More problems with 1:96 Kearsarge

 Hey ,PUBLIUS --- Don,t give up on her !!I,ve got the CONSTITUTION and I have had to do a bunch of corrections ! Of course this is based on photos I took when I walked her decks just before one of the OPERATION SAIL moves . There was a lot that REVELL GOT WRONG!!! This model has been dragging around with me so long I decided this winter I am going to finish it at last . One thing I always do ,no matter who makes the kit , if it,s a sailing ship is REPLACE the masts and spars with those I buy from MODEL EXPO ,BY THE BAG ! The decks usually get replaced with plywood with plank overlays or EVERGREEN GROOVED SHEET with the right spacing .I build in All wood too , but I,ve been limiting it to more modern stuff like lobster boats and tugs . The wood kits of today aren,t any bed of roses either ,regardless of who makes them . J TILLEY made it clear that their instructions etc. leave a lot to be desired .Even with their much higher prices they aren,t the answer either . PERSERVERANCE , DETERMINATION and JUST PLAIN stubborness gets the day. Don,t let the kit defeat you ! when you get it done you can figure in extra pride in the fact ,YOU DID IT RIGHT !!!    tankerbuilder

I built the Kearsarge nearly three years ago, and since then my modelling skills and (especially) knowledge of sailing ships and rigging have increased, so it looks rather flawed to my eyes now (although I admit I made a good job of the painting). I'd like to re-rig my model, but am put off by the horrible fragile plastic deadeye assemblies - several of these snapped when I originally rigged the model.

Here's my original thread (recently "bumped" up to the front page)

Anyway, my fixing the deck seams was more luck than skill, though the painting + weathering of the deck planks helped to hide the seam. I just used Humbrol filler putty (similar to Squadron white putty) and sanded it smooth afterwards.

To paint the decks, I first painted them with a base coat of Revell acrylic Earth Brown, then, when dry, heavily drybrushed Revell Stone Grey over this, in the direction of the planking. Next I added a black oil wash to the whole, and lightly drybrushed a bit more Stone Grey over the top once the wash had dried. I still use the same technique today to represent weathered teak deck planking.

I don't think Revell acrylics are available in the USA, but Earth Brown is a medium-to-dark brownish-grey colour, and Stone Grey is a pale cream/yellowish-grey colour, more or less the shade of bleached teak planks.

 

Folks:

Ed Pinninger did a great job on the Kearsarge (I think from the R of G re-issue of the kit) and had a thread about his build a year or so ago, so I'm not sure that the kit is entirely defective.  I was really impressed that Ed had done a beautiful job of realistically painting the deck and hiding the seams between the three deck pieces.  I see the he still posts in the Forum from time to time and would recommend e-mailing him for advice on the kit - at the very least please check out the old thread for his work on the decks.

I also recall a thread pointing to a detailed article on the differences between the actual Kearsarge and the Alabama and the steps that could be taken to improve either Revell kit. 

Good luck!

Mike

     

Jorit, I am in the middle of my Kearsarge and had deck problems. I used sprue to make one piece out of the three and found the result stayed flat and fit pretty well. I had been fooling with the width of the deck for some reason and ended up sliding the deck back to cover the gap in the rear and in so doing threw off my foremast rake and the side egress ladders too. Watch for that. I had to do some cutting and filling at the bottom to fix the rake. Now I'm pondering the ratlines and the positions of the planks that anchor the deadeyes. It seems like maybe from about 1870 on the planks were raised up to the lower of the 2 trimlines on the hull. The photos are blurry concerning rigging and deadeyes so I might just "do my own thing" with positions. All this started when I noticed some pin racks didn't seem level. I cut off one of the pins and adjusted when I glued on. Then I noticed the same problem with the center 2 deadeye clusters. The rear one didn't seem to match the level of the first. Maybe you think I'm splitting hairs, but as a house builder I used to straighten things for a living, so in a way I can't stop! Look at the holes on the hull. They are way off the line of the plank's seam. Enough for now. This is my first post. I'm thinking of publishing my build notes on eBay or in the magazine to help others get their kit done. One last note. It seems Revell wants the eyebolts in the deck to face to the side. That is, the holes are pointed to the side and not forward. I was very carefull about this and also got a good glue joint for strength. Then what do I see in the original photos? Revell goofs again!   All the eyebolts seen on the sides of the deck have the holes faceing fore and aft!!!!!!! AAAAAAaarrrrg!!! Finished for now, really. Paul

I built the CSS Alabama last year. Yes the little angle piece that goes into the hole is only on one side. Do not chop it off. Lay out the bottom of all 3 masts (six pieces) to make sure you have the right parts together. Then glue them. I would suggest as always Tenax 7R as a "Glue".

