Aurora/SMER "Black Falcon" question

EPinniger wrote:

There seem to be quite a few knowledgeable sailing ship modellers here, so I've another question: Aurora made a kit of a pirate ship called the "Black Falcon" in around 1/150 scale, this has since been re-issued (very cheaply) by the Czech manufacturer SMER. It seems like, given its low cost but reasonably large scale, it'd be a useful kit for learning the detailing + painting techniques used in building plastic sailing ship models. My question is, does this kit actually represent a particular warship (like the Lindberg "Captain Kidd" and "Jolly Roger") or is it simply a generic model of a typical 18th-century pirate vessel?

I will wager this is the Aurora two masted brig from the Lafitte film.

I just received the Aurora Models book. There is a photo of the kit. Hmmm. Lindberg's Wappen von Hamburg/Blackbear/Bluebeard-I forget. Is a gem by comparison.

Looks like an early 1700s hull design. I think brigs are a late 1700s term.

I can't comment on Celestino's theory; I'm not familiar with the movie in question.  He may be right.  I'm aware of two movies that dealt with the life of Jean Lafitte.  Both were titled "The Buccaneer."  The first (according to my trusty DVD & Video Guide 2006) was released in 1938 and starred Frederick March as Lafitte; it was around when the old Aurora kit came out.  The second movie was released in 1958 and starred (brace yourself) Yul Brynner (with hair) as Lafitte and (who else?) Charlton Heston as Andrew Jackson. 

As for the kit - I haven't seen the inside of the box for many years, but I have vague memories of building it when I was in grade school.  It was one Aurora's first products and one of the very first plastic sailing ship kits, originally released in the early fifties.  (Maybe somebody who has Dr. Graham's book on Aurora kits can provide the exact date.)  It was extremely simple; if I remember correctly the main, forecastle, and quarterdecks were all molded in one piece, with integrally-cast bulkheads connecting them.  The "shrouds and ratlines" were injection-molded plastic, and looked awful even to the decidedly non-expert eyes of my older brother and me.  (In retrospect, they probably were no worse than the plastic-coated-thread concoctions Revell included in its sailing ship kits.)  I have no idea what references the Aurora designers consulted - if any.  I'd have to see an actual sample to refresh my memory, but my vague recollection is that it had a distorted hull, completely fictitious ornamentation, and extremely basic plastic sticks for masts and yards.  Frankly I don't think the people responsible for designing it knew much about sailing vessels.  Even in the fifties, modelers tended not to take it seriously.  I'm pretty sure I've seen modified versions of it (or rather pieces of it) in pet stores, forming the basis of "shipwrecks" to be put in aquariums.  My memory of this kit is far from reliable, but from what I do recall of it I'd have a hard time recommending it to anybody other than the fish.

There's a shortage of decent, reasonably accurate plastic sailing ship kits that would be good projects for newcomers.  A handful that I can recommend are currently being sold by Lindberg.  They are in fact very old Pyro kits from the early to mid-fifties:  straightforward but reasonably accurate representations of real ships, dating from a time when the only real competition came from wood kits.  Unfortunately Lindberg (whose executives probably don't know any better) is selling them under labels that don't have much to do with reality, but the labels don't affect the quality of the contents. 

The Lindberg "American Cup Defender" is a reissue of the Pyro fishing schooner Gertrude L. Thebaud, an extraordinarily beautiful ship that would make an excellent newcomer's project.  (As a matter of fact a member of the Forum is working on one at the moment.  The thread is somewhat down the list of topics, but worth looking up - especially for the excellent photos.)  The Lindberg "Independence War Schooner" is a reissue of Pyro's Morris-class American Revenue Cutter from the 1830s - a handsome, historically-important ship that, with two masts and four (or maybe it's six) guns, would be a great way to get into sailing warship modeling.  Pyro's "Civil War Blockade Runner" is Pyro's old American Revenue Cutter Harriet Lane, another historically important ship.  (She was the first successful steam-powered vessel of the institution that evolved into the U.S. Coast Guard, and fired the first shot in the naval phase of the Civil War.  Eventually she got captured by the Confederates and was indeed used for a while as a blockade runner - so in this one case Lindberg's label isn't entirely wrong.)  The Harriet Lane offers the modeler a little bit of everything:  beautiful hull lines, paddle wheels, smoke stack, guns, two masts, and enough rigging to be interesting without being intimidating. 

None of those three kits represents the current state of the art when it comes to detail.  (They were, in fact, based on solid-hull wood kits made by Model Shipways and Marine Models.  The guys who ran Model Shipways referred to Pyro as "Pirate Plastics.")  But with the application of a reasonable amount of skill, some time, and perhaps some aftermarket parts, such as blocks and deadeyes, they can be made into extremely handsome and accurate models.

Two other old Lindberg kits with hokey labels are worth a look.  The "Jolly Roger Pirate Ship" is a reissue of a kit originally marketed as the French frigate La Flore (a ship with an extremely confusing history; some historians question whether it actually existed).  The "Captain Kidd Pirate Ship" originally was the German ship-of-the-line Wappen Von Hamburg.  Both kits originated in the mid- to late sixties, and both, by the standards of that time, were pretty impressive, detailed, and intricate kits.  Several Forum members have built them and gotten impressive results.  Personally, though, I'm a little hesitant to recommend those two for introducing rigging techniques, simply because the original ships were so big and the models are so small.  A ship like La Flore or the Wappen von Hamburg has an enormous amount of rigging; on such a small scale the shrouds and ratlines, for instance, present a major challenge to an experienced modeler.  (Those kits in particular come with shroud-and-ratline assemblies molded in flexible black plastic - not as bad as the Aurora and Revell versions, but not likely to be mistaken for real rope.)  Those old Pyro/Lindberg kits, on the other hand, are big enough, and their rigs are simple enough, that a newcomer can do an extremely realistic job of rigging them in a few weeks. 

