RoG/ Monogram USS Bon Homme Richard

Modeling Subjects Ships
1

Hey guys,

Kermie again with a question for the nautical knowitalls…

So today i picked up the freshly released Revell of Germany boxing of the old USS Bonhomme Richard… According to preliminary reading and researching on the all powerful www i find these pictures of the vessel in black and red according to Boudriot.

Is this to todays knowledge an accurate representation of this vessel? I must admit i find it asteatically somewhat of a letdown…

Also am i correct in assuming that the Bonhomme richard was not fitted out with copper plating but retained the original antifouling white on its lower hull? And did the americans change alot about the ship after receiving it from Louis XVi or just painted it over and sent it out?

And lastly, are there impressions or images available of the french vessel Prince of Duras or a similar french east indiaman? Maybe such a livery would look more pleasing to the eye…

Richard

2

Richard,

John Tilley would not touch that kit! If you do a search, you will find several threads here that discuss this kit in detail, including John’s well researched and considered thoughts.

Bill

3

Bill,

Thank you for your reply. I will certainly search more closely for specific posts on the subject by mr. Tilley. I have seen some of his views on different subject but i was unaware of the fact that he has discussed this particular kit in detail.

Due to the fact i am not a hard liner pinpoint accuracy modeler i will still build this model but i am not to shy to adapt the most glaring faults and/ or modify the kit. I was for instance already planning on using wooden deadeyes and discard the plastic substitutes for the rope ladders (sorry, i forgot the proper term). I still have this tool that Heller models includes with its kits to make them.

For the moment i am mostly concerned with proper paint colors

Richard

4

Kermit- I am sure that kit is a re release of the old Aurora Horra…

No modeling project is a total loss, however if I were you, and I am not, I would build it up quick without any additional expense, and move onto something more accurate and well made, like the new Wasa. I have not built the Wasa yet, but it sounds like a great kit.

5

Richard:

Please see our previous thread: Discussion Forums»Modeling Subjects»Ships»Revell / Monogram Bon Homme Richard - WIP. This kit can actually build up into a decent model of a generic English East Indiaman (the BHR was converted from a French ship but the kit has distinctly English lines despite the engraved Fleur de Lis).

There are some good things about the kit: the decks and hull have engraved (rather than raised) planking lines and the overall shape and proportions of the ship are very consistent with modern recreations in Holland and Sweden.

I found that painting the hull buff (the actual color was Depot Buff) improved the appearance of the ship and made the gallery windows blend in much better. I also ditched the huge stern lights and replaced them with HO Scale streetlamps. With some patience the plastic sails can be trimmed from most of the yards.

And yes, at the time few ships were coppered - the Duc de Duras was built in 1740 and was already an old ship when the French gave it to John Paul Jones. The only confirmed modification made by Jones was the piercing of the hull in the area of the gun room aft to accommodate three 18 pounders on each broadside.

My build of the kit is just about done and will post some more recent pics this week.

Please feel free to send me a message if you have any questions about the build.

Mike

Quick update on July 11 - here are a couple of shots of my build, as you can see, changing the hull color made a huge difference. I was going to use thread for the ratlines rather than use plastic ratlines, but decided to give my fingers a rest. I sanded down the kit ratlines to reduce their thickness and rounded off the edges. If you want to use thread for the you’ll need to replace the kit deadeyes, they’re very thin and fragile.

I took a minimalist approach to the rigging and didn’t attempt to bring any of the lines down to the belaying pins.

Good luck with your build.

6

Absolutely great looking model!. My own taste requires me to froth at the mouth wanting to dirty that pristine look a little but i am truly impressed with your build!

I do happen to have a bunch of pretty much true to scale deadeyes made of wood and some other bits from my wooden ship building adventures and like i said i do have a jig to make my own rope ratlines. So seeing how good this model can look even without all that i must admit my courage levels are going up thinking about starting it.

Thank you for sharing

Richard

7

You are doing a nice job, but why did you use the plastic shrouds and ratlines? More realistic rope ones can be easily made with a little effort. I do not mean to imply a criticism; I’m just curious.

Bill

8

Richard:

Thanks - I thought about weathering the kit but decided not to, other than the decks. Some weathering on the hull would bring up the wood grain and plank lines and make for a more interesting model. I just might use an India-ink wash to the hull (black above the waterline and green below) - we’ll see.

