I remember that Revell model. She blowed up real good.
Sounds like the lamentable demise of the Graf Spee. I had a motorized model of the formidable German pocket battleship. When it came time to mothball her, one night, I pried the deck open with a pocket knife, filled her to the gunnel's with calcium carbide, replaced the deck and covered it with flammable plastic cement. [See where this is going?
Solemnly we took her down Springfield Pond, in Springfield Park in Springfield Gardens, Queens. A flip of the switch and her mighty screws sprung to life one last time. A strike of a match set the plastic cement afire as she made for the center of the pond, her majestic wake glimmering in the dim park lights. As the fire did its grim and mute work, she began shipping water, the water reacting with a full load of calcium carbide to produce ethylene gas, which ignited by the flaming deck made a column of flame five feet high on the still wintry pond.