Revell Great Eastern 1/388 Scale

[Martian]

With the Boomin Beaver ready for paint and it not being worth reconfiguring the Martian Cave for airbrushing such a small model, I have decided that the time is ripe for tackling one of my larger ship kits. I have had the Revell Great Eastern in my stash since 2002 and decided that if I don't build it now ,then I never will.

 

 

The kit comes as the kit in its cable laying configuration, minus the forth funnel which was removed to make space for more telegraph cable. I am torn between  building the model in this form or converting it back toi its original passenger layout, which should be pretty simple as all I need to do is to scratch build an extra funnel, reinstate the bulwarks at the bow, delete the cable laying equipment at the stern and fill in location holes for the same on the deck. I will have to make a decision soonish though as the conversion work needs to start early on in the build.

 

For now though, I have glued the hull halves together and drilled out the portholes. Heads up here: do the drilling over a number of sessions. I didn't and quite literally ended up with a socking great blister on the palm of my right hand!

 

 

Currently the deck is not glued in place so that I can work on it separately. The deck is "adorned" with representations of rope cheeses that give more of an impression that a ginormous hound has done a "Mr Whippy". These had to go!

 

If the portholes weren't enough, I the proceeded to remove flash and open up a bit more 252 skylights. My poor tentacles!

 

 

I have bought some 1/350 ratlines for the kit, these are generic sets so I am just hoping they can be made to fit as the kit supplied items are pretty naff. I might replace the kit railings but need to do a bit more research here as initially I thought they were overscale but the wondered if they were made from wood and consequently bulkier than one might otherwise expect.

 

 

 

 

Please be aware that this will be a quite lengthy build: partly because there is a lot to refine in the kit, whichever way I go, partly because there is no dedicated aftermarket for the ship that I am aware of and anything that I do use will have to be adapted, and not least because, although the ship attracted quite phenomenal public interest, there is not a huge amount of pictorial documentation about her. The build will also have to be fitted round the "day job" of running and making models for the the Zeppelin display.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Martian 👽

 

 

 

[LorenSharp]

An grand and excellent  endeavour to being the new year Martian!By the time you are finished, the Great Eastern will truly be Great! I'll just stand over here in the shadows out of the way and quietly observe the construction.

[Martian]

1 hour ago, LorenSharp said:

I'll just stand over here in the shadows out of the way and quietly observe the construction.

Thanks Loren, that will be a first!

 

Incredulous of Mars 👽

[Navy Bird]

Was this ship used to shoot down Zeppelins?

 

Cheers,

Bill

[LorenSharp]

23 minutes ago, Martian said:

Thanks Loren, that will be a first!

 

Incredulous of Mars 👽

Hey, I'm trying. At times very trying, But I'm trying none the less.

14 minutes ago, Navy Bird said:

Was this ship used to shoot down Zeppelins?

 

Cheers,

Bill

Close, It transported the PARTS to make the zeppelins.

[Martian]

1 hour ago, Navy Bird said:

Was this ship used to shoot down Zeppelins?

 

Cheers,

Bill

No but this one was:

 

 

On 5th May 1916, the pre-Dreadnought battleship HMS Agamemnon shot down the German army Zeppelin L.85 over the Vadar Marshes near Salonika. There were no casualties and the wreckage of the airship was recovered and reassembled in front of the White Tower on the quay at Salonika. It became something of a tourist attraction.

 

And, yes, I will be making a model of the ship along with a 1/350 scale LZ.85 to compare the sizes of the two. I have a bit of fabric as well as some bits from the Zeppelin, together with a souvenir handkerchief that was produced at the time, so it should make for quite a nice little sub-display.

 

Martian 👽

[Martian]

5 minutes ago, LorenSharp said:

Hey, I'm trying. At times very trying, But I'm trying none the less.

Close, It transported the PARTS to make the zeppelins.

Unsurprisingly, it wasn't a first!

 

Totally unsurprised of Mars 👽

[Martian]

This afternoon's session at the bench confirmed to me that, like most people who had anything to do with the Great Eastern, this ship may well break me.  I thought that I would have a leisurely session cleaning up the paddle wheel part and getting them assembled.  Not a bit of it! When I had got the acres of flash off the parts, I discovered that not only do the blades not even fit where they touch where they fit, they even vary widely in thickness. The only solution is to cut the kit blades away from the central wheels and make a new set of blades; all 64 of them,! These are now curing and hopefully I should have something to show on this front over the next few days. As well as a warning  that this fit is not suitable for modellers with less than a thousand years experience, it should have a wibble factor printed on the box!

 

Having a Nervy of Mars 👽

[AdrianMF]

Jeepers, it sounds like a nightmare. 

 

I will have to have a look-see in scalemates to see who made the mould - it doesn't seem like a recent Revell offering.

 

Regards,

Adrian

 

(edit) tooled by Revell in 1963 , reboxed on 1980 and 2002. hmmm, due around again about now! 

[Martian]

7 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

Jeepers, it sounds like a nightmare. 

 

I will have to have a look-see in scalemates to see who made the mould - it doesn't seem like a recent Revell offering.

 

Regards,

Adrian

 

(edit) tooled by Revell in 1963 , reboxed on 1980 and 2002. hmmm, due around again about now! 

It is but I think that I can sort it out: eventually. strangely, some of the  smaller detail parts are really good. You are correct about the moulds, Scalemates quotes it being first released in 1963 which makes the moulds nearly as old and somewhat more decrepit than yours truly.

 

If Revell are planning a re-release, then they need to do some serious work on the moulds and perhaps they could mould it in a harder plastic, the stuff in this kit seems more like soap in some places.

