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Is (was) there just one Revell HMS Victory model kit?

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  • Member since
    November 2005
Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, March 12, 2006 5:59 AM

I think, this could be interesting, a picture from the 1972-1973 Revell catalogue (Dutch edition here), as you can see, the scale of the "1/146" Revell model has become 1/222.

Michel

 

  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Tuesday, February 14, 2006 8:54 PM

Those pictures look familiar.  Beware my memory of the Lindberg kit, though; said memory is at least thirty years old.  Today I was five minutes late to class because I couldn't remember where I'd put either my glasses or my car keys.

I vaguely remember buying a Victory in an Entex box, and I'm beginning to think I may have confused the Lindberg and Entex kits.  The one in this set of pictures is, in some (not many) respects, a little better than the small Revell one we were discussing the other day.  (The Entex one has separate parts for the head rail assemblies; on the Revell one they're molded integrally with the hull halves.)  In most other respects, the Entex one looks pretty awful.  The hull halves are downright crude (out-of-scale planking, no copper sheathing, and no gunports).  The stern is missing one row of windows (as I thought I remembered the Lindberg version was).  And those vac-formed "sails" just may be the most laughably awful ones I've ever seen.

The small Revell kit obviously has some sort of family relationship with the larger Revell one.  (There's no other explanation for those coils of rope - which aren't on the Entex one.)  I'm beginning to wonder if the small Revell one is in fact the old Lindberg one, and the Entex one has a completely independent history.

There are, however, some faint hints of a relationship between the Entex kit and the larger Revell one.  The parts breakdown is similar (though simplified in the case of the Entex one).  Those "sails" look like incompetent copies of the ones that came with the large Revell kit - at least in its original incarnation.  The Revell fore and main topsails made a reasonable attempt (when viewed from the front, at least) at looking like they were in the process of being furled or set, with the buntlines making bundles at their feet.  The Entex versions give the impression that somebody with no understanding of sails in the Western tradition was trying to copy the Revell ones.  The subtle "seam" detail of the Revell ones apparently eluded him completely.  Those enormous, 3-dimensional grids are pretty funny.

I don't trust my memory any farther than I could throw it, but it does seem like if I'd ever seen such a ridiculous set of sails before I'd remember it.  I have a faint recollection of buying a kit that contained a sheet of highly flexible white plastic - almost like latex rubber, but not as stretchy - with vague instructions to make sails out of it.  I wonder if that might have been an earlier issue of this Entex kit.

Another point:  if memory serves (as it frequently doesn't these days) the flagsheet is a direct copy of the Revell one.  I think I remember the pattern of the phony wrinkles in the Revell ensign and jack.  (Why in the world did manufacturers ever get the idea of drawing flags with wrinkles in two dimensions?  It surely would be easier do draw the flags as rectangles, and any modeler with sufficient manual dexterity to dress himself can put genuine, 3-dimensional wrinkles in a flag in a matter of seconds.)  And the "England Expects..." signal flags drawn in hoists, to be fastened to the halyards as groups and separated afterward, are right out of the Revell kit.

It looks to me like this Entex thing is the work of some Japanese manufacturer whose designer had no idea of what the real Victory (or any other Western sailing ship) looked like and whose only source of reference was the Revell kit.  My recollection is that the Lindberg one was a little better than this; in asserting that the Lindberg one suffered from the lack of stern windows I may have been in error.  But I'm afraid this strange story can't be sorted out until somebody finds one of the old Lindberg kits - if any still exist. 

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
    November 2005
Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, February 14, 2006 4:03 PM

Thank you John.

yesterday I received the old Entex HMS Victory model kit.

You can see pictures here :

http://www.hmsvictoryscalemodels.be/EntexMichelvrtg/index.html

This must be the model you were talking about, the Lindberg one.

But there must be some differences : the sails seem to be different, I'll be back with another question, this time about the Lindberg HMS Victory.

Michel

 

  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Sunday, February 12, 2006 8:08 PM

Looks like it's not a bad little kit.  Quite a few of the major details have been simplified, of course, but it seems to have the general shape of the real thing.

This kit doesn't look like any Victory kit I've ever seen before.  It isn't a reissue of the old Lindberg one; this Revell product has all three rows of windows in the transom and quarter galleries. 

