Suggestions for my first ship!

What do you think about a tugboat?  Those come in about 1/72 sometimes.  I've got one from Linden.  Not a great kit, but with some AM and a good paint job it could probably look really cool.

Nice idea!  Any comments about these:

The red one looks pretty neat.  I've never built a commercial boat, though, so I don't know anything about them.  Could be fun, though.  Maybe a diorama next to a giant cruise ship?

Anyone have an opinion on Revell ship kits?  Is detailing any good?  I know they are not expensive so it is probably poor quality kits!

not at all...one of my favourite ship kits is the Revell Meteor, wonderful detail, and well engineered. The north sea trawler is a little bit lacking, but can be spruced up with some aftermarket or scratchbuilt items.

                  greg

In the course of its 50-year history Revell has released some of the best ship model kits in the world, and some of the worst.  Even more than most companies, this one has ridden a real roller coaster in terms of merchandise quality.

Both the kits in Yann Solo's next-to-last post are quite old, but that isn't necessarily a criticism.  The trawler originated in 1971.  (My source on all this is Dr. Thomas Graham's wonderful book, Remembering Revell Model Kits.)  It originated with the now-defunct Revell of Great Britain; it first appeared in the U.S. in a box labeled "Russian Spy Fishing Trawler Volga."  I don't remember it very clearly, but I think it's generally regarded as a respectable if unremarkable kit - reasonably well-detailed, a reasonably accurate representation of a typical fishing trawler from the mid-twentieth century.

The tugboat is one of my all-time favorites.  It was one of Revell's first ship models, with an original release date of 1956.  It's a scale model of the American west coast harbor tug Long Beach, which is the name the kit had for many years. It's been reissued many times under different names.  (Sometimes Revell Germany has tried to promote it as a generic European tug, but any tugboat enthusiast can identify its distinctively American shape in a second.)  Even by modern standards it's a mighty nice kit - a wonderful, characteristic tugboat shape, lots of detail, and three superb crew figures.  (I've bought several over the years just to get my hands on those figures, who've wound up on sailing ship models.)

I've got the current version in front of me at the moment.  I have three small reservations about it.  One - as one would expect in a 40-year-old kit, there's quite a bit of flash to clean up.  Two - it's molded in bright red plastic.  Most tugs have black hulls and large areas of white or light grey on their superstructures; this one's going to call for several coats - preferably with an airbrush.  Three - there are two ugly, inexplicable plastic lugs sticking out from each side of the superstructure, next to the main deck.  Their original purpose was to anchor a pair of metal screws, which held the superstructure to the deck in the version of the kit that contained an electric motor.  (The superstructure had to come off for battery changes.)  Slice off those four blobs, trim the flash, give her a good, careful paint job, and you'll have a first-rate model.

Hope that helps a little.  Good luck.

 The Fishing trawler kit builds up 14-1/4" long, goes together well, and is a joy to assemble. I used this kit to represent a ship under construction on an N scale (1/160) railroad module. The tug?, I've built two of these, one as a wreck, resting on the bottom in shallow water, on an HO scale module, and one as a 1/87 scale towboat.

  For the "King Kong" ship, I think the Lindberg "North Atlantic Fishing Trawler" would be a better starting point. This kitbash of the Lindberg kit, uses the pilothouse from the "wrecked"tug kit. 

 also in 1/87 scale. I should add, the "towboat" pilothouse, stack, and skylight, are scratchbuilt, and the superstructure has been raised 1 scale foot, with new doors and railings. The "trawler" also has been heavily kitbashed, to represent a 137' coastal frieghter.

Yann Solo wrote:

Nice idea!  Any comments about these:

I have built both of these kits back in the 1980s.  Both kits look really good with some experience for they both had real issues as far as flash, sink hole and ejector pin markings on details, and fit issues.  The hull sides on the trawler were warped really bad and so were the deck house sides on the tug. 

Scott

Both kits look really good with some experience for they both had real issues as far as flash, sink hole and ejector pin markings on details, and fit issues.  The hull sides on the trawler were warped really bad and so were the deck house sides on the tug.

