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

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. 

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.

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.

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.)

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.