Airfix Historic ships

Beaufighter · Airfix Historic ships

Does anyone know the wheareabouts of these moulds? Aside from HMS Victory, rereleased a few years ago, they seem to have vanished a long time back. HMS Shannon goes for silly money on the 'bay.

Ratch

Presumably you're only referring to the small scale ones

peebeep

A couple of them reappeared a few years ago as ships in a (plastic) bottle. Haven't seen any recently.

peebeep

BAC

Are you sure Paul?

According to Richard Humm's bit in the History section the ships in bottles (Mayflower, Cutty Sark and Charles Morgan Whaler) were ex Gowland and Gowland/Revell kits.

Airfix didn't do the 'Whaler' as a small scale ship.

Cheers!

Spudgun

The last I saw of the small ships was the Golden Hind. That was about 10 years ago when it was a series zero kit.

peebeep

BAC

Much better thanks!

I don't sound like the cross between Rod Stewart and a Dalek anymore!

Beaufighter

Yes, the teeny ones are the ones I meant. They seem to have been "box scale" despite the lack of a box (maybe that should be "bag scale"?), so that Shannon is apparently about 1/400 scale while Victory is about 1/600 scale. Nonetheless, I made pretty well all of them as a kid and would happily do so again. Revenge, Golden Hind and Santa Maria, with colourful decals to go on the sails, were particularly attractive.

It would be nice, changing the subject a little, to see the SRN1 hovercraft reissued too. AFAIK that hasn't been seen in well over 30 years (I made one in the early 70s) and it was a neat little model.

Steven Pietrobon

The Golden Hind (Airfix's first polystyrene kit in 1954), HMS Victory and Mayflower were reissued from 1998 to 2001 in Series 0. HMS Victory was reissued in a gift set from 2005 to 2007. Santa Maria was reissued by Heller in the 1990's and by Airfix last in 1982.

The Revenge was last issued in 1978, HMS Shannon in 1980 and PS Great Western and Cutty Sark in 1982. These are all long overdue for a reissue.

tempestfan

peebeep

Beaufighter

I must have gone through a phase of building anything that looked interesting before settling on warplanes. I built the SR53 as well.

TimJ

I built the SRN-1 too back in the seventies. I'd like to see it re-released as well as the little ships.

VMA131Marine

Steven Pietrobon

Thanks Dr. Russ for that tidbit of information!

Murdo

The one I'm really after is the 1/144 HMS Discovery.

I built one years ago on a "sea" for my parents and they were really chuffed with it. When they moved house a friend of theirs said he'd take it specially so it wouldn't get broken and the idiot dropped it. Smashed it flat!

I've been scouring Evilbay but they're as scarce as hen's teeth.

Please Airfix, make a few more. I love these old sailing ships.

I have a Revell 1/96 USS Kearsarge and a 1/96 Cutty Sark for building sometime when my sanity can stand it. Nailbiting

BAC

The Discovery was featured on a 'This weeks featured kit' recently.

http://airfixtributeforum.myfastforum.org/about12142.html

(Which reminds me I need to do another featured kit).......

Steven Pietrobon

Here's one for $50 Buy-It-Now on eBay.

Loll

It looks like Revell have them, to go with their new boxart and logo : HERE
No wonder the kids get confused !

Sailorman

Just for Nostalgia's sake ......

I you're interested I also have most of the headers that came before these .... all the ones that came after, and all the ones on the blister packs. However, these are the ones I like best!

jhl1908

Beaufighter

Doesa nyone know why the rather fetching sail decals didn't make it into the 1/144 version of Revenge that Airfix later released?

Steven Pietrobon

From the 1975 catalogue

Click to see full size image

feanor

Ayup Steven...

Thanks for the page. it bought back a lot of nice memories...

We NEED these re-issuing too ! Seeing the small scale Victory put me straight back to Wolverhampton as a lad... and the difficulty of painting...

jhl1908

Thanks Steven.

It was great to see that page again after so many years.
I remember building four of them around the same time:

Golden Hind, Cutty Sark, Great Western, and Victory.

Sadly, all of them have sailed away many years ago.

- Jesper.

BAC

The HMS Victory was out recently as a giftset but I'd quite like to see the others out again. Especially since I just rebuilt the Golden Hind....

HMS Shannon apparantly commands a high price on E-Bay, I got lucky and got mine off the Hannants 2nd hand shelf about 10 years ago for £2.99!! Happy Days!

Cheers!

Beaufighter

Ive seen Shannon go recently for £40!

Ratch

thomasweir

Looks great

Sailorman

Here's my old Shannon from more than 40 years ago. I was into "weathering" the sails in those days .......a tip I got from an Airfix Magazine........ Errr.......!!!!!!! looks a bit overdone doesn't it? ;)

And this is the Great Western built some 6 years ago.

Anyone got any of the others in this range?

Sailorman

BAC,

I've been looking at your ratlines ....they're stupendous ........how on earth did you make them???

Patrick

Beaufighter

I think if I were doing one of these today (and I've got a Santa Maria and a Victory in the stash), I'd replace the plastic sails with embossing foil.

Sailorman

I agree Beaufighter. I used paper for the Great Western, tinfoil would keep the "bag" shape of the sail better.

BAC

Sailorman

Incredible ........... It's so amazing to see what people manage to do!

TimJ

Beaufighter

Lots of superdetailing potential on a 1/600 Victory, for those so inlined. Aside from the rigging, you could also drill out and improve the open gunports. The port covers and protruding barrels are a bit vestigial, IIRC, owing to the limitations of plastic moulding.

Sailorman