Who makes the best kit of the C.S.S. Virginia(Merrimack)?

The Merrimac/Merrimack/Virginia has always created big problems for modelers, because the available information about her is so scanty.  There's a set of plans for the original (Union) design, and a couple of extremely sketchy measured drawings that apparently were made by the Confederate naval constructor early in the process of converting her into an ironclad.  But no reliable plans of the finished product - and, so far as anybody's been able to tell, no photographs.  A few pieces of her have survived in museums, but whatever was left of the hull (after it was blown up) has never been found.  (If any of it exists, it's on Craney Island, which is a naval installation - and the Navy is reluctant to let researchers near it.)

The old Pyro version is indeed pretty awful (though maybe the Monitor that comes in the same box is worse; how on earth could anybody miss the fact that the turret is supposed to be centered on the hull?).  The equally ancient Lindberg one isn't much better.  (I remember pretty distinctly that Lindberg had its own ironclad pair, back when Lindberg and Pyro were competing with each other.  I'm pretty sure the Lindberg Monitor had its turret in the right place - and the Virginia came with an electric motor.  There wasn't room for one inside the Monitor.) 

I can't pretend to have studied all the available competitors, but I'm aware of three that look reasonable: 

Bluejacket:  http://www.bluejacketinc.com/kits/cssvirgina.htm ,

Verlinden: http://www.squadron.com/NoStock.asp?item=VE2115 ,

and Thoroughbred Models: http://www.thoroughbredmodels.com/Ironclads.htm . 

The Bluejacket one, obviously, is wood, with cast Britannia metal fittings; the Verlinden one is resin, and certainly looks excellent (if I were in the market for such a kit, that's the one I'd probably pick), and only slightly smaller than the Bluejacket one.  But it's strictly a waterline model.  [I've edited the last sentence; it originally contained some misinformation about the relative sizes of the two kits.  Sorry; my fault.]   I've got the Thoroughbred one.  It's a very nice white-metal casting (with the stack and a few other parts cast separately); it's as well-detailed as could reasonably be expected, but it's obviously quite small.

I'm afraid that doesn't help much.  It's a rather unhappy situation.  Good luck.

I'm sure the Bluejacket kit, within the limitations of the machine-carved wood hull, is a fine one.  (The modeler could, I guess, "sheath" the casemate with strips of styrene to represent the iron plates, and "copper" the underwater hull - so the only visible wood would be the decks.)  Note, though, that the Bluejacket version is on 1/16" = 1' scale.  That's the equivalent of 1/192.  The Verlinden version is on 1/200; the dimensions of it aren't given in the ad, but if that is indeed the scale of it, it must be only a little smaller than the Bluejacket one - at less than half the price, with the "plating" detail, and much else, cast in place.  On the other hand, it's strictly a waterline model.

I guess it boils down to the full-hull vs. waterline difference, and the modeler's preference when it comes to materials.  (And that Bluejacket offer combining the Virginia and Monitor kits is quite a bargain.)

Flagship Models just added a fairly nice 1/192 Virginia resin kit to their catalog:

http://www.flagshipmodels.com/xoops/modules/osC/product_info.php?cPath=2&products_id=56

and there is a review of it here onthe SteelNavy site:

http://www.steelnavy.com/FlagshipVirginia.htm

If you want to learn just how little is known about the actual design, construction and appearance of the ship read Ironclad Down-CSS Virginia from Design to Destruction by Carl D Park.   The author is a ship modeler who embarked on a research mission as a means to build the most accurate model of the Virginia possible.  On the way, the research took over and turned into a book, while the building of the model was dropped.  There are no actual design drawings, photos or drawings of the ship by people who actually saw it known to exist.  There are a few small pieces of the ship at various locations and drawings made after the ship was destroyed.  Through detective work, conjecture and guessing Park puts together what is probably the most likely picture of the ship so far, but, like so many historic ships, many of the actual details of her appearance may never be known.

Steves - Very interesting indeed!  I do wonder if the Flagship kit is enough better than the Verlinden one (or, for that matter, the Bluejacket one) to justify the huge price difference, but the company has a fine reputation.  I'm sure it's an excellent kit.

I looked up the Park book on the Barnes and Noble website:  http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9781591146599&itm=2

It's now on my list of books I want to get after next payday.  It's about time somebody sorted out all the available material on that ship - and separated the reality from the fiction.

jtilley, 

I believe the Verlinden kit is waterline only, so that may account for some of the price differential.

I will be interested to read your impression of Park's book when you have had a chance to read it. 

