"I wish I had never said anything or about Biro pretend deck planking Cheers Ian T"

You weren't to know he was selling such crap! Are you sure it's the same guy you got yours from? I can't believe he was supplying first class drawings years ago and is now supplying rubbish. Why bother drawing (well trying to) around the frames etc. when you already have good drawings?

Whatever floats your boat Don 😉
Merry Christmas, Doug 😎

Town3810 wrote
I wish I had never said anything or about Biro pretend deck planking Cheers Ian T

I'm lucky in as much as I have a laser cutter so by turning the power down I can burn the lines into the deck then turn it up to cut the deck outline

RNinMunich wrote
Hi Chris,
If 'HE' "is blatantly copying the original kit drawings with Aerokits on them rather than redrawing them" why are they such 'freehand' rubbish?
Surely the 'original kit drawings' were not!

No, you misunderstand , the original drawings are great, but aerokits never included frames with their plans as the frames were pre cut in the kit

"HE" blatantly copies the Aerokit plan then hand draws the frames which are Crap. The side and plan view are excellent copies , but his selling point is he is the only person who includes the frames with his plans which he says are drawn to a high standard. in fact he says just put the frame drawings on the wood and cut out . That would be fine if you want a twisted boat . You cant make a straight boat when the two sides of a frame are not mirror images of each other

Don

I wish I had never said anything or about Biro pretend deck planking Cheers Ian T

Hi Chris,
If 'HE' "is blatantly copying the original kit drawings with Aerokits on them rather than redrawing them" why are they such 'freehand' rubbish?
Surely the 'original kit drawings' were not!
Interesting (and probably never ending🤔) debate.
Cheers all and Garry Chrimbo, Doug 😎

Yes, copyright is a real hornet's nest.

I remember reading an article in Building magazine many years ago on the subject of copyright where one large housebuilder tried to take another to court because it had copied one of its designs. But because the defendant had slightly altered the design it got away with it.

So for example if I put my Swordsman drawings on Ebay, which were based on the kit drawings, I shouldn't have any problem as I have made a number of alterations. I won't be of course as I've only drawn enough for me to build my model, they are not full working drawings and I'm not interested in doing that.

Where that guy on Ebay is at fault is that he is blatantly copying the original kit drawings with Aerokits on them rather than redrawing them - not that he has the wherewithal!

" I'm in no way condoning what that guy on Ebay is doing but the problem with the copyright owner is that they are not making drawings available for all of the boats that they produced hence why the likes of that guy on Ebay are able to keep on selling albeit illegally."

I'm not suggesting that you are condoning what they are doing - I'm just saying that complaining to Ebay won't help at all - giving the seller bad feedback will help a little.

There is a problem with old boat plans and copyright. The US and the EU together - under corporate lobbying - brought in a rule that copyright exists for a very long time, which was totally against the aim of the original copyright legislation.

This creates the problem of 'copyright orphans'. Old model boat plans suffer a lot from this - they were often created by a small company which eventually closed down without passing copyright ownership on. Under EU legislation the copyright still exists, but is probably owned by relatives of the original holder - who won't know anything about it.

Worse - ownership will be spread around the relatives - at a worst case there may be 50 or more of them. The EU says that you should make best efforts to trace them and obtain permission. Good luck with that! And if you were to trace them all, almost certainly one would consider that a nice little earner had fallen into their lap, engage a lawyer and ask for a stiff fee....

I run a web site aimed at gathering these old plans, addressing copyright issues and publishing them for free, so as to save them from oblivion. in most cases the copyright resides with another big hobby company who will have bought up the rights to many small ones, and in most cases they are happy to give me permission to publish their old plans. Occasionally a company employs an archivist who will provide plans for a fee - and occasionally the old kits are still available. in that case I don't publish. I have only had one company say that they would not provide prints of old plans, but that I could not publish either. That was MidWest.

I seem to do better with the USA hobbyists than I do in the UK. I have quite a large collection of Sterling plans, for instance, but very few from the old UK companies like Feltra. if anyone has any old plans that they would be happy getting onto the web, go to http://oldboats.tk and have a look around....

Don - that's basically what I did but went a stage further by tracing the top and side views on the PC and then producing the frames from them which is very accurate.

