USS New Jersey, Revell Lodela

In my last divorce, my collection of ships suffered enormously, it was my ex's last negotiating trick, and they were only released after a long negotiation, as emotional hostages, they suffered a lot, stored by people who did not have the least respect for them, They lost masts and delicate pieces, little by little I have been rebuilding them, this is one of the first, the battleship USS New Jersey of Lodela, I still have to rebuild the masts, I had asked for some photo-cut, but they never came, now I am thinking of making them wire, plastic and thermoformed, one weekend that I have time I will, after all I have to rebuild the masts of four Revell Lodela models of the Iowa class, one from Monogram and another from Lee that cover the entire class, including the ones that didn't was launched.

The models of Lodela are ancient, although I bought them in the eighties, except the USS Winsconsin that is from Revell, all of them are modeling technology from the fifties, in fact it was the first ship modeled by Revell, hence its H-301 number , for many years only the USS Missouri was produced, which by some rare coincidence was also the first model of a ship in my collection, it was manufactured in different editions, from the classic S series to the Picture Fleet, in the sixties it was decided that A good way to take advantage of the molds would be to modify them slightly and produce a very similar ship, so the seaplane rails were eliminated, and two helicopters were added creating the USS New Jersey, and with a change of decals in USS Iowa, while the USS Missouri would retain the hydros and a new ramp that would no longer rotate, and all this required only sealing the ramp hole and making the helicopter branches, four models could be marketed for a single mold.

In this era of huge scales, detailed in photo-cut and extras of all kinds, the spartan simplicity of the model may surprise, but they were designed for another type of audience, they were children's models, which one could finish in a weekend, or on a school vacation, they were easy to assemble, what we would now consider a Level 2, and provided a lot of entertainment.

The model is Lodela brand, originally Lodela paint, repaired and repainted using Revell and El Viejo Marino paint, all the decoration by brush, including the numbers of the hull and turret A, almost all the model retains its original parts, except for some anti-aircraft guns that They were made with Epoxy Plasticine, wire and stretched plastic.

Author: Sergio Tellez Morales