That's a good point, steves.  In resin kits from cottage industry manufacturers (unlike styrene kits from the "mainstream" companies), materials make up a significant percentage of the price of the kit.  There's probably less than a dime's worth of styrene in the typical Tamiya or Revell kit, but the underwater hull of the Flagship Virginia must be quite a chunk of resin - and that stuff isn't cheap.

I'm going to be especially interested in what Mr. Park says about contemporary plans of the Virginia.  My recollection from my days at the Mariners' Museum is that at least one sheet - an outboard profile, on a pretty large scale - had been drawn up by the Confederate Naval Constructor in Portsmouth.  The MM's library had a photocopy of it, which was used by the museum model shop staff to build its 1/48-scale model of the ship.  My vague recollection is that one of the descendants of the guy in question claimed to have the original locked up in his office (in Norfolk, if I remember right).  The museum's head curator and librarian made some effort to buy it when I was there (sometime between 1980 and 1983), but the guy wanted some ridiculous price - which the museum, already having a good photocopy in its possession, refused to pay. 

I'm sure Mr. Park knows about this document. (I'm not so sure the guy who owned it in the early eighties is still among us.)  I have no idea what its actual provenance is/was - or, for that matter, how accurately it represented how the ship actually looked.  For all I know the whole thing may have been a hoax.  Lots of hoaxes, distortions, and half-truths have surrounded that ship's history for the past 146 years.  It's about time somebody sorted them out and identified, for once and for all, what is actually known about her.

Park goes go into some detail regarding the existing plans of the ship, but even though I read it several times, I am not sure I completely understand what he is saying.  I believe the situation is this:

The naval constructor, John Luke Porter, made a number of drawings of the ship.  Two of these, a gun deck plan and a three-view drawing (overall plan, outboard profile and section with scrap views of a gunport lid and armour bolting) were copied in 1891 by a man named Hughes and Hughes' copy of the second drawing was copied again in 1932 by a man named Allen.  Copies of these copies have been available for some time from the National Archives.   They were drawn at the scale of 1 inch equals 5 feet and thus were fairly large drawings.  In 2002 the Mariners' Museum purchased the original gun deck plan and another Porter drawing (not of the Virginia) from the Porter family through an agent.   In 2003 they announced that they had also purchased Porter's original three-view drawing from another person who had acquired it from the Porter family some years ago.   There were also four other Porter drawings that the museum decided not to purchase from the family, but Park was unable to find out exactly what those drawings contained.  Therefore, there may be further information on the ship still in the possesion of the family and they may also possess other drawings that no one knows anything about.

While it is nice for the museum to have these originals, they really do not shed any new light on the ship as the information in them has already been available for some time through the copies.  In addition these drawings are very general in nature and do not show construction methods or other details historians (and modelers) would like to know.   They also differ in various respects from the completed ship as described by contemporary writers, including Porter himself.  They do not, for instance, show the bow and stern quarter gun ports, which are well documented by several sources.  Park speculates that they may be "in progress" drawings which do not reflect the later changes.  One of the main themes of the book is the on-going conflicts during construction between the constructor Porter and John Mercer Brooke, who considered himself the inventor of the ironclad concept.   Both men survived the war and despised each other until they died.

Volume 42, Issue 4 of "Warship International" has an interesting article on CSS VIRGINIA in which the author proposes that the shape of the ends of the casemate were faceted rather than curved.  It includes a large number of drawings and offers an intriguing alternative view of VIRGINIA's appearance.

 Al Ross

The last time I was at the Museum of the Confederacy, in Richmond, there was a pretty sizable chunk of iron bar stock outside in front of the museum.  The label proclaimed it to be the propeller shaft of the Virginia.  I haven't been there in 15 years or so; it may not still be there.  I never thought to ask about provenance, but I was surprised at the size of it. My memory has gone the way of the rest of me, but the picture in my mind has it about 18" in diameter and 15 feet long.

Personally, I'm tickled to see people call her the Virginia.  (Not on this forum!  I'd expect nothing less from y'all!)  The first time I ever saw her mentioned under that name by anything associated with the Yankee (pardon the use of half the word) government was on a postage stamp about 10 or 12 years ago.  Virginia was the name under which she fought, and under which American sailors suffered and endured.  I love seeing her so remembered!

