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Eagle 1/1200 Lilac.


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I am no naval modeller although I was keen sailor in my youff but the last plastic ship kit was back in the early sixties when I was a bairn.

 

Looking at these diminutive Eagle kits in the trove I am minded to put one of the Lilac models together, my maritime attraction always being to these unsung work horses of small ships who seemed to be steady away allowing the Fleet giants to strut their stuff. Probably due to me coming from a small Highland fishing village and having spent time fishing and sailing on water both salt and fresh

 

Anyway consider me a tyro and has anyone any advice on references, building, detailing(?), improving, painting, these diminutive models before I have at it with my 8" bastard file and rip saw.

 

I am minded to put her in a seascape, perhaps moored to a buoy.

 

I am sure there are much better kits to this scale nowadays but they don't hold the nostalgia that the striking "Eagle" logo has.

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Ah! now you are talking modelling.  Over the years, I bought and built virtually all of the series and played table-top navy games with them.  Over time they got battered and broken but you weren't bothered as replacements could be found in most model shops then, suddenly they were gone.  1:1200 is a nice scale to model to as you can construct a nice little diorama set up at that size.  The setting you suggest sounds good, perhaps with a sea boat arriving or departing with the mail?

 

The Eagle models started me on the near obsession of martime modelling and now build stuff in all scales.  I shall have a look through my books on naval subjects and see if I can find some info for you.

 

cheers.

Mike

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My first search is to refer to these books:

 

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It is interesting that HMS Lilac was originally a standard fishing trawler and, after the war, reverted back to commercial trawling.  This means that you could finish the kit either as an armed trawler or as a civvy.  The details I have found so far:

 

Built:  1930 by Cochrane's as Beachflower. 

  1935:  purchased by the Admiralty and converted to a minesweeper and commissioned as HMS Lilac.  Pennant T31.  Disp.:  593grt.  142net Armament 1 x 4inch.

  1939:  Minesweeping in Home Waters throughout WWII.

  1947:  Sold for commercial use to Great Northern FC of London and renamed Robert Hewitt.  Reg. No. LO 427.

 

I haven't found any photo's of HMS Lilac yet but here is an image of a sister ship, HMS Syringa, that was built at the same yard also in 1930 and with the same conversion work.

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Mike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Oooooh!

 

Books!

 

I can see this wee thing could lead me on the rocky road to ruin.

 

Jaunty little vessels aren't they.

 

Reminds me of the image I get in my head when reading Masefield's "salt-caked smoke stacks" in Cargoes.

 

Any information on paint schemes?

 

Thank you for the help, looks like 'tis only you and I that seem to have have an enthusiasm for these forgotten Liliputians.

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Not quite.  There is a book on the subject, which I will run upstairs and get a little bit later, if Mike doesn't beat me to it.  There used to be a website but it seems to have folded.

 

However for the time being you will find a lot of interest on 1250 Home (www.1250scale.com)

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Thank you, another book, great.

 

I have ordered copies of the two Admiralty Trawlers volumes.

 

Thank you for the link, I try and keep my internet presence to the bare minimum nowadays so will resist the temptation to look at the site.

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7 hours ago, bootneck said:

I haven't found any photo's of HMS Lilac yet but here is an image of a sister ship, HMS Syringa, that was built at the same yard also in 1930 and with the same conversion work.

I'd suggest that as well as the gun and bandstand, the conversion included adding the upper bridge deck and extending the vents behind it, if you're converting to pre/post war civvie these will need removing/lowering.

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Your best bet would be to visit swapmeets and specialist societies: I've lost touch with these but presume they do still exist.  Lots of other interest in them, when such things start happening again.  I assume that much of the discussion etc goes on on the internet nowadays.

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Thanks for the suggestions, I suspect such societies are pretty thin around where I am, anyway being asocial I far prefer remote human contact, letter and print preferred but email is fine too. I prefer to visit as few web sites as possible nowadays life is too short for frittering it away "surfing" the web.

 

 

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