Kits Remembered 1/250: British Empire 1880 Iron Warship

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PropWash
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Kits Remembered 1/250: British Empire 1880 Iron Warship

Post by PropWash »

Disclaimer:
This is a build I did prior to my build of the HMS Iron Duke (my first posting on this forum). I had originally posted it on the old forum I belonged to (that is closing), but it was such an unusual short-run kit I thought I would share it here. The build lasted a little over two weeks, so I had to condense the original post to a single page. I've tried to edit it for clarity, but if something appears odd in the text it is for that reason. I hope you enjoy the build.

Kits Remembered 1/250: British Empire 1880 Early Iron Warship

I found this kit on Ebay and the pics were not all that good. I tried doing some online research on the kit and found very little about it. But the price was good and the subject matter, early pre-Dreadnought battleship, really appealed to me. So I took a chance and bought it. Now I have to figure out if it is really a glorified toy or a decent model (or both?).

The Kit

This is supposed to be a 1/250 scale "British Empire 1880 Early Iron Warship" by Kits Remembered. It is kit # KRM30002. It is a model of a transitional warship known as a "torpedo-ram" which was an iron-clad battleship powered by steam and / or sails. And, as the name implies, the ships did fire early steam-powered torpedoes out of single tubes in the ship's bow and stern.

Pic of the box (the label looks like it was printed from a home computer and printer):

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The model has a surprising number of pieces for such a "simple" model:

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Examining the parts you can see there is very little in the way of any detail. Most parts are fairly rudimentary. But the funny thing is that for a kit of this type (short-run, unknown manufacturer) the parts were, for the most part, pretty clean and well molded. The kit is motorized. By far the worst part of the kit is the instruction sheet. And sheet it is as it is a single sheet of paper printer front and back. Image quality is VERY poor so you have to do a lot of double-checking of parts and part locations while building. Paint call-outs are very generic too and not very useful for the period this ship would have served in the Royal Navy.

The Build

I did some research and found that I wanted to paint this ship in the Victorian period colors of the Royal Navy. That would be a red lower hull and black upper. Deck structures are in white while masts and smoke stack are in an umber color.

Pic of the hull with the motor installed:

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My two arch enemies, acrylic paints and white paint, are now in play. I've had a big fight on my hands in using those two. Acrylic paint is something I always struggle with, while white (like yellow) paint is a big pain in the backside to apply. I now question the wisdom in my choice to paint the model as it should be painted (Victorian Royal Navy colors), rather than in the generic red hull and gray topside as suggested by the instructions. And speaking of wisdom, or my lack of, I should have done a lot on painting BEFORE gluing parts into place. For some reason I thought I had more room than I actually do to move the brush around. Doh!

The hull is complete and the motor runs nicely.

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The rigging has been added (good thing there is Google for help). I've also been doing some detail painting using paintings and pics from the period whenever possible. I do know I really HATE painting with white.

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I've found the subject matter to be really interesting and, after doing some online research, I became much more involved with it. So it went from a bathtub toy to a deluxe bathtub toy. It is painted in British Royal Navy colors appropriate for the Victorian era. I added a lot more rigging to the model than was originally shown on the (pretty bad) assembly instructions. I also drilled out the lifeboats and lifeboat davits to allow for the boat-lines.

I did have a few problems as, while most of the plastic parts were clean and free of flash, many of the parts (lifeboats, davits, deck guns) were misaligned when molded. Lots of filing and fitting needed to be done. The odd ocher color for the masts and smokestack was practically solid in the Humbrol paint can. Although the paint was new, it was almost a solid chunk of paint that needed a lot of thinner to make semi-usable. Also, the color doesn't look as I thought it would (based on paintings and illustrations for ships of the time), but it was what was recommended on various modeling sites. The last thing that happened is that I sprayed some satin clear-coat on the upper-deck of the model and I don't think I did it any favors by doing so. It especially had a negative effect on the thread I used for rigging. I had waxed the thread before using it and it looked great prior to clear-coating it. After doing so it seems like every fuzz that could attach itself to the thread did so.

But, aside from these little mishaps, I think it came out okay and was a lot of fun to build. I hope you enjoy the results.

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Clashcityrocker
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Re: Kits Remembered 1/250: British Empire 1880 Iron Warship

Post by Clashcityrocker »

You've made a nice job of a fairly small ship model. I like it.

Nigel
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Re: Kits Remembered 1/250: British Empire 1880 Iron Warship

Post by iggie »

What an interesting kit! Whilst it doesn't appear to excel in either of it's possible reasons d'etre (model or toy?), you've certainly been able to produce a really attractive model from it.
Best wishes

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Re: Kits Remembered 1/250: British Empire 1880 Iron Warship

Post by DavidWomby »

That looks well done and is an unusual subject. I don't know much about warship models but I don't think I have seen a model of one from that era before.