DodgyGeezer - I'm in no way condoning what that guy on Ebay is doing but the problem with the copyright owner is that they are not making drawings available for all of the boats that they produced hence why the likes of that guy on Ebay are able to keep on selling albeit illegally.

The seller doesn't care about that. And Ebay doesn't care about that. I have had this battle.

Ebay deals in volume sales with some simple rules. So long as the seller is willing to refund unhappy customers they can continue trading. Ebay are not competent to determine what counts as 'not well drawn' for a set of model plans, and won't get into that argument.

Ebay will go through a standard procedure if copyright breach is alleged. From their site:

"EeBay has created the VeRO program to protect intellectual property owners from trademark, patent or copyright infringement. Property right owners register with the VeRO program by sending eBay legal documentation and proof that they own the specified intellectual property.

Having registered with eBay’s VeRO program, these property right owners monitor listings on eBay, or they use third-party web monitoring agents that help warn them of infringement threats. When their rights are violated, the owner or a representative can file a complaint by filling out the NOCI (Notice of Claimed infringement) form, complete with proof of the violation, and sending it to eBay by email or fax.

eBay then investigates the issue and notifies the seller via email that a VeRO participant requested that their listing be removed. The listing will remain suspended unless and until a settlement is reached between the seller and the property rights owner."

Unless the Aerokits copyright holder takes VeRO action there is nothing you can do to stop copyright breach. This makes me quite unhappy, because I would like to put the full set of Aerokits plans up on my Old Boat Plans website, but I will only do it with copyright holder approval.

If you want to do anything about it you would be best advised to contact Lesro and encourage them to do something about it - http://lesromodels.co.uk/contact/

You are correct of course in saying it stops me leaving bad feedback , but it doesn't stop me informing Ebay that its not only copyrighted material it is also not as described 😉

"Well I sent him an ebay msg expressing how displeased I was
with the quality of his High Standard drawings and he said send them back for a full refund , so thats fair enough I suppose. its just a shame that a lot more people will also fall for the same
thing ."

I do not publish plans of the Aerokits boats on my website, because they are still under copyright and being sold commercially, so I wonder if these plans are being sold legally under license or not? The fact that the bulkheads are badly drawn suggests the latter....

Providing a complete refund minimises the risk of you leaving bad feedback - which is the only thing these sellers are scared of.

I found the best way is to take height and widths from the side and plan viewsof the main plan and draw new frames from there. I will know if I got it right when I build it. I know one thing for certain, they will be a better fit than the drawings he sent me , at least they are symetric about the center line

Yes, I first started redrawing the frames by choosing the "best" side and then doing a mirror image but they are so poor even that didn't work as the angle and position of the stringers wasn't consistent from frame to frame.

Well I sent him an ebay msg expressing how displeased I was
with the quality of his High Standard drawings and he said send them back for a full refund , so thats fair enough I suppose. its just a shame that a lot more people will also fall for the same
thing . I did ask him if Stevie Wonder had drawn them

He did try the trick of saying it says printed to a high standard but I pointed out it said Hand Drawn & printed ( to a high standard ). I did suggest he changed his listing to say hand drawn to the best of my ability which is pretty poor but printed to a high standard.
it also says on the listing just transfer the drawings to the wood and cut them out. Well considering the frames are not mirror images side to side thats going to make a very twisted boat

Hi my plans for sea queen and sea commander purchased from the same guy 5 years ago were perfect in every way Ps i also use Biro for pretend deck planking Cheers Ian t

Absolutely. Why would you think anything less? if he was being honest he would say "very badly and inaccurately drawn and printed to a high standard!

As it said drawn and printed to a high standard I read that as they are both drawn to a high standard and printed to a high standard and I think Ebay will see it that way too

Sorry a bit off the original topic but here's a picture of my Swordsman build underway, ready for skinning.

I made quite a few modifications to the drawings because I wanted the aft cockpit version at a scale of 1:12 and added a spine and "fingers" to help with construction.

Don - Unfortunately I didn't see your post until after you had ordered, so too late to warn you and I may have been wrong as regards those particular plans. Unfortunately I wasn't.