 

Crumplestiltsmartian 👽

[AdrianMF]

It reminds me of my Dad's build of the Revell HMS Victory (moulded 1958) that sat on top of the dining room bookcase from as early as I can remember until it was sunk by a feather duster in the late 1980s. It was pretty detailed and looked like a great model but I didn't ever ask how hard it was to build.
 

Looking forward to your build. I just hope you don't get tempted to cut out slightly more than 252 perfectly-fitted rectangles of plastic 🫣

 

Regards,

Adrian

[ArnoldAmbrose]

       So, a feather duster in the 1980s did what the French and Spanish couldn't do at Trafalgar in 1805. 😁 I always knew that cleaning was dangerous (I was a school cleaner for 19 years).

But seriously, that sounds like quite a tragedy.       Regards, Jeff.

[LorenSharp]

2 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

       So, a feather duster in the 1980s did what the French and Spanish couldn't do at Trafalgar in 1805. 

Damn the Feathers! Full speed ahead!... oooppps Wrong war. Wrong Navy.... heck wrong quote.. But still works..... almost.

[Martian]

6 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

It reminds me of my Dad's build of the Revell HMS Victory (moulded 1958) that sat on top of the dining room bookcase from as early as I can remember until it was sunk by a feather duster in the late 1980s. It was pretty detailed and looked like a great model but I didn't ever ask how hard it was to build.
 

Looking forward to your build. I just hope you don't get tempted to cut out slightly more than 252 perfectly-fitted rectangles of plastic 🫣

 

Regards,

Adrian

I trust your Mother didn't suffer the same fate of Napoleon as a result of her slight mishap and get herself exiled to St Helena as a result?

 

Concerned of Mars 👽

[Martian]

Most of the past twenty four hours has been spent adding new blades to the paddle wheels and finally getting the wheels assembled.

 

 

There is a lot of cleaning up to do on them but at least that is one can of worms sorted. 

 I have begun work on the funnels and have glued their uptakes to the model. The funnels themselves are just dry fitted for the moment as I have to work on their exterior piping. I may end up scratch building the piping. I will have to see what can be done with the parts supplied with the kit.

 

 

 

Whether I can add that extra funnel will largely depend on whether I can lay my tentacles on plastic tubing of the right diameter. I was doing some reading on the ship last night and was reminded that another option is to do the ship as she appeared when she was chartered by the Emperor Napoleon III to bring passengers over for the 1867 Paris Exhibition. The Great Eastern lost her fourth funnel when she was converted to a cable laying ship and never regained it when she was converted back to the passenger role. Anyway, we have options, another being to finish the model as a cable layer but with the hull painted white for the laying of the telegraph line to India. Apparently, this reduced temperatures within the hull by 8 degrees Fahrenheit.  Choices, choices. Best get some more of the kit's issues sorted first though.

 

Indecisive of Mars 👽

[Terry1954]

Great start Martian!

 

In that last picture I can see four funnels though?

 

Terry

 

AKA, confused from over the water!

[ArnoldAmbrose]

G'day, I think she originally had five.

Regards, Jeff.

[Martian]

3 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

G'day, I think she originally had five.

Regards, Jeff.

Sorry for any confusion. Originally the Great Eastern was fitted with five funnels and lost the forth funnel back from the bow when she was converted for laying the Atlantic telegraph cable. If one looks closely, one will see a much greater gap between the third and forth funnels on the model than between the other funnels.

 

Martian 👽

 

 

[PAUL67]

Morning Martian  Great work on sorting out those paddle wheels

 

Paul.

[Navy Bird]

You can never have too many funnels.     🍾

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Gondor44]

Oh, a new Martin build......

 

Follow that spaceship!!

 

 

Gondor

[kpnuts]

Hi martin sounds like you have a lot of work in your hands, great start.

I wanted the airfix version but have not ever found it on ebay or anywhere may have to see if I can get the revell kit

[Navy Bird]

20 hours ago, Martian said:

Most of the past twenty four hours has been spent adding new blades to the paddle wheels and finally getting the wheels assembled.

 

And depleting the local supply of sheet styrene in the process.   

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Martian]

13 hours ago, kpnuts said:

Hi martin sounds like you have a lot of work in your hands, great start.

I wanted the airfix version but have not ever found it on ebay or anywhere may have to see if I can get the revell kit

 Thanks KP, Airfix did the Great Western which they recently released in their Vintage Classics range and seems to still be available quite cheaply  on Evelbay. Good luck with finding a Revell Great Eastern kit though and be prepared to pay through the nose if you do find one for sale. Have a good therapist on hand as well if you try to build it. Wibble.

12 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

 

And depleting the local supply of sheet styrene in the process.   

 

Cheers,

Bill

No more so than a Navy Bird build. I'll tell the model shop to get extra supplies in then!

 

Martian 👽

[Martian]

So; I made my mind up. I have decided to complete the model as she was when she was first built, ie, as a passenger ship. The deciding factor was that I do not ike the look of the cut back bulwarks on the bow of the cable layer conversion.

 

The first order of business was to add a couple of bits of .80 'thou plastic strip to the cut out on the bow and when this had had time to cure, the bow was carved and sanded to the ship's original shape.

 

 

Next up, attention turned to the stern of the ship. Revell neglected to to include the windows of the captain's cabin so this was constructed from .20 'thou plastic strip after the mounting for the cable laying equipment had been ground and sanded away.

 

 

 

 

 

Next up was to scratch build an extra funnel. A very deep rummage in my scrap plastic draw revealed some scraps of tubing that  very nearly matched the diameter of the kit funnels and. following some very careful measuring, these soon became the fifth funnel:

 

 

 

 

Looking ahead, I thought it would be nice to include some figures on the deck to give some scale tothe model. @Pete in Lincs,any idea where I am going to get a scale Phantom Raspberry blower from?

 

Thanks forlooking.

 

Martian 👽