Nino, Jim, got me interested in ironclads again & even these were fun. I have built a bunch of resin ironclads & love them . I still have my Flagstaff Cairo & I have seen the real Cairo at the Vicksburg Battlefield.
I did the 2 Lindberg Monitor & Merrimac (Virginia) on pedastals & an oak base rather than the plastic sea base. I liked it but it hid the hulls on both. On the pyro Monitor I did enjoy & it made a cute model. I chose it’s battle day for the smaller one & the later post battle day for the pyro kit. As sort of usual I will post some build pictures later when I find them. I am not a computer genius so bear with me.
Here are the Lindberg kits & I did a lot of extra work on it, opened the top windows, put in chain & anchors too big, & railing. I am having trouble with these pictures & will get nino to help. I will try the pyro Monitor now. I have already changed the bad davits, all 4, on the front lifeboat. Those were terrible.
There are a lot of things I would do different if I build it again, my stacks are too big, I had trouble with cutting & reversing the turret location. Short of rescribing the whole deck I chose to hide the spots with life boats as they did have them here at times. I remade the pilot house & it is too big. It does show well tho.
Here are some of my resin ironclads. The Cairo is a honey.
I wish they would make more plastic ironclad kits in about 1/200 scale. That is what these resin ones are. they were easy & lots of fun. I will be back with the Lindberg pair as quick as I can get Jim to tell me how.I relaced the 4 lifeboat davits on the bigger Oyro Monitor.
I too love these ironclads! It’s a real shame that the plastic ship manufacturers ignore them. Your work, as usual, is exceptional! As John Tilley used to say, you sure made a silk purse out of a sow’s ear with your Monitor! Well done!
Bill, Thanks a lot. I have really enjoyed working on these small models. Maybe I’m getting old. This Pyro Monitor was a lot of fun except for cutting the hull in 3 pieces & then trying to get it back together like notthing happened.It was really a Life Like, but the same as a pyro. They do have nice engraving on them. I would change those things I mentioned, the stacks, & pilot house & several other things.
These are the Lindberg Monitor & Merrimac (Virginia) in 1/245.
did a lot of things on the Virginia like brass diamond windows with clear plastic glass, a railing, chain for the anchors & steering. The Monitor was simple but I did the turret. It was too small for me to do much. I had the base & it was the last one my son made.
Gene, I am just catching up with the forum again. Too much work at home giving me only intermittent time online. Glad I found this as my 1st search of the “day”(2AM).
The photo’s are great. Best quality you have posted yet. And your latest Ironclad models are another supreme achievement especially considering what you had to work with.
In case some folks don’t know, the Pyro/Life-Like 1/210 scale Monitor had the kits Turret in the wrong spot. It requires a major fix. Two major cuts thru the Monitor deck, a 180 realigment of the turret deck section, and 2 tough seams to hide were required. Nice work!
Your USS Cairo is really fine too. That one is a Maserpiece.
Nice job superdetailing those classics! Who says Lindberg kits can’t be built into a nice model?
Is Lindberg’s Monitor not the Pyro/Life-Like tooling, or they both develop their own kits? I know the Lindberg acquired a lot of Pyro’s molds and added them to their catalog. But something makes me think that they both had their own Monitors.
That history series of theirs is a lot of fun. I have the Pearl Harbor kit, with the Arizona and Nevada. The ships are very basic, but it’s fun to tinker with them.
A post-script…
I went to Scalemates just now, to see what I could see there, and I see that Pyro’s Monitor pre-dates the Lindberg set by several years. It looks different, too. So I think I’ve answered my own question.
Baron, Lindberg, I believe had 2 sets of kits with the Monitor & Merrimac. The first was the same as Pyro with a larger Monitor & smaller Merrimac. Same as Pyro & they did this one with both in 1/245 scale. I would like to do another Pyro kit & get it more right.
Hi Bill, please let me know if these are clear. I will draw something up I will send if this doesn’t do it. I started my measurements from the forward of the small vent behind the big flue/ stack. Each section I will call secs. I made my rear cut 6 full secs from the front of the vent & the front cut 10 secs ahead at the very front of the turret hole. Just clear of that. right on the edge. It was about 1&22/32 forward, but use the front of tthe turret hole as a guide. Now I want you to move 1 sec back for your cut That is 5 secs forward of the vent. That will move the turret back 1 sec. Mine is too far forward still but I didn’t know.
