Revell 1/260 scale Polaris Submarine

I can't give much advice on building/painting your SSBN as I know very little about post-WW2 submarines, but I do know that this kit is actually quite accurate considering its age (the moulds date back to the late '50s or early '60s).  Therefore you don't really need to add or change much to end up with a fairly detailed + accurate model of this class of sub. There is a list of inaccuracies/improvements needed on "Rajen's Ship Kit List"
The kit was originally produced by Renwal, and is actually 1/200 scale. It's not a rare kit by any means as Revell have recently reissued it. I think this kit originally created a fair amount of controversy when it was originally released, as many of the interior details shown were supposed to be confidential! Not sure if there is any truth in this.

If you visit the "gallery" sections of http://www.modelwarships.com and http://www.steelnavy.com, there should be quite a few photos of built examples of this kit, which should help with painting the interior as well as painting/weathering the exterior of the sub.

Medric wrote:

Does anyone have any experience with resurrecting the dead like I'm trying to do here?

Definitely - at the minute half my collection of ship models seems to consist of second-hand models for restoration. (It's often the only way to get rare, out-of-production kits at an affordable price). Currently I'm working on restoring/rebuilding the Nichimo 1/200 scale Akizuki (WW2 Japanese destroyer). I also have a Lindberg Landing Ship Dock and LCI, Glencoe/ITC sub chaser, Revell USCG icebreaker, and various others.

EPinniger wrote:

The kit was originally produced by Renwal, and is actually 1/200 scale. It's not a rare kit by any means as Revell have recently reissued it. I think this kit originally created a fair amount of controversy when it was originally released, as many of the interior details shown were supposed to be confidential! Not sure if there is any truth in this.

Actually, there were two separate kits.   The first, which was produced by Revell and did cause a bit of a stir when it was released (and garnered Revell a lot of publicity in the bargain) was the George Washington.   I believe it had an error in the number of missle tubes-either one pair too few or too many.  The Renwal kit, which came out a year or two later I think, as the Thomas Jefferson or Ethan Allen, was larger and better detailed.  Revell then obtained the Renwal molds and has re-released it as a Revell kit, which has cause some confusion.  If Medric does have the original Revell kit, it may be somewhat rare, I'm not really sure.   Someone who knows more about this may chime in and correct me, but I think that is the gist of it.

Neither of these kits are accurate as 598 class or 608 class FBMs   They are nice table sitters and if anything the interiors are compartmentized to look almost real but are completely wrong..  It was a nice early attempt by Renwal and Revell and many a completed kit sat in the wardrooms of many a Boomer during the Cold War LOL. 

It was interesting hacking the thing apart. It was surprisingly easy. I do remember that I used "non-toxic" Testors tube glue. I ran a fine tooth razor saw down my horrible seams and it popped right apart. I did have to saw off the conning tower though. I sawed a couple of the aft compartments apart too. I'm using this model as practice for seam filling. I've stretched some old sprue to close up some of the big gaps and I'm using Squadron green putty on the rest. I did a little touch up painting on the interior but I'm still going to save the decals for something else, some future project. That is really an amazing set of control panels, guages, and readouts. I'm practicing dry-brushing on the bulkheads. So, what was once a get reaquainted with modeling kit has now become a "learn new tricks" kit. I suppose I should christen it the SSBN BR-549, USS Old Dog. And by the way, I suddenly remembered I had a very similar kit back in my distant youth. Did it have a hinged side so that when closed it didn't show the interior?

I can remember building both the Revell and Renwall kits many years ago - long before Revell acquired the Renwall molds.  The Renwall one was considerably larger (I have no idea what the actual scale was), and, by my recollection, had a hinged starboard hull half.  In the smaller Revell kit the starboard half of the hull snapped on and off (at least for a while).  Both versions, I believe, originally featured metal springs in the foremost Polaris tubes so the missiles could be "fired."  (If I remember right, the Revell "firing" mechanism consisted of a couple of sliding plastic rods that protruded from the base of the conning tower, whereas Renwall's had a little trigger at the base of one missile tube.)

I think the Renwall kit appeared at least once with a starboard hull half that, in addition to being hinged, was transparent.  Both kits were great fun for a kid in grade school or junior high.  I remember being blown away by the separately-molded pieces of meat in the meat locker of the Renwall kit.  On the other hand, the Revell one had beautiful decals to represent the instruments in the control room. 

