my knowledge the only two that actually originated with Lindberg are the Wappen von Hamburg, an early-eighteenth-century German two-decked warship, and La Flore, a later -eighteenth-century French frigate. They've been reissued under several phoney names ("Captain Kidd," "Flying Dutchman," "Jolly Roger," etc.) that I have trouble keeping straight. They're actually pretty advanced and complex models, with lots of rigging.

Most of the other Lindberg sailing ships originated with Pyro. They were designed to be simple; they have awful injection-molded plastic "sails" molded integrally with the yards. Examples are the Gouda, Santa Maria dela Mt. Sinai, Alliance, Joseph Conrad, Sovereign of the Seas, and probably a few others. (Lindberg attached silly, piratical names to several of them, too.) I can't recommend them to anybody who's serious about scale ship modeling - certainly not to a beginner.

The Revell yacht America would indeed be a terrific choice. Finding one may be a bit of a challenge, but Revell Germany has said it's going to reissue it later this year.

I think the bomb vessel Don mentioned was the old Pyro bomb ketch. A tiny kit with awful plastic "sails" and extremely primitive detail.

I agree with Don completely that Midwest's series of wood kits is a great way of getting into wood ship modeling. High quality materials, good plans, and the best, clearest, most thorough instruction books in the business. some people are kind of turned off by the subjects (all small boats; the biggest is a Chesapeake Bay skipjack), but a little reading establishes that those boat types are really interesting.

Those kog kits from Zvezda and Revell (same kits) are really, really nice. But I'm afraid they're hard to find at the moment.

But my number one recommendation as a plastic starter kit is the Revell Viking ship. It's one of the most accurate plastic sailing ships ever made, and tremendous fun to build - especially if you do a little reading about real Viking ships. GMorrison's log is here: http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/7/t/169278.aspx

And mine is here: http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/7/p/155395/1701192.aspx#1701192 .

Good luck.

The Lindbergs are complex, and they also have pretty minimal plastic spar thicknesses which lead to frustration. The frigate is very handsome, though.

I'd endorse the brig. Also the big Revell yacht America. It is available on eBay often for not too much momey, and I think Revell is releasing it again, in it's American Civil War version.

Round 2 models is also selling the Blockade Runner, which is really a fun model to build.

Steve, I remember now that I actually bought the Revell Golden Hind around the same time as the Santa Maria. My high school had a good history course, so I was really interested in that era. It was the original boxing and the instructions were a world of difference between the Santa Maria which was a Revell Germany boxing. It was totally my fault that I didn't do inventory on the kit till months after thought about working on it. And found it was missing some pieces and was marked complete when bought. Oh well live and learn I guess.

The Revell Viking ship actually sounds like something I'd like. Right now I'm just starting to research Norse culture so that goes hand in hand.

Also the two Zvezda ships sound like something I’d like. The Dark Ages and Medieval History have always been my major passion.  And I wrote a few thesis years ago for school, so anything around that time period I love. Thank you for replying!

Mr. Stauffer, thank you for replying also. After some quick browsing couldn't find the model of the bomb sloop, maybe a Pyro kit? I looked at the Midwest kits they look really nice, however just a little more money than I care to spend at the moment.

Best regards, Lisa

There was also a kit of a bomb sloop- forget whose kits.  The fewer the masts and yards, the easier the rigging, so look for something with few masts.  If you might like to try a wood sailing model, the Midwest kits are great- single masters and a two masted vessel, with simple rigs.

Lisa,

There are a number of sailing ship models that you could tackle, especially if you have done the Santa Maria. If you want to stick with Revell, then the Golden Hind is a bit busy in terms of rigging but if you can get an older model from evilBay then the instructions are pretty clear on how to tackle th rigging. The Mayflower is another nice kit and still in production. The Linberg "pirate ship" line are really some cool historical subjects, but there are for issues and the instructions are fairly worthless. That would be something for later on if you continue to build sailing ships.

With that being said, I will give you the same exact advice that Prof Tilley has been giving out for some time and I am glad that I followed it. For sailing ship modelers starting out, something in a larger scale with fairly easy rigging is your best bet. One because it will give you the confidence to continue, two because you are more likely to finish it instead of a 1/96 scale USS Constitution. A great model is the Revell Viking ship. It is a well designed model that you can build straight out of the box or add extras to it like GMorrison recently did. He did a great WIP here in the forums.

Another kit that I built and you can find here is the Zvezda Hanse Kogge or Thomas kit. There are WIPs for both in the forum if you want to check them out. Hopefully this will help you and remember to always ask questions, most everyone is willing to help.

Steve