Have Jim look at this, he is the smart one on this. I have changed & added so much on mine, it is hard to measure. tThat is why i do every thing in sections because cuts have to be on sections.
They are hard cuts with an Xacto & I start with a #11 scalpel . I forget if I ended up with a razor saw, but I think I did. Maybe with the refit you could tape along each joint to save the castings. I have a 12" sq.3/4" plywood with about 400 wet or dry sand paper on it to do square sanding. The paper has lasted for years. I think I contac cemented it on. Now if you need an A Bomb I maybe can do that too.
Your requst for the correct spots to cut the Pyro mold of the Monitor is more of a personal preference.
I pre-visualized it with a paper representation of the cut to lay over the deck to see how the Turret location would match up when rotated 180. Gene and Greg Bale choose slightly different spots to “Make the Cut”.
This method would require relocation of the Smoke stack vents since they will be too close to the turret. I skipped the vent reloc. It is a fun kit to play around with.
I ended up doing a different method by adding more deck, effectively placing the turret closer to the center. It made for a lot more work and changed the scale.
Some comparisons:
Pyro revised 1/200 scale Pyro original Monitor Lindberg 1/245 Mold
Final:
Gene, Sorry for the slight “steal” of the thread. You’ve seen most of this stuff already.
Jim, you are the most welcome guy I know to tell me information on most anything, especially the Monitor. Other than the resin Monitor kit this is my first plastic ironclad & you gave me all the info on it.
My cuts were the exact front of the turret & 10 sections of deck back to the rear cut & then just turn it around. I finally remembered that I filled in the kit smoke stacks & moved them back . I had forgotten about that, but at nearly 90 I do forget things.
All the new info you just sent me today will make it easy to build my second monitor. Did you say Life Like is still making them? When I saw that my cuts matched Tilley’s paper kit I was very happy.
No Life-like or Pyro kits of the Monitor and “Merrimac” are being made anymore. Lindberg (Round2) did pick up a few Pyro molds and has re-issued those. So you can still get a Barbary Pirate and even a Brig of War but not much else of the Old Pyro “pirates” ship kits. ( Academy still sells a New Bedford Whaler that seems to be the old Pyro mold Charles W. Morgan.)
You are right. The cut in front of the turret has to be as close to the turret as possible. The cut to the rear sets the distance to the correct Turret location. That’s the tough one.
Yep, that’s the oldest Grandson holding the Monitor. He assisted on the kit, his third if you count Star wars stuff. As I recall he also did the coiled ropes on the deck after I told him your method. Was very disappointed that both guns could not fire at the same time. ( I had to do a temp fix to point both guns out of the Turret while he was here.)
My last PM to the Professor was about his paper model which was starting to show up on eBay. He was tickled that it was still around. Bet he had no idea it would come in handy to help correct the old plastic Monitor kits.
Jim.
Edit: It seems that the Civil War Blockade runner (Pyro’s Harriet Lane) gets re-released on occasion by Lindberg/Round2 models. That is a fine kit. There have been a few “Threads” created on it at FSM.
There are a few other Pyro ship models that have been released again recently. i.e.:Henry Morgan Pirate (Pyro:St. Louis), Lindberg/Pyro’s North Atlantic Fishing Trawler.
Jim, Your Monitor really looks good.You need more pictures here of it. Show more of your detail & what you did to get there. I take picture of some of my build, but then I can’t find them.
I have the Blockade Runner by Lindberg & have wanted to build it, it’s easy.
As I have shown in private emails between us, I was able to find an old “Monitor and Merrimack” set that I had built way back in 1968. I cannot remember if the kit was from Pyro or Lindberg, but one interesting point is that the overhead view of the Monitor looks exactly like the finished product of post-cut Monitors you both have built. I suspect that the earlier renditions of this ship were more accurate. It is a shame that the manufacturer did not pay close attention to the CSS Virginia! But, the Monitor that I built from one of the kits in 1968 sure looks the part.
Bill, I tried to measure your picture of your Monitor & Virginia & they came out just about the same as my 2 I just finished. They are the newer set that are 1/245 for both. The earlier Lindberg set was the same as the Pyro & Life Like set with a 1/210 Monitor & a 1/300 Virginia. This is the monitor with the off center Turret. The turret has to be moved about 5/8" rearward to be correct & that is what I did & it matched John Tilley’s paper plan exactly.
I made my front cut exactly at the front of the turret on a section line & the rear cut 10 sections back at the last section before the smokestacksor funnels. I filled the funnels & moved the smoke stack back. They screwed everything up.
