Blue Ridge Models announces SS Normandie in 1:700 scale

Gee , That's Sad !

    So many of us have requested her for so long . It's nice that Blue Ridge did this , don't get me wrong .But , At 73 It's not going that much a pleasure to build in 1/700 .

    I wonder if a 1/350 will see the light of day before I check out !  T.B.

Thank you for the post. I think that I am going to do it.

Tanker - Builder

  I wonder if a 1/350 will see the light of day before I check out !  T.B.

Doubtful.

When I talked with Brandon at Blue Ridge he detailed the hassles and royalty committments of working with the French Lines and the Republic of France (French Lines is a national company).    He has committments to pay the royalty fee in 100 days from date of announcement regardless if he has sold any of the product run.  That is one of the reasons that this will be a limited release,  make it more desireable.  Wait until next year and it may not be available.  He needs to get his money out.   

The master was 3D printed, then hand finished.   The material costs to produce the master do not just double when you double the scale.   They cube (2xlen X 2xwid X 2xheight).   Production costs will also be greater.    The MSRP would probably be beyond what except for the most dedicated collector would be willing to pay.  A model of this size would not be economical given the fee structure.

Hi Ed!

   Thanks for explaining that to me . Years ago I did a limited run of Falcon Jets and Dassault Aviation was a whole lot easier to deal with . I had forgotten that the French Lines was a national holding .

So I can understand it .I just wish it wasn't so expensive .Remember ED , I live on my social Security .The price is beyond me even though it appears to be a primo product . T.B.

The "right thing" in plastic would probably be one of the common metric scales, like 1:500 or 1:600.

But I think 1:700 sounds swell.

The great doors into the First Class Dining Room were salvaged and purchased by Our Lady of Lebanon in Brooklyn, NY. Ten medallions depicting nine Norman cities and her sister the Ile de France, were reworked into sets of doors in two locations.

Looks like a nice kit!  Does anyone know who did the CAD for it?  It'll be interesting to compare this one to the one announced by Admiralty models on their facebook page (why facebook?).

Now that I might live a bit longer than expected, I might consider one of these :)

Here are the images from Admiralty's facebook page:-