 

They are meant to have a rake as JTilley says, and the small angle piece will help place all 3 of them at the same angle. 

I agree this kit is a far cry from the original version in the 60s, which I have built twice and still have my 1971 attempt. Which is just as well because now, on my third attempt, the rigging instructions are impossible to follow. To anyone thinking  of building this kit: do ALL the RUNNING rigging first. It used to be an article of faith that one did the standing rigging then the running rigging. If you do it in this order (as I have tried to) you will grind your teeth to powder. It is simply not possible to get to the pinrails behind the masts once the shrouds and backstays are in place, no matter how long the tweezers are. Also, leave off the davits, boats and funnel till ALL the running rigging is done or you will snap every davit. The quality of the plastic is atrocious. I have snapped masts, yards and the bowsprit with minimal pressure, something I do not recall happening in my previous two goes at this ship. Every block needs its hole to be re-bored so thread will pass through and the pins on the pinrails are far too short to wind lines around. My next project will be the new Lindberg Sea Witch, and it seems to be made of excellent plastic, great instructions and a larger scale.   

jwintjes,

Batavia was released in 1996.

Bill Morrison

According to my policy of buying every nicely engineered sailing ship hull between 20-70 centimeters long; I had the choice between both Bounty and "Beagle"(!). Altough I knew that the latter oddity had nothing related to the real Beagle, her more "modern" apperance appealed me much more and I bought her. If you close your eye to the name written on the box, I think the kit can be built as a very pretty small merchant ship from the first half of 19th century or something related. My intention is to modify her as Herman Melville's "Pequod" by following the decription in the "Moby Dick"

All my Best

Very interesting!  My miserable (and extremely rusty) German isn't up to the task of translating that entire thread, but I think I get the gist of it.  (I've probably missed some of the fine points, though.)

I don't think we should be too hard on Mrs. Darling.  I've never actually studied her book about the Beagle, but I've seen references to it in several other sources.  I just did a Google search on her name, and came up with, among other things, her obituary from the New York Times.  It seems she had quite a reputation as an illustrator.  She and her husband, Louis, worked as a team, making pictures for a wide variety of books on scientific subjects - and an edition of Kenneth Graham's wonderful children's book, The Wind In the Willows. 

According to the Times, Mrs. Darling's study of H.M.S. Beagle occupied her for some twenty years and was published in 1984.  According to Dr. Graham's book on the history of Revell, the spurious Revell "Beagle" kit first appeared in 1961.  (That's consistent with my memory.  I recall building it when I was in elementary school.  Even then I was able to figure out that it was the Bounty with a few altered pieces.)  It looks like we can absolve Mrs. Darling for what Revell did - though I suppose it's possible that something happened in the other direction.  She may have looked at the Revell kit and taken it more seriously than she should have.  I'm inclined to doubt that, though.  It's hard to believe that anybody who had even a general familiarity with the subject wouldn't recognize the hull of the Bounty in that box.  And there's never been any great secret about the basic configuration of the real Beagle.  She was a member of a class of brigs, whose plans have always been available through the National Maritime Museum.  I'm sure there's room for some argument about the modifications that were made to her prior to the Darwin voyage, but nobody who did any serious research about her could possibly think her hull lines wer identical to those of the Bounty.

I think what we're talking about here is not an error of scholarship but a simple, straightforward marketing scam.  Revell got into the habit of reissuing kits with new names quite early in its history.  (The first Revell ship kit, the U.S.S. Missouri, had been on the market less than two years when it was reissued with the name New Jersey on it.  And even at that early date Revell managed to screw it up.  The original box and painting instructions for the New Jersey kit featured the Missouri's famous dazzle camouflage scheme, which the real New Jersey never wore.)  Revell's twentieth-century warship kits have been issued under so many names that it's hard to keep track of them.  (Sometimes the names are those of sister-ships; sometimes not.)  The Eagle got modified and reissued as the Seeadler, the Kearsarge as the Alabama, the Cutty Sark as the Thermopylae, the Flying Cloud as the Stag Hound, etc., etc.  My guess is that somebody in the Revell front office back in 1961 concluded that there was a market for a Beagle kit, figured out that the Bounty sort of looked like her from a distance, and told the designers to get busy.

