Heller 1:150 to 1:200 sailing ships?

Lonh,
I built the Heller Corona and Le Sirene. As measured up to the ones I built from Revell (HMS Victory), Lindberg (HMS Victory), IMAI (Chebec), and Airfix (Discovery), I'd say the Heller's were somewhere in between Revell and Lindberg, the latter having part fitting problems, but still in my opinion the Lindberg Victory came out beautiful. After all these kits and the hours spent sanding, painting, rigging, dreaming/thinking about them (on the job), with patience and awe, they all come out pretty good. I'm not sure if my mail to you helps but thanks for letting me jump in. Sincerely, SWON

I have some strong opinions on Heller sailing ship kits, based on their historical accuracy. Heller has been around for a long time and, like most other manufacturers, has gotten generally better through the years. The Heller H.M.S. Victory is, in my opinion, a fine kit - light years ahead of any of those insanely expensive European wood kits. The same goes for the big galley, La Real. They have some odd little quirks (somebody on the design staff for the Victory kit apparently thought belaying pins had sharp points, and nobody at Heller seems to realize that yards are supposed to be fastened to masts), but they generally stick pretty close to reality.

The earlier Heller kits don't stack up so well. The manufacturer used to have a habit of using the same basic hull and deck components to produce more than one ship. Other firms (e.g., Revell and Lindberg) have done the same sort of thing, but in Heller's case the results frequently are downright ludicrous. I question whether any vessel even remotely resembling La Sirene ever existed; I have my doubts as to whether such an object would float. The hull of the exploration vessel Porquois Pas? has been recycled at least twice - once as a paddle steamer and once as a "brigantine." The Nina and Pinta have the same hull, and I believe the Santa Maria 's has made more than one appearance.

I confess that I spent more than a year working on Le Soleil Royal (and published an article about it) before I compared the kit to some photos of the contemporary model in the Musee de la Marine, in Paris. I was disturbed to discover that the magnificent-looking carvings on the bow and stern are seriously in error, and the underwater hull is badly out of proportion. My conclusion was that the people responsible for making the molds were immensely talented artisans who knew practically nothing about ships.

The bottom line, I guess, is that one needs to be careful and do some research before laying out those big chunks of money. Some Heller kits are great; others are historical travesties. That, unfortunately, is how the plastic kit industry works. Heller probably is no worse than most; 20-year-old Tamiya and Hasegawa kits have similar problems.

I have just about every Heller sailing ship in my collection. I got them by watching both Squadron and Model Expo reducing these kits to practically nothing. It seems that mail order houses will dumb large inventories of these kits at below cost and I don't know why, but I end up with a bunch of kits. I got the Royal George and the La Phenix for less than $15. Just shop around.

These kits are very detailed, but require skills above the average builder. I found that I must replace many of the spars and masts with wood since they are too thin for me. I like to put on a lot of rigging. Some details are out of scale, yet some, such as the wood grain, are magnifigant. Heller also is hit and miss for both instructions and the quality of the sails.