The Ship Model Forum

I find the Trumpeter kit quite OK, especially since the alternative in 1/350 scale is a not that accurate, but about 10 times more expensive resin kit. Of course it would have been better if Trumpeter would have got it right, but I´m quite happy that Trumpeter has brought life back to the 1/350 scale, and that they keep giving us nice kits, even if people keep bashing them for their work.....

_________________
/Magnus

It is not bashing them for the kits they release as much as it is about the way they do it. With accurately shaped Revell and Tamiya hulls on the market for years, and with Trumpy starting from scratch, not trying to salvage some old release, there was NO reason to get it this wrong. Especially since they were told, very emphatically, that their hull was wrong BEFORE the kit went into general release. If we accept this level of inaccuracy and say nothing, then we will only have crap to model with - and only have ourselves to blame for the result.

I´m aware that the kit has its flaws, and as I said, it would have been better if it had been correct, but a lot of the time it isn´t very constructive to keep on complaining about mistakes already made. What I reacted to is the tone of that last message. Pissoar? Keel hauled? Come on, it´s a kit, and 99% of the buyers will not care. Nobody forces you to buy it, and really, enthusiast like you and me probably doesn´t represent even a tenth of the buyers of these kits. Most of them will end up with builders who can´t see the differences from Hornet and Essex.
I´m really happy that I´ve got a kit that I can afford, and enjoy, and maybe even try to improve. If they had copied the Revell or Tamiya hull, and they had been wrong, people would have gone berserk about that instead. Now they copied the wrong kit, and even if they where told about it, they might have been so far in the cutting of the mold, that it had passed the point of return. To me it´s water under the bridge.
What´s important to me is that the last 5 years Trumpeter has released more 1/350 injection moulded kits than we have seen the last 30 from other manufacturers together. To me that´s worth a lot more than missing out in copying the wrong kit....

_________________
/Magnus

I was not aware that the company knew before release that the product had a major flaw.

Very well said sir. Trumpeter should be ashamed of themselves.

The Hornet was released in two scales; first was the 1/350 then the 1/700. Trumpy was told before the 1/350 was released that the hull was wrong. When that release came, there was a backlash over the problem. In spite of this, they scaled down the incorrect hull for the 1/700 kit anyway, making NO attempt to correct anything. That was the real shame of it all. What you say about 90% of the kit builders not knowing might be true of the 1/700 kit, but the size and cost of the 1/350 take it out of the realm of most of the "casual" builders. The majority in that scale are serious builders. THEY NOTICE!

The debate over the appropriateness of criticizing kits has no resolution- the matter is relative.

The shape and dimensions of a model’s full sized prototype may be measured. The same is true for the model. The two may be compared and through their relationship the accuracy of the model can be determined and expressed with complete objectivity. If the real object is 48 inches then a 1/48 scale model of it should be 1 inch. If the model measures out at 1 1/4 inch it is over scale by 25%.
But there is no standard that states how accurate a model must be. This is entirely up to the modeler, and thus it is subjective. One modeler may feel that 25% over scale is good enough, while another thinks that a 10% error is acceptable, and a third insists on no detectable error. At the end of the day, each will have to decide if they are happy with the results. That is what makes modeling an art: Making choices and putting something of ourselves in what we create.

The manufacturers of kits act as middlemen. We buy kits rather than build from scratch so as to have some of the work already done for us, thus trading money for time. The question is whether the manufacturer’s work is up to our standard. The accuracy of the kit to the prototype can be measured objectively as stated above, but the kit will be valued by our individual standards. If the kit’s level of accuracy is such that a modeler chooses to replace most of it with scratch built parts, then to him it has little value as it will only cost money and save no time. But if another modeler finds the level of accuracy acceptable, he may consider the kit a good bargain and be grateful that it is available.

I think it is important to remember these things when criticizing both kits and completed models. Some things are objective. If a kit is wrong, it is wrong. No amount of words can make it right, only a Dremel tool and some sweat. But no kit is perfect, and every completed model has someone’s sweat invested in it.

