Russian Imperial Cruiser "Aurora"-1st impressions

cbg

cbg

Member
Jul 28, 2005
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indianapolis (fishers)
Had to share a recent eBay purchase with the forum:

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Russian Imperial Cruiser “Aurora” (крейсер “Аврора”; Transliteration: Kreiser “Avrora”)
Scale: 1:200
Manufacturer:Maly Modelarz #10-11
Designer: Bohdan Wasiak (Lodz)
Publish date: 1977
Length: 56.5 cm
Beam: 8 cm
Pages: 8 plus 16 instruction/history pages in foldout
Parts: 517
Skill level: moderate to advanced
Other: instructions in Polish only

Find out more about this veteran survivor here and
here

First impressions:
Mmmmm!. . .smell that mold. Probably all that iron curtain acid in the paper. I don’t think the stock was ever really white, but it’s aged to an even nicer shade of brown, unfortunately not consistently. Surface of card very porous and felt-like. . .one reason why the ink did not make a full impression. (See detail here) This model appears to have been printed in five solid match colors (grey; dark green; gold; red; black) as opposed to 4-color process, yet the cover is printed nicely in process inks. Weird. . .

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Judging by the line quality, all parts appear to have been hand-drawn. Fit and finish might be an issue. . .if I actually get that far. Have a look at the interesting history and instructional fold-out pix below:

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I had intended this as a gift for my brother (a former USN lieutenant) but part of me just can’t put scissors to paper. So I put my conflict to y'all: Shall this interesting model get built or is it doomed to stay trapped as a collectable in its present condition? I’d like to poll the group and see what you all think. Please vote!
 
I agree with Russell, scan and build a printed version. All my origional cardmodel kits look so great in kit form it's hard to cut em up, especially if you make as many mistakes as I do. So I scan and print them...as many times as I want.
If one did not have access to a scanner, I would say "build it anyway!".
 
Man! Why didn't I think of that?

I wonder if I can amend my poll to reflect option "D"? Actually, don't I have to worry about losing a generation in the scanning and printing on modern card? Have you all had good success doing this?
 
cbg said:
Man! Why didn't I think of that?

I wonder if I can amend my poll to reflect option "D"? Actually, don't I have to worry about losing a generation in the scanning and printing on modern card? Have you all had good success doing this?
Click to expand...

You'll lose a generation, but you'll gain card quality, the ability to rejiggle and retouch the colors and as someone already mentioned, a virtually unlimited number of spare parts.
 
I actually have tried to build this model. So far i got the hull assembled. You can see in provided samples, that hull plating is STRAIGHT. So i had to cut out small triangles along the way, to make it fit. Besides, different parts of plating are printed in different shades of grey (at least on my copy). And detailing is not up to, lets say, Quest's version. Since it was agift (i happened to be born in 1977, the same year this issue was printed), i decided to build it, but i scanned it and recolored some parts. I also printed several sheets of similar grey shade for scratchbuilding of some details (e.g. covering those red stars, adding depth to armored bridge etc.) and small copy of Russian Imperial eagle. At this moment i postponed building, but will surely continue... Hopefully...
 
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