Billing Boats HMS Bounty/Sergal Presidential

I do not agree to the statement about Billing kits. I have built both Artesania, Mamoli, Amati, Corel and Billing Kits, and I find that the quality varies from time to time as most manufacturer have more than one designer/model builder. I find the quality on Billings to match the quality from Artesania. If you look at all manufacturers out there Billings probably have the widest selection of boats. One thing I really like about Billing Boats is that they make the models as they really are/where with colours! – All the other manufacturer think that a boat used to be colourless – what nonsense… So don’t forget Billings, try one yourself and get a god experience. Just my opinion -

I think I can claim some familiarity with the Bounty; I did a great deal of reading about her some years ago when I was working on my little model of her.  From the standpoint of scale accuracy the only Bounty kit I can recommend is the one from Calder.  The people who operate that company know how to do research; they obviously looked at the original Admiralty draughts of the ship.  (The first clue:  the captain's water closet at the stern.)  Mamoli, Sergal, and their ilk are what I call the HECEPOB - Hideously Expensive Continental European Plank-On-Bulkhead - manufacturers.  (Hey, if other people can make up words, like "TallShip," so can I.)  Those manufacturers are notorious among serious scale modelers for producing kits based on inferior materials, irrational construction methods, unworkable plans and instructions, and non-existent research.    (If that seems harsh, check out this link:  http://www.naut-res-guild.org/piracy2.htm

It is, of course, dangerous to generalize; I don't pay much attention to HECEPOB kits, and I'm sure they vary a good deal in quality.  But on the basis of what I've seen I can't recommend any of them.  One partial exception to the rule seems to be Amati, which has just started issuing a series of British warship kits under the label "Victory Models."  These kits, as I understand it, are designed by an extremely competent Englishman who used to be affiliated with Calder.  I haven't seen any Victory Models kits firsthand, but on the basis of photographs they look excellent.There are four other wood ship model kit companies whose products I can recommend:  Calder/Jotika, which is British, and three American firms, Model Shipways, A.J. Fisher, and Bluejacket.  Those companies' products do vary in quality somewhat (as is inevitable), but the people who run them know what scale modeling is about.  I've wondered more than once whether the people in charge of the HECEPOB firms have any idea of what a scale model is.

Regarding that Sergal "Presidential" -  I haven't seen a kit with the Sergal label on it in a long time.  I understand, though, that most of that company's kits are now being marketed by another Italian firm, Mantua.  The Model Expo website includes a picture of a Mantua kit labeled "President;" I wonder if that's the kit in question.  I'm not at all convinced that any such ship ever existed.  The invention of ships out of thin air is a favorite HECEPOB stunt.  The models in question usually turn out to be based on recycled parts from other kits.  In this particular case the description in the ad is suspiciously generic, and the model in the picture is something of a mess - especially with regard to the rigging and the flags, which are totally wrong for the time period claimed in the caption.  And the hull shape looks remarkably like that of the Bounty.

I've typed more than one rant of this sort in this Forum, and I always feel a little guilty about them.  I know lots of people get lots of pleasure from HECEPOB kits, and it's certainly not for me to tell those people not to buy them.  But I do tend to get upset when these companies claim their products are scale models - which they most emphatically are not.  To call them scale models constitutes deceptive advertising at the expense of innocent hobbyists, and I think purchasers are entitled to go into such expensive transactions with their eyes open.

I have seen several of the "HECEPOB" kits. I have to agree with jtilley on this matter. As a learning venture, I laid down the lines of a forty foot (length on deck) Gaff rigged cutter. To "prove" the lines drawing, I built a 1:64 scale model, plank on frame (also a learning venture). It took six months to loft the twentyeight double sawn frames, build and erect them on the keel, and plank the hull and deck. The results, showed me the mistakes I made in the lines drawing, but turned out quite well as a model.   Having said that, I doubt that I would ever spend the money for a plank on bulkhead kit. I did assemble a "Midwest" Muscongus Bay Lobster Smack kit for the hobby shop I worked at. For a beginner, who has built some form of wood hull kit, it would be a good "training aid".  I'd rather spend the money for an accurate set of plans/lines drawings, and build from scratch. I'll qualify my comments, I try to build "scale" models, and by that I mean as exactly scale as strength of materials will allow me. Some things have to be larger than scale, in order to have strength enough to be worked with. For experience buiding a stripwood planked ship model, there is some merit in those kits,but then, Model Shipways has some solid hull, with planking over, that would accomplish the same end, and provide a much better looking, and more accurate model. If the goal is an accurate scale model, don't go with the plank on bulkhead "hecepob" kits.

Pete