You are welcome E.J… Any questions ? Message me . T.B.
Yes I would say so. Same thing, or lack thereof, that made the Block Island ships so ugly.
" G "
What always amazed me was the Lakers . Straight shot stem to stern , bows like a liberty with a more vertical stem . But you know , they had their own kind of beauty .
You could look at one and see hard work , but with a determined visage of getting the job done regardless , if the Storms of November did come early !
Character is first here . You see a ship , any kind and what is seen ? Beauty , work or ridicule .There is all of that and more . After all , for instance , the Glomar Explorer wouldn’t win any " Beautiful Ship " awards .
You do know she was at the Suisun mothball fleet anchorage for quite some time , don’t you ? That is one homely ship . But she did what she was designed to do . T.B.
Yep. My client owns the Hughes Mining Barge from that whole adventure.
Very serviceable submersible dry dock. When he bought it it had the Sea Shadow inside, which he scrapped.
Yep. My client owns the Hughes Mining Barge from that whole adventure.
Very serviceable submersible dry dock. When he bought it it had the Sea Shadow inside, which he scrapped.
I have this kit and I left it unfinished at about 60%. I removed all the thick out of scale railings and bought the GMM 1/400 set. This is one of the few times I’ve never finished a kit.
You should be aware that not only are there problems with hull accuracy etc, but the moulding is atrocious . You will have to fill large mould ruts that are absurd when compared to any modern kit. You could make a nice , if not fully accurate model out of it if prepared to do the work, but if you are not hell bent on a model of this great liner then I would stay away. When you open the box it literally looks like a toy.
I’ll try to find some photos of mine.
Hmmm, " G ";
You would have to update me on the Sea Shadow . I do know that there were guards on her even in Suisun .The best Sturgeon fishing I have ever done was about 100 yards astern of her !
If you got to close they would warn you off .Yes ! They were armed too ! But what fisherman is going to be deterred from an Awesome Sturgeon or Striped Sea Bass just waiting for you . By a puny armed guard ?
I got a lot of food from that area and don’t regret a minute of my friends discomfort being so close to the " Glomar " T.B.
I have heard it said that the Glencoe United States looks more like the smaller U.S. Line ‘America’. I’ve never seen one out of the box but it’s a pretty famous dog of a kit.
Airfix recently reissued their 1/600 Queen Elizabeth if you want a pretty nice liner kit. It’s an old mold but wouldn’t take much to turn it into a nice model.
Fred
Yes !
You can also tweak her in that direction if so desired . For the U.S. And the America she’s actually too short . She does look to be a mold of a ship of six or seven hundred feet .
Years ago While in service I built one to resemble the U.S.S. Dixie ! Didn’t have to do much to her either except the upper deck mods .
The Dixie was a Destroyer Tender ! Best ice cream machine in the Navy ! ! T.B.
In case you’re interested, here’s the Oylimpia in 1896:
U.S.S. Oregon, same time:
These were taken from a book printed back then.
You Know ;
I have models of both from the Wood model people , great looking ships , Lotsa brass went into them plus the molded White-metal parts . But they are big !
Now think a moment , Would you have wanted to live on one of those ? Not me ! No Air-Conditioning or in some cases hard racks . Hammocks my friend ! No Thanks .
Still there was nothing more riveting than the " Great White Fleet " outside the Farralons coming into San Francisco ! What a sight ! I saw a photo in the Maritime Museum there , gees , what an impressive sight that was !
See if you can picture it , All the major ships strung out in a line , bow to stern coming to the turn into the channel .WOW! ! ! T.B.
I spent many nights in a hammock in the Gulf of Alaska. Beats being thrown out of the bunk.
As an aside, the Oregon was to be a “museum ship” on Portland, but was taken during the steel shortages in WWII. Her mast is installed in Waterfront Park along the Willamette in Portland. There is a real nice model of her over in Astoria at the museum there. Had the old Glenco kit of her, but it went away when the motorhome it was stored in disappeared, before I could get to build it.
SS United States fans will be interested to learn that a reboxing of the old flat-bottomed, 1/600 Revell kit is on the company’s list of “new products” for January.
It doesn’t measure up to modern standards, of course, but to my eye it looks a lot more like the ITC/Glencoe version.
Something is missing there. I am interested to know what you think- Revell better than Glencoe?
I think Revell’s designers worked from at least some measured drawings of the actual ship. The Revell model, at least to my eye, has proportions that look more like the real ship.
It’s a 1950’s kit, so it would be unreasonable to expect much from it. But it looks to me like a better basis for a serious scale model.
Hi " G " ;
I would have to think the Revell version , although flat bottomed is by far better at actually looking like the U.S. . The Glencoe kit looks more like a Matson ship or American President Liner . with the wrong stacks . I believe it’s because she doesn’t appear to be the right length .
She could be very well an in between size as far as length . One definite giveaway is this . Count the lifeboats .The S.S.U.S. had 24 , the Matson ships or Presidents only had 18 . T.B.