Lindberg Schooner Sandpiper?

The Lindberg 'Sandpiper' is a reboxing of an old Marx kit of an imaginary vessel.

From the Marx instruction sheet:

"We have named our little schooner the "Sandpiper", not from any actual historic vessel, but a name of her own, so that you may press her into whatever service your imagination dictates, without fear of running afoul of some long forgotten logbook." 

"Typical of her class, our model, built to a scale of twelve feet to the inch (1/144), measures 98 feet at the load waterline, 24 feet beam and 9 feet draft..."

"Here is a beautiful little model of the picturesque "Baltimore Clippers" -  a type of vessel developed in America in the middle of the 18th century and active from that time until the 1840s."

Although the vessel is acknowledged by the manufacturer as not being a scale model of a particular vessel, the hull appears to be derived from the Joe Lane class of revenue vessels of the mid 19th century. The deck layout is typical of American revenue cutters of this period, but doesn't appear to be representative of any specific vessel.

The hull form and deck layout are too advanced to make a realistic War of 1812 privateer, but the kit can be made into a convincing civil war Confederate raider, revenue cutter, slaver, opium clipper or merchant schooner. About 20 years ago I made one into a late 19th century Robber Baron's yacht. Get a copy of Chapelle's 'American Sailing Ships' for ideas.   

Scribed plastruct sheeting and scratch built deck furniture can be used to overhaul the deck (it is one of the rare plastic sailing vessels with camber on the deck) and the integral sails/masts from the kit need to be tossed and replaced. 

Although SOB this kit has its weaknesses, a fine little model can be produced with some scratchbuilding.

just to eliminate confusion, the 'Sandpiper' resembles the "Jefferson Davis", not the "Jefferson". 

Jefferson Davis was the President of the Confederate States of America, and had a Joe Lane 'class' Revenue Cutter named for him in honor of his tenure as US Secretary of War before the American Civil War These cutters were referred to as 'Joe Lane class' because the Lane's plans are the only original ones available from this group of vessels - the excellent wooden Bluejacket kit of the 'Jefferson Davis' was based on plans drawn in 1984 by Arthur Montgomerey (Dr. Tilley-- any bio info on this gentleman or his work?), using the Joe Lane plans - actual armament and deck plans for the various vessels varied and are open for conjecture.

The "Jefferson" was a 'Morris Class' cutter built ~20 years earlier in honor of former US President, Thomas Jefferson.  

relative to the model... I've resurrected the old thread. 

Schoonerbumm - I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Montgomery several times.  When I was younger I used to make a trip to the East Coast every summer or so, stopping at maritime museums, hobby shops, etc.  (In those days, with gas costing less than $1 per gallon and motel rooms available for less than $20 per night, a single guy could take quite a trip for a few hundred dollars.)  Two regular stops were the Bluejacket factory in South Norwalk, Connecticut, and the Model Shipways one in Bogota, New Jersey.  In both cases the word "factory" could only be applied generously.  Both firms were extremely small - and gave extremely personal service.  A customer walking through the door was likely to be greeted by the owner(s).  If I remember right, on my first visit to Bluejacket Art Montgomery drew me a detailed map showing me how to get to Model Shipways.  (It wasn't easy; the little storefront business was located at the end of a deadend street.)  He described the two companies as "friendly competitors."

As I understand it, in those days (the seventies) Bluejacket was largely a family operation.  The Montgomeries had taken over the firm fairly recently.  It originally had been known as Boucher Models; its founder, Horace Boucher, established it in 1905.  I believe Mrs. Montgomery handled much of the bookkeeping, while the younger Montgomeries oversaw the actual production of the merchandise - and waited on customers.  About the only other things I remember about them were that they had a big, wood, two-masted schooner named John Paul Jones and that they were all rabid New York Mets fans.  (We had some interesting baseball conversations on those trips.  Sam Milone at Model Shipways was an equally enthusiastic Yankee supporter; I lived and died with the Cincinnati Reds.  But I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the Boston Red Sox.  I spent three successive nights in Fenway Park watching Yaz not get his 3,000th hit.)

It's been quite a few years since I did any research in primary sources on the history of American revenue cutters.  I did those drawings several years before Don Canney's book was published; where his statements differ from mine, it's safe to assume his are correct.  (I made a drawing of the first cutter Eagle back in the late eighties, based on the best information Bob Scheina, then the Coast Guard Historian, and I could find at the time.  Don subsequently found a document establishing that her dimensions were considerably different than we'd thought.  Oops.)