Steves's last post, and his paraphrasing of Mr. Park's book, seem to confirm my recollection of the story of the plans at the Mariners' Museum - with the big proviso that my information was about 25 years out of date.  Sometime after I left, I gather, the museum came to terms with the gentleman in Norfolk and bought at least some of the plans he had.  (My guess is that nobody was willing to pay the price he was asking, so he dropped it.  Or maybe that particular individual died, and whoever inherited the drawings was more reasonable - or needed the money.  Maybe those other members of the Porter family that steves mentioned were in that category.)  I think steves and Mr. Park are right:  for such a repository to acquire those documents was certainly a proper thing to do, but the documents themselves did not, by definition, add anything significant to the extant knowledge of the ship.  I'm pretty sure the MM had photocopies of them as early as the 1930s - and the gift shop was selling copies of the copies when I was working there, in the early 1980s.

I got some first-hand experience with the relationship between Confederate ironclad plans and reality a few years back, when some of my students and I were working on a project involving the C.S.S. Neuse.  (The remains of her hull are preserved at Kinston, NC, about 35 miles from where I live.  She's in a less-than-ideal state at the moment, but there are big plans afoot for her future.)  There's a set of plans for her, by the same Mr. Porter who worked on the design of the Virginia.  Those plans supposedly were used to build the Neuse and the Albemarle, which supposedly were identical (or near-identical) sister-ships.  Some photos of the Albemarle have been found; they make it clear that (a) she was quite a bit different from the Neuse (though the two ships had similar dimensions and basic shapes), and (b) there were plenty of differences between the Albemarle and the plans.  I drew a new set of four views of the Neuse, based on the best information the guys at the state historic site and I could put together; I ran into all sorts of little problems that made me question just how reliable those old Porter drawings were.  (We had a good deal of trouble, for instance, reconciling the written documentation about the iron shutters over the gunports with the Porter plans - and the photos of the Albemarle.  I'm not at all confident that I got those details right.)  I eventually came to the conclusion that the Porter plans were intended as a "contract draft," a highly generalized set of specifications that constituted part of the contract between the Confederate Navy and the various people who actually built the ship, rather than a precise guide to how the ship was going to look.  It's pretty clear that the actual work was carried out by people who had little, if any, experience with shipbuilding; they built something that worked (well, more or less) and met the requirements of the contract.   Whether the finished ship looked like the drawing probably didn't matter much.

It's perfectly normal, even in much more modern times, for significant differences to appear between the plans that are drawn in advance of a ship's construction and the ship herself.  I stongly suspect that was the case with the Virginia.  The conversion from steam frigate to ironclad ram was done in a great hurry, and nobody involved had ever done such a thing before.  It seems likely that a great deal of improvising took place - and adhering closely to a set of plans probably wasn't a high priority.

I haven't seen the article Al Ross mentioned, but the idea of a faceted casemate certainly is believable.  Logic suggests that a wood and iron structure composed of flat surfaces is easier to build than one with curves in it - especially for people who are in a hurry.  I'm no expert on Confederate ironclads, but my recollection is that none of the others about which any documentation or photos have survived had any curved surfaces on their casemates.  On the other hand, the Virginia was the first of the batch, and the biggest; it wouldn't be surprising if she turned out to be unique in that respect as in so many others.

It sure would be nice if somebody would find some photos of the Virginia, and lay all this speculation to rest once and for all.  But we shouldn't hold our breath.  The photographic record of the Civil War, though enormous, has quite a few remarkable gaps in it.  (For instance, when my students and I were working on that project in Kinston we spent a good deal of time digging in various excellent sources, and consulting with qualified people, in search of photographs of Confederate Navy enlisted men.  We never found any.)  If any photos of the Virginia ever do turn up, my guess is that they'll show some things that surprise everybody.

I just took a look at the Lindberg website.  It seems the company (which recently has come under new management) is reissuing the old "Monitor and Merrimack" kit.  But now (if the photo is to be believed) they're waterline models - or maybe they come with some sort of base that hides the underwater hulls:  http://www.lindberg-models.com/water_model77257.html

At least the company now acknowledges that the two kits are on different scales.  The Virginia looks pretty clumsy (as could only be expected of a kit that must be close to fifty years old by now), but the overall shape looks about right.  And the Monitor's turret, as my weird old memory remembered, is indeed in the right place (though it looks like it may be a little small.  Maybe not, though).

