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[Dave_S.]

I popped into Howes in Kidlington (about 30 mins drive from home for me) to get some connectors for the ESCs I bought there yesterday (!), and had a browse of the shelves, as you do.


There were two Billings kits there that I have long fancied but never built. Had a chat with the owner about the advertised prices (which seemed very low) and he said they are not going to stock Billing Boats any more as there is no UK distributer and it is too expensive to get them shipped direct, so he was selling what they have left at the price he paid for them.

The result was that I left the shop with new, boxed kits for the Bankert and Zwarte Zee - total cost of £350, and I didn't forget the connectors either![size=78%]

These were the last of the kits for these models they had in stock, there may have been some of the static models but that's not my interest so I didn't look for them.


I really don't think I can any more kits on the shelves of my modelling room. I'll have to clear the bench and make a start on one of today's purchases, probably the Bankert.


I look at it as £200 saved rather than £350 spent![/size]

[Martin (Admin)]

 
     

[Circlip]

Hopefully the Zee is the plastic hulled version and not the wooden original.


  Regards  Ian.

[Dave_S.]

Definitely not a wooden hull, brand new current kit.

[roycv]

Hi the plastic hull version is at a different scale to the wooden one but I think the fittings are the same. 
Good luck with the stanchions!  There are so many and just in case you wear vari-focal glasses do'nt use them when setting up the stanchions!  The vari-focals have trapezium distortion and you may be left with some leaning one way and some the other.

I had to re-do some of mine because of that.
regards
Roy

[Dave_S.]

Thanks for that tip, Roy, as I do wear vari-focals. I'll try to remember to swap to my fixed focus reading glasses.

[SailorGreg]

Had a chat with the owner about the advertised prices (which seemed very low) and he said they are not going to stock Billing Boats any more as there is no UK distributer and it is too expensive to get them shipped direct,

That is a shame, and bodes ill for getting Billings kits in the UK.  I am not about to get one (too many other things in the pipeline already) so not a personal issue, but I wonder if the other stockists who are currently advertising Billings kits might be thinking the same way?  I guess buying direct from Denmark on an individual basis could also be an expensive exercise.
Greg

[Colin Bishop]

There is someone on the new Model Boats Forum with the Banckert kit experiencing problems with fitting the deck moulding to the hull after using the laser cut frames within the hull. There appears to be a mismatch of parts.

Colin

[Dave_S.]

I had to return the Banckert kit on Monday as I found it most certainly wasn't a new kit - some parts had been cut out of the printed sheets and there was a child's drawing addressed to 'Grandad' in the box.
To be fair, Nick at Howes gave me an immediate refund and apologised for the mix up.
I went through the Zwarte Zee kit carefully and it does appear to be recent and unstarted.