Posted by Don Murphy on June 29, 2009, 22:57:55
97.100.249.235
But it IS a pre-dreadnought...honest! I picked up this box scale kit for a song and basically had planned on building it one day. Not really any time in the present. I haven't built a sailing ship in a long time so I was not really geared up mentally to build it.
The box was opened quickly, a brief glance looked over the contents and then the whole thing was quickly put in the stack of kits to build "some day." Then fate jumped in. Uncle Gil has been diagnosed with beginning alzheimers and his baby sister (my mom) was tasked with finding him digs.
Digs turned out to be a nice assisted living home in Hudson, Florida. Uncle Gil and my folks toured the place and the decision was made to move there. While getting ready to visit me, they cleared his house out and found something they "thought I'd like."
What they "thought I'd like" was a massive shrinkwrapped 1/96th scale Revell USS Constitution model with crew, guns and commemorative booklet. WWWWWWWWWWWWWWOW! So as they bring the thing down to me, I'm faced with a problem that only I seem to have had: I didn't want two Constitution kits. So I decided to build the little one for Uncle Gil to decorate his room with.
The kit goes together quite well, but it was a used kit. So a few parts here and there were missing. Not too bad considering the age of the kit. Numerous reviews of the kit put it at 1/196th scale. Okay... I remember vaguely building the kit as a pre-teen.
The kit is molded in brown, black and white plastic with an intended audience of folks interested in a quick build. Most of the detail is pre-molded into the kit for you. Revell knew they were going to do the huge 96th scale ship, so they made this one as easy to build as possible.
In this small of a scale, a lot of the detail is hard to make out. Looking at the larger kit parts on the 96th scale ship helps to make sense out of some of the assemblies. The instruction sheet is not that great, preferring to spend more time on the rigging.
The rigging patterns are pretty complex and encompass both in port and underway configurations. I was quickly overwhelmed both by the complexity of the schemes and the crudeness of the instruction sheet's drawings. Looking at photos of the real thing helped somewhat. As did consulting the 96th scale kit's instruction book. Pre-molded ratlines assist somewhat, but the going is long and tedious.
The bow rigging pattern itself is the stuff of legends and the instruction sheet starts to explain the reasoning behind each length of line, then they quickly overwhelm themselves and leave you in the lurch about halfway through. Can't blame them really... The kit comes with two different colors of jute ("thread" for the rest of us) and they try - again - to explain why. Nope...sorry...picking one color and sticking to it thank you very much...
The business end of USS Constitution is pretty impressive with 24 pounder and 32 pounder guns. In this small of a scale, you don't really get much detail, but the 32 pounders were big enough to handle me drilling out the barrel openings.
Looking at photos of the ship, she appears to be pretty glossy. So that's what I used. The black parts of the ship are Tamiya Semi-Gloss Black. The white parts are Floquil Reefer White. The red parts are Floquil Bulwark Red. The deck is Floquil Deck Tan. The lower hull is Floquil Umber and last but not least, the masts and other wooden parts are Tamiya Dark Earth which did a pretty good job of matching the photos of the real thing.
I'm not gonna lie, I got bored/jaded/disenchanted real quickly with the rigging and cut **A LOT** of corners. And I deliberately chose to leave the sails off. I know Uncle Gil will love it but mom has been eyeing it pretty greedily so I am kind of doubtful that Uncle Gil will ever see it. I mentioned to mom the upcoming USS Gearing kit (Uncle Gil's old ship) and I think she'll get that for him instead. It was good practice for the 96th scale kit.
Cheers,
Don
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