Micheal
I am glad that you found Constructo
kit satisfactory. Good lock to you.
For me, it is anything but. I was working on the Lady Smith, a turn of century (19th to 20th) trawler. The wood provided were extremely poor quality and insufficient in quantity, even if one exercise the greatest care. The pile wood keel and frames were the thinnest I have experienced, although my experience is confined only to AL, MS, Caldercraft and Constucto. The fitting did not match the size of the ship. The one that makes me very angry and fustrated was the propeller. It was too large and could not fit onto the
hull. When I examine the plan carefully, I found that the propeller was the size as given in the plan, but there was a difference between the drawing and the actual model for the stern of the hull. Hence the propeller would not fit. All this after I have finished
planking! I was definitely guilty of carelessness, but when one buys a kit, one expects the
parts to be reasonably accurate. In this case, the difference was massive and I had to rebuild the stern completely to accumulate the propeller. The straw that broke the camel's back was the cover plate for the gunwale. This was a strip of rectangular section 5 mm x 2 mm, taking the same line as the top of the hull. For this part, the
material provided was a peice of teak strip, 5 mm x 2 mm and one is expected to form it into the line of the hull. It is not difficult to form a 2 mm thick strip into a curve, but with an aspect ratio of 2.5, it is impossible for my limited skill. Other manufactuers provide a precut strip of the correct shape in such a situation. At that point, I gave up on Lady Smith and confined her to the waste bin. But my interest in model ship is not dented, only that I would not touch anything bearing that label with a 20 foot pole.
Apprentice
