The old Monogram-boxed Connie and United States kits - with the 1-piece hulls; does anyone know how well they compare against the Revell 1/196th(?) “Old Ironsides” Constitution you can find in stores?
Bigger? Smaller? Same? Open gun ports? Flash, etc?
Reason I ask is that I snagged the current Revell kit in Hobby Lobby and the 1955 copyright goes a long way to explain the many ejector pin blems all over the kit. That and the flash. The recent moldings in China did not include new tooling or “slide molding” technology.
Also, I’ve seen another smallish Revell Constitution on evilbay, seems to have an open deck hatch like my big 1/96th kit and 2-piece hull - but they molded the gun ports shut on the gun deck!
If you google USS United States model, it should take you to a site comparing the two. IIRC, the monogram kit is smaller, newer mold(1970’s vs. 1950’s) and has different details. Use the search feature on here as well, there are people on here who have better answers than me. The 1/196 builds into a nice ship, as long as you are not worried about historical accuracy. Hope this helped.
The kits are smaller. Only difference between the Const. and the US is the box. All deck details are molded into the deck, and the yards and masts are all one piece.
Monogram also did the Cuttysark. I have built all three kits. The dimension and detail is not bad for a “quick build” design.
If you can, get the one that was an original Imai release. It’s not much bigger than the one you’re talking about; the Monogram ex-Imai kit is at 1/120 (or 1/150 ?) scale and is very well detailed and an overall great kit! Imai is a Japanese company that released a bunch of these sailing ship kits in the 70’s-80’s…Susquehanna, Napoleon, USS United States, USS Constitution, Cutty Sark…in this same scale and IMHO are some of the best sailing ship kits ever produced. Monogram reissued them sometime back. Beware, they can be pretty pricey if you find them on evilbay or the like!
i agree i just finished the imai monogram kit, its 1/120 a great kit, not as large as the revell 1/96 and i prefer it to that kit, still a large model and my wife payed 70.00 for it on e-bay which price wise is pretty close to the larger revell and the size is more managable.
Thanks all! I actually found an Imai Constitution kit - the guy wanted $100.00 for it. I did research that kit here and found great pics.
As for other attempts at using Search here on “Monogram Constitution” (to see pics of their 1-piece hull version) had turned up like 25000+ hits. And the thread entries are not in a sequential/together order. I’ll try Google on the WWW.