While it’s a little late for Christmas, the post from Ages of Sail about these Amati kits of classic America’s Cup racers makes a lot of sense. Easy curves to plank, or just go with a plastic hull, very light amount of rigging, nice amount of deck detailing, and you’ve got a ship model that you can be proud to display.
These kits should be a relatively quick build. And the ones with the plastic hulls in particular should be great for young modelers too.
Ages of Sail announced they have a new kit in stock from Vanguard Models of England, HM Gun Brig Adder, 1797. Another very good looking kit, designed for the Novice ship modeler.
There seem to be quite a number of new ship model kits being released these days. This particular company has upped the game considerably. Though these kits are more expensive, the manufacturer appears to have spent a lot of development time making detailed and accurately scaled and historically accurate wooden ship kits.
This one is made for beginning modelers, and it looks pretty darned nice. Would love to see a club member build this one! Ω
Online seller Ages of Sail, which is located just down the Bay from us, recently announced some changes to their Amati kit pricing, with some very welcome price cuts. Many of the Amati kit prices seem to be cut 13-15%, but a lot kits are cut 30-40%, with some, like the cutter Lady Nelson from Amati’s Victory Models line, being cut by more than 48% – nearly half off the old pricing.
Amati is well known for some classic ship model kits, like HMS Bounty, the Robert E. Lee, and Columbus’s ships of exploration, as well as it’s Victory Models line of kits, like HMS Pegasus, HMS Vanguard, and the bomb vessel Granado.
The price cuts make Ages of Sail more competitive with other popular online seller of ship model products, and makes it much easier for those of us interested in building one these beautiful kits. Ω
Hyde Street Pier Model Shipwrights member Paul Reck has been going to town on a French bomb ketch he’s been building from a discontinued Amati kit. He’s been building it for a friend of his and has only had the kit since November. So, he’s clearly been really going to town on this model.
The kit, listed as Nave Bombarda, is a 1/75-scale plank-on-bulkhead kit of an 18th-century ketch-rigged bomb vessel. He got the model from member Leo Kane, who hadn’t started the kit yet, and who originally bought it from Ages of Sail. Sadly, the kit is no longer in production and is difficult to find now.
Paul sent these photos along, but we haven’t seen the completed model in person. I’m hoping that we’ll have a chance to get a better look at it at the next meeting of the shipwrights, which is this coming Saturday. I think everyone’s going to be amazed at how Paul did such a beautiful job in what’s probably not more than 6 month’s time!
After dealing with some scheduling issues due to looming government shutdowns, the Hyde Street Pier Model Shipwrights managed a nice, normal meeting on February 17, the first meeting of the year. We had 8 members attending, which is pretty good for this group. We agreed that we need to bring in more ship modelers, as only about 3 attending members have been actively ship modeling in recent months.
Still, it was one of the most productive meetings we’ve had in some time. We also managed to replace the dehumidifier tubs in the big square-rigger model’s case. Being on the bay, we need to do this periodically to help keep these display models in good condition.
Hyde Street Pier Model Shipwrights 