Other companies, of course, have done similar things.  Pyro notoriously reissued its U.S.S. Olympia as the U.S.S. Maine, and I couldn't begin to sort out the various boxes and bizarre configurations in which Heller sailing ship kits have appeared.

I know of only one instance when this sort of tactic backfired on the manufacturer.  Sometime in the early eighties Revell re-released its Type VII U-boat, which had originally appeared as U-47, in a box labeled "U-505."  U-505, of course, is the Type IX boat that's preserved at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago; apparently Revell was counting on sales in the museum gift shop.  Apparently the market was a little more perceptive than Revell had realized.  Quite a few modelers noticed that the model didn't look like the submarine they'd seen at the museum, the gift shop stopped carrying the kit, and Revell withdrew it from circulation.  That incident isn't described in Dr. Graham's book, whose coverage ends in 1979.  I wonder what those "U-505" kits are worth on the collectors' market.

Katzennahrung wrote:

I wrote Revell of Germany an email today that I would liked to hear from an engineer at the company why they are praising the Revell Beagle kit for the Beagle.

I know we are going off-topic and I am sure Revell will not answer me.

However, there is an interesting thread on a German online forum regarding Revell its faked Beagle:

http://modellboard.de/thread.php?threadid=11151&sid=eb573ed4d89d920a09105141e3fe0c80

The first two images depict the drawings of the Beagle and Bounty, respectively.

However, further down the thread there is a very interesting posting:

==
Alle Modellbaukästen die es gibt (auch die hölzernen, ich glaube von Mamoli gibts einen) sehen aus wie die Bounty - auf irgendeiner Internetseite hatte ich schon mal darüber geschrieben - und das ging wohl auf eine fehlerhafte Rekonstruktion der anscheinend renommierten Marinehistorikerein Lois Darling zurück.
Diese hatte den Fehler begangen, die Proportionen der Beagle Skizzen aus dem Reisebericht zu ernstzunehmen. Sie hatte nicht begriffen, daß Beagle eine Kriegsbrigg der Cherokee - Klasse war, und folglich sah "ihr" Schiff mehr wie ein Walfänger aus
==

The poster states that there were indeed some confusion regarding the drawings of the Beagle and this was due to the historian Ms. Lois Darling.

All the kits thus far either plastic or wood are based on the wrong assumption of Lois Darling.

Regards,
Kater Katze Felix

jtilley wrote:

I hope somebody sends a copy of this entire thread to Revell Germany.  I'm not at all sure anybody in the firm would bother to read it, though.

I wrote Revell of Germany an email today that I would liked to hear from an engineer at the company why they are praising the Revell Beagle kit for the Beagle.

However, I am still wondering whether the original poster had a lemmon kit. Heller for example includes a sheet of "flash service" in all its kits. One can send to them a filled out sheet for requesting for replacement parts.

Revell seems to be different in this respect. Although, I have to confess that I never needed such a flash service whether in the Revell nor in the Heller kits.

It would have helped if the original poster would have posted some pics of the bad kit. Maybe others with some experience would have decided then  what is going wrong with the kit if at all.

Regards,
Kater Katze Felix

Rayers,

personally I think it's still doable. Perhaps the first edition, so to say, of the Alabama is much better, but the 1980s release isn't much better than the Kearsarge. A maior obstacle might be the three-piece deck, which will probably be impossible to fit properly without causing either noticeable seams or sanding off details; as the tracks for the pivot guns have to be relaid anyway, I'll replace the deck entirely anyway.

Good luck with your project.

Jorit

Dang, I was thinking of buying a Kearsarge so that I could combine its parts with the hull of my Revell Alabama kit and build a halfway decent 1864 Kearsarge (I already have a set of the Steve Nuttall turned brass guns). Is it really that irredeemably bad? I suppose I could look for an older version molding on eBay; perhaps the re-release has finally driven prices down there.

