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First
of all, there are hundreds, if not thousands of ships that have
never been made as a plastic kit. That's just the way it is.
But
here are some tips in searching tosee if there is a model of the
ship you are looking for:
1.
Let's say someone wants a model of a WWII battleship, the USS
Kentucky. Chances are that there is no model of that ship in the
scale you want, maybe not in any scale. You haven't been able
to find one.
2.
There's a trick to sometimes finding a ship model.
You
need to know what Class of ship you're looking for.
The
USS Kentucky battleship was an Iowa
class ship. That means you want to look for ship models in
that class. Guess what? There are models of the USS
Missouri - which is also an Iowa class ship. Granted, ships
were slightly different from one to another, especially during
war time, but overall, the model kit will be of the same basic
ship you want. Sometimes the name of a ship will be changed during
it's long history. So you may need to track that info down as
well, to find it's previous class or previous name.
3.
Always start by searching for the Class of the ship - then look
at all the names of the class ship you're looking at. You will
have better results, and a much better chance of finding a kit
for the ship model you want Wikipedia
is handy for a list of ships made of a certain Class.
4.
A model company isn't going to make a model kit for each the 6
ships in the Iowa class. They will traditionally pick the most
popular or well known named ship and do that one. Sometimes they
may do more than one example in the class, but that doesn't always
happen.
5.
Model companies leave it up to the individual modeler to make
the changes needed to represent a specific ship from year to year,
or other modifications needed to make a certain ship. That's one
of the reasons there are so many aftermarket resin parts and photoetch
for ship models.
6.
If there is no model of the ship you want, here are some companies
that make scale models of ships. They may be able to make one
for you-
In
an extreme case, there are companies that can make a model of
any ship you want. You will see a list of those companies here
-
Model
Building Companies - click here
Why
isn't there a model kit of the model I'm looking for?
Models
made of plastic require an injecton mold. Plastic is heated to
a high temperature and then forced into the mold at high pressure.
This makes the plastic "trees" that hold the parts,
and gives you what you need to build a model.
Here
is a mold for a plastic model courtesy of Round2
Models:
This
mold makes JUST ONE of the many parts trees that make up
a model, and this is JUST HALF of the mold. You need two
for each tree (excluding kits that use slide molds I believe),
and some models have many trees, depending on the complexity of
the kit.
Don't
let the picture fool you. This is one heavy piece of steel.
You need a fork lift to get these around and put them in and out
of the molding machines, or move them around a warehouse.
So
what's involved in getting a mold made?
The
molds to make a model kit can cost from $ 100,000 to $250,000.
Just to make one model.
So
model companies don't start popping out new ship kits every day
because they feel like it. It's expensive!
There's
also a boat load of engineering time, CAD work, and milling work
done to even make the mold. It's not a simple task.
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