The primary sources on American sailing revenue cutters are notoriously bad.  The old Revenue Cutter Service wasn't particularly careful about keeping records, and many that presumably did exist have disappeared.  The best compilation of written information about them is an old WPA project, from the thirties, that was put together in the form of a volume called the "Record of Movements."  Only a few copies of it were printed; most are in Washington-area libraries.  That volume was Don Canney's starting point.  He supplemented the material in it with a considerable amount of additional stuff that's turned up (largely as a result of Don's own efforts) since the thirties.

Tracing the history of all those old ships via the written records is frustrating - and sometimes downright impossible.  The problem is compounded by the Revenue Cutter Service's habit of renaming ships.  (Revenue cutters traditionally were named after cabinet members - especially Secretaries of the Treasury, since the Revenue Cutter Service was part of the Treasury Department.  When a new president took office and appointed a new Secretary of the Treasury, the cutter named after that individual's predecessor might well get renamed - especially if he was of the other political party.  If I remember correctly, the Joseph Lane was originally named Campbell - but it's been a long time since I tried to sort all that out.)

The last time Don and I spoke about this subject (which was a long time ago), he hadn't found any actual plans of sailing revenue cutters beyond the ones Howard I. Chapelle published in his two early works, The History of American Sailing Ships and The History of the American Sailing Navy, published in 1936 and 1949 respectively.  The dozen or so plans in those books represent just about the best hard information we have on these important and attractive ships.  Most of the drawings of sailing revenue cutters that I made for the Coast Guard Historian's Office are based on the ones in Chapelle's books.  While Don was working on his book, the Coast Guard hired me to make several more drawings "reconstructing" the appearance of other famous or otherwise significant cutters - e.g., the first Massachusetts and the "Hunter-wheel" cutter Spencer.  In the texts I wrote to accompany those drawings I emphasized that they were based on a great deal of guesswork, and I put the words "a reconstruction" prominently on each of them. 

Schoonerbumm is right:  by far the most detailed of all the plans in question are the sheets devoted to the Joseph Lane.  They contain a vast amount of detail, down to and including the locations of doorknobs.  But, frustratingly, they don't give the slightest hint about the ship's armament. 

Bluejacket produced a Joseph Lane kit with a solid hull for many years.  Maybe Art Montgomery picked the name Jefferson Davis mainly to clarify the difference between the new plank-on-frame kit and the old solid-hull one; I don't know.  I'm embarrassed to admit that I don't have a copy of Don Canney's book; I'm not sure whether or not it's been definitely established that the Joseph Lane, Caleb Cushing, and Jefferson Davis actually were sister ships.  (That's the sort of thing that's frequently and frustratingly absent from the records.) 

At any rate, the Bluejacket Jefferson Davis kit and the same company's yacht America are among the handful of genuine "plank-on-frame" kits on the market.  (There's a big difference between "plank-on-frame" modeling and the much more common "plank-on-bulkhead" system.)  I've never built either of them, but they have an excellent reputation.  I seem to recall reading in a review somewhere that some of the frames in the America kit got recycled into the Jefferson Davis, but that may be my memory playing a trick on me.  Maybe Al Ross, who's currently affiliated with Bluejacket, can add something.

About the original subject of this thread - the Lindberg "Sandpiper" kit - I'm afraid I can't contribute anything.  I've seen the kit on the shelves of hobby shops a few times, but I've never bought it or seen the inside of the box.

   There may be an actual prototype for this kit, I don't know. I picked up one of these to use as a basis for a 60' two mast schooner in 1/87 scale. I have the wood deck laid in, and new wood masts, gaffs, and booms made. From this point on, the model will be built "according to the practices of the time". It is now a waterline model, and will be used in an HO scale diorama.

    It really would be a nice starter kit. There is some flash that needs to be carefully removed, and the precast plastic sails are rather heavy. The cannon, are one piece castings, and appear to be somewhat taller than I would have expected. There are only a small number of parts, and the rigging is very simplified. It can be built, out-of-the-box, or you could research the type, and add extra detail to the model. For my own purposes, I will use the hull, and maybe the anchors. The rest will be scratchbuilt.