The quality control at Revell seems to be odd - my Kearsarge, while visibly from an old mould, doesn't have more flash than I would expect from such a kit; fit, as far as I have experienced up till now, is not something to enthuse about, but it's not that bad either. I have to admit that most of the smaller parts are already in the spares box, though. My Alabama, which is an older release from the 1980s, looks pretty similar as far as flash and general quality of plastic is concerned. As for Revell's company policy in general, I'm torn between outrage at such blunders as the Beagle "kit" and gratefulness for the Batavia, which, while probably not being a close representation of the original Batavia, is a pretty good model of the modern reconstruction, and one that's less than two decades old (I think it's from the early 1990s). In the case of the Kearsarge and the Alabama the main problem is that the kits themselves are so inaccurate that reworking them would effectively have meant making them anew, something that isn't very likely to happen. By the way, while I personally find the new naval figures a little bit uninspiring, they seem to be quite close to 1/72 - well, if you accept that most of the crewmen were about 1,8m.

Jorit

I agree with Tilley.

Reissuing an old kit from an old mold is ok with me: I can understand that Revell cannot create new molds for every kit they own, it would just cost too much money, and I'm quite gratefull to be able to build a kit that has only been issued by one company - the alternative would be scratchbuilding (yuk).

But this doesn't mean that the company can continue to do the same clearly identified mistakes over and over again, for decades. If molds can't be changed easily, instructions can however, especially when they are notably inaccurate. I really don't understand why people at Revell don't listen to their customers a little more, especially if the mistakes are clearly identified and well-known, and use the opportunity of a reissue to modify the instructions.

Same can be said on the announced scales of the kits, which are usually wrong. It seems Revell doesn't pay attention to the real thing - or don't have enough modelists in their teams. Even a kid could figure out the scale if he knows the length of the real ship and that of the kit. Yet Revell keeps making "mistakes" on scales.

Example: I have just taken a look at Revell's "German navy figures", scale 1/72, first released in 2005 (i.e. recent). On the back of the box there is a drawing showing how the figures should be painted, and there's another illustration showing the "original sizes" of the figures. On the drawing, the height of a figure is exactly 3.2cm; whereas the real plastic figure represented by the drawing is only 2.7cm tall.

I know, this drawing is not really important, but it shows that even in 2005, Revell still continues making what I would call blunders. It shows that Revell still - partly - keeps its 70s mentality and lacks the seriousness one would expect in 2006 from model kit makers...

I love Revells 's kits nonetheless, especially their collection of naval kits!!!

All this makes a mighty sad commentary on the state of the hobby.  Revell Germany is a fine, progressive company that makes outstanding, state-of-the-art kits - as long as one sticks to its aircraft lines.  I gather some of its modern warships are also excellent.  But the company's sailing ship department consists entirely of reissues, based on 40- or 50-year-old kits that, in many cases, didn't represent the state of the art when they were new.  And it's become perfectly obvious that the people responsible just don't care about those kits - or the customers who buy them.

Apparently the company became aware, somehow, that there was a market for that old Kearsarge kit.  (Maybe - though it's rather hard to believe - somebody in management actually took the trouble to read Dr. Graham's book on the history of Revell.)  So now they've produced a reissue of it whose quality control is so bad that the thing drives conscientious modelers out of the hobby.

I hope somebody sends a copy of this entire thread to Revell Germany.  I'm not at all sure anybody in the firm would bother to read it, though.

Jim,
It takes a lot of time and patience to make one of these Revell kits into a nice model.  The ROG kits are a far cry from the older kits and I feel that they are a waste of money for ROG never put a dime into improving the kit nor updating the molds.

I got a ROG 1/96 Constititution about a year ago that I paid almost $90 for.  Now I have built this kit several times from kits that were released in the 60's and 70's, and yes they had a share of flash, poor fit, and cheesey details,   yet were fun builds.  However, the defects were not even close to the problems the new release had.  Most of the parts were encased in flash, and most of the hull and deck was damaged with injector marks far worse than the older releases.
The instructions too were different from the older releases.
I packed it up and sent it back.

I have built the Alabama a few years ago and really enjoyed that kit.  It too was an old release.  I have been tempted to buy the latest release but again am afraid that I may end up with a poorly molded dog.

