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Best kit for first time sailing ship builder?

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  • Member since
    December 2002
  • From: Greenville,Michigan
Posted by millard on Saturday, January 6, 2007 10:27 AM

My suggestion for first sailing ship kit in plastic.Would be Revell Santa Maria.A very simple kit well detailed.The fit is good.Easier to build than the Revell Mayflower.It will get the modelers feed wet into rigging without overwelming them.Its the first model I did when I got back into modeling in the eighties.Fact I still have it and almost twenty years since I build it.

Rod

  • Member since
    December 2002
  • From: Derry, New Hampshire, USA
Best kit for first time sailing ship builder?
Posted by rcboater on Saturday, January 6, 2007 9:50 AM

A while back, we discussed the best sailing ship kits on the market, past and present.  IIRC, the focus of that discussion was more about accuracy-- were they "true scale models" or not.  (As opposed to some of the renaming stunts Revell has pulled in the past.)

I have a slightly different question-- of the kits that we we considered to be decent on our last go-round, which ones are the best kits?  By that, I'm talking about the quality of the moldings, the absence of flash, the quality of fit of the parts, etc.

What I'm really after is to come up with a (short?) list of kits that I'd recommend to a typical, moderately experienced  aircraft or armor modeler who wants to try something different.   (My local club has a number of such folks.)

For example, I know that some of the Airifix kits are considered to be reasonably accurate models  of the subjects, but we all know that older Airfix kits can vary widely in the quality of fit and detail.  An aircraft modeler used to the quality of a typical Hasegawa or Tamiya kit may not want a kit that is basically accurate, but needs a lot of work to fix or replace poorly molded parts.

Keeping in mind that I'm aiming my list at first time sailing ship builders, a big Revell Consititution is probably not a good choice. Smaller, simpler vessels would be preferred.

One kit that comes to mind is the Lindberg (ex-pyro) Topsail Schooner/baltimore clipper/Morris-class Revenue Cutter.  It has been a couple of decades since I built one, but I sorta remember it as a decent kit, with details a bit sparse, but what was there was of OK quality and fit. (Does anyone have more recent experience with this kit?)  My other conern about this kit is that it is currently OOP, and may be hard to find.)

The Revell Yacht America also seems to be a good candidate for this list, but it even harder to find. 

So, what other kits would you nominate for this list? 

Webmaster, Marine Modelers Club of New England

www.marinemodelers.org

 

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