Hi all,
After some running around and a lot of searching and discovering, I'm settling into my new (temporary) home in Norway. I managed to bring the shipyard over, and found some space for it:
As the moving company did not want to take my current build and my materials (aka the wood strips), Endurance is in storage back home in Belgium, waiting to be finalised when I return there next year. This is how far I got before I needed to pack:
So most of the hull is done, including painting, just need to add the rubbing strakes. And then everything else of course 🙂
Meanwhile, I managed to order and receive a new kit, to cover the long Norwegian winter nights: The Flying Dutchman, by Occre:
In a way, I'm very happy getting this, as it was the Pirates of the Caribbean movies that resparked my interest in model building, and made me take the jump from plastic to wood two years ago.
Having said that, there are some points in the build I think I can improve on, after studying the plans:
First of all, the model is delivered with the starboard side opened up, exposing the gun deck. From what I can see, there's not that much extra detail added, and frankly I'm not excited about the way the gun deck itself is split into three pieces of plywood, so the deck does not follow a curve.
To me it just feels wrong having the hull opened up, it takes away the feel of the curved line of the hull. So I decided to close her up, plank both sides of the hull. Which of course means the plans needs to be adjusted.
Here's what I'm planning to do: build the basic frame, ensure the the frames are properly secured by temporarily fitting the decks, plank partially untill I reach the gunports, use the plywood with the gunport cutouts for the port side as a template to position the ports, and cut them out. Then build the gun carriages (12 go in the lower hull), position and secure them on the still open gun deck (thinking of using a brass rod from the base of the gun carriage into the deck), and after installing all of them, put the top deck on. My reasoning is that as the gun barrels are not fitted, the chance of accidentally hitting them during the next build phases and possibly losing them in the sealed deck will be minimised. What do you think, is my reasoning sound?
Also, the ship is delivered as a single planked hull. No issues there, I single planked before. But in the plans, Occre builds up the bow by using plywood filler parts, which then are not covered by any kind of planking. In the pictures on their site and in the plans, that looks a bit awkward:
So according to me I have two options: double plank the hull with any leftover 0,6mm Sapelli strips I have, OR single plank but omit the plywood fillers and bend the strips to cover the bow of the ship (I will need to add some blocks to ensure I have enough space to attach them to the keel). Not sure which is the best way forward, so I'd appreciate your expert thoughts on this.
Thirdly, as said before, some parts of the hull are cut out from plywood, with the gun ports not being planked, according to the plans:
Again, when painting this, the different approach to hull shaping would be visible, so decided to not use the gun port pieces, only as a template to cut out the ports in the planked hull.
On the other hand, the metal castings for the gallery and the gun ports seem top notch, although I'm not sure why they went for metal instead of using plastic. Instructions are clear, but a general overview plan of the ship is missing, so I need to guesstimate positions of certain deck items and channels.
In short, a number of firsts again on this build:
- Build up full hull
- Templating gun ports
- Install lighting in the gallery
- Weathering the ship to get that spooky look
Other changes I'm planning to make: use dark thread for the running rigging (historically inaccurate, but from the pictures it just seems too clean to use light thread, and hey, it's a fictional model to begin with), darken the dead eyes, paint the deck in a slightly different shade of grey (a bit lighter) than the hull, as the Occre approach for a dark brown hull doesn't look right to me. And plank the inner bulwarks, as according to the plans, these plywood pieces are to be stained only, doesn't look right to me either.
So a lot of customisation, fingers crossed I'll be able to pull it off. Again, I'd appreciate any feedback on my processes I described above, as this is my first time attempting to kitbash (a little) I'm sure I'm overlooking potential pitfalls. Thnx in advance for your comments!
