New Colin Archer Kit from Billing Boats Available Now

New stuff in the ship modeling world is always great to see. This particular Billing Boats kit has been around before, but this is a new wooden hull plank-on-bulkhead version.

At 1:15 scale, this makes for a huge 50″ long model. It’s appropriate for build as a display model, but is also suitable for RC operation.

Ages of Sail

Several years ago, Billing Boats’ popular 1:15-scale kit of the salvage ship Colin Archer was discontinued. The kit was very big, at about 50″ long, and featured an ABS plastic hull and was suitable for RC operation.

New, BB728 Colin Archer wooden hulled, expert level ship model kit.

Billing Boats has just released a new version of the Colin Archer kit at the same 1:15 scale. But, now, the kit features a wooden plank-on-bulkhead construction hull. The size, construction, and detail have earned this kit an EXPERT level rating. So, make sure you’re ready to take on a kit of this difficulty level before starting your build.

Ages of Sail and our sister site Billing Boats USA now have this kit available. It is one of Billing Boats largest, and lists for $789.95. But, if you’ve been following this blog or our Facebook posts, you’ll know that we currently have…

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Building Woody Joe’s Horyu-ji Temple Five-Story Pagoda – Part 1

So, it begins! I got this kit from Zootoyz.jp earlier in the year, along with some other temple and Edo period architecture kits. One of those kits, the Shinmei-zukuri Shrine, I built and wrote about here. But, I’ve had too many other projects to work on to get to any of these other kits.

Well, it’s been long enough. We’re approaching the end of the year, when I traditionally build some kind of simpler Japanese kits. Since I made a promise to get to this kit, specifically, I’m pulling the kit out of the closet and setting it out to build.

Hōryū-ji 5-Story Pagoda from Woody Joe

This will make a nice size model, measuring about 18.5″ tall on a 10-1/4″ square base when done. There are more than 870 parts, mostly milled wood, though there are some wood strips and smaller laser-cut sheets. The kit is listed by Woody Joe as requiring 50 hours to build. I think this may be a revision of an early figure of 40 hours to build, as that’s what I recall and that’s what Zootoyz.jp states. In any case, it will take a lot less time than a ship model.