USS Constitution by Revell/Revell Germany

Well, I built that kit several times when I was much younger, but none of them is still in existence.  I have no idea what the total parts count was; the length was in the vicinity of three feet.  And the price (my age is about to show) was $15.00.

I'm at least 95% sure that all the big Revell Constitutions, American, German, and otherwise, are essentially the same kit.  (To my knowledge, the only Monogram Constitution was an extremely small "beginner's kit" with a one-piece hull.)  The initial release didn't have sails; later ones had vac-formed plastic ones.  The beautifully-done crew figures in the first release had been sculpted for the purpose; they had early-nineteenth-century USN uniforms.  For a while the kit was being sold with the same nineteenth-century merchant crew as the Cutty Sark, Thermopylae, Kearsarge, and Alabama kits, but I think the USN guys came back eventually.  And I've heard that recent versions have serious problems with brittle plastic, flash, and other signs of aging molds.  Otherwise I'm quite confident that they're all the same.  Those people are notorious for botching up such things as scales, parts counts, and measurements on their boxes.

I agree with those who think it's the best Constitution kit on the market - at least as far as plastic versions are concerned.  (Bluejacket and Model Shipways both make excellent wood ones.)  And the "copper sheathing" is indeed very well represented.  But the statement about all the rows of plates being parallel to the waterline is incorrect.

A little thought will establish that, given the shape of a ship's hull, for every row of plates to be parallel to anything was physically impossible (unless the plates varied hugely in size and shape - which they generally didn't.)  Because of the ship's hull form, the linear distance on the exterior surface of the hull between the waterline and the keel is considerably greater amidships than at the bow and the stern.  Therefore it takes more rows of plates to cover the midships region than the bow or the stern.

The usual practice in dealing with this problem was to mark a series of "goring belts" on the hull.  The coppering gang would generally start at the keel (exception:  it appears that in the eighteenth-century British Royal Navy they usually started at the waterline) and nailed the plates, which generally measured about 20" x 48", to the hull in rows that were as straight as possible, each row overlapping the previous one by an inch or two.  In a full-bodied ship like the Constitution, the natural result of that process would be that, after the first couple of rows, the rows of plates would start to slope upward at the bow and the stern.  (Think about it.  Remember that, in the midships area, those lower rows of plates would be nailed to a surface that was tilted at a sharp angle.)  So at some point (typically about eight to twelve rows from the bottom) a horizontal line would be marked on the hull.  The workers would cut the sheets of copper so all the curving rows of plates ended at that line.  Then they'd lay a row horizontally, and start the process again. 

All this is harder to verbalize than to visualize.  There's a good, illustrated description of the general principles in George Campbell's excellent book, China Tea Clippers, which fortunately is available on line:    http://www.all-model.com/Clippers/Page60.html

There were variations on the theme at various times and in various nations.  The number of goring belts varied, depending on the hull form (and, I imagine, on national traditions and the judgment  of individual shipwrights).  And sometimes the lower edges of the goring belts were gently curved, rather than straight and horizontal.  It's best to check any pictorial evidence about your particular ship before deciding how to lay out the coppering on a model.

Plastic kit manufacturers have generally done a pretty good job of representing hull plating on sailing ships.  As I recall, both the old Revell 1/192 Constitution and its more recent 1/96 sister have it just about right.  This is the sort of thing that a lot of modelers don't notice.  But if you've ever put the metal sheathing on a model's hull yourself, you know just how complicated a job it is.

The bottom line:  The Revell 1/96 is, bearing in mind its age (it's more than 40 years old now), is one of the best plastic sailing ship kits ever. If you can, get an old one; the plastic probably will be of higher quality.  But in any of its many versions, it's a sound basis for a serious scale model.

Good luck.

I have a few of the Revell older 1/96 kits.  One was the 1976 edition and one I'm working on now is a 1980 release.  Both were the same kits.  I picked up the 1980 release at a thrift store two years ago for $3.

However, at the time, I was interested in the Revell Germany kit so I bought it.  It  was the same kit as my older Revell releases but in a very pretty box, however, I paid over $100 shipped, the plastic was softer, and was full of flash and injector pin marks.  Not what I was expecting to find in a kit at the price I paid, so I sent it back and found the 1980 kit, which in my opinion, seemed to have cleaner molds.  I never have paid attention to part counts, but would be subjective to believe what is printed on the box.

