Question about the Revell AG 1/146 Constitution kit

Once again, it seems the people running Revell Germany are guilty of false advertising.  We've discussed several other cases of this sort in the Forum.  About the only thing that can be said in defense of the perpetrators is that the mistakes may be honest ones.  I suspect the people responsible for the printed copy that goes on box lids and catalog pages don't understand the basic concept of scale.

I agree completely with EPinniger's assessment of the old Revell Constitution kit.  For its day it was a superb product.  The only competition came from solid-hull wood kits by the likes of Model Shipways, A.J. Fisher, and Marine Models.  Their kits were expensive (by comparison to the $3.00 price of the Revell one), took a vast amount of time to build, and just couldn't be compared to the Revell kit in terms of detail.  The hulls in wood kits of that vintage almost invariably were solid up to the highest full-length deck; the guns on the maindeck were "dummies" (i.e., just the outer half or so of the barrels, with pins cast or turned on the ends to be plugged into holes drilled in the hull).  Those tiny Revell guns, poking out through gunports in the hollow hull halves and with genuine carriages sitting on integrally molded shelves, must have seemed almost unbelievable to fifties ship model enthusiasts.  And that "copper sheathing" below the waterline - wow!

My biggest criticism of the kit concerns the big hatch in the spardeck - the one underneath the boat.  Revell molded it solid.  On that scale it really ought to be possible to look through the hatch down to the maindeck.  A few years later Revell released its H.M.S. Victory, which has two full-length decks.  It would have been nice if the same approach had been applied to the little Constitution. 

Looks like Schoonerbum and I were typing at the same time - and saying pretty much the same things.

We've had quite a few discussions in the Forum lately involving the scales of sailing ship kits.  The bottom line is that the manufacturers in general are extremely casual about this subject, and every figure they put on their boxes needs to be taken with a large grain of salt.  Many of the older kits (and most plastic sailing ship kits are pretty old) were designed to fit in standard-sized boxes, with scale being a  secondary consideration.

There are different ways to measure the length of a sailing ship.  "Overall length," "length on deck," "length between perpendiculars," and "length on the keel for tonnage" all show up in old documents.  I suspect some of the reason for the confusion about the scales of kits originates with people who don't know the difference.

It's also worth remembering that assigning a particular scale to a model assumes that its proportions are absolutely accurate.  Theoretically, if a model is on 1/100 scale its length should be 1/100 of the prototype's length, its beam should be 1/100 of the prototype's beam, and its mainmast should be 1/100 the height of the prototype's mainmast.  If the designer or builder makes a mistake in one of those dimensions, and the person determining the scale of the model happens to pick that dimension as the one to measure, he'll get a different answer than somebody who picks another of the dimensions.  The only way to get a real, reliable reading on the scale of a kit is to compare the parts with a good set of plans.  And plans aren't absolutely reliable.  Two sets of plans for H.M.S. Victory, drawn by different people at different times, aren't likely to be identical.

The point of all this is that if one source says a kit is on 1/146 scale, and another puts it on 1/150 scale, the discrepancy is neither surprising nor worth arguing about.

In fairness we should, I suppose, acknowledge that similar things happen all the time in other phases of the hobby all the time.  Manufacturers routinely label their aircraft kits "1/72 scale" or "1/48 scale," and reviewers in journals like FSM discover that the finished models are a few milimeters too big or too small in length, wingspan, or both.  Yet nobody seriously suggests that the manufacturer ought to label the kit "1/71.5" or "1/49." 

It's hard to be sure without seeing any pictures, but I think what you've got may be the "Quick-Build" Constitution kit from 1969.

Revell has in fact released at least four kits that represent this ship.  (My source for all this is the bible on the subject, Thomas Graham's Remembering Revell Model Kits.)  The first was originally issued in 1956.  It's on about 1/192 scale, about 18" long, and more-or-less represents the ship as she appeared in the 1830s, with raised bulwarks and a figurehead that represented Andrew Jackson.  It's been reissued many times (sometimes with sails, sometimes without; sometimes with plastic-coated thread "shrouds and ratlines," sometimes with injection-molded styrene ones), and is still in the Revell-Monogram catalog. 

The second, and largest, appeared in 1965 and is generally stated as being on 1/96 scale.  (Dr. Graham lists it as 1/108; I'd have to measure it and compare it to a set of plans to form an opinion.)  It's about three feet long, and is based on a set of plans commissioned several years earlier by the Smithsonian Institution.  There are some legitimate questions about some of the details on this kit, but in my opinion it does a pretty good job of representing the ship as she appeared in about 1814.

In the late sixties and the seventies Revell was having financial problems, and took some rather bizarre steps to try to bring new customers into the hobby.  One of these attempts was a series of "Quick-Build" sailing ship kits.  They were (with a couple of exceptions) simplified versions of kits in the big, three-foot series.  They cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $6 or $7 (compared to $12 or $15 for the big kits), and featured one-piece decks, lots of cast-in details, and minimal rigging parts.  (No blocks or other individual rigging fittings.)  Dr. Graham lists the Constitution in that series as being on 1/159 scale, but the scales of plastic sailing ships always seem to be listed inconsistently in references.  In any case, it was a scaled-down version of the three-foot kit, and like that one had a simple "billet head" for a figurehead.  I suspect this may be the kit you've got.  Like the others, it got reissued at least once in a different box.  Dr. Graham lists the kit numbers H-362 and H-357 for it; if yours has one of those numbers, the question is answered.  (If yours has some other number, it may still be this kit.  Dr. Graham's list only goes through 1979; the kit may have been reissued again since then.)

The fourth Revell Constitution, originally issued in 1972, was a "wall plaque" kit - yet another desperate effort to attract new customers.  Part of one hull half was sliced off flat, and the model was mounted on a plaque representing an old map.  If you had that one you'd be in no doubt about it.

I'm a little confused by your reference to a U.S.S. America kit.  The two sister ships of the Constitution were named United States and President.  There was no sailing frigate of that name (though a sailing ship-of-the-line named America was built during the American Revolution and turned over to the French).  I believe Monogram did make a kit representing the modern aircraft carrier America; maybe that's the one on the list you consulted.    

Hope this helps a little.  Good luck.                                                             

Actually the Monogram kit was of the 'United States', a sister ship of the 'Constitution'. Either vessel will be built essentially to the same appearance. The primary difference between the two was that the 'United States' had a 'second story' on the stern galleries, providing a 'round house' (fancy term for cabin on the quarterdeck). I've never seen inside the Monogram 'United States' box, so I can't attest to scale or accuracy.

I would bet that your kit is the old Revell quick build 'Constitution'. To figure it out, measure along the lower deck location on the inside of the hull, from the inside of the stem at the bow to the inside of the rudder post at the stern. For 1/192 scale, this distance should be ~ 10 7/8 inches to 11 inches.  

For  1/146 -1/150 scale this would measure ~14 to 14 3/8 inches.   

If you get a significantly different answer, the scale can be determined by dividing 2100 by whatever length you measure for this feature (technically called 'distance between perpendiculars'). 2100 is 175 feet X 12 inches/foot.  Both Constitution and United States were listed as 175 feet between perpendiculars.