civilian ships

DURR wrote:

i have questions on detail and quality etc. which are the better of the two groups of ships the revell freighters and oil tanker or the imex group

The two groups of ships are quite different. The Revell group that you cite are designs from the 1940s and reflect their time of origin. They are somewhat cluttered with detail and have that busy look so frequent of ships of that and earlier eras. The Imex models represent ships designed and built decades later and are much more clean looking with little in the way of deck clutter. That being said, I would have to say that except for the flat bottomed hulls of the Revell ships (which pretty much force you to waterline them), I believe them to be better detailed and crisper in the molding. They have their problems, among which are ejection pin marks and molded on railings but overall I think they can be made into very nice modes with a little patience and some good references. In my opinion the Imex ships lack detail and crispness. They will require more work in the end to be convincing models of the ships they represent.

Putting in my 2 cents worth, I like the Revell models for thier detail. But even a Saint would be hard pressed to forgive the sink marks/ejector pin marks.

jaguar wrote:

Putting in my 2 cents worth, I like the Revell models for thier detail. But even a Saint would be hard pressed to forgive the sink marks/ejector pin marks.

The ejector pin marks seem to vary in severity with the age of the molds. I had several of the original issue Hawaiian Pilot models and the sinkhole/pin marks seem to have been less severe than later issues of the kits. I certainly agree that the nasty circular ejector pin marks could be very difficult to fill and finish at times but the finished product really looked the part and made a very satisfying display. The first Hawaiian Pilots appeared in the '50s, they reappeared in '61 or '62 as the Doctor Lykes and then again in the late 60s slightly retooled as the Burleigh (and again in the 90's as the Burleigh). The latest reissue of Hawaiian Pilot differs from the orginal in some respects because of efforts to remove the military equipment when issued as Burleigh which also for some reason changes the arrangement of kingposts masts and spars. I rather liked the fact that these ships served with so many different shipping companies that you could make a case of them, all radically different in livery to liven up your display cabinet. I did one in Matson livery, another in Moore-McCormack and a third in Holland Amerika colors. WS

Hi to you all,

 Hasse here.

I´m currently on my way building upp a line of all plastic merchant ships that are available this days. I have build them before, but now it´s time do do this with all after market products and detail them. In many years i have been building haze gray ships, but getting tierd of that now.

As i see it,

 if you want to superdetail this ships with photoetc. and scrathbuildt items, etc. the Imex is the best of them. They are simple to remove the off scale details, and there is no plastic railings and sink marks to remove, as Dreadnought 52 allready told you. On the other hand the hull´s needs reworking. The best with Revell kit´s is that they represent old cargo ships and tankers, i do not belive that some other company will produce this kind of ships today. The IMEX only make´s the new type of ships like Ro-Ro´s and Containerships and 3 rather modern cargo ship.  Two more modern cargo ship from Revell is the Ben Line M.V. BENLEDI in 1/480 scale and the nuclear cargo ship N.S. SAVANNAH, both are nice  rep. of the real ships.But there is one problem with the BENLEDI kit, the shape of the bow is totaly wrong from the real ship. Heller also got a nice full hull tanker the LAVERA same as Revell´s BRITISH SOVEREIGN, hard to find now. Trumpeter got a nice replica of the liberty ship in 1/350 scale. The best with the IMEX kits is if you seeking for reference detail photos of the real ships, it is easy with this modern ships, but difficult for the old Revell kit´s. Belive me i have seartch for mounts now, on forums and on www. 

I belive if you djust want to build a ship model strait out of the box with no improvment the Revell kit is the best, Imex look´s a bit like a toy strait out of the box. If you are like me and want to build different kind of merchant ships , you have to take what´s available and make the best of it.

One problem is photoetc. railings, they are only aviable as i belive in 1/350, 1/400 for this ships kits.

I have found lots of  detail photos of the real  REVELL and IMEX ships, and if you need some reference photos on some of them, mail me and i tell you the link´s i found them on. hans.neren@telia.com

Kind regards Hasse.

I'll second what Hasse said. I have built two Revell T-2 kits as more or less much modified ships. With enough work and PE they can result in very nice waterline models. Removing the molded-on rails isn't that hard. The worst faults are the flat bottoms, which force you to either depict a ship riding near it's lightest load line (in which case it probably wouldn't be on an even keel), or to cut off the bottom and sand the hull down to a more realistic line. If you choose the light draft you need to do some work around the propeller aperture because at that draft the prop should be half out of the water.

The other major fault of the Revell T-2 is in the flat decks of the midship house. T-2s had very noticable camber to the decks there. The model shows them being straight. Other than nearly scratch building the whole structure, I have no suggestion. I left it alone on my models.

Fred

thanks guys for you opinions

 Hi Fred,

Yes i make a not of that to, that the camber on the bridges decks is wrong. Are currently on my way, trying to scratch build a new superstruckture on my J.L. HANNA. On HAWAIIAN PILOT kit i have rebuilt the main deck with new plastic card, only keeping the superstructure and hull from the kit. The HAWAIIAN PILOT needs lots of sanding and filling on the hull sides. The worst thing with the IMEX kit´ exept for the lines of the hull´s, is that there is no windows on the upper decks on TRINIDAD and ROUEN. The TOYAMA do have nice superstructure with all windows there.One "warning" don´t by the TAMPA kit if you want to build replica off a real ship, theTAMPA never existed.  I e-mailed IMEX and wonder why there is no photos of the real ship for references, and the told me that they only  did for fun, renamed the TOYAMA to TAMPA with a different hull color. The Imex TOYAMA and TAMPA is the same kit. The TOYAMA is a one singel Container ship typ, she has no sister ship in the real.

Here is a nice file with great detail photos of museum models of the TRINIDAD´s sistership TALABOT and the TOYAMA from Wilh.Wilhelmsen museum. For you that building the IMEX kit´s.

   http://debrisfield.russellwild.co.uk/resources/wilhwilhelmsen/index.html

Hasse.

Instead of scratch building an entire mid-ship superstructure for the T-2, a shortcut might be to make the forward bulwarks out of sheet styrene, with the proper curvature to indicate the camber. In the J L Hanna/Glasgow kit this is one piece. The decks wouldn't perfectly match the forward bulwarks. Then maybe cut across the decks fore to aft with a razor saw on the line of the house bulkheads and re-attach at a small angle? Maybe I'll try to fix this flaw on my next T-2 build.

Mayby you are right Fred, that is easier to do this way. . Hasse.

Hasse,

As I think on this some more, there could be a problem in changing the camber of the upper decks because it will leave less room between the coaming and the boat deck at the bottom. So maybe a complete scratch build is better. You first! 

Fred

Hi fred, i put my tanker away for a while, one my way with the BENLEDI, currently on the kit´s bow shape. It is totaly wrong from the real ship. But when i geting tiered of her, i put my teets in the camber problem again. The problem with me is. after lot´s of resarge and and ideas i have to stop my self. Ore else i have scratch built the whole model.

Have a nice day Fred and Durr,Hasse.