I has the general feel of having been copied from the other, slightly larger Revell kit - by somebody who almost, but not quite, knew what he was doing.  Take a look at the forecastle timberheads on the hull halves.  On the bigger kit they're shaped right - as tapered wedges.  The person who made the master for the smaller kit figured round blobs would be good enough.  The "shroud-and-ratline" assemblies are among the sillier ones I've ever seen.  The way the lower and topmast shrouds are connected to each other is downright irrational.

On the other hand, take a look at the coils of "rope" molded into the upper deck.  If I'm not mistaken, those ropes are lying in exactly - or almost exactly - the same places as the ones on the larger Revell kit.  That can't possibly be a coincidence.  The designer of this kit was looking at the Revell one. 

This is a strange, convoluted story.  It would be interesting to know what happened - but I strongly doubt that anybody at Revell would give a straight answer about it.  We do, however, now have a definitive straightforward answer to the question with which Michel started this fascinating thread:  "Is (was) there just one Revell HMS Victory model kit?"  The answer clearly is - yes.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, February 12, 2006 5:50 AM

I posted some pictures to show "what is in the box".

The pictures are here :

http://www.hmsvictoryscalemodels.be/Revell1225Michelvrtg/index.html

Michel

 

  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Tuesday, February 7, 2006 10:13 PM

Michel,

Very interesting!  What about the transom and quarter galleries?  If they have all three rows of windows, this kit isn't related to the old Lindberg one - or the one later issued in the Entex box.

If Revell did indeed make its own Victory that was 2/3 the size of the one it already had on the market, the obvious question is:  why?  But it sounds like that's becoming a more and more likely explanation.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
    November 2005
Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, February 7, 2006 6:43 PM

I received the 1/225 scale Revell model.

The size is around 2/3 the 1/146 model, length of the hull is 21 Cm.  So, the scale is between 1/300 and 1/350.

It is a nice little model, well detailed, but no clue to guess the origin of the model.  It is not a scaled-down "1/146 scale Revell" model, it is different, with full sails in vac-formed plastic.

I'll post pictures of this model soon.

Michel

 

  • Member since
    November 2005
Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, February 1, 2006 6:11 PM

 Celestino wrote:
Michael, do you have the 1:180 Victory to lay against the 1/200 Mantua kit?

Celestino,

we are two modelers (Xander898 and myself) busy with HMS Victory models. 

Xander898 has the Sergal 1/78 scale model ; the Mantua 1/200 scale model and the 1/146 scale Revell model.

I have the Mantua 1/98 scale model, the life-like 1/400 scale model, and in the next weeks I'll have the Airfix 1/180 scale model, the Heller 1/100 scale model and the Revell 1/225 scale model.

So, there will be no picture of the Airfix and Mantua models "side by side", but we'll give you the length of  both hulls (length of the "naked" hull of the 1/200 scale Mantua model is 37 Cm, Sergal 90 Cm. ).

Michel

 

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    November 2005
Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, February 1, 2006 3:20 PM
Michael, do you have the 1:180 Victory to lay against the 1/200 Mantua kit?
  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Wednesday, February 1, 2006 1:54 AM

Very interesting indeed.  I wouldn't want to pass judgment on the basis of a photo, but it looks to me like both those kits probably are mis-labeled.  The Revell one clearly is too small to be on 1/146 scale, and the Mantua one certainly looks like it's bigger than 1/200.  (We established earlier, with fair certainty, that the Revell kit is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1/220.  If so, and if the Mantua one is on 1/200, the Revell hull ought to be ten percent shorter than the Mantua one.  Perspective in photos can be deceptive, but it sure looks to me like the difference in length between the two hulls is greater than that.)

In fairness, we probably should remember that the people who design the kits aren't the same ones who write the advertisements.  But I find myself wondering - not for the first time - how many of the people who work for these manufacturers really understand what the term "scale model" means.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
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Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, January 31, 2006 5:48 PM

Well, if you still wonder if the Revell model is really 1/146 scale, take a look at this picture :

The new 1/200 scale Mantua model (wood) with the so-called 1/146 scale Revell model:

Michel

 

  • Member since
    November 2005
Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, January 15, 2006 7:57 AM
 jtilley wrote:

 The Lindberg kit, remember, was in most respects a "pantographed-down" version of the Revell one.)

