Sails

Here is a link to a discussion of real cloth sails.

http://www.finescale.com/FSM/CS/forums/350912/ShowPost.aspx

That post cited by Powder Monkey contains about everything I have to offer on the subject of sails.

I've never bought or used any of the sails Model Expo sells, but I've seen some of them and read some Internet discussions of them.  Frankly, they have a pretty rotten reputation.  The consensus among the modelers who've bought them seems to be that they're crudely made, out of scale, and overpriced.

In any case, it's highly unlikely that such a product would fit anything but the kit for which it was designed.  The very fact that a kit is being describedd as being on 1/93 scale says a good deal about the manufacturer.  It's almost certainly one of those continental European plank-on-bulkhead companies (Corel, Mamoli, Amati, Artesania Latina, etc.).  Their products in general don't get much respect from serious scale modelers.  (I don't happen to be a fan of any of the continental European plank-on-bulkhead companies - but that's another topic.) 

A couple of caveats are in order.  First - Model Expo sells the products of several manufacturers, and I'm sure their products vary in quality.  Second - as mentioned in that other thread, I'm fairly heavily biased against "set" sails on ship models.  I've seen some models with set sails that were done pretty effectively - but I haven't seen many.  I decided a long time ago to leave the images of ships bowling along in the sunshine under billowing sails to the marine painters - and my own imagination. 

Much of the above obviously falls in the category of personal opinion; take it with a huge grain of salt.  But I'm pretty sure that buying a set of sails from Model Expo in the hope of fitting them to a Revell kit would be a waste of money - and quite a bit of it.  The Revell Constitution has its weaknesses, but it's a serious scale model.  The vast majority of those continental kits don't fit any reasonable definition of that term.  I have, in fact, wondered more than once whether the people running those companies really know what a scale model is.

Good luck.

I agree totally with Prof. Tilley's comments above, from the quality of European kits to the fact that the sails will not fit due to the difference in scales. I add a couple of comments of my own, good looking sails are incredibly difficult to model, and they tend to hide details on the model.

Al Blevins

Sail making in itself is part of the art of building model sailing ships.  We have done a lot of experimenting in this area using all types of mediums in order to achieve a look that is complimantary of the model.  Cloth, foil, rayon, nylon, silkspan, tissue, and paper.  A technique I have been practicing is with using regular typing paper that I found very interesting from this thread
http://www.finescale.com/FSM/CS/forums/560162/ShowPost.aspx

Being able to make your own sails allows you to make the sails in different positions.  Not all sails are set in the blowing configuration.  Some are reefed, some are half set, and some are full.  Making them so that they are not all set full makes the model appear more robust instead of distracting.

Scott

I took a look at the Model Expo website.  Apparently Mamoli advertises a long list of sail sets to match its kits - but the vast majority of them are marked "out of stock."  That includes the set for the Constitution, which is priced at something like $150. 

As may be obvious by now, I am not a fan of Mamoli - or any of those other continental plank-on-bulkhead kit manufacturers.  Different strokes for different folks; I know a lot of people get pleasure from building those kits, and it's not for me to tell them they shouldn't.  Irrespective of their accuracy and quality, though, I have the strong impression, on the basis of internet discussion groups, that their distribution and customer service systems are miserable.  If Model Expo marks most of those sail sets as "out of stock," there's an excellent chance that the manufacturer has, without bothering to tell anybody, quit making them.

I feel obliged to emphasize one big caveat.  There are some good wood ship kit companies out there.  In my too-frequent diatribes against those p-o-b firms I always try to remember to put the word "continental" before "European."  CalderCraft (aka Jotika) is an excellent British company that makes first-rate (though expensive) kits on the plank-on-bulkhead system.  And there's at least one German firm - whose name I fear I've forgotten at the moment - making what appear to be outstanding plank-on-frame kits.  (The difference between the plank-on-frame and plank-on-bulkhead systems is considerable.)  Unfortunately, neither of those companies' products are widely distributed in the U.S. - and Model Expo doesn't carry them.

Thanks for the links and your info guys.  It's a big help and timesaver.  I'll read the other threads and do some experimenting.  I never could get used to those vacu-formed sails..

I have heard good things about these sails

http://home.comcast.net/~f190/Sails.html

Check www.drydockmodels.com for reviews. The price does not seem bad either.