1/96 Revell USS Kearsarge - Completed build photos

Modeling Subjects Ships
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Apologies for the very long delay in posting these photographs of my Kearsarge model in its completed state! Last week I finally got round to taking the photos, and I’ve now resized and uploaded them to my webspace.

This is my model of the 19th century steam sloop USS Kearsarge, built from the Revell 1/96 scale kit. 99% complete - the only major thing which still needs doing is to attach the boats to their davits. 3 of the boats can be seen in the first photo, there are 2 each of 3 different types.
The model represents (more or less) the ship in its configuration in the 1880s, with the forecastle fitted, and armed with 4 9" Dahlgren guns and two 8" rifled guns(modified from the original 11" Dahlgrens) on pivot mounts. The model is built more or less “out of the box” - I left the bow chaser gun as the forecastle looks rather bare without it, although I believe it was not fitted at this period.

I simplified the rigging layout a fair amount, there are no blocks or ratlines and I omitted a number of the rigging lines. However, I can always add ratlines and/or additional rigging at a later date.
The two pivot-mounted 11" guns are rigged, but I have not yet rigged the 9" broadside guns, as I wanted them to be removable whilst the model was being painted and weathered - I’ll probably add the rigging to them soon, when I rig the boats on the davits.

The model was painted mainly with Revell acrylics (the hull copper plating is Tamiya XF6 Copper) and weathered with acrylic craft paint and oil washes. Drybrushing was used extensively to add more variation + texture to the appearance of surfaces.
Rigging thread and chain are the materials supplied in the kit. The crew figures are also supplied with the kit. Originally from the 1/96 Cutty Sark kit, they’re actually merchant ship crew, but look OK when painted in USN uniform colours. They are fixed to the deck with small metal pins glued to their feet, which allows them to be moved or repositioned. You might spot tiny pinholes in the deck in some of the photos, these are alternative locations for the figures!

Here are the photos (most are links rather than images to decrease page load times)

Overall views:

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pinniger/models/ship/kearsarge_2.jpg
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pinniger/models/ship/kearsarge_3.jpg
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pinniger/models/ship/kearsarge_4.jpg
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pinniger/models/ship/kearsarge_5.jpg

Detail close-ups:

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pinniger/models/ship/kearsargecloseup_2.jpg
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pinniger/models/ship/kearsargecloseup_3.jpg
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pinniger/models/ship/kearsargecloseup_4.jpg
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pinniger/models/ship/kearsargecloseup_5.jpg

Anyway, any comments, constructive criticism or questions are welcome. I didn’t put as much work into the build as it would be possible to do so (the model is built essentially OOB, and the rigging is simplified) but am still very pleased with its finished appearance, and (apart from the tedious process of cleaning the mould lines and flash from all the parts) it was great fun to build.

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An absolutely superb job EP. The photos have me drooling. I hope I can build this kit as well as you have done it (my 3rd attempt in 38 years), Why did you omit the blocks?

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EPinniger, Super nice work!

Paul Fitch

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Very nice job, and thanks for posting those photos. As You know I’m in the middle of the Alabama, and I may have some questions as I go along. I am also about to a/b the hull bottom with Tamiya copper. Unfortunately I don’t have a digital camera.

I see that the ratlines are attached outside of the hull, as opposed to the Alabama where there is a third piece that is glued to the upper interior hull rail. I am liking this kit however there has been a lot of flash cleanup as posted before.

Nice effect on the cannons, they look like real cast metal.

I’m using MM sand (darkened) then washed with oils, for my deck I’m going to use the sails as well.

Great Job!

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Part of the reason for this is that I just don’t enjoy rigging anywhere near as much as assembling, scratchbuilding or painting. The thought of spending a month building a model and then another 3-4 months rigging it would drive me insane! As it was, it still took me nearly as long to rig the Kearsarge as it did to paint it.
If at a later date (when my skills have improved) I decide to replace or add to the rigging, I can always do so.

The main reason I didn’t include the blocks, however, is that I couldn’t face the job of cleaning up, painting and drybrushing all 200+ of them! I’ve recently built the Heller Nina kit (will post some photos of this soon) which I rigged fully with all of the blocks and rigging lines, and although there are only 15 or so blocks in this kit, cleaning up and painting them was still a fairly time-consuming process. (I found the best method was, after cleaning up the mould seams, to put a block on either end of a wooden toothpick, paint one half of each block, then rest the toothpick on a small box or similar so the blocks are not touching anything. Once the paint has dried, reverse the blocks and paint the other half).
Due to the lack of blocks, I had to simplify the rigging layout somewhat to accommodate this.

The ratlines were left off as I was afraid of breaking the rather fragile moulded plastic deadeye/chain assemblies when threading the ratlines through the shrouds (which would put a fair amount of stress on both the shrouds and the deadeyes they are attached to). It was tricky enough drilling holes in the deadeyes large enough for shrouds of the correct thickness, and several broke off and had to be reglued and reinforced with CA glue! Ideally, the chain plates and deadeyes would be replaced with scratchbuilt or aftermarket parts.

Cannons were painted flat black and then lightly drybrushed with “granite” craft acrylic paint, which gives a very convincing “cast iron” appearance. I’m not sure how accurate this is, however as I know guns were usually painted in overall gloss black or dark brown (in which case satin black would be more accurate)
As I think I mentioned in a previous post, the deck was first painted with Revell earth brown, then heavily drybrushed with Revell stone grey (this is fairly close to a “bleached teak” colour) then given an oil wash of dark brown and black.
The lower hull is drybrushed with several different shades of brown to give a lightly oxidised/weathered effect. I didn’t add any green corrosion/verdigris as I wasn’t really sure how to represent this realistically.