I have no serious complaints about the kit, it took a lot of filing and putty to get the stern to fit properly and for some reason the flash on the hull is very stubborn. I would also make sure that the masts sit properly in the blocks in the hull before gluing the decks in place. I didn’t and had to spend some time filing and fitting to get the masts to sit properly.

Enjoy the build!

Bill:

I wanted to go with two different widths of thread for the for the shrouds and ratlines as I did for the Imai Susquehanna (1:150) but eventually decided that the kit deadeyes would need to be replaced and that 1:132 was going to be more of a challenge for my farsighted eyes and 62 year-old fingers than I wanted to take on at this point, but you are right; the kit would look much better without the plastic shrouds and ratlines.

I have a 1968 vintage 1:96 Revell C.S.S Alabama waiting in the wings and will definitely use thread for the shrouds and ratlines and hopefully do some justice to the gun tackle. I have fittings from Billings and Bluejacket to replace the 9" and 11" Dahlgrens and hope to be able to produce a fairly authentic model.

Best,

Mike

9

Mike,

The are some wonderful drawings deck and rigging plans of the Alabama online. They are simple to find just by doing a search using those words. The Revell model got a lot of details wrong, especially in the rake of the masts, the shape and length of the hull, the placement of the cannons, the types of cannons, the deck furniture, etc. I tried to make many of the corrections, but now have decided to wait until next year for the Bluejacket offerings of Kearsarge and Alabama. The Revell kit builds into a nice looking model, but it is not the CSS Alabama.

Also, check your sources for the Alabama; one of her pivot guns was a 7" Parrot, not a Dahlgren.

Anyway, nice job on the Richard.

Bill

10

hI Mike, I recently bought this kit and was disappointed to find that it wasn’t an exact representation of the actual ship. I have therefore decided to do what you did with your model. I have been making a few modifications but I’m a bit concerned about the rigging which is pretty poor. Peter.

11

Peter, it’s always good to check the date of the previous post. This thread last was active in July 2012. Sometes thats not a big deal, but don’t expect any replies.

12

My dear old Dad picked this kit up a year and a half ago, and it has made its way to me now. He got it at a considerable discount due to missing parts; pieces 5,6, & 7, the decks.

When I finally get around to this model (which is looking further and further afield), I’m probably going to lower the deck somewhat and follow some of Boudriot’s design features. The decks are going to be replaced anyway. But that is still some time off, and currently I have two or three more models in queue (I only build one kit at a time these days).

Cheers,

  • Robert
13

Oh That !

Well ,you are on the right path with those RATLINES .Use the Heller tool .

T.B.

14

We’ve had an interesting discussion recently in this Forum about the ancient Revell U.S.S. Arizona kit. I jumped to the kit’s defense, pointing out that, though it certainly doesn’t represent the state of the art in the twenty-first century, it was one of the best kits of its day and still carries a huge load of nostalgia with it.

When it comes to the Revell (ex-Aurora) Bonhome Richard, I find myself taking a different position. That kit was awful by the standards of the time it was released, and to my eye it still is. It really doesn’t look much like Boudriot’s reconstruction. (To be fair, Boudriot started that project long after Aurora went out of business.) In fact, it’s a stretch to say the kit looks much like any real ship. I really can’t offer much in the way of constructive suggestions. I sympathize completely, though, with anybody who takes it on for the simple reason that there’s nothing like it on the market. There are so few styrene sailing ships on the market nowadays that anybody trying to build up a collection has to take what he/she can get.

Personally, I’m not a fan of the Heller/Airfix-style “ratline jigs.” I have yet to see a model rigged with one that looked at all convincing, and I’m not convinced that they actually save much time. If you don’t want to commit to tying all those clove hitches in the ratlines, you might try the old “needle through the shroud” trick. Set up the shrouds nice and taut and load up the smallest needle you can find with the finest thread you can fine. A piece of stiff paper with lines drawn on it will help you locate the ratlines. Shove the needle through the first shroud, and then through all the others. Put a tiny speck of white glue on the spot where the ratline goes through the first shroud and the last one, and when the glue is really dry trim off the excess line with a very sharp blade. I think you’ll like the results.

Good luck.