I could read this about Heller too : you may copy my model, but you give me 1000 (or 10000) kits of your copied model.  This happened several times between Heller and various manufacturers, was there or not an agreement between the two companies. 

Michel

 

  • Member since
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  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Saturday, January 14, 2006 10:26 PM

The one in the e-bay photo is a reissue of the old, original Revell Mayflower - the smaller one.  (What a wretched illustration on the box.  This is why so many people think plastic kits are toys.)  It has a "T" stand.  The photos are just about good enough to demonstrate what I mean about the original kit's quality - which is excellent.  Take a look at the planking detail. 

I'm a little hesitant to identify the one in the Heller box, because I've never seen the inside of the Airfix kit.  This could conceivably be it - but it certainly looks like the Revell one.  The stand is a bit of a curiosity.  It isn't the standard Revell "T" stand - but the nameplate on it seems to be identical to the one in the Revell kit.  (Most Revell sailing ships had nicely engraved nameplates, with lugs on the back for screws to mount them to wood baseboards.)  It's conceivable that this is the second, larger Revell kit; the smaller and larger ones, having (I think) been based on the same masters, would be almost impossible to distinguish from each other in photographs. 

When yours arrives it shouldn't be hard to clear up the question.  Compare the size of it to your "Quick-Build" Constitution.  If it's pretty clear that the Mayflower would require a box of the same size, you've got the second, larger version.  If the overall length is somewhere in the neighborhood of 16" - 18", you've got the original, smaller one.  Either one, as I mentioned earlier, is a fine kit.  The smaller one would be more difficult to detail, but either would make a fine basis for a serious scale model.

I haven't spent much time on e-bay, but it's clear that the prices on it are utterly irrational.  I've seen some old, out-of-production models there with unbelievably low prices, and I've seen current, readily-available kits sold for more than what the hobby shops charge.  That's one of the reasons I've never been keen on doing business with e-bay.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
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Posted by Anonymous on Saturday, January 14, 2006 1:29 PM
"jtilley" wrote:
==
The fact that your kit has that T-shaped stand suggests pretty strongly that it's Revell in origin.  (Most of the Airfix sailing ship kits I've seen have had cruciform stands.)  If you'll post a picture I can probably tell for sure.

If you do have one of the Revell Mayflower kits - either of them - you're in luck. 
==

Thanks for the offer. Likely I will post some images in the near future (need my own homepage and currently I am in the process of shopping for a ccd camera).

However, the following link to ebay (Item number: 6027510793) has the Mayflower which appears to be the same than the one I obtained:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Revell-The-Mayflower-Model-Ship-Kit-20-Long-Plastic_W0QQitemZ6027510793QQcategoryZ4248QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I do not have the Heller kit handy (have got internet access in my office at the university only). But let me emphasize (will have again to look it up at home, but I am not 100 perecent sure on this): there is no T-stand (at the rear side). My "Constitution" from Revell doesn't have a T-stand either at the rear side. The rear side of my "Constition quick builder kit 22" long" from Revell features the same construct than the forefront of a typical Revell stand.

And I am also not sure yet whether the Heller kit has that many blocks on the sprues than the one you can see from the aformentioned posted ebay link.

That said everything else seem to be the same. nevertheless it is interesting why the Heller "Mayflower 20"" has such a high price tag $60. The kit does have only 106 parts and is in the same leagure than lets say Heller its "Santa Maria 20"". Although, "Santa Maria" from Heller costs $25 (currently there is an offer on ebay "buy it now" where one can buy it for $13).

The assmbled Heller Mayflower may be find here (copy and paste it into your browser):

http://www.old.modelarstwo.org.pl/szkutnicze/zestaw/heller/mayflower/index.html

Regards,
Katzennahrung

  • Member since
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  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Saturday, January 14, 2006 8:14 AM

Katzennahrung - There are two possibilities here.  I'm pretty sure the kit originated with either Airfix or Revell.  My guess is the latter, but I'm not 100 percent sure.