That website contains quite a few pictures that will stir up fond memories in the minds of Olde Phogie modelers.  The Robert E. Lee is coming back (in all its flat-bottomed glory), as is the Coast Guard patrol boat.  (That's a subject for some rejoicing.  There are scandalously few USCG plastic kits out there.)  And the poor old La Flore is now to appear in two ridiculous marketing scams, under the names "Jolly Roger" and "Glow-in-the-Dark Ghost Ship."  Well, it's nice to have these old friends back.

jtilley wrote:

I just took a look at the Lindberg website.  It seems the company (which recently has come under new management) is reissuing the old "Monitor and Merrimack" kit.  But now (if the photo is to be believed) they're waterline models - or maybe they come with some sort of base that hides the underwater hulls:  http://www.lindberg-models.com/water_model77257.html

Probably the same vacuformed base which was included in their moments in history series.  Depressions in which the whole hull sits.   It limits the poses which may be displayed.

I think Ed's right.  If so, nothing would stop the modeler from building the two kits as full-hull display models.

The "diorama" base is a little more believable than some, in that the Monitor and Virginia really did get that close to each other during their one encounter with each other.  (If I remember correctly they actually were in physical contact for at least a few minutes.)  [Later edit:  the word "remember" in the previous sentence refers to my memory of the books I've read about the engagement.  Contrary to what some of my students seem to think, I was not alive in 1862.]  There remains, however, the problem that the two kits are on different scales.

Nothing is going to make those old Lindberg and Pyro kits come up to the current state of the art (though some of them do look pretty good - notably the shrimp boat and the trawler).  I have the impression that the people who recently acquired Lindberg have thoroughly honorable intentions and not a great deal of money.  (Those two enormous new Japanese subs must have set somebody back a great deal of cash, though.  I wonder if the money came from the U.S. concern, or some Japanese one.)  I'm happy to see some of those old kits again, if only for their nostalgia value - and I'd like to see some more of the old "Lindberg Line." (The old "Fulton's Clermont" and the fictitious sternwheel steamboat Southern Belle were my two all-time favorite motorized kits when I was a kid.) 

I wish the company would quit putting silly "pirate" names on the Wappen von Hamburg, the Sovereign of the Seas, and La Flore, and I'd be more comfortable if it would make the age of these kits a little more obvious to the potential purchaser, but money is money.  (If I ever tried to run a hobby manufacturing firm, it, I, and everybody who worked for me undoubtedly would go broke in a matter of weeks.)  I wish the new Lindberg the best of luck.

jtilley wrote:

The Merrimac/Merrimack/Virginia has always created big problems for modelers, because the available information about her is so scanty.  There's a set of plans for the original (Union) design, and a couple of extremely sketchy measured drawings that apparently were made by the Confederate naval constructor early in the process of converting her into an ironclad.  But no reliable plans of the finished product - and, so far as anybody's been able to tell, no photographs.  A few pieces of her have survived in museums, but whatever was left of the hull (after it was blown up) has never been found.  (If any of it exists, it's on Craney Island, which is a naval installation - and the Navy is reluctant to let researchers near it.)

 Regarding the remnants of the hull, any remains won't be on the island, but in the island as it has been transformed into a kind of artificial peninsula to accomodate a Navy fuel farm. Dredging the James River to create this facility would have chewed any remains into pulverized pulp. But dredging and other construction work does occasionally uncover other marine artifacts in this area such as Lord Cornwallis' supply fleet at Yorktown and an occasional merchant ship, anchor or cannon in the Elizabeth River.

It may interest some of you that the drydock in which the Merrimac was converted into the Virginia is still in use at the Norfolk Navy Yard (Drydock 1) and is a very impressive piece of work.

Good point, Subfixer.  As a matter of fact, the Hampton Roads map in the Rand McNally Road Atlas that I've got in front of me indicates a big, roughly rectangular area north of Portsmouth as "Craney I. Dredged Material Area."

Another vague recollection from the early eighties:  I think Clive Cussler, the novelist, made some effort to find the remains of the Virginia, hoping his name would persuade the Navy to let him onto the grounds of Craney Island and find something exciting that would generate publicity for his next book.  I don't know whether the Navy let him in or not; I do know he didn't find anything.

Park addresses the site of Virginia's sinking in his book and shows the nautical charts of the area as it was in 1862 and as it exists now.  The site was and still is actually in the channel near Craney Island, but the whole area has changed significantly and the Craney Island of 1862 has been buried within a larger land mass that has been built from the spoil produced by dredging the channel over the years.  Park feels that any remains of the ship would have been destroyed by all the dredging.

jtilley

I just took a look at the Lindberg website.  It seems the company (which recently has come under new management) is reissuing the old "Monitor and Merrimack" kit.  But now (if the photo is to be believed) they're waterline models - or maybe they come with some sort of base that hides the underwater hulls:  http://www.lindberg-models.com/water_model77257.html

At least the company now acknowledges that the two kits are on different scales.  The Virginia looks pretty clumsy (as could only be expected of a kit that must be close to fifty years old by now), but the overall shape looks about right.  And the Monitor's turret, as my weird old memory remembered, is indeed in the right place (though it looks like it may be a little small.  Maybe not, though).