The small Monogram kit the John referred to was part of the "Quick Build" series.  This same kit is now marketed by Revell Germany as both the Constitution and the United States and retails for around $30.  I used to remember these kits being $10 kits that I would build in a few evenings and sell at craft shows as bookends for around $50, and again after buying this kit about a year ago at full retail to put in a shadow box, feel that it is still only worth $10 for the kit seems toyish and has a lot of scale issues.

Monogram did market a large Constitution, which was also the kit made by Imai.  I never had a chance to get this kit but have seen it a few times at my old LHS way back when and remember telling myself that is looked like a much finer molded kit then the Revell, however, I could never vouch for its accuracy, nor, since I already had the Revell kit, could not justify purchasing it.  I do see it on ebay from time to time and after seeing the going rate this kit demands, I wish I had bought it.

Many modelers are complaing about Tamiya reboxing their 1/350 scale warships and inflating the price 150%, but Revell has been doing this practice for more than a decade now with their large sailing kits.

Scott

Very interesting.  I have a vague recollection that some of those beautiful Imai sailing ship kits were marketed briefly in the U.S. by Monogram, but I don't remember a Constitution (other than the little one). 

Imai seems to have been like a comet streaking across the sky of the ship model world.  In just a few years it released quite a few kits, which in many ways set new standards of accuracy, detail, and practical "buildability."  (I've noted several times that, in my opinion, the Imai 1/125 Cutty Sark is the best representation of that ship in kit form - plastic, wood, or otherwise.) Then, sometime in the early eighties (I think) the company went out of business.  I've never seen a comprehensive list of all the sailing ship kits Imai released.  Since I started participating in this Forum I've heard about several that I never saw when they were on the market.

Thanks John and Scott,

I'll quit worrying about whether the big Revell kit is molded accurately and start worrying about what year it was made. ;-)

Cheers, Mike

This may help a little - though not much.  Dr. Graham's wonderful book, Remembering Revell Model Kits, contains an appendix listing the box numbers of all Revell kits from the company's beginnings in the mid-fifties through 1979.  The number on the box of a Constitution kit should at least give you a hint - what the archaeologists call a "terminus ante quam," a date before which you know the particular kit was not molded.  The dates and numbers are as follows:

H-386 - 1965.

H-398 - 1968.

H-396 - 1977 (that's what the book says: the lower number is from the later year), in slighly modified form under the name U.S.S. United States.

H-391 - 1978.

The first issue, H-386, was the only one that didn't have vac-formed "sails."

Dr. Graham's coverage stops with 1979; I suspect the kit has had one or more additional numbers since then.  I rather suspect most of the examples currently floating around were molded after 1979.

Good luck.

jtilley wrote:

I've never seen a comprehensive list of all the sailing ship kits Imai released.

These are the ones I know of (other than the 1/350 range). There may well be more though!

1/120 USS Constitution
1/150 USS Susquehanna
1/150 USCG Eagle
1/70 Golden Hind
1/60 Santa Maria
1/70 Mayflower
1/100 Spanish Galleon
1/120 Cutty Sark
1/150 Le Napoleon
1/150 Nippon Maru/Kawai Maru (I think these two are the same kit?)

jtilley wrote:

This may help a little - though not much.  Dr. Graham's wonderful book, Remembering Revell Model Kits, contains an appendix listing the box numbers of all Revell kits from the company's beginnings in the mid-fifties through 1979.  The number on the box of a Constitution kit should at least give you a hint - what the archaeologists call a "terminus ante quam," a date before which you know the particular kit was not molded.  The dates and numbers are as follows: H-386 - 1965. H-398 - 1968. H-396 - 1977 (that's what the book says: the lower number is from the later year), in slighly modified form under the name U.S.S. United States. H-391 - 1978. The first issue, H-386, was the only one that didn't have vac-formed "sails." Dr. Graham's coverage stops with 1979; I suspect the kit has had one or more additional numbers since then.  I rather suspect most of the examples currently floating around were molded after 1979. Good luck.

I just looked at my two kits.  The older one is the Bicentennial release with a copyright date of 1976, this one has the book and ironically, had H-386 1968 mold date on the kit itself and it did not come with sails, and the blocks were missing but were "borrowed" by the LHS for his display model, which is why he sold it at a discount of $14.95 as per the price tag that is still on the box.  My second kit has a copyright date of 1981 and is kit mold date 1977.  I never did look at the mold date on the kit I ordered from Germany but would now have been interested to see what date was stamped on that kit.

