revell, uss kearsarge..paint scheme??

These are the colors given by AC Roberts in his four-part series on the in Nautical Research Journal several years ago:

Kearsarge-1864

Hull-black

Bulwarks, plank shear, head rail molding-white

Decks, houses, hatches-natural

Waterways-blue

Guns and tracks-black

Masts-white

Yards-black

Boats

Hulls-white

Bilges and floors-blue

Gunwales-yellow

Thwarts-natural

He qualifies a couple of these selections.   The choice of natural for the houses and hatches is based on other models of ships of this era and they could possibly have been painted white.   The choice of blue for the waterways is based on contemporary receipts which showed the ship had received a quantity of blue paint.

I have always found his choice of white for the boats' hulls curious as some of the photos of the ship he uses to illustrate his articles seem to show that the boats were black during this time period.

Carmike wrote:

One of the reasons that the stack appears to be different heights is that it was made to "telescope" and could be lowered when the boilers were offline and the ship was running under sail alone.

Missed that completely ! Thanks for the information.

Julian

Try searching through the forum - there was a really good thread on the Kearsarge over the summer and a set of pictures of a really nice build, including an outsnading job on the decks.  One of the basic choices you're going to have to make is that, out of the box, the kit is based on the Kearsarge as fitted in the years AFTER the Civil War, and not on how she appeared at the time of her engagement with the C.S.S. Alabama.  FYI - One of the reasons that the stack appears to be different heights is that it was made to "telescope" and could be lowered when the boilers were offline and the ship was running under sail alone.

Try doing a "Google" for USS Kearsarge. There are quite a lot of black & white photos of the ship (albeit most post Civil war) you can use as a rough reference. The smoke stack is really amazing: I have seen photos with different length stacks and one suggested a white or cream colour instead of the expected grey or black.Good luck.

Julian