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Hi
Boy, THAT is a can of worms. We all assume that as price increases, the amount of research that makes a kit be accurate would go up in proportion. We also expect nice hardwoods in expensive kits. Both are often not true, and like buying a used car, you have to measure each kit and rate it on several factors. You can make all the categories you want; drawing clarity, drawing detail, drawing accuracy, wood quality, decoration material and quality, etc. Things also vary not only between manufacturers, but among the kits they manufacture. Thus, there is no best manufacture. Before buying a kit, you have to get your priorities defined as to what you care about most/least. Most kits are fair on accuracy, and none are spot on, and all can benefit from you adding some details to make it better. Why are some kits way off the mark accuracy-wise? Usually to keep costs down because research costs time and money. ALL kit makers want to make money. Some make poorly detailed kits, others use only basswood for materials.
Escribe a Amati y seguro que te envían las 3 velas bien hechas. Hay que reclamar!!!
The error log could be as simple or complicated as it takes to describe the error. If the description fails to specific enough, it won't help.
Me parece una idea excelente. A mis 78 años estoy intentando acabar con un Cutty Sark y un vaporcito español, el HIDRIA II, que era un algibe para llevar agua. Actualmente está reformado y hace cruceros turísticos por la costa gallega. Tiene base en Grao (Galicia-España).
That's exactly what I intended, opening a can of worms.
Even the most crappy kit can be used as the basis for a great scratch built model.
Corel generally has good wood to start out with, but provides blocks, cones, and hexagons of solid wood that you have to shape and sometimes carve to make ship features that don't resemble Legos. They do have great drawings, though. The written instructions are practically nonexistent, however. If you have good woodworking skills, you can do a Corel kit. If not, there are kits that have parts that are closer to the finished form, and much better written instructions.We shouldn’t mention the error only, one should also presents the improvement or how the error is eliminated when working on the specific model and share it.in my opinion it is much practical instead of searching the history.SoS community consists of well experieced members with their own skills ,ideas and characters(as Darivs mentioned) .one should then decide to apply it or takes further improvements.I personally dared to apply improvents by Flying Fish Schooner from Corel after some consultation with Uwek and members of the community.otherwise the model was not finished in my mind and I didn’t have clear concience.The changes I’ve made are allready in the Model Gallery.At the moment working On Dolphyn Corel and making some improvements by attaching the dead eyes to the hull.Corel’s presented material is to cheap and ugly in my opinion .I will send photos when finished (before and after)
In summary the presentation of the improvements (also for discussion) should be practical and time saving and will help to share experience and new ideas.
Wish a nice and healthy weekend
I'll jump into the conversation here. I have really enjoyed having a kit to use as a starting point for my build. The whole infrastructure of my model is straight out of the box. It's fun to then make 'decorative' changes that bring the ship closer to what I envision as a final product. Early on this frustrated me to a certain extent because I am building an 'expensive' kit (and the supplied materials really were pretty bad). But once I realized the time investment the cost of the kit became nothing at all. Indeed, as Kurt has mentioned in another thread, more has been spent on improvements than what the kit cost me in the first place. In my case I suppose it could be said that there were lots of 'mistakes' in my kit - but I suspect those were all conscious decisions by the designer to make the kit buildable for a beginner.
Because it's a DeAgostini kit, you can be assured that most inaccuracies resulted from simplification for beginners, since the instructions are written with that in mind. But when you look at a kit such as Corel, it is assumed you already know how to build a wooden model ship since all the effort there was spent in better hardwood materials and drawings. DeAgostini's drawings are minimal, with rigging step-by-step in illustrated instructions. They type of kit you build depends a lot on your skills and familiarity with model building.
While this is a little cynical, I have found both kits I have purchased to date from reputable kit manufacturers to have errors let alone simplifications. There is only so much time a kit manufacturer will spend on research of any particular vessel. In some cases its simpler to 'copy' another manufacturers kit while making subtle changes to try to hide the fact it's a copy; general rule of thumb in copyright is 25% variation makes it an original not a copy. So if one manufacturer got it wrong, the error is simply mirrored in the next manufacturers attempt. The only real improvements come when a manufacturer takes account of feedback provided by modellers who do the research and show the error and then the manufacturer updates the kit accordingly. Problem is most manufacturers will not accept that their model has errors and can get quite grumpy with your if you point it out.
Never over estimate the usefulness of old Italian kit plans and instructions. I'm thinking of Mamoli in particular. You can build wonderful ship models using the components provided but the instructions, still in desperate need of revising. are worse than useless, they will drive you to the point of throwing your project against the wall! The castings are still largely crap as well. Some previous experience in scratch building req'd. I've had good luck with Amati J- class sloops. Still lots of modifying and imagination necessary. I'll send pics with a little help from a friend. I hope.
Happily agree.