There was a period some years ago when Heller functioned as a distributor for Revell kits in some parts of Europe.  Some Heller boxes with Revell kits inside in fact showed up in the U.S.  (And, as Michel has established, some Revell kits, with modifications, are still being sold under the Heller label.)  I'm pretty sure I recall seeing a Revell Mayflower in a Heller box.  But Airfix makes a Mayflower as well - and, of course, Heller and Airfix are now owned by the same people.  (Actually I think I read something in one of the magazines recently to the effect that Heller had been bought by somebody else.  At any rate, though, for the past several years Heller and Airfix have been joined at the hip.)

The fact that your kit has that T-shaped stand suggests pretty strongly that it's Revell in origin.  (Most of the Airfix sailing ship kits I've seen have had cruciform stands.)  If you'll post a picture I can probably tell for sure.

The question actually is a little more complex, because Revell actually made two Mayflower kits.  It sounds like you have the first, smaller one.  (I'm assuming your figure for the length of the finished model includes the bowsprit.  I'm pretty sure the second kit was a bit bigger than that.)  The second Revell Mayflower originally appeared in the "quick-build" series of intermediate-sized kits that the company marketed to beginners.  Actually it was a direct, enlarged copy of the original kit; I'm pretty sure the only difference other than size was that the "simplified" version omitted the rigging blocks.  (We talked this out in another Forum thread some months back.  One of the other members had both kits, and confirmed the differences between them.)

If you do have one of the Revell Mayflower kits - either of them - you're in luck.  In my opinion they're among the best plastic sailing ship kits ever.  They are in fact scale models of the replica  Mayflower II, which crossed the Atlantic back in the fifties and has been on public exhibition at Plymouth, Massachusetts ever since.  She was designed by William A. Baker, a professor of naval architecture at MIT and one of the most knowledgeable experts of the day.  He did make one major compromise in his design:  for the convenience of modern visitors he gave the ship several extra inches of headroom between decks.  But the Mayflower II is stil regarded as an excellent piece of scholarship, and Revell did a superb job of reproducing her.  Take a look at such things as the planking detail on the hull and you'll see what I mean.  Throw the preformed "ratlines" and "sails" in the wastebasket and you'll have the basis for an outstanding scale model.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

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Posted by Anonymous on Saturday, January 14, 2006 2:14 AM
"jtilley" wrote:

==
The most conspicuous difference from the 1959 Revell kit is the stand. 
==

Interestingly enough. I got my two kits from ebay yesterday: Heller "Le Glorieux" (870 parts) and Heller "Maxflower" ($30 for boths kits). It was really a good deal and I would likely succeed if I am going to sell it on ebay with some margings (regular prices in model shops $110 for both kits). But I am not.

However, the Mayflower kit is quite different from all the other Heller kits so far. The are two obvious differences: the shrouds are pre-assembled from plastic (as we know from Revell kits) and the stand looks similar to the one of my revell "Constitution". Heller typically features a different stand and stand-base. And Heller is also know for not applying pre-assembled shrouds. Heller's rigging is simple, though.

I would really like to know whom I will have to give credit for the kit in the Heller box. Any ideas? The assembled ship will measure around 49cm (19 3/4"). It has only slightly more than 100 parts, though, detailings are not that bad in the kit.
  • Member since
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  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Friday, January 13, 2006 11:49 AM

That e-bay photo is pretty blurry, but it's interesting.  The box, of course, is the second one Michel showed us in his original post back on January 8.  The basic parts breakdown seems to match the old, 1959 Revell kit.  But in some respects the kit in the picture looks like the old Lindberg one.  (Those two observations aren't inconsistent.  The Lindberg kit, remember, was in most respects a "pantographed-down" version of the Revell one.)

The most conspicuous difference from the 1959 Revell kit is the stand.  The old Revell kit came with one of Revell's standard sailing ship stands; it was shaped like a T.  (The model's keel fit into a single upright piece near the stern, and two upright pieces supported the bow.  I believe some of the stands in Revell kits got modified in re-releases.  Originally each stand was molded in one piece; in some reissues the uprights were separate pieces.  The one in Xander's photos, to which Michel linked us, has the separate uprights.  They're visible in one of the pictures.)  The kit in the e-bay photo seems to have a three-piece stand shaped like a cradle, with X-shaped forward and after components and a third piece connecting them. 