Scott

Wouldn't it be nice if the manufacturers were required by law to indicate - on the outside of the boxes - the dates when their kits were originally released?  I wonder how many innocent customers, reading the announcement of Revell's "new" U.S.S. Arizona, have any idea that the molds used to make the kit are 48 years old.

Regarding Imai kits - with my own very eyes I saw, fairly recently, an Imai U.S.C.G.C. Eagle on 1/200 scale.  (The box was shrink-wrapped, but on the basis of the photos it looked like a typically excellent kit.)  I haven't heard of a 1/150 Eagle, but I certainly don't suggest that it didn't exist. 

I wonder if Imai's problem may have been that it issued too many sailing ships, and issued them too rapidly, for its own good.  (I really think I'd remember that big Constitution if I'd ever seen it.  I'm inclined to think it never made it to the excellent hobby shops where I was hanging out at the time.)  The company's demise sure was a loss to the hobby.

The Imai Eagle I was thinking of must have been the 1/200 one. I knew they made a kit of this ship (other than the 1/350 one) but wasn't sure of the scale, so guessed 1/150, going by the scales of their other kits.

Note, that the 1/96 Revell Constitution , Ref 05602, is still available from German shops.

They ship wolrdwide.Price is around 60 euros.

Seems to be still available as a 1/146 model, and was available as a 1/196 model (the boxart of this one is "déjà vu", it must be the Monogram boxart), it would mean, that we'd find in this Revell box the old Monogram model.

Michel

 

The 1/96 Revell version is in the current web catalogs of both Revell/Monogram and Revell Germany.  Revell/Monogram also currently lists the old 1/192 kit, from 1956.  (Those are, in fact, the only sailing ship its in the current Revell/Monogram list.)

I think the one listed by Revell Germany as being on 1/196 scale is in fact the same one that Revell/Monogram sells with the 1/192 label.  (We've established that Revell Germany takes a remarkably casual approach to scales; remember the Victory.)  And I think the 1/146 one is the old Revell "Quick-Build" version, which Dr. Graham's book lists as being on 1/159 scale.  But I could be mistaken.  The old Monogram version would be easy to spot.  It had a one-piece hull, and each mast consisted of one piece - including lower mast, topmast, topgallant mast, and all the yards.  It was a desperate attempt, at a time when Monogram was on the verge of going out of business, to entice newcomers into the hobby.  The effort was, for the most part, a failure.  (I was working in a hobby shop at the time, and I don't recall selling a single example of either that kit or its companion Cutty Sark.)  Not long after that, Monogram quit making scale models for a while; its remaining products (e.g., "Snoopy and his Sopwith Camel") appeared with the label of the Mattel toy company on the boxes during that period.

About the Monogram models, I could find pictures of the two models in the 1981 Monogram catalogue

The large one (1/120 scale, length 75 Cm) (note, it is shown as "new")

And the small one (was in a group of three, with U.SS. United States and Cutty Sark, no scale shown, length 40 Cm)

Michel

 

The small Monogram models (Cutty Sark, USS United States and USS Constitution) were "fit in the box" size models, length around 40 Cm.

Today, we still can find in the Revell range the 1/146 USS United states, scale 1/146, length 406 mm (Ref 05406), and Cutty Sark (Ref 05401), scale 1/220, length 408 mm.  These are maybe the old Monogram models.

It is harder to guess with the U.S.S. Constitution, in their 1972 catalogue, Revell already had a 1/146 scale model, Ref H-329, length 43 Cm. Though, pictures I could see of a building in progress of this model, make me think, that this is indeed the old Revell model.

Please, note, that the large Monogram USS Constitution and United States models also have a one- piece hull.

Thank you.

Michel

 

Well, Dr. Graham's book says H-329 was indeed a reissue of the old 1956 kit (on or near 1/192 scale).  The "quick-build," medium sized kit, according to Dr. Graham, first appeared in 1969, with the number H-362. 

Sometime in the seventies Revell released a rather nice Cutty Sark, with a length of about 18 inches.  (Please forgive my awkwardness in the metric system.)  It came in the same size box as the Victory, Santa Maria, Bounty, etc.  I'm afraid there's an error in Dr. Graham's book about this one.  He says it was "a reworking of the old H-325 Stag Hound."  I've seen the inside of the box; it's a completely different kit, and a reasonably accurate, though rather simplifed, replica of the Cutty Sark.  I'm reasonably certain this is the kit that's now being sold by Revell Germany with the number 05401.