Scott

No, Jim, do not go to the dark side! Keep it around as a benchmark to how far your skills develop as you keep modeling. I've only been back into it about a year, but I look at my first effort, a 1/700 resin Victory cargo ship, and smile, and think, Man, have I come a long way!

  I hope you aren't serious about that !  Some of my favourite models are the worst pieces of cr*p I've ever built...sure, shove it onto a back shelf if you have to, but hang on to it...worst case scenario: take pics, and write up a review of all of the faults, so those of us who tackle it come into the game forwarned.  Or, you could always give it to a neighborhood kid as a pool toy...

 

                             greg

I worked around the problem, carved the masts until they fit. Now I'm into the rigging. What a joke! The eyeholes on the bowsprit are two small for the line, the blocks  are too small for the line.  In one case the drawings show to thread the line through one notch on a piece attached to the mainmast,there is no such notch.

I'm going to finish working on this kit by the end of the wek. Then the boat goes into the trash and I'm on to my wood models.

sumpter250 wrote:

I fully concur. It seems that many of those chased from sailing ship modeling have come to model railroading. They are so discouraged by the kit quality, that they are demanding, and getting, ready to roll. As a result, it's getting harder every day, to find kits of any quality, in model railroading, to build. On the up side though, for all the defects in plastic kits, there is, at least, an apparent unending supply of razor saws, and Evergreen, and Plastruct styrene strips, rods,sheets, and shapes, as well as Squadron putty, sandpaper, files, paints, and all the other goodies that are dear to a scratchbuilder's heart. Pete

Hello: It depends, I stared out with wood model kits and was always in the believing due to other oppinions that wood model ships are only worth to consider.

However, Prof. jtilley and other in the forum gave me the motivation to stick to plastic ship model kits. Some simple facts as for example often better detailing in plastic kits at particular scales etc. are often more than neglected by the wood kit fraction.

Surely, plastic ship kits share some bottlenecks too. However, I had never imagined that plastic ship kits will please me more than wood ship kits.

Regards,
Kater Katze Felix

Sailing ship modeling is a great hobby with a great tradition.  It really bothers me that the current generation of manufacturers, through a combination of ignorance, incompetence, lack of quality control, and lack of interest, is chasing so many people out of it.

I fully concur. It seems that many of those chased from sailing ship modeling have come to model railroading. They are so discouraged by the kit quality, that they are demanding, and getting, ready to roll. As a result, it's getting harder every day, to find kits of any quality, in model railroading, to build.

On the up side though, for all the defects in plastic kits, there is, at least, an apparent unending supply of razor saws, and Evergreen, and Plastruct styrene strips, rods,sheets, and shapes, as well as Squadron putty, sandpaper, files, paints, and all the other goodies that are dear to a scratchbuilder's heart.

Pete

Just a small side note on this kit: While it builds into quite a spectacular model, it's pretty difficult to build any correct representation of the Kearsarge straight out of the kit. The Kearsarge was refitted several times during her career, and the Revell kit is a mixture of different fits. In the mid 1870s (I don't have my references with me at the moment) the Kearsarge was dramatically rebuilt, including a new rig and a corrected sheer; another refit followed late in the 1880s. The following points are maior problems:

1) hull - the Revell kit has the post-1870 hull, which means that for a 1864 Kearsarge you either have to do some heavy cutting, filing, puttying and sanding or take an Alabama hull as a starting point - currently I think that's probably the easier way. The forecastle deck has to be corrected as well.

2) armament - all the guns in the Revell kit are incorrect for 1864 - instead of two 10" Dahlgrens, a small bow Pivot and 4 32pdr the kit gives you two 11" pivots and what I think are four 9" broadside guns, which again is suitable for a ~1880s Kearsarge. Steve Nuttall makes a fabulous set of turned brass barrels for the 1864 Kearsarge, which I cannot praise highly enough; they are based on drawings in A. C. Roberts' series of articles on a correct 1864 Kearsarge. These by the way (they were published in the Nautical Research Journal vol. 44 and 45) I would consider as the best reference that's out there on a 1864 Kearsarge, together with the relevant chapter in Canney's Old Steam Navy.

3) rig - the Revell kit comes with (almost) a full ship rig, which is incorrect for her war service, when her rig was considerably lighter. A lot of minor details on her rig are also incorrect (if I remember correctly, she was fitted with experimental steel fasteners for her shrouds). Again, the Roberts articles are essential here.

