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  1. My Admiral had me order myself Ab Hoving’s book “17th Century Dutch Merchant Ships” for Christmas this year, as part of wish list. It comes with plans for 10 different types of ships. The cat stuck out to me when I first read the book. Cats were a type of wooden trade ship that plied the Baltic Sea. They had very shallow draft and would never win a beauty contest. They kind of remind me of a 17th Century version of a Mack truck. I have taken the initial steps and scaled everything up to 1/64 scale from 1/96th scale. That random looking pile of paper will soon be the framework of a hull. I’m using a giant cardboard box that I got from something we bought as my starter material. It is corrugated, which is a nuisance to cut, but it works quite well.
  2. I bought the Amati Victory Models plans set of the Revenge, a couple years back, from Cornwall Model Boats. They have been sitting in my closet for a while now and I would really like to use them. Chris Watton did a wonderful job of designing the kit for Amati. The plans are simply amazing. They beg to be used. I have a couple of Amazon boxes that are begging to be cut apart and turned into bulkheads and a keel. I have a bunch of giant Valentine’s cards that I bought in a wholesale lot last year. They are almost exactly 1mm thick. I have recently acquired a bunch of cereal boxes that are about .5mm thick. I also have a couple packs of poster board that are about .8mm thick. Lastly, I have bunch of wood grained contact paper that needs used while it is still self adhesive. I do have a couple other builds on hold at the moment. I’ll get to them eventually.
  3. Hi. I've decided that it is time to end period of inactivity after finishing Allege and start new project. I've decided to try my skills at building card kit of Saettia, small transport vessel from Genoa, used from end of XIII until XVIII century in western parts of Mediterranean Sea. Kit was designed in 1:100 scale by Tomasz Weremko aka Seahorse and published by WAK issue 7-8/2015. This time I've decided to use laser cut frames. Since these parts are made of beermat cardstock, which is nice to cut with scalpel but awful when sanded with sandpaper (it is very soft), all parts were soaked through in nitro based varnish. After drying parts got a bit more stiffnes and stopped falling apart when sanded. Currently whole frame is glued and ready for covering with deck and sanding before first layer of skin. Cover of the kit: Hull frame: Till next time.
  4. I've been a bit frustrated with the scratch build skipjack so I decided to start one of the recently purchased Seahorse kits. I recently reviewed the kit here. What a pleasure. I've not progressed far--only through the first drawing--but this is so much more relaxing than home-grown! I'm only aware of one gaff on my part: I glued bulkhead 13 facing forward like all the rest. But 13 has some guide lines on it that should have been facing aft. Oh, well. I did notice one typographical error in the instructions. Part #16 is erroneously identified as 16a in the line drawing even though it is correctly identified in the shaded drawing right below. Not a big deal. I have to admit I'm not sure of the purpose of part 16. As far as I can tell they will be entirely covered. Maybe it will become clear later on. And maybe it's better that they are hidden. In the enlarged photo below I noticed that I did not get them symmetrical. (Might have helped if bulkhead 13 faced aft!) I actually didn't notice it until resizing the picture for this post. I only see out of my left eye, I wear glasses as well as a magnifying visor. Consequently, I have found that two layers of lenses and lack of binocular vision and depth perception often lead me to believe that things are straight and even when they actually are not. Must be why I'm drawn to hobbies that require visual acuity! I also think part #43/44 (the transom) is better attached in a later step. At this point the rake of the transom is unclear. Later on a couple of knees are installed which should hold the transom at the correct angle. I'll probably start attaching the first layer of the hull tomorrow. Looks kind of tricky so we'll see if I can keep my Zen going!
  5. Hello, I decide to start another card ship kit, this time for the HMV, the Flower Class HMCS Corvette Agassiz 1941. The kit is very detailed with many parts and add the Laser cut detail set from same company. So for start I cut the main parts for the cross sections, glued and left under some weight to straighten out.