There weren’t any sails in my kit (a recent Revell AG reissue). (Does the reissued Alabama include sails, or is it only the earlier issues) I usually leave sails off as they obscure so much of the deck detail, and I’m also not too keen on vac-formed plastic sails, although I did use the sails on the Heller Nina as it looked very “bare” without them.

This kit also required a lot of cleanup of flash and (especially) mould lines. Very irritating, especially with the smaller parts (some of which are hard to clean up without breaking them) although I’d far rather have a reissue of a 40- or 50-year old kit than no kit at all, given that it’s very unlikely any other manufacturer will produce a plastic kit of a subject like this!

Anyway, thanks for the replies. This will hopefully be only the first of several “steam and sail” models. I also have the Imai Susquehanna and Pyro Harriet Lane/Blockade Runner kits (still looking for a Hartford!), and have plans for several scratchbuilding projects. Along with the pre-dreadnought/dreadnought eras (1880s to WW1) this is probably my favourite era of warship design.

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Looks good, keep up the good work!

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EPinniger, that is spectacular!

I see the insides of the ventilators are red. Do you know off-hand if red was a possible color for ventilators on Civil War era Union ironclads?

I’ve built a 1/200th U.S.S. Keokuk, and in its mostly dark gray and black colors accented with some rust, it’s one drab-looking model. I’ll be adding every possible pennant and flag, but even so, it’ll just be a big, gray lump. Any little bit of color will help.

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You could make it rust-red [:D]
Knock yourself out.

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[#oops]Sorry if this is a repeat of yesterday’s message but this is the first time I’v written on this forum. In any case after a delay of some 40 years I’m back to plastic models. In the meantime I’v built some 25, mostly scratch, wooden models. Two of my recent builds were of the Alabama, one was donated to the City of Geneva, Switzerland and the other was a commission for the grandson of the captain of the Alabama. I’m not going to build a third one instead I bought the Revell model of the Kearsarge. Reading all i could on this forum concerning the kit I see that is is most likely the ship as of 1880’s not 1864. Note was made of a series of article in the NRG (1999-2000) by A.C. Robertsoutlining the differences between these two versions. My question is does anyone have thes articles and if so would the be willing to send me copies. I would be more than happy to cover the expences involved. As the project progresses I hope that I can call on the experts in this forum for additional assistance. Thanks in advance from snowless Switzerland

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Great job on that deck and the colors! and nice to see the crew at work running the ship.

I don’t blame you for omitting the ratlines because of the weak deadeyes. These must be one of Revells biggest blunders. When I built my Alabama many years ago, I used the kits deadeyes and within a year most of them snapped off due to the strain from the shroud lines. So at present, My Alabama also doesn’t have any ratlines. Someday I’ll rig up some deadeyes and chainplates from scratch and put shrouds and ratlines back aboard her.

Scott

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Apologies for my absence from the FSM forum recently - anyway, thanks for the comments.
You’re right that the weak deadeyes/chains supplied in the kit are the reason for my leaving off the ratlines - quite a few of the deadeyes snapped off whilst building the model and of course once they’ve snapped they’re weaker, however carefully you reglue them, so most of them snapped again when attaching the shrouds. I didn’t want to risk further damage by threading a needle through the shrouds (which would put a fair amount of extra stress on them)
If I ever build the Revell Alabama, I’ll probably try and get some aftermarket deadeyes to replace the kit ones. Rigging the shrouds and ratlines is, to be honest, my least favourite part of building a rigged ship model, and the task of drilling and threading the plastic deadeyes is the main reason for this - I’m still only halfway through rigging my Airfix “Sovereign of the Seas”.

About the ventilators (though this reply is a bit late!), the kit instructions specify red, and as I’ve seen many civilian ships with red vent interiors I assumed the instructions were correct - although I’ve learnt that more or less everything about Revell ship kits needs to be double-checked.
I also followed the kit instructions for the rigging layout, I have since heard that these instructions are fairly inaccurate - is this true?

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I just glued in my main mast lower rat lines and mizzen lower rat lines. I had them backed with thin cardboard and had a thin sprue glued across the bottoms of the preformed rat lines to catch the nibs on the outermost deadeyes. Breaking off and realigning the incorrect deadeyes turned out to go quickly. One of the preformed rat line assemblies looks too slanted, but this is Revell and I don’t see how to fix it. I added 2 small rope crosspieces on the top of each rat line climb to fill out the ladder. Looks like my little people could make it to the platforms now. Aside from the card backing I made, I had threads glued to the tops of the trimed ratlines to pull them tight either singly or in groups. This worked out ok since I used Crazyglue and it set very fast. The result isn’t perfect but does look very good from a foot or more away. There is some slight twisting at some of the tops that maybe I can better later. I also put a coat of undiluted flat black paint on the shroud parts of the rat lines and dry brushed/painted thinned black in the transition to the transverse rope steps. This gives the rat line shrouds a much bolder look and I think is an improvement. It was hard getting at the back sides of the shrouds and I might get back to that later with better light. Pretty happy with the results because really. “It’s just a plastic model.” Paul