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Hi Law, and thanks! We are working on our house, and have been all summer, so I had no time for modelbuilding. Hopefully I will get back on it later on. Cheers /Matti

Hey Law, glad to see you visit! I don't have time for this build at the moment, so she is sitting on my shelf. Still have a decire to build her so I'm sur eI'll get back to her later on. /Matti

Hi Nigel, good to hear from you mate! i hope you like the new job. Take the builds in the pace you manage. I don't know about you but i cant build if it feels like a chore. Relax and enjoy. /Matti

Hey mate, sorry for missing your reply! Have a lot to do atm so the model is sitting on my shelf waiting for the next step. /Matti

Thanks Mark! That's one of my reasons for using the spare parts and leftovers from the last build as much as possible. The freedom to try anything and just have fun. Getting the lines correct is my challenge right now. /Matti

Thanks! I'm happy you want to follow along. Lots of new stuff for me, so I can't promise I'll succeed. /Matti

Hey all! I've been trying to work out the lines. To be able to continue with the other decks, I needed to plank the first one. As I'm building it by eye, I need to see the other decks in place before preparing for a mast and gratings. A bit backward. Also started on the stern shape. /Matti

Yeah, I've noticed. I've tried to shape my model to make it more narrow, but it's quite hard for me to get nice lines, I may end up with a stern that is to wide, but some reference show slightly wider versions also. Thanks for the picture and advice! /Matti

Very nice progress pops! I normally don't think of boats like these, but I really like to look at your build and can definately see why you decided to do it! /Matti

The model looks wonderful Mark! I would have serious problem adding planks as it looks so good as it is. A true work of art! /Matti

As a fan of your work, it's been a pleasure to read through this thread. Gorgeous work Jan! Would it be hard to weather a model built like this? My experience is thats its easier to weather a wooden ship model compaired to say a model in plastic. For me it comes down to do light sanding to make the coats of paints blend and also let the wood show here and there. I guess that would not work well on your material? /Matti

Thanks for the kind comments guys, and thanks for the likes also! Jan, the scale is very close to 1/70. /Matti

Thanks Marc! No, but a couple of them where boatsmen. Dutch history is very interesting. /Matti

Thanks alot for the kind words everyone! /Matti

Hey pops! Very nice progress! Making a weathered paintjob on this model could be very very fun! /Matti

Wow, very skilled work! /Matti

Hi all! First I'd like to thank you all for the advices and information you've given in this thread. I have now started to build the model and you can follow it here: http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/10277-gripen-1591-by-mattinazg%C3%BBl/ /Matti

Hi everyone! I have an interest in King Karl IX, Gustav II Adolfs father. Before reaching the crown he was a duke and was successful in developing his duches and he created his own fleet. And when he later went to war with Sigismund his fleet became an important part. When he later became king his fleet became part of the swedish fleet. As many men of power at that time in history, Karls seems to have been quite cruel but he did manage to reach remarkable goals in his life and laid the base of what Gustav II Adolf managed to achieve later on. For a while I'v been wanting to make a model of one of Karls ships. When going through the ship lists available I decided to go for the small ship called Gripen (griffin). Gripen was Karls symbol and is to be seen on Vasa stern as well when two griffins puts the crown on Gustav II Adolfs head. Making a model of Gripen will mean a lot of guesses on my behalf as very little is known. I like to build by eye and even if I made some basic plans and drawings, I will try to relax and do what feels right as I move the build along. The design is inspired by the beautyful replica of Duyfken and by paintings by Vroom and other dutch artists. I would like to thank all who helped me with advices and opinions in this thread: http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/9996-ships-of-the-late-16th-century/ In that thread you can also follow the steps I did when designing the model. When I finished the Vasa build I had a pile of spareparts left. When looking at the parts I felt I'd like to try and reshape them into something else. I feel this gives me lots of freedom when building it as I can do whatever I feel like and that helps creativity. Worst thing that can happen is that I mess upp and then I can just through it in the bin. Step 1 was to design the model. As said that step is covered in the thread mentioned above. Step 2 was to decide what size it would be in. I printed the drawings in different sizes and then decided. The scale is close to 1:70. Step 3 was to make a more detailed plan just to get the basic set up of the frames and how to reshape them to the lines of my drawings. Step 4 Was to do the actual reshaping. First before assembly, then reshaping again. The supporting parts are ugly but I liked the idea to just use the left over parts after sawing the frames. Ugly but easy to do and they will be covered later on. I needed the supporting bits to be stronger compaired to say how BB designed theis Vasa kit, as I had to reshape them in place. Next step will be to make the stern, bow and decks. /Matti

I also think it's a design, not the perspective. I think it may have been designed like that on ships in different sized ship aswell, at least variants of it. Speculations only of course, but I see no reason why not. Actually they are pretty close up, especially the top left one. The smaller size of the top right is because of the small picture I found. The images are in different sizes. Here is the top right one uncut: Still I'd like to make the gallery more simple, Partly as it would make it more in tone with the ship lines and I also want to make Gripen a more basic ship. I got a feeling that simpler lines would feel more like late 1500 and less early 1600. That's just how I feel though.

Thanks for the suggestion Scott! Yeah I feel the same way you do robin. In a history book I have about the 30 year war they bring up the double feelings the horse men had. They both had a strong bond to their horse and at the same time had to regard it as possible food. But reading about the boatmen on these ships, it's almost as they had the same conditions. I have at least two boatsmen (and also a dragoon soldier from the time of Karl XII) as ancestors and therefore am interested in how their life could have been. /Matti

Thanks for the feedback mate. Yeah That would probably look more in tone with the other lines. I took some examples by Vroom. The more straight ones look more right for the lines in my scetchesI think: /Matti

Cheers jbshan and Wayne! Im really impressed with all the info you have, thanks for sharing it! I haven't decided what to do with the size of the gunports. Some replicas of galleons seem to have larger ports than 76x76. I can be wrong of that when trying to judge by pictures though. And they are replicas, and not hard evidence of course. One of the reasons I decided to go for Gripen is that little is known and I could get great freedom of design. I strongly suspect I will end up making decissions on it that is incorrect or speculative. But I will try and make what I think is beautyful. I feel it´s soon time to jump in and start the actual build. Here is a sketch of the stern. I had an idea to make the balcony curved, kind of how the lines goes on Vasa. But looking at it now, I think I need to simplify those lines. Opinions? /Matti

Thank you so much Cristiano, that´s very helpful! And yeah I was lucky you had these pictures. jbshan, thanks for once again taking the time to help, good info! What is the evidence they used? /Matti

Cheers guys! Very nice of you to make the effort and help me with inserting the sailors jbshan! Jan I'm not sure I understand how you mean, could you elaborate? I don't have any more numbers than I replied to you earlier, and as I said the lenght is my guess. Much will end up as guesses with this subject. Thanks Christiano, yeah that is a really interesting ship to look at for this project. Do you have any picture of the stern? I'm trying to design the setup of door etc now. /Matti

Very nice indeed, thanks for the help Cathead and Christiano. I will definately look them up! Thanks jbshan, I will try that later and see how it looks. Jan, I don't have a lot of info so I will have to guess her actual size. I imagine her numbers that aren't listed: Displacement: 400 ton (listed). Lenght: 32 meters (my guess) Crew: 30 sailors (no soldier number listed) Armament: 16 guns (my guess) /Matti