-Mike "Up WayToo Late and No One to Talk to But the Dog" Sills

Mike puts it right as far as I'm concerned. This web site is all about information. People supply it, others use it. Some of what's supplied may not be useful to some of the readers. Some of it may not be accurate. We all decide, and are responsible for, what use we make of the information. For my part, I want to know everything I can that is factually correct about any project I'm working. For this HORNET project for example, it took almost a year for me to find out what the deck spot looked like the day Doolittle was launched. It was important to me to get it right, and I knew the newsreel pictures couldn't be right. When I finally found the answer, I had also taught myself how to do some Internet research and a few other things. Others may not care all that much, and have been happy to just take their best shot. Fine with me. I'm not doing their modeling, they are.
I posted pictures of my HORNET hull as compared to the Trumpeter hull to show that the difference is substantial, to those who care. If you don't, no harm, no foul.
There are a number of Trumpeter HORNET builds in the archives on this and other similar sites. Most folks have done little to change the hull form, and their models look great. Mine will look different, and who knows whether mine will look as good - craftsmanship-wise - as some in the archives. We'll see. But, comments like 'keel-hauling' and others aside (I just see it as a king of kidding, honestly), Trumpeter started of with a blank sheet before cutting the tool to make the steel mold for the hull. Why not get it right in the first place if you're going to do it? I understand leaving off details (for example gun shields) to save costs. But the right hull form will cost the same as the wrong one. They did a great job on the LEX as far as I'm concerned. Not perfect, mind you, but really, really good. I realize the HORNET was the first one out, and no one knew if it would sell well or not. I'm glad there are more choices now in 1/350 because of Trumpeter. Still, the HORNET hull is not accurate. I have chosen to do something about it. Anyone is free to join me. Or not. This is about information.

_________________
Some people make you happy, then they leave.
Others make you happy when they leave. (apologies to Oscar Wilde if he ever said anything similar, of which there is some doubt . . .)

Mike, John, I think you both said alot & I for one appreciate your responses. I would not have known about the hull being wrong! Ok, now what am I gonna do about it? I'm building the 1/700 and do believe that it's a direct copy of the 1/350. Oh well, I can't do anything about it so, I'm gonna build her as is And if anybody objects... then I'll just keel-haul them

_________________
If ya lose yer sense of humor...
You've lost everything...

On the Bench:
1/720 Italeri CVN-68 ca 1976/77
1/800 ARii 1/800 CV-59 backdating to 1961 (CVA-59)
1/700Trumpy USS Hornet CV-8 "Doolittle Raiders"

Hope someone can help me out here. Does anyone have a plan and profile for the Yorktown class that they could send me. I'll gladly pay you. I'm currently scratchbuilding a 1941 WeeVee and would like to start a 1942 Hornet or Yorktown. thank you, Jon

The right hull form does not necessarily cost the same as the wrong one. The wrong one, as a single piece, is a simple open/close mold. The correct form would require more engineering, and would likely need to be split to do economically. A mold with cams (typically referred to around here as "slide molding") wouldn't offer a great solution, either- while you could form the outside correctly, in order to pull the core forming the inside of the hull you'd have uneven wall sections, especially in the bow. This would lead to massive sinks.

I'm by no means excusing Trumpeter here- just pointing out that it could have been a cost cutting measure.

I think this is doubtful considering that Revell did a fairly accurately shaped full hull using '60's technology, and Tamiya got the shape right on a waterline hull in the '70's. They certainly didn't go the expensive route then, indicating that it could be done even more easily now without undue expense. Nice thought though.

Not to get too off topic, but that isn't necessarily the case. Revell's offering is considerably smaller- it would be much easier to process out sink in a hull that size. I need to get a look at the hull from my Revell kit to make a more informed comment- I'll take a look tonight.

By the way.. No matter what Dragon says, "slide molding" isn't new or state of the art- it's as old as die casting itself. It has been used in plastic from the beginning. The proficiency of Chinese mold making has allowed manufacturers to purchase molds with these actions now for what they were used to paying for simple open/close molds in the past, thus the trickle-down to model kits.

Like it or not, as modelers, we've had the garbage of the injection molding industry for years- cheap molds, crappy processing/maintenance (flash, shorts, etc), and throwaway material (polystyrene). If we were willing to pay (and, judging from Akagi, we aren't), we could have a fully molded kit, including parts once thought to be photo-etch only. With real state of the art molds run in modern machines by trained process engineers filled with engineering materials, you'd be amazed what is possible with injection molding. Heck, Fine Molds is starting to bring some of it to us with the Japanese detail sets they just tarted releasing

Well, I just looked at my Revell kit. It definitely had action of some kind, possibly on a vertical press, no less. It does have a nasty sink right at the bow where the sidewall sections meet.

Trumpeter's lower hull was formed in a similar way. They just flat out missed it. So much for cost-cutting.

