We use cookies to optimize our website and our service.
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Hi, this is Marc. About the solid hull kits. Our next catalog will contain 4 solid hull kits …. Phantom, Sultana, Dapper Tom and Kate Cory. The others are poor sellers with exception of Harriet Lane, which is being re-issued in larger scale and plank-on-bulkhead, designe by David Antscherl. I would agree with you that solid hull kits have a better chance of being finished but there are reasons why we are walking away from them in the near future. 1) The hulls are carved by furniture makers in Highpoint, SC. In the past 30 years we are now working with the last furniture carver (table legs and such) in that town. He is 80 years old and does not have much of a business future ahead of him as High Point has gone from being America’s premier furniture manufacturing center to a ghost town. All of their factories have moved to China. 2) The cost of solid hull kits has surpassed the POB kits. Carved hulls still have to be whittled fore and aft by hand as they are delivered with stems that held the wood in pantograph carving machines. We have a Philippine who is good at this but soon he is returning to retire in the Philippines. 3) The Europeans have convinced 95% of model builders that POB is more authentic since all of their kits with exception of the junky, little ones designed for youngsters are all POB. On another note … Model Expo is having the best year ever. In part due to Covid and the stay-at-homes but also because we are doing very well in Europe … even Italy! Our biggest challenge now is producing enough to meet demand. Thank you for your videos. I look forward to the Learning Series of Dory, Pram and Smack.
Best regards,
Marc Mosko
P.S. Yes, you can publish if you like.
Marc, thanks for all the info! It’s great to hear that Model Expo is prospering, especially in Europe, the home of most of your competitors. This website’s goal is to spread the model ship building hobby, and having a local manufacturer that offers the level of customer service that Model Expo does helps us further that goal immeasurably. I’m just putting the finishing touches on the Muscongus Bay Lobster Smack box opening video, and should be posting it this week, finishing the Shipwright Learning Series videos at https://www.themodelshipwright.com/videos/unboxing-videos/model-shipways-launches-shipwright-learning-series/. I have to say, this series seems to me to be a game-changer. I’ve already had several friends who have said after watching the videos that they are going to take the leap into the hobby now that these kits are available. I’ll also post your comment on the YouTube video for the people who may not make the leap from there to the website.
All my best,
Jim Hitchcock