How does Airfix measure the overall length of the Bounty kit? Revell at scale 1/100 indicates an overall length of around 372mm (15"). However, Airfix its scale of 1/87 imprints an overall length of around 366mm (14.5") on its kit box. Regards, Katzennahrung
This one I do know something about. I built a model of the Bounty based on an extensively-modified Revell kit quite a few years ago, and I reviewed the Airfix kit for a magazine when the kit was issued.
As I mentioned in another thread, the best approach to the scale assertions on most plastic kit boxes is to ignore them. Revell has sold its Bounty kit in boxes labeled 1/100 and 1/110. (I can tell you with fair certainty that the latter is correct. I base that on comparison with the Admiralty drawings of the real ship. The basic proportions of the Revell kit are actually quite accurate - though it has other problems.) I think I’ve seen the Airfix one advertised as 1/87 and 1/72. My observation in the review of it that I wrote, back in the late seventies, was that I couldn’t figure out what scale it was because the proportions were so inaccurate. I suspect it depends on which dimension you measure. In any case, it’s pretty clear that many of the people responsible for putting the scales on the boxes don’t really understand what they’re doing.
The Revell kit is ancient. It was (according to Dr. Graham’s Remembering Revell Model Kits, originally issued in 1956 - the second sailing ship kit Revell ever did. Taking its age into consideration, it’s actually a pretty nice kit.
The Airfix Bounty came out almost twenty-five years later. It would be pleasant to report that it demonstrated a vast improvement in the state of the art, but it doesn’t. Airfix made some excellent sailing ship kits (the Wasa is one of my favorites), but the Bounty isn’t one of them. The designers apparently ignored virtually all of the excellent available source material about this ship, and introduced some mistakes that are downright silly. (They put the hawseholes too low in the bow. Then, in order for the anchor cables to reach the windlass, they mounted the entire maindeck on a pronounced slope, which looks utterly ridiculous. And the pawl post for the windlass leans in the wrong direction. And the arrangement of the studdingsail booms doesn’t make sense. And - oh, never mind. The figure of Captain Bligh is nice.)
The old Revell fossil actually is a more sound basis for a scale model - though making it into one takes a great deal of effort.
When plastic models first came out the models were fitted to what we today call box scale.Revell,Airfix,And Pyro would make there models to fit a certain size box, Easier for shipping and warehousing.Well modeling got more sophisticated in the late seventies and modelers were asking what scale is this. So model company started putting scales on the boxes.Most of the time the scale only represented the hull length.Model companies would sell there molds to another company and they would reissue the kit.That new seller of that mold want was that this was a new kit coming out so they would change the scale and photos on the box.You know intice the consumer.Heller has used Revell molds and Airfix,Mini Craft has used Heller molds,Zvezda has used Heller molds .List is endless.
Heller came out with some of there owen kits. I call it the 200 scale.They have three or four ships of French sailers or so called.Like the Le Superpe,Le Phenix,Le Gladiateur,and Le Sirene.That are rated at 1/200 scale or 1/150. They will use the same hull mold and some other parts than change out the stern and bow decorations.They did with several different types of model ships.They did two large ships HMS Victory and Soliel Royale they are very nice and real close to scale.
If you want a truly accurate scale model the only way is to scratch build the whole thing.But if your like me I don’t have the time nor the want to do that.I love building Plastic sailing ships so I’ll keep building the kits that are available and try to make them look correct even if the scale is off.
Rod
Another element in this story: the scale/size of the kit might or might not have anything to do with what the moldmakers originally made. Revell, in particular, apparently had access, beginning in the fifties, to a miraculously precise pantograph machine that could reduce or enlarge three-dimensional parts with great precision. The guys who sculpted the miniature figures for the sailing ship kits, for example, made their masters on considerably larger scales and “pantographed them down.” I suspect (I’m not sure) the designers and sculptors worked to standard scales (1/48, 1/96, etc.) in many cases, and then reduced what they’d done to whatever size would fit in a standard box - to sell at a standard price.
Back in the old days not all companies had that technology at their disposal. As I understand it, the Airfix designers made all their masters at the same sizes as the finished products.
I think that Revell Bounty may have been a special case. I got interested in it when I happened to be browsing through a copy of the British journal The Mariner’s Mirror from the 1930s and stumbled upon a fold-out reproduction of the Admiralty drafts of the Bounty. They’d been reproduced at a scale that fit the page size of the magazine. I checked the bound volume out of the university library, took it home, and compared it to a Revell Bounty that I happened to have in my stash. The kit hull and deck matched the Mariner’s Mirror plans perfectly. Both were on the scale of 1/110. That sure seems like a remarkable coincidence. I’m obviously basing the following on inference and guesswork, I think the Revell people took a look at the plans in the MM, discovered that a model to that scale would fit in the standard $3.00 Revell box, and worked from there.
I hesitate to make any generalizations about the accuracy of plastic sailing ship kits. Such generalizations are just as dangerous as those about plastic warship, aircraft, or tank kits. Some are extremely accurate, some are awful, and most are somewhere between. If the designers and moldmakers work from good drawings, and know what they’re doing, there’s no reason why they can’t produce accurate models. (They frequently don’t but there’s no reason why they can’t.) I personally give a very high score to that Heller H.M.S. Victory; in my opinion it’s one of the three most accurate representations of that vessel in kit form - plastic, wood, or otherwise. The same goes for the Imai Cutty Sark, and I’m a fan of the big Revell Constitution. (I can’t say such positive things about the Heller Soleil Royal, which has some major defects in terms of accuracy. We’ve discussed that kit in a couple of other Forum posts.)
I personally am a believer in plastic kits as legitimate bases for serious scale models. I guess I have to disagree - cordially - a little bit with Millard, in that I think a good kit (emphasis on good) is perfectly capable of producing as accurate a reproduction of the original vessel as scratchbuilding can.
One of my favorite examples is C. Nepean Longridge’s famous 1/48-scale model of H.M.S. Victory. It was the subject of his classic book, The Anatomy of Nelson’s Ships. It currently is on exhibition at the Science Museum in London, and is regarded by a great many ship modelers (including me) as a masterpiece and a source of inspiration. In his book Longridge describes how, after thinking at great length about the best way to reproduce the lanterns on the ship’s stern. The the real ones, of course, are made of wood and metal, with glass panes. They’re extremely intricate pieces of geometry. Longridge eventually had a friend cast 1/48-scale replicas of them in solid silver. He then oxidized them, to turn them black. (In those days - the 1930s, I think - there was no other means of dealing with the problem of tarnish.) The lanterns on Longridge’s model are accurate as to shape, but are solid, opaque, and black.
Each of the stern lanterns in the Heller 1/100 Victory is cast in two halves, in clear plastic. The modeler cements the halves together, and paints everything but the “glass” panes.
I suspect we can all agree that, all other things being equal, a scratchbuilt model represents more research, skill, and artisanship than a model built from a kit. But for the moment let’s just consider the question of scale fidelity and historical accuracy. In those respects, whose replicas of those lanterns are better - Longridge’s or Heller’s?
Great - Gentlemen, your interesting discussion will bring Revell another sold Bounty - and Airfix will lose a possible customer … [Y]
Thank you for your expertise!
Which of course means they can be illuminated! Oh, the possibilities!