philo426 - Nice to see a build by this company. I just stumbled across a Scientific Bluenose kit and looking forward to building this model. I know it’s a simple kit and not all that accurate, but it will be a good learning experience in modeling with wood. Your Cutty Sark really looks great!
Gentlemen,
Say what you will about the old Scientific ship model kits, but they were great kits on which to cut my teeth with wood kits. I have acquired all of their clipper ships and the USS Kearsarge that I will probably never build, but they are interesting to have as reminders of how far kits have come over the decades.
I also have all of the old Pyro Table Top Navy kits and their range of sailing ships as mementos of my start into ship modeling at the tender age of 6. Granted, they are horrible models by my standards today, but they were great for getting me hooked into this lifelong hobby.
It’s a shame that there is nothing comparable today. I know that Lindberg has released a few of the Pyro ships in boxes of two ships each, but, at $35.00 per set, few kids can afford them. Manufacturers have done a reasonable job of keeping many older kits on the market, but they need to remember their market for these kits. Kids need to be able to afford them if we are to keep this hobby alive and well.
Bill Morrison
Since I also built flying model airplanes at the same time I started building ship models, I was not as put off by the Sterling and Guillows kits use of balsa. Balsa can take a decent finish if you use enough coats of filler and primer.
I built an entry for the Fisher car design competition using balsa, in spite of the recommendations by the contest people not to use balsa. I ended up with over sixty coats of filler, primer, and paint, but it looked fine.
Now I would never think of scratch building a ship model with balsa, but it is merely a matter of time/effort. I can do in about six coats on basswood what it took me sixty to do on balsa!
BTW, in those teen years, I even did a plank on bulkhead scratch frigate using balsa for all structure and planking, except for masts and spars (I started with poplar dowel for those).
While we are reminiscing about Scientific ship models, perhaps we need to mention Sterling ship models as well. They, too, had a line of similar models. I remember building their Sovereign of the Seas kit. the real difference between both companies was that Sterling used a rubbery-plastic for their blocks and many of their fittings. One thing I do remember was their balsa kit of the USS Missouri, although I have never seen the various pieces.
John mentioned that Scientific Le Soleil Royal. I remember building it over several nights of duty when I was stationed in Newport, RI in the late 1970’s. It was an interesting model that I soaked in filler because it was balsa. Yes, it turned out horribly! Oh, well.
Bill
This thread is taking me back to my first ship model. I am not sure of the brand- I think it was a Strombecker kit. I believe this was 1946 It was a WW2 destroyer. Hull was pre-carved pine, the superstructure was laminated/built up from 1/8 sheet, die-cut pine. The weird thing was the kit included glue. It was a powder, maybe a phenol-like substance, that you had to mix with water. It worked. I got it assembled, but never got around to painting it. Also, I did not do the small amount of carving that should have been done- the hull pre-carve was not complete- it was pretty faceted where compound curves should have been.
Anyone else remember Strombecker? I don’t think they offered too many ship kits, nor did Guillows. Scientific was the big ship kit supplier.
Yes. I equate them with car models- the kind where you got three profile patterns, a somewhat shaped block of wood and that glue.
The box showed dad looking on approvingly while junior held up a perfect sparkling miniature car model.
That kind of thing certainly taught this modeler not to whine too much about missing details.
More on that, and this thread is old so I am not hijacking it. Delving into American industrial history is an imterest.
Read the Strombecker article on Collectair.org. Too long and wonderful to recap, but they were a wood products outfit that covered an entire block in Moline IL and started by making stuff like tenpins.
Casco was a casein based glue made from dairy byproducts by Borden, and you know the rest there.
I have to say it . . . at least the Scientific kit of the Thermopylae was a far, far better representation of that iconic ship than the contemporary Revell injection-molded plastic kit. I have two of these kits; perhaps I will try to detail it!
Bill