Nomore Shelfspace Posted July 2, 2020 Share Posted July 2, 2020 Hello again after a long time, I used to post aircraft projects here, but they've mostly been sold - I still build the occasional kit of anything that catches my interest, if I have space for it that is... anyway I like sailing ships so I got this thing... 150th anniversary edition, in a huge box containing a poster of the box art, a bag of paints, plastic bottle of cement, the worst paintbrush I've seen in my life and a magazine-like instruction book, in true Revell style taking one numbered step to show where to stick one part, and no historical information on a supposedly historical subject (try Wikipedia...). The drawings are cut -and- paste variations on one view and occasionally misleading - I got the lifeboat structure completely wrong, thanks to the instructions, and had to rip it all apart, breaking most of it, and rebuild it with styrene sheet and brass rod, but more of that later. These photos show how far I got a few days ago - you have to admit the decals actually look quite nice! I used the paint supplied in the kit, why not. The hull cladding was Munt metal which has a brassy colour, not copper, but it looks ok or will do once I've retouched it after all the handling. Nothing special here, I am not a serious ship modeller, it's just a nice model... or will be.... Great, I've just got a photo in off my flickr thing. This is HALF the box it came in, made into a work box. The deck is warped so I just made up a solid hull before anything else. Be careful of those stanchions. Note step 3, "stick two halves of wheelhouse together..." Bit of a jump here, lots of painting.... loads of detail on the deck including the hand pumps and winches, I don't know how old this kit is, or even if it was originally Revell. excuse the bluey colour cast, I was trying out a 1999 vintage Olympus camera! As I pointed out, the Munt metal that clad the Cutty Sark's hull was a brassy colour, I used Revell enamel 95. I undercoated everything with Humbrol matt sand or somthething like that, makes it easier to paint in acrylic, which I prefer. Wouldn't like to have been a sailor on board one of these... Decals aren't bad at all, but need some application of the old Decalfix. Parts fit is rough. The front end of the ship. Really looks quite nice, although I'm sure the figurehead is supposed to be larger...? That's it until I can get more done, and have finished rebuilding the lifeboat tackle... 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Murdo Posted July 2, 2020 Share Posted July 2, 2020 That certainly looks rather nice so far! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nomore Shelfspace Posted July 3, 2020 Author Share Posted July 3, 2020 Okay, first let me say this kit is rubbish. It just confirms my opinion of Revell Germany as a packaging company. Second, it's no use throwing your toys out of the pram and winding up with nothing, you have to soldier on with it. I'm not sure what they were thinking when they designed this thing because the structure of the lifeboat deck clashes with the midships pair or ratlines. I totally rebuilt the lifeboat deck and relocated it aft of its intended position. It looks wrong, but the ratlines now fit - there are moulded cutouts in the peg rails into which they must fit, ignoring the similar cutouts in the upper edges of the sides where it LOOKS like they should fit... if you follow me so far. The aft mast (not sure if I'm using nautical terms, probably not) is now nowhere near the ends of the aft pair of ratlines, see photo... this is almost comical. They are in the correct slots in the deck as well. I had to tie back the mast with tape and rigging thread so it came anywhere near the top of the ratty lines and glued it with large dollops of Rocket cyano. It leans back much too far as a result. Now looking at the photos of a finished model online, the ratlines are fixed to the top edges of the sides. Really... if you do this the ends will not meet the knuckles on the masts, unless I'm getting something wrong here, but looking at photos of the real ship, I am doing it right! It's a disaster area, but I will finish it. I only bought this after reading poor reviews of the Airfix one... WTF REVELL. Seriously? YUK. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nomore Shelfspace Posted July 3, 2020 Author Share Posted July 3, 2020 Okay, decided I had to adress this issue properly (not by using a mallet or fire...) - the rear mast assembly needs rebuilding so it dosen't bend backwards like a drunken sailor. Put aside until I can be bothered with it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nomore Shelfspace Posted July 5, 2020 Author Share Posted July 5, 2020 Finally made some headway on this one. The rigging is in progress, and there is a lot. I don't like the billowing vacform sails and they are extra work so I'll leave these off. I'm not sure of the origin of this kit - an old Revell catalogue (probably 1967) I have only lists the 1/96 version but this doesn't mean it isn't Revell - the sprues have a Heller look to them, I dunno... anyway here it is so far. Filling in and eventually repainting the slots in the deck for the ratlines that aren't supposed to be there... Replacing the moulded ratty lines further forward, wrong but the only way they will line up with the mast... How to fix ratlines to mast with scraps of sheet. Note hole mistakenly drilled in earlier attempt to fix these things... Now I can start rigging. I had enough thread left from the Constitution kit to rig this one as well. I ran the thread through beeswax as shown here, knotting and then applying a drop of cyano to fix. Those 'horns" either side of the bow are in the wrong places but I fixed that... (correction; these are called "catheads". Sorry shipmates.) Correct placement of catheads according to photos of real ship. Always useful... Good progress with running rigging (brown) mostly in place. Sorry about the small photos, even out of my ancient (1999) Olympus C2500L I had to reduce them so they wouldn't take so long to upload! No more photos until finished. See you then. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nomore Shelfspace Posted July 5, 2020 Author Share Posted July 5, 2020 Okay, THIS looks like the same kit, from 1977... "Quick Build" though...🤔? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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