That website contains quite a few pictures that will stir up fond memories in the minds of Olde Phogie modelers.  The Robert E. Lee is coming back (in all its flat-bottomed glory)...

 

    Thought I'd move this up to the top as there is a host of great Historical (USA and Model Kit related) Info.

   I have the Life-like/Pyro Monitor and "Merrimack"(read:Virginia) Kit. The Pyro Monitor and "Merrimack" versions seem to be more detailed then the Lindberg kit but are not the same scale. The Monitor is 1/210 and the “Merrimac” is 1/300.  As mentioned by JTilley, the Pyro Monitors Turret is in the Wrong spot too.

      I want to use the Pyro Monitor but fixing the Turret position is beyond my capability. I could fill in the old Turret position but how do I add the Plating and Rivet detail?

   My Options:

      Give up and spend money on a Resin kit?  Use the Lindberg smaller scale kit (too small)? Or turn the Pyro Monitor version into the USS Canonicus or Passiac or something with a similar hull and Turret placement?  I’d need plans to get the best choice and probably have to re-think the scale. However, John Tilley made a Paper Monitor for his Mariner Museum and I'm wondering if the Pyro Monitor deck could be sanded down and the paper deck from the JTilley's Monitor scaled to fit on top. Might be any easy fix. You lose some detail but the deck plan will be accurate and “Painted”.

  Just some thoughts...  Any Suggestions?

       Jim.

P.S. Lindbergs original Monitor and Merrimack kit was same scale, 1/245. The models in Lindberg Kit 70791 are 1/245 and I believe kit #'s 77257 and 70886 are also. Lindbergs other Kit, # 00718, is a Pyro copy.

P.P.S. I'm gonna get that Robert E. Lee Kit before it's "gone".

From up here in the cheap seats it would seem to be pretty straightforward to make a new deck.

Probably better detail. 

Cut off and save all of the deck fittings and furniture.

Dont bother with cutting a hole for the turret, just glue it on.

Nino

P.S. Lindbergs original Monitor and Merrimac kit was same scale, 1/245.

Your Pyro kit has a vertical topsides molded below the edge of the deck I see.

Still. I think you could make a new deck using the original as a pattern, and cut out the deck part of the old one. Or make the whole thing. The plate joints are pretty huge looking.

GM, are you still looking for Civil War ironclads about 14" long? Flagship Models make a lot of them. Also I built a bunch of Resin kits by, I will have to check. The detail on both are super ggood. Here are a few.

This is Flagships Cairo. I saw her at the Vicksburg battlefield.

 These are waterline kits & about $35. Flagships are full hull & go about$100 + or- .

  These were a lot of fun & easy. I will check who made them, it was one of the big resin makers.

GMorrison

 

Your Pyro kit has a vertical topsides molded below the edge of the deck I see.

Still. I think you could make a new deck using the original as a pattern, and cut out the deck part of the old one. Or make the whole thing. The plate joints are pretty huge looking.

 

Nino, That's who I was trying to think of, Verlinden made my waterline kits. They are really nice & I think I only paid from $25 to $40 for each of them, but that has been a few years ago. I still have one to finish, but the rest are gone. I might do them all again.

Nino

Since he wants “Bigger”

Bluejacket used to offer plans, the plans that had been old kist plans.

I have a (faded) set og 1/8" =1'-0" (1/96) BJ plans for Monitor.  Not a super-detailed set of plans, but the subject is a bit simple, too.  Builds up--if memory serves--about 24" long.  Bluejacket even makes a 10-12" truck gun of about the rights size.

Right about the time I was cobbling up lists of fittings and some raw material sizes, they announced finding Monitor's turret, and promised much more detail on the structure (would be really nice to have more info than "grating" for the turret roof).  Those announcements also put the brakes on gettingthe verlinden resin kit in 1/35, too.

The shapes are nice and simple, so these are not hugely complicated vessles to scratch build--especially in waterline.

I still want to build at least Mointor, in basswood, with .020 & .010 (2" & 1" to scale) brass sheet stock chemically blakened for the iron plate.