I don't remember what the stand in the Lindberg kit looked like.  The photo of the completed Entex model (which I think is identical to the Lindberg one - but maybe not) to which Michel linked us earlier has a one-piece stand with four uprights.

The e-bay photo is too blurry for me to make out what I'm specifically looking for:  the configuration of the quarter galleries and transom.  If they're missing one row of windows, this is probably the old Lindberg kit.  Maybe somebody with a better monitor can tell.

I guess the only way to lay this one to rest once and for all is for one of us to buy that e-bay kit.  But that individual isn't going to be me.

In the grand scheme of world events this is all pretty trivial, but it sure is interesting.  The behavior of plastic model manufacturers is really strange.  I suspect the skilled, conscientious artisans who made the masters for the original Revell kit, back in the fifties, are turning in their graves.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

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Posted by Anonymous on Friday, January 13, 2006 4:15 AM
"Katzennahrung" wrote:

==
http://cgi.ebay.at/REVELL-Modellschiff-H-M-S-Victory-ansehen_W0QQitemZ7381327953QQcategoryZ100019QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Or you can go directly to ebay and visiting the following product number: 7381327953

Note: the ebay seller made a typo in the following lines:

==
Angaben zum Modell

Maßstab 1:130

Länge 236 mm

Höhe 198 mm
==

He had a typo at the "scale figure". However, he cleary advertizes it as a ship at scale 1:225:

==
Revell - Nr. 1/225 Platik -Modellbausatz,noch nicht zusammengebaut...
==

He also states that the Revell box has an imprint "1985" on the kit box and he assumes the kit comes from such about times.

Regards,
Katzennahrung
  • Member since
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Posted by Anonymous on Friday, January 13, 2006 4:08 AM
<BLOCKQUOTE><table class="quoteOuterTable"><tr><td class="txt4"><img src="/FSM/CS/Themes/default/images/icon-quote.gif">&nbsp;<strong>jtilley wrote:</strong></td></tr><tr><td class="quoteTable"><table width="100%"><tr><td width="100%" valign="top" class="txt4"><P>I can't get the link in Katzennahrung's last post to work.  (The problem may lie with my computer, but the link in the post doesn't show up in color - like functioning links do.)  </P>
<P>In any case, the biggest lesson to emerge from this interesting thread is that the scale figures and dimensions quoted on kit boxes, in catalogs, and on E-bay are utterly unreliable.  (Frankly I don't bother to pay attention to them any more.)  It's entirely possible that more than one <EM>Victory</EM> kit has been sold at one time or another in a box with the Revell name on it.  But the only way to figure out the whole story is to look at the box contents.  If that E-bay page has any photos of the actual model on it, I might be able to tell whether it's one of the kits I've seen.  If all that appears on E-bay is a picture of a boxtop painting, though, my inclination would be to ignore it.</P></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

On my Macintosh "Safari" doesn't show the link either. However, you can "copy and paste" the following into your browser header (note possible line delimiters):

http://cgi.ebay.at/REVELL-Modellschiff-H-M-S-Victory-ansehen_W0QQitemZ7381327953QQcategoryZ100019QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Or you can go directly to ebay and visiting the following product number: 7381327953

Regards,
Katzennahrung
  • Member since
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  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Thursday, January 12, 2006 12:11 AM

I can't get the link in Katzennahrung's last post to work.  (The problem may lie with my computer, but the link in the post doesn't show up in color - like functioning links do.) 

In any case, the biggest lesson to emerge from this interesting thread is that the scale figures and dimensions quoted on kit boxes, in catalogs, and on E-bay are utterly unreliable.  (Frankly I don't bother to pay attention to them any more.)  It's entirely possible that more than one Victory kit has been sold at one time or another in a box with the Revell name on it.  But the only way to figure out the whole story is to look at the box contents.  If that E-bay page has any photos of the actual model on it, I might be able to tell whether it's one of the kits I've seen.  If all that appears on E-bay is a picture of a boxtop painting, though, my inclination would be to ignore it.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
    November 2005
Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, January 11, 2006 3:29 PM
michel.vrtg"  wrote:

==
Is there just one HMS Victory model by Revell, or was there a smaller one?  I think, there is just one, but why does Revell show 1/146 for their model, while this model was sold, some years ago, as a 1/225 scale model?
==

According to the following ebay link (in German):

http://cgi.ebay.at/REVELL-Modellschiff-H-M-S-Victory-ansehen_W0QQitemZ7381327953QQcategoryZ100019QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

there was indeed a smaller Victory in overall length size: at scale 1/225 the overall length is about 236mm (9.5") and the height measures to 198mm (8").