Interesting. The two tug kits, and the trawler kit that I had didn't exhibit the warping you mentioned, "luck-of-the-draw". The other issues?, I guess I've come to expect these. In most of the plastic kits I've built, they've been there.  On the other hand, my Dragon, USS Randolph CV-15 kit didn't have any of these issues. for the older kits, That's what files, sandpaper, and Squadron putty are for. I guess I should qualify my remarks. I do a lot of kitbashing, so the issues of flash, sinkholes,ejector pins, and sometimes totally misshapen parts has become a non-issue for me. I expect to have to do some corrections, so they are not a surprise to me, I simply fix them, or replace them, and go on with the build. I learned the hard way, it comes with the territory.

I also have the Revell tug kit (in the current "Lucky XI" box), and am quite impressed with it (other than the bright red plastic!) given the kit's age - I didn't realise the moulds dated back to the 1950s.
Other than their infamous reboxings (Bounty>Beagle, Cutty Sark>Thermopylae, etc.) and some of their early small-scale WW2 ships which are quite crude, Revell's ship kits, particularly the 1/96 range, must count as some of the best considering the period they were made. Compare the level of detail and number of parts in a 1960s Revell ship with the average model aircraft kit (including 1/48 and even 1/32 scale) from the same period.

A question I have about the Revell trawler kit, which is something I've been wondering for a while - is it suitable for conversion into a WW2 "armed trawler" of the sort used for ASW and convoy escort work?

sumpter250 wrote:

I do a lot of kitbashing, so the issues of flash, sinkholes,ejector pins, and sometimes totally misshapen parts has become a non-issue for me. I expect to have to do some corrections, so they are not a surprise to me, I simply fix them, or replace them, and go on with the build. I learned the hard way, it comes with the territory.

This is more or less my attitude as well, though it depends on the scale of the kit in question; the smaller you get, the more irritating flash, mould lines and sinkholes become - the parts are often so tiny and fragile that it's hard to clean them up without damaging them. I've just finished the Heller 1/400 destroyer Maille-Breze which suffers badly from all 3, and earlier this year I built an Aoshima 1/700 Japanese WW2 destroyer which was an absolute nightmare.
In larger scales (which I prefer anyhow) such as the Revell trawler and tug kits, it's much easier to fix problems with a sharp knife, sandpaper and plenty of filler putty.

Thanks a lot to everyone!  Really usefull information.  I'll take a look at that Lindberg fishing boat and I will probably buy both of these Revell kits also.  I'm not afraid of old kits and if I know in advance that I will have to remove some flash and fill some holes it's not a big deal.  I will look for aftermarket parts for the fishing trawler to spice it up a bit.

Thanks again.

sumpter250 wrote:

Both kits look really good with some experience for they both had real issues as far as flash, sink hole and ejector pin markings on details, and fit issues.  The hull sides on the trawler were warped really bad and so were the deck house sides on the tug.  Interesting. The two tug kits, and the trawler kit that I had didn't exhibit the warping you mentioned, "luck-of-the-draw". The other issues?, I guess I've come to expect these. In most of the plastic kits I've built, they've been there.  On the other hand, my Dragon, USS Randolph CV-15 kit didn't have any of these issues. for the older kits, That's what files, sandpaper, and Squadron putty are for. I guess I should qualify my remarks. I do a lot of kitbashing, so the issues of flash, sinkholes,ejector pins, and sometimes totally misshapen parts has become a non-issue for me. I expect to have to do some corrections, so they are not a surprise to me, I simply fix them, or replace them, and go on with the build. I learned the hard way, it comes with the territory.

That was my point, that these kits require your to "build" them.  Sand to fit and shape parts, or sand off details and add aftermarket or scratcbuild new details.  I would recommend them to a novice as long as they are not expecting  a clean cut, perfect fit out of the box.

With my tug, most of the parts were in the botom of the box and only the flash was on the trees.

Scott

I built that tug recently, it makes a most attractive little model, but not in the red colour scheme.

I removed all the moulded-on detail - ropes, railings etc, and replaced them with plastic rod and thread and that made it quite interesting.

The worst sinkage was around the sides adjacent to each and every bulwark on my kit.  Otherwise a fun and relatively simple project.