Dr. Graham's excellent book, Remembering Revell Model Kits, explains the story of the smaller Revell version - including the fuss Admiral Rickover made over it.  (In retrospect, it looks like the admiral was deliberately creating a red herring.  He surely knew that the interiors of both those kits bore little resemblance to reality.)  Here's the entry for the kit, from Dr. Graham's appendix: 

"H-365 USS George Washington "S"      1959-60              1/253            $60-70 [that's Dr. Graham's estimate of what the kit might bring on the collector's market today]

"Gray, black, light green plastic.  Decals for interior.  Right side of hull snaps off to show interior.  The two forward missile tubes have opening hatches to launch missiles by metal sring power.  Includes fold-out booklet by General Dynamics Corp., The Story of Our Undersea Nuclear Navy.  The fist issue of the model inaccurately  holds only eight missile launch tubes, but this is corrected to sixteen in later isues.  Rissued as:  H-313 Abraham Lincoln (1961); H-425 Polaris Submarine (1962); H-433 Patrick Henry (1968), H-437 Polaris Submarine (1976)."

Dr. Graham's coverage stops in 1979, so the book doesn't mention the Revell re-release of the Renwall kit. 

Incidentally, I had the pleasure last week of buying Dr. Graham's new book, Monogram Models.  Highly recommended - another terrific, well-researched exercise in nostalgia.

Apologies for the misleading information in my post. Having checked Rajen's List again, it turns out there were two Polaris sub kits produced by Revell, one the 1/200 Renwal reissue (which, though far from perfect, is a very good kit considering its age) and the other a Revell moulding in about 1/250 scale, which is presumably the one you have. According to the list, this kit is fairly poor, and definitely inferior to the Renwal one.

It's still a worthwhile restoration project, however - if nothing else, you'll be able to experiment with modelling + painting techniques without risking wasting a kit.

jtilley wrote:

Dr. Graham's excellent book, Remembering Revell Model Kits, explains the story of the smaller Revell version - including the fuss Admiral Rickover made over it.  (In retrospect, it looks like the admiral was deliberately creating a red herring.  He surely knew that the interiors of both those kits bore little resemblance to reality.)  Here's the entry for the kit, from Dr. Graham's appendix:

Hello: To all of you: I would like to note that "Remembering Revell Model Kits" is still available from book stores.

I saw Prof. jtilley mentioning it very often and always thought it must be a very old book from the 70's.

By chance I came accross an online book store where the book can still be ordered by means of a ISBN number. So it is not kinda like a book out of print.

There exists an equivalent to the Revell book from Heller. It is a pity that the book about Heller models is in French only.


Regards,
Kater Felix

Thomas Graham's book on Revell models is readily available through Amazom.com, as are his books on Aurora models and slotcars.   For some reason Amazon does not appear to carry his book on Monogram.   There ia also a book on Airfix available written by Arthur Ward.

I'm glad Katzennahrung and steves clarified the situation regarding the availability of Dr. Graham's books.  I got my copy of the one on Revell just a couple of years ago - and it seems like I find myself looking up something in it every few days.  I bought the new one on Monogram a week or two ago, through the Barnes and Noble website (www.bn.com).  I've always had good luck with Barnes and Noble; their service has never been a problem, their shipping charges are reasonable, and my "membership" card, which costs something like $20 per years, gets me a 10 percent discount.  The BN website also has a "used and out-of-print" section where I've bought dozens of books over the past few years, usually for extremely low prices.

I believe Dr. Graham's book on Aurora was out of print for a while (and the used copies I found on the web were pretty expensive).  The ad for it on the inside back cover of the new Monogram book, though, implies that it's been reprinted.  It's on my Christmas wish list.

Wow ! There's a ton of information on about any model isn't there? I guess I have to pick up Dr. Graham's book. It's pretty obvious that if a guy wants to go whole hog and build an accurate representation of something that lack of information won't be an excuse for a weak effort. I'm having fun learning how to sand and fill seams with this sub. I am going to have a pretty nice model when I'm done. Now to figure out how to scribe all the surface detail back in. This particular Polaris is slicker than a cats behind right now. Any tips?