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Revell CSS Alabama questions

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  • Member since
    February 2006
  • From: Boston
Revell CSS Alabama questions
Posted by Wilbur Wright on Thursday, September 14, 2006 3:05 PM
Hi All, I am preparing to start this kit. I have tried to find out if the ship had  the thin white stripes continous along the upper hull, (I know it did have them on the lower yard arm support).......... and if there was a stripe at water line where copper meets wood. Its impossible to tell from the photos I've seen, and paintings or box art don't help much.  The nice model of the Kearsarge that was shown in this forum recently, had the stripes.

Does anyone know the answer to these questions on the Alabama???

Also why would the ship have a propeller hoist (repairs possibly?)

Do any of you place a little  ballast in the hull before attaching the deck to make sure the ship is more stable to display???

I've read the inst. booklet and like many Revell AG planes I've built, it is lacking in sequence logic in some places and possibly (particularly in this case) rigging. So I may have some questions particularly to the fellow rigging the kearsarge. I do know that I am going to glue the deck together in one piece before gluing to the hull, and place under support with strip styrene to try to eliminate the seam. Any tips on building sequence (opposed to the instructions) also greatly appreciated.


I've built all the Tamiya 350th ships. This is my first sailing ship since I built the Cutty Sark as a kid.

Thanks for any advice, Men.

  • Member since
    December 2002
  • From: Derry, New Hampshire, USA
Posted by rcboater on Thursday, September 14, 2006 9:11 PM
The Alabama was a sailing ship first, and a steamship second.  The prop was deisgned to be hoistable, so that when sailing, they could get rid of the drag caused by the propellor.

Webmaster, Marine Modelers Club of New England

www.marinemodelers.org

 

  • Member since
    January 2006
Posted by EPinniger on Friday, September 15, 2006 2:46 AM
I found that the Kearsarge didn't need any ballast, it's perfectly stable when displayed on the base and in fact will stand more or less upright when off the base.
Though if you're planning on actually sailing the ship on water, it would almost certainly need ballast (I've often thought that these two kits would make interesting subjects for conversion to radio-control motorised models, particularly if you put a smoke generator in the funnel! I've never seen this done however, though I did once see a radio-controlled unpowered sailing ship model)
No idea about the answer to the painting question, sorry - there are plenty of contemporary paintings and drawings of the Alabama, especially its battle with the Kearsarge, but most of them are probably of fairly limited accuracy.

Anyway, good luck with your model!

Apologies for still not having posted any photographs of my completed Kearsarge (finished almost a month ago!). The trouble is that taking good-quality photographs of a model as large as this requires a bit of preparation, and also good weather (my digital camera doesn't cope very well with indoor lighting), so it's a job that's easy to put off for another day! "Work in progress" photos are easy to take as quality + good lighting isn't so important.
  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Friday, September 15, 2006 11:07 PM

To my knowledge the best source of information about the Alabama is C.S.S. Alabama:  Anatomy of a Confederate Raider, by Andrew Bowcock.  Published a couple of years ago by the Naval Institute Press, it's by far the most extensive study of the ship to appear yet.  It contains detailed coverage of the extant plans, the two contemporary models, and all the paintings and photographs the author was able to find, as well as some preliminary observations on the evidence that's been brought up so far from the wreck of the ship herself.  The last part of the book consists of a set of newly-prepared drawings, showing just about every part of the ship.

I haven't seen the old Revell kit for quite a few years, but on the basis of my memory of it I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Bowcock book actually makes it look pretty good.  There are some inaccuracies in the hull shape (which had to be designed around recycled parts from the Kearsarge kit), but the deck furniture and sail plan look pretty close to what Mr. Bowcock shows.  I get the impression that the Revell designers took a careful look at the contemporary "Laird Model" in England, and made the kit resemble it as much as they could without sacrificing the Kearsarge connection.  The result is a model that won't stand up to close comparison with the plans in the book, but to the eye of all but the most critical Civil War buff it probably will look enough like the Alabama to pass muster - especially if there's no Revell Kearsarge nearby to advertise their common parentage.

Mr. Bowcock uncovered some previously unpublished photographs of the ship.  Most of them are on board shots, providing lots of details about the guns, deck furniture, etc.  But two of them are outboard views, taken when the ship was in Singapore for coaling.  They aren't the world's best photos (one of them is a tiny "micro-chip"-sized transparency, intended for viewing through a microscope, published in the book as a blurry enlargement), but they do give the best impression of the ship's overall appearance that we've been able to get so far.

Both shots were taken close to noon on a hot, sunny day, so there's a potential for light and shadow to be confusing.  To my eye, though, it looks pretty clear that the hull is painted one color overall - either black or a dark grey.  There certainly don't appear to be any white rails, molding, or other lengthwise stripes interrupting the overall color.

The photos aren't much help regarding any waterline stripe, but Mr. Bowcock also includes copies (in black and white) of all known contemporary paintings of the ship.  None of them appears to show a waterline stripe.  I wouldn't want to be dogmatic about the point, but I'm inclined to think the idea of painting a narrow stripe along the waterline didn't become popular until after the demise of the copper-sheathed wood hull.  I can't recall having seen a reliable source showing a stripe painted on copper sheathing - unless one counts the preserved ships (such as the Constitution) that are painted that way now.

Hope that helps a little.  Good luck.

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

  • Member since
    February 2006
  • From: Boston
Posted by Wilbur Wright on Sunday, September 17, 2006 8:21 PM
Thank You Gentlemen, your responses are helpful. For anyone that has built this kit there is a new ( I suppose add on sheet to correct some of the instructions. I had to do some real cutting  on the hull to get the prop hoist box to fit, and will now have quite a time filing with styrene, putty, and sanding. I have glued the hull together after the cutting required. I will photograph with my film camera and post as I go along.
I was at an old used book store, this weekend and saw several books on the Confederate Navy, very comprehensive however very few photographs and one book was $45 bucks, so I passed.

I will check out the book mentioned, maybe in the library.

Thanks again.

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