Revell SMS Seeadler help

Wow, I remember building that kit as a kid at least 30 years ago. As I recall, it was molded in at least two colors of plastic, and the only real difference was the Seeadler kit included four very small cannon, two forward and two aft, behind moveable sections of bulwarks. At that scale the cannons were about 1/4 inch long, I think. It did have the molded ratlines but no sails, as I recall. I will look this week to see if I still have the instructions. Doubtful, but miracles do happen.

We had a good discussion of the Seeadler, and the Revell kit, here in the forum a few weeks ago.  It's in the thread titled "Need advice on painting plastic sailing ship deck."  I've just moved the thread to p. 1; it should appear just below this one.  There are some links to sources about the Seeadler in it.

The Revell Seeadler and Gorch Fock kits both are modified reissues of the company's 1958 U.S.C.G.C. Eagle.  As is discussed in that other thread, the kit doesn't really represent the Eagle; it's too short.  I haven't been able to find any really good pictures of the Seeadler, but I question whether she really looked much like any of the three kits.  The real Seeadler was a converted American merchant ship - not a German sail training ship.  One of the links on the other thread contains a pretty clear photo showing the real Seeadler more-or-less in silhouette, and admittedly in that view she does look a lot like the Eagle (or the Gorch Fock).  But I question whether the kit's hull lines and deck layout resemble those of the Seeadler more than vaguely.  The individual modeler, of course, has to decide how important all this is.

I haven't seen any of the three Revell kits for many years, but as I recall there were two major differences between the Eagle and Seeadler kits.  I think the Seeadler had open rowing boats in place of the Eagle's motor launches.  And the biggest, most conspicuous difference involved the mizzen mast.  The Eagle is a barque; the Seeadler was a full-rigged ship.  Revell gave the Seeadler kit a completely different mizzen mast, with yards for square sails on it.

Some sources suggest that Revell added guns to the Seeadler kit.  That may be true, but I don't think so.  I think the original Eagle kit had a pair of saluting guns on the forecastle (which have long since been removed from the real ship), and Revell simply left those parts in place.  I may be mistaken about that, though.

To convert the current Gorch Fock kit to something resembling the old Revell Seeadler would, in other words, require making a new mizzen mast, and its associated yards and rigging, from scratch.  Quite a bit of work for a model that would only approximate the appearance of the original ship.

The folks who have Revell Seeadler kits seem, in general, to have found them on e-bay.  That's about the best source I can suggest.

my greatest thanks mr. Tilley. I also did find a nice drawing of seeadler in german naval history page (http://www.german-navy.de/hochseeflotte/ships/auxcruiser/seeadler/index.html). After observing this and reading your remarks I draw my plan for construction:

1) I will raze the forecastle and cancel the fo'csle deck, will add a small turtleback cover right behind the jibboom as on the drawing.

2) erase the porthole details

3) I will add two cannons to the place shown on the drawing. but İt seems that there is a confusion about the calibre of guns: some sources say 88mm others say 105mm. I need to clear this point.

4) wooden masts modelled to the drawing will be built from scratch. As this is a standart procedure that I followed in the few sailing ships I built, it won't pose any extra problems. I'll also dont bother about mast and spar measurements and will duplicate the plastic ones supplied with the kit.

and as an extra, I may try to convince a master carver that I knew for the figurehead of seeadler

very well, to the shipyard now !