Floating Drydock has the hull lines you seek. One of the problems in 'just sending' someone a copy is that the plans themselves are much larger than 8 1/2 X 11 as they generally come in 1/192 or sometimes larger scales. That is what I had to do. I have lots of books and paperbacks on the YORKTOWN class, but I cannot recall any of them having the hull lines or body plan in them. I tried to do the hull first 'by eye', but I did not get very good results. I finally sent for the plans and started scaling them down to 1/350 and then realized I had not done a very good job 'by eye'.

This makes the point that there is a difference between modeling and scale modeling. The latter requires more work in general. You could certainly argue that a model is not truly 'scale' unless you also duplicate the innards as well. I have seen some museum models that do exactly that - every timber and frame duplicates the original ship subject. I prefer to say that I am working on a scale representation of HORNET. That's my gig. Other viewpoints respected.

_________________
Some people make you happy, then they leave.
Others make you happy when they leave. (apologies to Oscar Wilde if he ever said anything similar, of which there is some doubt . . .)

Does anyone have a source listing the spacing of the Hornet's frames starting at the bow and working aft?

Sixman -
The frame spacing for HORNET is 4'-0". My source is the Maryland Silver plans book. Does that answer your question?

_________________
Some people make you happy, then they leave.
Others make you happy when they leave. (apologies to Oscar Wilde if he ever said anything similar, of which there is some doubt . . .)

John,

Thank you for the information on the frame spacing. That was what I was looking for. BTW, what page of the Maryland Silver plan book shows that?

Sixman -
Page 3, in the table 'General Dimensions, Hull'

This just in. I was just looking at your post on the main forum. If the 'Faired Lines and Molded Offsets' print you have is the same as mine (labeled Bu. C&R 206462), I assume you realize that the section numbers do not correspond to frame numbers. This isn't meant to insult your intelligence, and maybe I'm connecting dots that shouldn't be connected. There is another plan that shows the stations along the length of the hull where the molded offsets are measured.

_________________
Some people make you happy, then they leave.
Others make you happy when they leave. (apologies to Oscar Wilde if he ever said anything similar, of which there is some doubt . . .)

John,

It took a while, but I figured out the frame spacing is 4' (thanks to your reply) and the section spacing is 19' 3". I set up a table to see how the two were spaced down the entire length of the keel. My table matches the not that stated section 20 was 12" from frame 96 (at least I think it was frame 96). My numbers verified that statement. Now to try and make somecross sections to better define how the hull should look.

Sixman -
And tedious work it will be. One method I used was to reduce the body plans I have to 1/350 scale. This saves the tedium of redrawing them with a steady hand. If you end up carving the hull out of some material (I recommend basswood - if I were to do it over I'd use that), then you will literally use each station template at least a thousand times to check and recheck your hull. The plastic will also resist flexing when you mark the hull with a pencil using the station template. That is why I suggest plastic to start with, rather than cardstock. You can trace the station templates individually onto .030 plastic and carefully cut them out and smooth them. I had drawn a vertical line on the plans 2.5" outward from the centerline of the station lines. Then I drew that same line on each station template so that each station template, once cut out, had a common outer edge that is 2.5" from the model's centerline. I bought a white shelf board about 36" long by 12". I drew a line down the center, then drew perpendicular lines spaced properly for each station. Next, I drew lines parallel to, and 2.5" on either side of the centerline. I glued pairs of 1" long .100 X .250 plastic strips astride the station lines (with the .100 side along the board) to hold the .030 station templates vertical so I could slide them into and out of contact with the hull. Glue the plastic strips with one edge touching the outer parallel line and they will clear the model hull at all points. Finally, I drilled a hole at two of the station lines, on the centerline, and inserted a brass rod about 1/8" in diameter into the holes. Make sure the rod fits very tightly and glue it. Make two holes on the underside of the model hull to match the brass rods - again, try for a reasonably tight fit. When done, you have a work stand that lets you easily check any template to the hull with repeatable results, yet you are able to remove the hull to carve and sand it quickly. Believe me, you will be glad you took the time to make the stand. When I first built it, I thought I was overdoing it. I now realize that the time spent making the stand was very well worth it. Make sure you use it on a perfectly flat table or stand, because the base board can bend a small amount and throw off your work. Trust me on this. Voice of experience.

_________________
Some people make you happy, then they leave.
Others make you happy when they leave. (apologies to Oscar Wilde if he ever said anything similar, of which there is some doubt . . .)