Even if Revell put some over- or underestimations on to the kit box. The numbers are noticeably smaller than the ones given for scale 1/146.

Regards,
Katzennahrung

  • Member since
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  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Tuesday, January 10, 2006 10:31 AM

I am absolutely, 100% certain of few things in this life - but this is one of them. When I was considerably younger I built both kits several times.  The Airfix and Revell Victory kits are completely different products, and the Airfix one is bigger. 

Those scale figures and dimensions quoted on the boxes and websites appear to be (to use a term we Americans frequently employ to avoid censorship by the Webmaster) baloney.  To establish their actual scales I'd have to get samples of the two kits and compare them to a set of plans, but the Airfix kit is definitely larger. 

There's one possible factor that may have caused some of the confusion.  A few years ago Heller functioned for a while as a European distributor for Revell kits, and of course Heller and Airfix are now under the same management.  I've seen several Revell sailing ship kits in Heller boxes.  It's conceivable that, somewhere along the line, both the Revell and Airfix Victory kits got sold in Heller boxes.  (The big 1/00 kit that we all know and love as the Heller Victory is currently being sold under the Airfix label.)  It's certainly possible that, amid all that confusion, somebody made an honest mistake and mixed up the scales and dimensions of the two kits.  But the most likely explanation, I think, is sheer sloppiness on the part of the people who wrote the material on the boxes (and websites.)

The unfortunate moral to this sad story is that the sailing ship model kit industry operates according to a completely different set of rules (or lack thereof) than any other phase of the modeling world.  It's interesting to speculate on what would happen if a kit manufacturer took such a casual approach to scale - and historical accuracy - in its aircraft or railroad kits.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
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Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, January 10, 2006 10:11 AM
"jtilley" wrote:
==
I do know for a fact that the Revell and Airfix versions of the Victory are completely different kits.  The Airfix one is several inches larger - and about a decade younger.
==

Are you sure on this jtilley? The Airfix and Revell kits share a similar overall length, at least according to the following links:

Overall length of the Airfix Victory at scale 1:180 of 383mm (about 17.5"):

http://www.moduni.de/product_info.php/cPath/10000000_10400000_10403001_10403040/products_id/1509252

Overall length of the Victory from Revell at scale 1:144 of 400mm (about 18"):

http://www.moduni.de/product_info.php/cPath/10000000_10400000_10403001_10403040/products_id/1509252

However, the Airfix kit includes 350 parts whereas the Revell kit includes 260 parts.

Regards,
Katzennharung
  • Member since
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  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Tuesday, January 10, 2006 8:52 AM

I don't know what's in all those boxes, but we shouldn't base any judgments on box art - unless the art in question is a photo of a finished model.  The artists who do the paintings for model boxes frequently don't have finished models to look at; they work from photos and/or other paintings of the real thing.  Whether a boxtop painting shows gunport lids open or closed, for instance, isn't really any indication of how the model inside is made.

I do know for a fact that the Revell and Airfix versions of the Victory are completely different kits.  The Airfix one is several inches larger - and about a decade younger.  (It was originally issued, I believe, in the late sixties.)  There are some other significant differences between the two kits.  Most of Revell's gunports are molded shut; Airfix provides the option of having all of them open.  On the other hand, Airfix only provides full-length barrels and carriages for the guns on the upper deck.  On the middle and lower decks, the gunports are represented by recessed squares with round holes in their middles.  If you want the ports shut, you glue the lids into the recesses; if you want them open, the kit provides "dummy" gun barrels - stubs with pegs on their ends that plug into the round holes.  Pretty phoney looking.  Revell doesn't provide a full complement of guns, but the ones it does provide have full-length barrels - and the Revell gunports that are open are genuine holes in the ship's sides.

