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viking ship

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  • Member since
    December 2005
  • From: rochester,ny/karlsruhe,germany
Posted by gordy92highlander on Sunday, August 13, 2006 11:08 AM

Thanks a lot for all the info. I kinda sorta had the feeling that the ship was about 1/72 but wasn't sure.

By the way, The reason I bought this ship long ago(aside from fact that I was viking-mad) were the figure head/tail on her. I too thought they looked very realistic, or better said- plausible !

  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Saturday, August 12, 2006 2:19 PM

The kit is based (according to the bible on the subject, Dr. Graham's Remembering Revell Model Kits) on a replica Viking ship in Lincoln Park, Chicago.  That one, in turn, is a full-size reproduction of the Gokstad Ship, which was found in a burial mound on a farm called Gokstad in Norway in 1880 and is currently exhibited at the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo.  Dr. Graham gives the scale as 1/170, but that has to be a misprint; were it correct, the real ship would be more than twice as large as she actually is.  According to a website I just found (here's the link:  http://www.khm.uio.no/english/collections/Viking_ships/gokstad.shtml ) The Gokstad Ship is in fact 24 meters long.  That makes the scale of the Revell kit about 1/68.  Given that human beings were somewhat shorter, on average, in the year 800 than they are now, if you could find some 1/72 scale Viking figures they'd look about right.

Notwithstanding the "Quick-Build" label, it's an excellent kit - easily the best Viking ship kit yet issued in plastic (and probably better in terms of accuracy than any of the wood ones).  According to Dr. Graham's book, it also was the very last new sailing vessel kit ever issued by Revell (excluding a handful from Revell Germany).  It originally appeared in 1977.  The first Revell sailing ship kit, the 1/192 Constitution, appeared in 1956.  Revell, in other words, has now been out of the sailing ship game longer than it was ever in it.

The only questionable aspects of the kit are the dragon's head and tail at the bow and stern.  Those parts of the real Gokstad Ship projected into a different, highly acidic layer of clay, and had rotted away by the time they were excavated.  All credit to the Revell people for basing their bow and stern designs on genuine Norse artwork, but they're highly speculative.

Good luck.  That kit has the potential to produce a fine scale model.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
    December 2005
  • From: rochester,ny/karlsruhe,germany
viking ship
Posted by gordy92highlander on Saturday, August 12, 2006 12:42 PM
I recently baught revell's Quick-Build Viking Ship on eBay(built this ages ago when I was young). Can anyone tell me what scale this is? finished hull is 14.5" long.
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