In case you haven’t seen their new website, Model Expo appears to be greatly expanding their lines of plastic models. They are now carrying Revell-Germany, including the 1:400 QM2, and 9 sailing ships in 1:350 from Aoshima . They are also showing the 1:120 Cutty Sark and the 1:150 Susquehanna from Aoshima. They also show that Trumpeter and Tamiya are coming soon. Does anyone know if the Aoshima 1:120 Cutty Sark is the old IMAI mold? Here is the list for Aoshima.
At one time Model Expo carried a wide variety of plastic kits and featured them in their factory store in Broward County FL (can’t think of the city at the moment). I used to go there quite often. They were very big on periodic big discount sales back then. WS
My personal opinion of the Imai Cutty Sark (now sold by Aoshima) has always been very high. I’ve described it more than once as “the best representation of this ship in kit form - plastic, wood, or otherwise.” (I guess I should offer a small caveat to that now: Academy has issued not one but two Cutty Sark kits since I made that comment. I haven’t seen either of them “in the flesh,” but on the basis of photos both look pretty good. There is, in fact, some reason to think that at least one of them is a modified copy of the Imai/Aoshima one.)
We discussed the comparison between the Imai and Revell kits several times on the old version of this Forum. I just did a search, trying to locate some of those posts so I could put links to them here. But when I did a search on “Imai Cutty Sark” I got nothing. When I did a search on “Cutty Sark” I got three pages worth of posts, all from the past two or three months. I know for a fact that those constitute only a tiny fraction of the total number of times we’ve discussed this subject. (There were, for instance, at least two lengthy threads about the fire and subsequent restoration project.)
This is the first post I’ve made since the installation of the “new” forum. I’ve refrained from taking part in the various threads criticizing it, because I figure we ought to give it a chance. (As a certified curmudgeon when it comes to anything related to computers, I frequently take longer than younger people to get used to new things in cyberspace.) But I have to say that so far I’m not at all favorably impressed. I have yet to bump into any feature of the new version that’s in any way superior to the old.
I hope this particular problem is due to the switch from one format to the other, and that the older threads will be made accessible again in due course. If all those thousands of threads from more than a few months ago have been blasted into the ether, this forum has lost a huge percentage of its value to the scale modeling community.
Thanks for your opinion, it is highly valued. I have been on the Cutty Sark at Greenwich a couple of times and intend building a plastic model of her. I will use a lot of photos, Longridge’s build book and Underhill’s Masting and Rigging of the Clipper ship as references. However, I first need to complete a Revell Fletcher which I am converting to the late war version of the USS Kidd. I am superdetailing her, using virtually zero photoetch. This will probably take me till the end of next year to complete.
Hello, I am new here on the fsm forum. It seems that the format change occurred days after I joined! I agree with Prof. Tilley in his assessment of its comparative qualities, and hope that the past threads (the ones which seem to have gone missing) will be restored to us soon. I, like most people posting on this forum, would love to see more sailing ship models on the market; and I think the model companies might just be getting the message from us, judging from the number of “new releases” of old or re-tooled kits (oh how I wish airfix would re-issue HMS Prince!). I have never built an Imai kit, and I am aware that they were some of the best designed kits - but $185.00 for a 1/150 model kit? The quality must be astounding! I would like to say that I have enjoyed reading everyones’ posts on this forum, and hopefully I will be able to add something to future disscussions
Thanks, tucchase! I got back into plastic sailing ship modeling just a few years back. I don’t spend too much time at it, and I don’t have much room for models, but I do have fun! I currently am at the rigging stage on two models (La Flore and Wappen von Hamburg) and am close to the same with my Hogarthian caricature of HMS Victory (Airfix). I would like to see new models of later 17th. and early 18th century ships, but as has been discussed on other threads, I won’t be holding my breath…