heller 1/200 golden hind

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I like it!

Bill

thank's bill , it's just going to be an OOB build . these colours on the stern are going to test out my masking and painting skill's LOL .

Steve,

Great start on the painting. I'll be following along for the ride and will get very interested when it comes time to rig the ship.

Looks like another outstanding model in the works.

One point needs to be clarified. This kit is a reboxing of the old Revell kit frigate m the sixties. It's one of my very favorite plastic sailing ship kits. Even the vacform sails are well done.

Despite what the label says, the kit most emphatically is NOT on 1/200 scale. It's on 1/96 scale. In its original Revell incarnation it included several beautifully done crew figures, including Sir Francis Drake in breastplate and helmet. Are the these little guys incluer in the Heller boxing? On 1/200 scale they'd be giants.

As I've been ranting for years in the Forum, the Heller designers and mold makers were great artisans, but they didn't really know much about sailing ships. This time they picked a fine kit to reissue, but the people responsible for marketing it apparently didn't know what it was. One more Hellerism.

mike .

thank's mate might be a while till I get to that stage LOL

prof tilley

thank's for that , I also have the revel 1/83 mayflower . and I thought they looked about the same size .

I'm sorry , but my masking skills are next to zero , so I ended up hand painting the hull , I'll try to touch it up a bit , hopefully the next side is better .

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It looks great, Steve. I continue to be amazed at how fast you work!

The Revell Mayflower is another outstanding kit. When you get around to tackling it, take a look at the Forum thread started by Bakster. He's doing a beautiful job on his.

Revell's marketing people are just as bad as Heller's when it comes to scale. The Mayflower kit isn't on 1/83 scale; it's quite a bit smaller - somewhere around 1/110. Again, the height of the crew figures is a tipoff.

We know the approximate size of the Golden Hind. When she got back to England the government put her on public display in a purpose-built shed, and the dimensions of the shed have survived. That ship really was tiny.

The Mayflower actually was a rather large ship for her day - quite a bit bigger than the Golden Hind. In the sixties, when the two kits were originally released, Revell often designed its sailing ships so they'd fit in the same sized box. 

Why does this model, and the original Revell kit, have a royal coat of arms on the transom? The various replicas, I thought, have an actual hind.

thank's john , didn't know I was considered a fast worker , maybe I should take a step back every now and then LOL .

just looked at the mayflower again , going by what you told me , the hind must have been a pretty small ship . goes to show how intrepid those early explorers were .

I have been watching baxter's thread , he's doing an exceptional job

now to start putting this ship together" />

John is absolutely correct in his assessment of both Heller's and Revell's inattention to accuracy with kit scales.  For example, the old Revell 1/196 USS Constitution is still on the market by Revell USA whereas Revell of Germany states on their version's box that the exact same kit is 1/144.  Such mistakes detract from the reputations of these kits, although they are excellent models.

Bill

Steve..what color is the original plastic?

Rob

Rob,

I have this kit. It was molded in white plastic.

Bill

Right.  I had a kit molded in dark brown and the benefit was that once the hull was painted a lighter brown..I went back and used a scalpel to scrape off the paint on all the relieved surfaces...the banding and such to expose the original cast brown plastic color.  In this way I didn't have to tackle with edgeing the paint of a different color for the relief areas.

It was clean and sharp.  However, the white base color would not work.

Rob

rob

it was a light grey colour

John,

I just noticed your question regarding crew figures and quickly checked my Heller kit.  No, Heller did not include any crew figures.

GM,

You have raised an interesting point about the Royal coat of arms found on the Revell/Heller versions.  The Airfix kit does not have this on the transom.  That transom is molded with the hind.

Bill

Okay .

    Now that that's been settled does anyone know what a hind is ? It is definitely not our backside !      T.B.

just had a look at the airfix model , a hind is a horse !!

A "hind" is a doe, a deer, a female deer . . .

Bill

thanks bill I'll put my glasses on next time

Steve,

No problem.  I was just trying to be a little humorous.

Bill

Still doesn't explain the lack of said on the stern post.   I recall seeing Revell or Heller versions of the Golden Hind with a *Hind* embossed on the stern.  Am I *still* missing somthing?

Rob

Several years ago, they had a replica of the Golden Hind at Port Canaveral. It was supposed to be the original size. It was amazing how small it was. Most of the charter fishing boats were bigger. The head room on the lower deck was about 5'. A handout said that the sailors back then averaged about 4' tall.

I have serious doubts about any decorations on a Golden Hind model.

The truth is that we know next to nothing about this ship. Nobody has ever found a decent contemporary picture of her. The Revell kit clearly is based on the plans in a book by a German ship modeler Whose name I've forgotten) that was published in the 1940s.

We have her approximate dimensions, and we know she was originally named Pelican. (The pelican, a big bird that wraps its wings around its brood, was a fairly common symbol for Queen Elizabeth I.) There's ONE brief reference in ONE contemporary document to the effect that, at sea somewhere in the Caribbean, Drake renamed her Golden Hind. (The golden hind was a heraldic symbol on the coat of arms of one of the expedition's wealthy patrons.) At least one modern scholar questions whether the name change actually happened.

Maybe she originally had a pelican for a figurehead. And heaven only knows what was painted or carved on her transom. In any case, it seems highly unlikely that a skilled carver made her a new figurehead or carved royal arms for her transom. If he did, it seems even less likely that the carvings matched the superb quality of those in the Revell/Heller kit.

Part of me thinks it would be most accurate to trash the figurehead and scrape the ornament off the transom. But they're so beautiful....