South Goodwin Lightship 1:110 – Eastern Express Group

Review by Mike Ristuccia

The dimensions of the actual ship were: Length – 41.8m (137ft), beam – 7.6m (25 ft). The scale of this kit is an odd 1:110 and the overall length of this model is 385mm which is almost spot-on at the given scale.

The kit was received within a few weeks of ordering. The model’s box was a little crumpled upon opening, although the parts inside were in good order. Inside the pack was a sealed bag containing all the parts, moulded in grey, black and clear. There was also a large sheet of decals and a set of instructions.

There are 141 parts in this kit, although a lot of them had already come off their sprue’s, probably during transit. Although now distributed by Eastern Express, I believe the molds were originally tooled by Frog in the early 60’s and Revell-Germany also released it for a short time a few years ago. Due to the age of the molds, most of the parts had a bit of flash as expected - on some parts it was excessive, so be prepared to spend some time removing it. There were also some sink marks on the exposed sides of a few of the parts which required filling and sanding down.

Assembly of the kit was fairly straight forward with most parts fitting snugly into their respective positions. I changed the sequence of the hull & main deck assembly – the instructions indicated the main deck should be glued into one half of the hull and then the other hull half joined to that assembly. This was probably because it is a little difficult to insert the main deck into the hull once both hull halves are joined. However I wanted to paint the hull and main deck separately so I dry fit all the pieces which showed that it was actually possible to insert the main deck afterwards, so that is what I did. A word of caution - take care when doing this as the hull requires some bending and twisting which could potentially break the glue seam. The port holes in the hull were molded in but I drilled them out before the main deck was inserted and I also applied Microscale’s Kristal Klear for a more realistic appearance.

Interestingly, what you won’t find on this model are propellers! Lighthouse ships are apparently towed into position and anchored in situ where they remained, hence there is no need for these ships to have engines.

I wasn’t very happy with the railings that were supplied with the kit. They were made of very soft black polystyrene as they are intended to be bent into position around the various corners. They had a lot of flash and were quite chunky and uneven in parts. I discarded these and made my own using Evergreen stock. I also changed the plastic molded anchor chains to aftermarket ‘proper’ chains which gave a more realistic appearance. This kit has great potential for even more ‘super-detailing’. You could add extra detail to the lifeboats (rudders, oars, etc), rigging, and more.

The decals provided consisted of water-depth indicators, a company crest, several number 17’s (the number of the vessel), lifeboat markings and of course the large "South Goodwin" markings on the side of the hull. The latter are individual decals for each word; four in total. Due to the size of these decals you must exercise care when applying them. I used Micro Set to ensure a good application resulting in no signs of severe bubbling or cracking. I then sprayed the hull overall with dull coat to remove the shine from the decals and to give the hull a flat appearance consistent with the rest of the ship.