One other kit deserves mention in this context.  A couple of months ago the Russian manufacturer Zvezda released a 1/76-scale medieval cog.  That's a north-European vessel used as both a cargo carrier and a warship.  It has one mast, one square sail (frequently decorated with heraldic symbols), and a vast amount of historical importance.  I haven't seen the kit, but at least one Forum member has bought it and has given us an extremely favorable report on it.  The price is high (about $75.00), but it strikes me as a superb newcomer's project.  It has shrouds, stays, braces, a halyard, sheets, tacks, and most of the other standard pieces of rigging - but not many of any of them.  Building a model of a cog would be a great way to - literally - learn the ropes, and produce a handsome decoration for the living room at the same time.  (Zvezda and several other companies make sets of medieval figures in 1/76 scale.  That cog could be populated with knights, lady passengers, and just about any other sort of medieval personage.)

Hope that helps a little.  Good luck.  It's a great hobby.

I have that kit too. It's real crude by today's standards but with some effort it can turn into a real buccaneer brigantine from mid 17th century, and the result may be quite pleasing. things to do are:

1) razing the beakhead and obtaining a blunt bow.

2) building a "real" transom, either from scratch or by modifying the supplied one (opening windows is the first thing to do)

3) razing all the catheads, deck ladders, those parts where spar ropes are tied; right under the masts (sorry I don't know how they are called in english) and gunport lids, then filling the resultant gaps at their places and replacing them with scratchbuilt ones.

4) replacing the four guns supplied. You may also do a superdetailing by cutting real gunports into the two or three molded half-barrel stumps representing the guns not on the open deck and putting properly shaped guns thorough.

5)Adapting a snow rig.

you see, it's  lot of work but the result is a unique model of an historically very important type of ship

 

 

Thanks very much for the replies. Looks like this one isn't really suitable as a "beginner" kit although it can be built into a nice model with some work. I suspected as much given the descriptions I've read of other Aurora ship kits.

I'm primarily a modeller of WW2 and earlier "steel" warships (not to mention planes and tanks), sailing ships are not my main interest, but the reason I'm looking for a sailing ship kit to practice my skills on is that I was given the Revell 1/96(?) Cutty Sark kit a few years ago. This is a huge and complex kit and I don't want to build it until I have some experience at sailing ship modelling. I have a fair amount of experience at building "steel" warship kits but wooden sailing craft presumably require quite different techniques for painting, weathering, detailing, rigging etc.

EPinniger - you're demonstrating a great deal of common sense.  That Revell Cutty Sark isn't a bad kit, though it's awfully old.  (It was released in 1959.  With a retail price of $10.00, it was the most expensive product in the plastic kit industry.)  Its overall shapes and dimensions are on target, and some of the detailing on it is excellent - never really surpassed by any other sailing kit.  (The figurehead, for instance, is beatiful - to my eye a more attractive example of female anatomy than the one on the real ship.)  But there are some inherent limitations to the plastic molding process, and those limitations show up more in sailing ship kits than anywhere else.  Things like belaying pins, blocks, deadeyes, and eyebolts really are best replaced by aftermarket or scratchbuilt parts. 

A few weeks spent on one of those smaller, simpler kits will give you some knowledge - and confidence - in the various skills and techniques necessary to do a good job on a sailing ship.  (In many respects it isn't really much different from building a twentieth-century warship, but there are some differences.)  The learning curves in sailing ship modeling are fairly short, but steep.  Far better to learn the ropes and get some practice on a small, relatively simple project than to start a big one and get dissatisfied with it in six months, because the work you did in month one doesn't satisfy you any more.  And as a fringe benefit, starting with a smaller project will also give you a handsome model to put on the mantle.  Anybody who knows anything about ships knows that "small" doesn't mean "ugly" - or "insignificant."  Those Pyro/Lindberg kits I mentioned earlier in this thread all represent beautiful, historically important ships

Good luck. 

jtilley wrote:

<>The price is high (about $75.00), but it strikes me as a superb newcomer's project.  It has shrouds, stays, braces, a halyard, sheets, tacks, and most of the other standard pieces of rigging - but not many of any of them.  Building a model of a cog would be a great way to - literally - learn the ropes, and produce a handsome decoration for the living room at the same time.  (Zvezda and several other companies make sets of medieval figures in 1/76 scale.  That cog could be populated with knights, lady passengers, and just about any other sort of medieval personage.

For all the German readers out there: The quaterly German magazine "Der Schiffsmodellbauer" dedicated to plastic ship modeling has two articles in its 4/2005 issue. The two articles cover the Zvezda kit of the "Kogge". The first article shows the ship when build straight out of the box.

However, the second article discusses kind of a diorama of the cog. They included some priates and put a lot of decorations (canons, weapons, hucthes, etc.) on deck. For my eyes it looks so good and very realistic from that old time and it would have made it to the cover of fine scale modeler magazine I am sure. I am not arguing the modelled scence shares any historically based reality but your eyes will wonder what is actually possible based on a plastic kit.

Btw: the magazine can be found here: www.navynews.privat.t-online.de.
The content is not too bad. However, there is much left to any standards especially it is not always the case that they will show color photos; instead a lot of articles share only black-and-white photos. However, the two Zvezda articles have color images.

Regards,
Katzennahrung