David
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Re: Kits Remembered 1/250: British Empire 1880 Iron Warship

Post by MarkyM607 »

Looks an excellent result to me. If it's motorised are you going to test it in the bath? :-D
Hoping to return to modelling sometime this year!! :lol:
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Re: Kits Remembered 1/250: British Empire 1880 Iron Warship

Post by general rocket »

Fascinating.
Interesting article on an interesting kit
I wish, that I knew what was doing!
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Re: Kits Remembered 1/250: British Empire 1880 Iron Warship

Post by JohnRatzenberger »

Great build article on an obscure kit, well at least to many of us, of a rare subject -- usually we see these as resin kits from Kombrig.

"Ochre" is probably RN "Buff" - a few yellowish shades different -- no matter.

And I see you have learned to spray varnish before rigging; same can apply to photoetch railings.

Good job, love the subject -- must not go looking for them, have enough already, step away from the "buy me" button ....
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Re: Kits Remembered 1/250: British Empire 1880 Iron Warship

Post by splash »

Cheers for sharing this build, you have done a brilliant job.

I must look out for one of those.
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Re: Kits Remembered 1/250: British Empire 1880 Iron Warship

Post by PropWash »

dwomby wrote:That looks well done and is an unusual subject. I don't know much about warship models but I don't think I have seen a model of one from that era before.

David
The whole concept of a torpedo - ram ship is such an odd construct. Torpedoes, being such a modern weapon, used in conjunction with a ram (the under-bite, so to speak, of the ship's bow) to cave in the side of an enemy ship. Those have been used since the time of early Roman and Greek sea power. But such was the time of transition for navies moving from sail to steam power, wood to iron hulls, etc.

If interested in this type of warship, you might wish to look-up information about the HMS Polyphemus.

Thank for for your comments David. :)
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Re: Kits Remembered 1/250: British Empire 1880 Iron Warship

Post by PropWash »

jRatz wrote:Great build article on an obscure kit, well at least to many of us, of a rare subject -- usually we see these as resin kits from Kombrig.

"Ochre" is probably RN "Buff" - a few yellowish shades different -- no matter.

And I see you have learned to spray varnish before rigging; same can apply to photoetch railings.

Good job, love the subject -- must not go looking for them, have enough already, step away from the "buy me" button ....
Thank you for your comments and the additional info on the hazards of spray varnish. You spared me from finding out about its effect on PE details. :shock:

Since I am currently working on an aircraft build I have my paints handy. The Humbrol paint I used was "Matt 83, AA0919" which is listed as being ochre. Would RN Buff be the same as the Humbrol Light Buff that is available? I can see that color as being closer to what I imagined the color to be. Unfortunately, I think I tried to obtain that color but couldn't find a dealer in the USA for it. So I got the ochre color after reading it as a suggestion on a ship building forum as a near substitute.
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Re: Kits Remembered 1/250: British Empire 1880 Iron Warship

Post by PropWash »

Thank you all for your kind comments. I believe Bronco models is selling a similar kind of ship modeled after a Chinese battleship of the period. Ships like this do add some novelty to a collection.
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Re: Kits Remembered 1/250: British Empire 1880 Iron Warship

Post by pmmaker »

MarkyM607 wrote:Looks an excellent result to me. If it's motorised are you going to test it in the bath? :-D
On our old forum where PropWash and I shared builds, I asked him the same question. I seem to recall he never gave an answer...hmmmm. ;-)

Good to see you posted this build here Bret - I'd hate to have lost it forever as I really like the job you did on it. A real obscure subject from a period where capital ship innovations were happening rather quickly and the obsolescence of a design not long after inception was frequently the case.

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Re: Kits Remembered 1/250: British Empire 1880 Iron Warship

Post by JohnRatzenberger »

Airfix/Humbrol USA carries the line; I also use Squadron Shop.

I also use White Ensign for RN colors - their RN Buff is yellower, also seems to go with US stuff of that era ....
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Re: Kits Remembered 1/250: British Empire 1880 Iron Warship

Post by SJPONeill »

It may be part of a series that has been, in this case, reboxed somewhere along the way. I have a Japanese warship from about the same era, advertised as 1/300, very similar in model design and with that same unmistakeable overscale decking...will see if I can find it and post some pix...
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Re: Kits Remembered 1/250: British Empire 1880 Iron Warship

Post by kpnuts »

Nice looking model.
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