The Airfix kit has the advantage that, being on a slightly larger scale, it's easier to detail and rig.  And most of the detail on it is pretty nice.  (The figurehead is better than Revell's.)  But in general I actually like the Revell one a little better.  It has that outstanding hull planking detail, and the detail in general is a little more subtle.  The decisive factor to me, though, is that the Airfix kit suffers from a big error in basic shape:  the bow is distorted.  The mistake is hard to describe, but instantly obvious if you compare the kit to a drawing or photo of the real thing.  The whole head structure sort of "sags," so the figurehead sits almost a full deck too low.  All the components of the bow are distorted to match.  It would be difficult to fix.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
    November 2005
Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, January 10, 2006 4:14 AM
<BLOCKQUOTE><table class="quoteOuterTable"><tr><td class="txt4"><img src="/FSM/CS/Themes/default/images/icon-quote.gif">&nbsp;<strong>michel.vrtg wrote:</strong></td></tr><tr><td class="quoteTable"><table width="100%"><tr><td width="100%" valign="top" class="txt4">
Well, I think, the "1/225" model is another one, reboxed from another manufacturer, see the first boxart and the new one, they show the same model ; the 1/225 is different.  In their "1/146" scale model, there are just some gunports open, on the 1/225 boxart they all are closed, sails are different too.  But, maybe in some days, I'll have one of the "1/225" models, so I'll be able to compare them.

http://www.hmsvictoryscalemodels.be/</td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

[Safari doesn't the quoting right]

It would be interesting to knwo whether Airfix its scale 1:180 Victory is the same than then Revell its one. I saw the Airfix kit in model shop and the assembled ship measures about the same length as the assembled Revell "Victory".

Btw: the site from Belgium is cool and I enjoy it!

Katzennahrung
  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Monday, January 9, 2006 11:04 PM

Regarding plans of the Victory - I'm pretty sure the ones by George Campbell (referred to in Michel's recent post) are the ones I bought, via Model Shipways, about thirty years ago.  They're blueprint versions of the plans Mr. Campbell drew for Longridge's Anatomy of Nelson's Ships.  The foldout prints in the book are, if I remember correctly, 50% reductions from the blueprint versions.  If you've got the Longridge book you don't need the Campbell/Percival Marshall plans - unless you just want bigger versions of what you already have.  And the book contains those marvelous perspective drawings (the one showing the maintop is downright awe-inspiring) and detail views.

Lots of good plans for this ship have been published over the years.  Ironically the primary source drawings, in the form of the "Admiralty Drafts" in the National Maritime Museum, aren't of great use to modelers; they don't have the sort of detail that's so often found in plans from that source.  But the subject has attracted several extremely competent 20th-century draftsmen. 

The first may have been Basil Lavis, whose set of Victory drawings was published, I think, sometime in the 1920s, when the ship was being restored for public exhibition.  They're entirely competent drawings, though they don't contain the sort of detail the later ones do.  (I suspect the Lavis drawings are the ones Longridge used to build his model.  I think his publisher commissioned the Campbell plans after the model was finished.)   

The restoration of the ship was supervised by the Society for Nautical Research, which commissioned a fine historian named R.W. Bugler to do research in the primary source documents.  In 1966 (at least that's the date on the copy I've seen; the first edition may be older) Bugler himself published a book called H.M.S. Victory:  Building, Restoration, and Repair.  It's a big, bulky tome with a set of drawings folded into a pocket inside the back cover.  I haven't seen a copy of it in years, but my recollection is that the drawings were excellent - though not as detailed as the ones by Campbell and McKay.

I like the Campbell drawings; they're fine examples of the drafting art, and I've never encountered any major criticism of them in terms of accuracy.  (Here we should make the usual caveats:  those drawings show the entry ports, knee-high forecastle bulwarks, and various other features that may or may not be correct for the ship's 1805 configuration.  But I'm unaware of any set of plans that doesn't have that problem.)  They're particularly useful to modelers when used in conjunction with the text in the Longridge book.  The combination of those drawings with Longridges' verbal descriptions should, for example, provide the modeler with everything he or she needs to know in order to rig a model of the Victory.