15

I like to study the origins of things, so I decided to track down, as best I could, what data sources Aurora must have used. I have three true Aurora kits currently; a mostly built-up “Sea Witch”, a slightly damaged “Sovereign of the Seas”, and the Monogram Bon Homme Richard.

The first two of those kits are really nice, or at least they have plenty of possibilities. The Sea Witch is a bit simplified, and not as detailed as the larger Marx/Lindberg kit (though the latter lacks hull “planking”), but captures the lines nicely. It was a gift from a gentleman who was closing his hobby shop down, and had sat in his storage room since the late 1960’s!

The Sovereign of the Seas was a recent, and rare, “glitch pile” purchase. No instructions, and the beakhead on both hull halves were damaged (one has since been repaired). It looks a lot like the larger Airfix model and is simply lovely to behold.

And then we have the Bon Homme Richard.

I know that there were some wooden kits purporting to be the ship made many years past, but somewhere I had seen a model that had lived at the USNA for many years that I seem to recall being made about the turn of the century. I was able to track down an image that I believe shows that version -

It has bad sheer, and is woefully simple in detail. But it appears to be where Aurora got most of their inspiration. To Aurora’s credit, they did gussy the model up a bit, but retained many of its features, including that dreadful stern. It also features an odd head, and little tumblehome. In short, it doesn’t look like any prototype at all.

Still, it was a gift for me, and my Dad has a heart of gold. So, going to tackle it and see what I can do with it. But again, it is way down the list right now.

Cheers,

  • Robert
16

I think VA is right. I remember that model at the Naval Academy. It used to be in a case on the outer wall of the tomb of John Paul Jones; I don’t know whether it’s still there or not.

For a long time there seems to have been an “official” idea of what the Bonhomme Richard looked like. There’s a certain similarity between that USNA model, the tiny one that Revell sold many years ago (inside a plastic bottle or not; your choice), the little Pyro one, and the Aurora one. They’re all different in detail, but there’s an unmistakable similarity in the overall shapes.

One weird feature of those Aurora “$5.00” kits (as I originally thought of them) had to do with the sails. They were injection moldings, and were cast integrally with the yards. (I never finished one of those kit, but I did buy some of them; I remember thinking that the weight of the sails was likely to be too much for the masts and rigging.) The weird thing was that they were molded about like vacform sails. Such features as buntlines, clewlines, fabric seams, etc. were represented by convex, raised lines onn one side of the sail and concave grooves on the other.

I got the distinct impression that most, if not all, of those sails were copied from the vacformed ones in Revell 1/96 kits, like the Thermopylae and Cutty Sark. I wasn’t the only one to notice the similarity at the time.

What a way to design a “scale model.”

17

I tried this, once. Even if it gets put together successfully, the big problem is the same one that those hideous plastic coated things had. You are faced with a big bundle of raw ends of shrouds, and theres no way to attach them at the top.

I much prefer to set up the shrouds the right way, up through the top, around the mast and down again on the same side, seized tight against the mast at the top. Then tie the ratlines next, or worry about ratlines later, or not. It’s not the easiest thing to add later, but I’ve done it before, In cases where I got so bogged down with it that it had stopped progress. Quit the effort, them came back later.

18

Hi guys,

I bought this kit by Revell last year as it was offered at a considerable discount. Prior to undertaking its build, I researched the ship on-line and was puzzled to find so many different versions of it which left me utterly confused. I am only an amatuer modeler but I did want to do a build that was fairly representative of ships of that time and as realistic as possible. This meant that there were loads of alterations to be made, as covered in all the previous posts.

I scrapped all the decals for the windows and lamps and replaced them with clear plastic so that light would reflect off them. I didn’t like the sails so I replaced them with furled ones made out of paper which, in my view , looks far more realistic. The upturned captain’s boat didn’t look right to me, so after a little bit of research I corrected that along with the special rigging and hoists which would be used to launch the boat onto the sea.

I am trying to fully rig the model which is very fiddly and time consuming, but it will be worth it in the long run.

Here are a few images of the work I have done so far, and will update these as I progress with the build. ( unfortunately, I haven’t figured out how to attach the images ! )

19

On this site you don’t attach them, you post a link to their location on a photosharing site like “Photobucket”.

20

Thanks mate !