4) smaller details - most of the deck detail, deckhouses and boats are incorrect for a 1864 Kearsarge. Getting suitable boats might pose a minor problem, as they probably have to be scratchbuilt, to me the biggest problem however seem to be getting the tracks on which the pivot guns run right - I find this to be quite tricky to do.

Now, this may sound like it's not exactly easy to build a correct 1864 Kearsarge from the Revell kit, and that's indeed more than true. However, apart from taking the difficult route of rebuilding the kit one could also try to turn her into a post-1870s Kearsarge. For such a model most of the details are correct, as are armament, rig and hull. One has to add a raised quarterdeck as well as a raised conning station, though. Nonetheless this might be easier than getting a 1864 Kearsarge, and it surely produces an interesting model!

Jorit

Some weeks ago I could buy an old Revell catalogue (1972-1973, BeNeLux edition), with the price list still included.

And, imagine, then the price of a 1/72 scale Spitfire was 29,-BEF

The price of the Spanish Galleon, Constitution with sails and Man o'War was 1440,-BEF

The price of Kearsarge was 1250,-BEF

It just means that today, these models would be sold between 250,00 U.S.$ and 300,00 U.S.$

Michel

 

It sounds like Revell is shooting itself in the foot.  Modelers begged the company for years to reissue the Kearsarge kit.  The bible on the subject, Thomas Graham's Remembering Revell Model Kits, describes it as "today's most sought-after Revell sailing ship."  The announcement of the reissue from Revell Germany was greeted with rejoicing that could be heard all over the web.  But it sounds like the company's quality control has reached the level where the kit is almost unbuildable.

I wonder whether the people currently in charge of Revell Germany know what's going on here.  The firm's ship catalog is loaded with reissues of old kits that seem to have been chosen at random.  The scales listed for some of those kits are utterly irrational.  (We've had a lengthy discussion of that question here in the Forum in the context of the two Revell H.M.S. Victory kits.  It's pretty obvious that the people who wrote the copy for the boxes and the catalog had no idea what the actual scales of those kits are.)  Nobody with any genuine interest in ship models, or the slightest sense of professional ethics, would have sanctioned the re-release of the old Revell "H.M.S. Beagle."  It's a slightly modified version of one of the industry's very first sailing ship kits, H.M.S. Bounty.  The real Bounty and Beagle bore virtually no resemblance to each other.  The original "Beagle" issue, in 1961, was one of the most disreputable scams in the history of the plastic kit industry; it deserved to be buried and forgotten.  Now Revell Germany has revived it.  I wonder if the people responsible have any conception that they're deceiving and bilking the public.  If Revell Germany insists on repackaging 30-year-old kits, why not the Golden Hind?  Or the Mayflower?  Or the Charles W. Morgan?  Or the Viking ship?  Those were good kits - and genuine scale models.

I've always been a big booster of plastic sailing ship kits.  I've lost track of how many times I've made the observation, "most plastic sailing ship kits are junk, and most wood sailing ship kits are worse."  In my opinion a good plastic kit is at least as good - and legitimate - a basis for a serious scale model as any wood kit on the market.  But when major companies like Revell pull stunts like this, they rob me of my arguments.  They have, to all intents and purposes, stopped making new sailing ship kits.  (The last genuinely new one from Revell of the U.S. was that nice little Viking ship, which was released in 1977.  The exact date of the first Revell plastic kit is a matter of some interpretation, but it was somewhere around 1951.  The company has now been out of the sailing ship business for well over half of its existence.)  The same goes for Airfix and Heller; people who've bought their sailing ship kits recently tell horror stories of brittle plastic, warped parts, poor fit - and high prices.  Lindberg is selling a range of 40- and 50-year-old reissues of Pyro kits, most of them under stupid names.  (An "America's Cup Defender" with stacks of fishing dories on its deck. Yeah, right.)  The admittedly small fraternity of plastic sailing ship model enthusiasts has to either put up with this crap or rely on swap meets and E-bay.  I can't blame anybody who decides to give up on the plastic sailing ship kit.