Jacko - I see what you mean but drawn and printed are all one sentence so I read it as both were to a high standard and that is what you would reasonably expect. Even if the draughtsmanship wasn't the best (and I can draw to a very high standard on the drawing board and PC) they should at least be accurate, which they are anything but. The guy's just a chancer.

Modelboatdevil - the plans I got were for the Swordsman. There are some original Philip Connelly plans for the Swordsman on Ebay at the moment, though they are somewhat yellowed and creased! I've never seen an example of the Aerokits Swordsman or Veron Huntsman 28 kits. What size are you looking to build to?

Chris

don't think i will be buying any plans from him if that's the standard ?? i did read "Printed to a high standard" (not drawn )

Well , I'm sorry to say our fears were correct because the
first of the two plans (Sea Commander) arrived this morning and
as others have found the high quality drawings are absolute
SH*T 😡

I think all curved lines were hand sketched by someone with very shaky hands 😲

I shall try and attach some pics.

The first shows his attempt at the front windows
A scan of his efforts is at the top , the correct drawing is below it

The second picture is his attempt at the rear deck . One edge is a hand drawn wiggly line that should be straight . The drawing is too high, and the two sides should taper in towards the back . His drawing has one tapering in towards the back but the other side tapers outwards

The third picture is a scan of one of the frames which is folded in two so as to check that both sides of it are mirror images . They are not even close

So I will wait for my second plan to arrive (Sea Queen) which I expect to be no better and then put in my claim for not as described

Drawn to a high standard ? what a joke

I've had same feeling on my Fairey Swordsman plan I got from this guy, since not going to re-draw the frames myself, I rather prefer to look for a kit, but still in vain.

Hi Don - unfortunately I didn't look at them in detail for some time and it was too late to do anything about it. it was useful having the kit drawings though which are drawn well. Whilst redrawing I did modify the construction etc. so not a complete waste of time.

Yes, the "drawn to a high standard" made me laugh, maybe if they had been done by a chimp! Lines were wavy and the frames weren't symmetrical and would be a nightmare to build from and someone even had the cheek to put the copyright symbol on them!

Maybe the ones you bought will be better, but I doubt it.

Chris

Hi Chris

Yes I will let you know what they are like , but if they are as bad
as you say I will ask for a refund, I cant see why you would accept paying for them and then redraw them yourself . His listing clearly states the frames and other parts are drawn to a high standard and if they are not then they are not as described and Ebay will get you a refund

Don

Let us know what the quality is like. I bought some plans for a Fairey and the quality of the drawings for the templates was appalling.

Fortunately I was able to redraw them using the kit drawings for the plan and side view.

Rookysailor wrote.....

Hello Don, Cannot understand as to why you could not fined the plans for the Sea Queen on Ebay, here is the direct link.....
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SEA-QUEEN-VINTAGE-MODEL-BOAT-PLAN...
Hope you get them OK👍

No I cant understand why I couldnt find them either . This seems to be happening more and more . Lets call it an age thing 😊

Anyway thanks for the link . Plans ordered now 👍

Hello Don, Cannot understand as to why you could not fined the plans for the Sea Queen on Ebay, here is the direct link.....
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SEA-QUEEN-VINTAGE-MODEL-BOAT-PLANS-TEMPLATES-INSTRUCTIONS/123543246445?hash=
Hope you get them OK👍

Cheers Peter😊

I also bought a copy of the sea commander plans while I was there

Hi Steve
yes I sent him a msg on Ebays ask seller a question

I would still ask him even if it is not on his site.

Steve

Hi Town3810
I read your post again , but carefully this time and saw I need to search under model boats not aerokit plans .
I found his site but he appears to have everything but a sea queen which is the one I'm after

but thanks for the heads up

Don

Deleted ( mistake)

Hi Ebay a chap offers nearly all of the Aerokits plans and templates for all the kit parts search under model boat . reasonable price too Cheers Ian T

Hi Canabus , I think you are right when you say Aerokits didnt show the frames on their plans . I suppose there was no need as the frames would already be in the kit.
I just thought that as others have probably built from a copy of the plan that they may have already drawn up the frames and its pointless drawing them up again if they are already available , but if not I will have to get around to drawing them up

Don

Hi Don
I think all of the Aerokits plans did not show the frames.
I drawn up the Sea Hornet ones.
Canabus