Those photos of the big Imai/Monogram Constitution and United States are interesting.  Though it's hard to tell from the pictures, it looks like Imai handled the main hatch the same way Revell did in its little 1/192 kit:  by molding it solid, with raised lines indicating the deck beams.  (If the hull was molded in one piece, that would be almost necessary.  Given the ship's tumble home, it would be next to impossible to fit the gundeck into position in a one-piece hull. It looks like these kits, like the little Revell one, had no gundeck.)  Probably not really much competition for the Revell 1/96 kit.

I'm reasonably certain that the Revell Germany "1/146" Constitution and United States kits are in fact the old 1/192 Constitution reincarnated.  (Somebody really needs to tell those people at Revell how the concept of scale works.)  In another thread in this Forum some weeks ago we had some input from a participant who had bought the United States kit.  He confirmed that it was just the Constitution with the name on the stern changed and the Andrew Jackson figurehead changed to a billethead. 

For a while Revell was selling a 1/96 United States.  That kit was slightly modified from the 1/96 Constitution; it did have the "roundhouse" (i.e., raised poop deck) that the actual ship did.  Revell apparently didn't bother to include that refinement in the 1/192 version.

I think the old, small, super-simplified Monogram sailing ship kits are gone.  Good riddance.  Simplification is fine - up to a point.  But somewhere one reaches the point where a model is so simple that it's not worth the trouble to build it.

Just some more words, then I quit, Revell United States Ref 05406, is described on several websites as a "one-piece hull" model ; Cutty Sark, Ref 05401, is described as a "3 parts hull and deck" model.

Michel

 

Well, I've seen the Revell Germany "U.S.S. United States" kit in its box - but not the contents.  The photos on the box clearly show the old 1/192 Constitution from 1956, with the aforementioned modifications to the bow and stern.  It is, however, entirely possible that the photos show something different from what's inside the box.  Revell has been known to do things like that.

What we have here, it seems, is yet another example of Revell Germany's highly creative approach to scales and measurements.  I don't  have the overall lengths (including bowsprits, etc.) of the United States and the Cutty Sark in front of me, but when those two ships are reproduced on 1/96 scale they're almost the same length - about three feet, with the United States being a little longer.  For a model of the United States on 1/146 scale to be two centimeters shorter than a model of the Cutty Sark on 1/220 scale is physically impossible.

I wonder if it's conceivable that, somewhere in the process of preparing the Revell Germany catalog for publication, some idiot got the Revell sailing frigate United States of 1797 mixed up with the Revell ocean liner United States of the 1950s.  That would also explain the reference to the one-piece hull.  If that is indeed what happened, it deserves to go down in history as just about the dumbest stunt yet perpetrated by a model kit manufacturer.

Michel, you did a brilliant job of sorting out the scales and measurements of all the H.M.S. Victory kits.  I'm afraid the vast array of Constitutions and Cutty Sarks would present an even bigger challenge.

John,

I can show you what's in the box of the (no more 1/146, but 1/150) scale USS United States, so you can see the one piece hull, and I am sure that, like me, you'll think this is not the old Revell model :

 

I can read too, that, for Revell's 50th birthday, in september 2006, they will reissue a 1/110 USS Constitution model.  Price will be around 25 - 30 US$ Ref 05600)

 

Michel

 

Very interesting indeed!  This is not any Revell Constitution/United States kit that I've ever seen in the U.S.  I thought it might be the old "medium-sized quick-build" version, but that one had a two-piece hull - and, I'm fairly certain, an open main hatch, with a separate piece to represent the midships section of the gundeck.  And it certainly isn't the old, highly simplified Monogram one, which did have a one-piece hull but was much smaller and had far fewer pieces.

The kit in the pictures seems to have a lot in common with the ones shown in the Monogram ad that Michel posted earlier - the ones that were said to be on 1/120 scale.  Is it conceivable that it's one of those kits?  Or did Imai conceivably make yet another one, on a smaller scale, that made its way into the Revell stable by way of Monogram?

I'll be curious to see what this "1/110 scale" Constitution turns out to be.  Revell, Monogram, and Imai together have released so many, and Revell is so sloppy when it comes to figuring out the scales of its kits, that it would be dangerous to guess.  Of one thing we can be fairly certain, I think:  it will be a reissue of some sort, rather than a genuinely new kit.