The drawings in the Conway/Naval Institute Press Anatomy of the Ship volume, by John McKay, are superb.  (I've done enough ship drawings myself to know that this man is an absolute master of the form.  I'm not worthy to sharpen his pencils.)  Here, though, the modeler needs to be careful.  The first edition of that book drew some heat from reviewers because Mr. McKay included some decidedly non-original details, based on the ship's current state.  (For example, he showed the wales as layers of thin planking fastened to the exterior of the hull planking.  That arrangement is an example of modern economizing.  The original wales were huge timbers fastened directly to the ship's frames.)  Mr. McKay (all credit to him - and Conway - for their integrity) later published a revised edition of the book in which those errors were corrected.  The modeler would be well advised to seek out the revised edition.

I read one criticism of the Anatomy volume to the effect that it was deficient in lacking a body plan.  The critic should have looked closer and thought a little before he made that comment.  True, there's no single drawing in the book labeled "body plan," but it does contain a series of remarkably detailed cross-sections that convey the same information - and much more besides.

Then there's H.M.S. Victory:  Her Construction, Career, and Restoration, by Alan McGowan and John McKay.  This is a terrific book, combining attractive, "coffee-table" appearance with a great deal of fine scholarship. The last section of it contains over a hundred drawings by Mr. McKay.  At first glance they look like the same ones that appear in the Anatomy of the Ship volume, and some of them are.  But for this book Mr. McKay prepared quite a few additional drawings, most of them dealing with the rigging.  Both books are worth acquiring.  For the modeler starting with a kit who can only afford one of them, though, I think I'd recommend the later, McGowan/McKay volume.  It contains more information about the rigging, which is the area where the modeler working from a kit is likely to need the most help.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Monday, January 9, 2006 11:43 AM

This plot is getting thicker.  I'm inclined to think Schoonerbum is right:  all the kits in Revell boxes are the same, and the "1/146" and "1/150" scale labels on some of them are wrong.  But the only way to clear up the mystery completely would be to look in the boxes.

As the photos from Xander898 remind us, it's a remarkably nice kit for its size and age.  (Bear in mind that it appeared at a time when manufacturers were adorning their aircraft kits with "rivets" the size of scale watermelons.)  Take a look at the hull planking, which shows the "anchor stock" pattern on the wales more accurately than most of those hideously-expensive wood kits.  (I imagine Calder/Jotika got it right; I'm pretty sure none of the Italian or Spanish companies bothered to try.)  Xander898's sample, unfortunately, has the same problem mine does.  Apparently the mold for the starboard hull half had been damaged.  Compare the steps leading up to the entry port on that side with those on the other half.

That Entex kit appears to be the one I bought in a Lindberg box.  The photo on the Entex box shows the stern galleries with the missing "layer."  That doesn't seem like the kind of mistake two independent designers would make.

Most interesting stuff.  The world of plastic sailing ship kits is indeed a bizarre one. 

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
    November 2005
Posted by Anonymous on Monday, January 9, 2006 11:17 AM

Wink [;)]Thank you,

Celestino, I have pictures and I asked Xander898 to put a rule on the picture of the Revell model :

http://www.hmsvictoryscalemodels.be/RevellXander898/index.html

Well, I think, the "1/225" model is another one, reboxed from another manufacturer, see the first boxart and the new one, they show the same model ; the 1/225 is different.  In their "1/146" scale model, there are just some gunports open, on the 1/225 boxart they all are closed, sails are different too.  But, maybe in some days, I'll have one of the "1/225" models, so I'll be able to compare them.

Anyways, if you know a different boxart or a model not shown on my website, please let me know, so we can "build" some information for the future "HMS Victory modelers".

http://www.hmsvictoryscalemodels.be/MODELS_EN.htm

Michel

 

  • Member since
    July 2004
  • From: Monterey Bay, CA
Posted by schoonerbumm on Monday, January 9, 2006 10:32 AM

I think these are all from the same molds. The gun deck on the '1/146' kit measures out at a little over 10".  With a gun deck of 186 feet, this works out to be ~1/220th.

 

Alan

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." Benjamin Franklin

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