I will take the liberty of offering one major suggestion about wood sailing ship kits, though.  The vast majority of them, considered as replicas of real vessels, are utter garbage sold at outrageous prices.  The market is dominated by companies from continental Europe (Mamoli, Amati, Corel Artesania Latina, Mantua, Euromodel, Panart, and a couple of others) who seem to have no conception of what a scale ship model is.  Their products are characterized by miserable or non-existent research, shoddy materials, irrational assembly methods, lousy plans and instructions, generic fittings (used over and over again in different kits, regardless of whether they're appropriate or not), and extravagant prices.  Anybody who's interested in scale modeling needs to avoid those...things...like the plague. 

I've said things like this more than once in this Forum, and I always feel obliged to add a caveat:  the products of those companies undoubtedly vary in quality, and I've seen some nice models based on them.  But I continue to contend that they do far more damage to the hobby than they do good for it.  If you think the instructions for the Revell Kearsarge leave something to be desired, take a look at a Mantua or Mamoli instruction manual.  And if my opinions of those continental manufacturers seem harsh, take a look at this article from the Nautical Research Journal:  http://www.naut-res-guild.org/piracy2.htm

I'm aware of four companies that make genuine, scale wood sailing ship models in kit form.  One is a British firm called CalderCraft, also known as Jotika.  I've never seen a Calder kit in the flesh, but on the basis of ads and reviews it's clear that these are genuine, well-designed scale models - though expensive.  (Calder's 1/72-scale H.M.S. Victory costs about $1,000.)  The other three are American companies that have been around for decades:  Bluejacket, Model Shipways, and A.J. Fisher.  (The latter was out of business for a long time, but has recently come back to life under new management.)  There's some variation in the quality of all those firms' offerings; that's inevitable.  But the people who run them know what scale modeling is about. 

Scale sailing ship modeling is a great hobby with a great tradition.  It really bothers me that the current generation of manufacturers, through a combination of ignorance, incompetence, lack of quality control, and lack of interest, is chasing so many people out of it.

thanks Prof. Tilley-
actually you answered a question I didn't ask,which was about the rake. I inserted the lower foremast section (I guessed as to which pieces to use) and couldn't decide whether I want a rake or not. The hole is too large so the rake will occur unless I plug the hole. I'll do that.

I've emailed Revell but with no response. I bought the kit just last fall,but I don't know when it was actually manufactured. 

I realize that these kits are probably coming from old molds,so there will be defective pieces now and then. But what really irks me is that the company can't update the instructions,at least by inserting a separate page of errata.  I've found a large number of mistakes-pieces wrongly identified,either by number or by picture, instructions out of order,etc..

When I finish this I'm going on to wood kits.  I may be wrong,but I think the wood kits are more flexible since so many of the parts need to be shaped and formed right out of the box.  I'd rather have a block of wood where I know I have to make a boat out of it than to have a fragile,detailed piece of plastic that doesn't fit the hole. Just a personal preference.

This sounds like a weird one.  It's been a long, long time since I built that kit - and of course the one I built was from the original U.S. issue.  I don't remember much about it, but I think the attachment pegs on the bases of the masts were in the form of hefty, D-shaped or T-shaped pins, half of the pin on each half of the mast.  They were, I think designed to ensure that the modeler could only put each mast in the right hole.

Each mast probably is supposed to have a little bit of rake to it (i.e., is supposed to lean backwards a little).  I'm not familiar enough with the ship to be sure about it, but typically the foremast would have little if any rake, the mainmast slightly more, and the mizzenmast still more.  (I'm not a hundred percent sure of that in the case of this particular ship.  Not all warships of the period had raked masts.)  The mounting pins should establish the rake.

I guess my best suggestion is to put the mast halves together temporarily (maybe with tape), being sure to eliminate any possibility that any of them are mixed up.  (As I remember, the fore and main lower masts of that ship are almost the same height - maybe exactly the same.)  Then see what happens when you try to plug the pins into the deck.  That exercise may solve the mystery.  If not - if the pins just plain won't fit - you've got some defective parts.  They probably can be fixed one way or another, but be careful:  those are mighty important joints.  If the lower masts aren't sturdy, rigging the model will be a mess.

I'm afraid I haven't helped much.  Maybe some other Forum member who has a specimen of the new German issue can do better.

Hello: I am just curious: when did you buy the kit? Is it an old release? Did you ask Revell for replacement?

Regards,
Katzennahrung

Sorry, I should have mentioned this is the Revell AG kit.