  6. Dear friends, After 12 years of hiatus I decided to continue with the model of Sovereign. I started it together with Doris, I´m sure you will remember her ship. So here is the part of history - sorry for the poor photos:
  7. Hello, Do you ever see a painting of a ship and become struck with the magic, serenity, or majesty of the scene and wish to try to create something similar in a model? I had picked up this kit of the Badger from Seahorse, intending to keep it around as a back-burner project with no clear start date in mind. Something to piece together as I mulled over problems on more important projects: Months before that, I had found floating around the internet a 19th c. painting by one Richard Brydges Beechey of a ship of the line taking in her sails (HMS Asia of Navarino fame- and look at those stu’n’s’ls coming in): I saw this painting and thought, “wow, that would be a magnificent effect to pull off some hypothetical day when one has room for a giant fully-rigged ship of the line in one’s house and has mastered scale sail manipulation, scale gravity, and patience!” Then, for better or worse I realized I didn’t have to wait for some hypothetical day and could give it a go with the Badger; it has enough sails with the addition of some royals (likely enough for an ambitious commander to rig up), it’s in the stash, and I need experience so might as well try. And now this is my main project. This is not how this year was supposed to go. Before going much further, I want to talk about the ship. There is a well-known Jotika kit as well as the fantastic Seahorse paper kit I’m building. Plans and log excerpts from the ship are available in Nelson’s Ships by Peter Goodwin, while background history and even more plans are available in Howard I. Chapelle’s The Search for Speed Under Sail. You may have heard this ship introduced as Horatio Nelson’s first command, however that is almost certainly not quite the case, as Chapelle records. The Badger in the admiralty draft (lines taken June 1777, Portsmouth)-and thus in all the models- was indeed an effective patrol sloop which quite impressed Vice Admiral Gayton on the Caribbean station, but by October she was in a sorry state and he indicated in November correspondence that he would have her replaced with another vessel he had purchased. Young Nelson took command of “Badger” essentially at the start of the new year (‘78) and the logs indicate a refit is taking place at that time. After this point new things are mentioned in the log not mentioned before- royals as well as a spritsail topsail set on multiple occasions. It is never mentioned in the log, but we can be confident that the ship was replaced and the winter was spent transferring everything useful over to the newly purchased brig, whose name was now Badger, and she simply inherited the log and navy register position of the previous Badger. I think this was a common enough practice in the history of the navy, especially when it had to maintain numbers despite high wear & tear on a foreign station. The takeaway is that we have no idea what young Horatio Nelson’s Badger looked like exactly. But we know in astonishing detail what Lieutenant Everitt’s Badger looked like! Chapelle’s data include spar dimensions from the admiralty draft and a sail plan, which indeed differs from the lovely Seahorse plans. The kit plans generally have spars a bit too long and masts a bit too tall (and the boom is too short and the gaff too long). Book vs kit- not to scale: Below is a detailed model shown in Chapelle’s book: The main mast is to have a spread yard for the foot of the topsail on a rope horse (as opposed to putting the gaff and boom on a separate pole) and an improvised flying main course on a slightly smaller crojack- held in place only by the halyard. This disparity in spar sizes presented a bit of a dilemma but I’m thinking I will stick with the dimensions from the kit, as this project is much more about stunsail art than historical accuracy, and the differences are not drastic. (Definitely has nothing to do with the fact that I had already enthusiastically prepared some spars and am too lazy to go back and redo it in this case..) Furthermore, I’m nervous the visual effect I want to achieve might not work as well with the slightly smaller top-hamper- this entire project being one giant visual experiment after all. {Intermission music}🎵 So about building the actual ship. I started sticking the hull together in January. Goes together like a charm. Buy the laser-cut parts. Stick the frame together. Cover with paper cutouts for stability. Do your longitudinal strakes with gel CA applied only to frame edges. Final planking with printed paper (but you must edge-paint everything appropriately on the outer layer). Then it was time to do the wales, various deck fittings, and engineer cannons using toothpick shafts, paper layering, wire bands, and a glue drop for the ball. I dry brushed the guns lightly with dark grey, but forgot to add touchholes… The kit includes paper wedges to roll cannons with, but I found this concept to be unworkable with either thick or thin paper for 1/100 four-pounders, thus toothpicks were butchered for my guns. I’ve also been assembling the laser-cut blocks, preparing the masts and larger spars, and starting to think about scrap experiments to try to finesse the clewed-up sails and dangling stunsails. I made a rough plan to relate the visual effect of the painting inspiration to the actual ship I’m building with its particular spar anatomy. And I’m taking bets as to how long you think this will take to finish The nice thing is that this time, I don’t have to engineer the entire rig and belaying scheme from guesswork and low-budget research. Seahorse has it all planned; I just need to make a few additions. Those will be: -Flying royals (needed for visual effect) -Flying main course (will look nice and it’s even correct) -Stunsail inhauls (needed to achieve the dangly stunsails- for some reason these lines are absent from the Seahorse drawings) Wish me luck! -Meriadoc
  8. As before, this will be a speedy project rather than quality work. This kit was released a year ago, and I bought it with full options, such as laser cut hulls and 3D printed blocks and canons. You should check out other project by Jsk.
  9. SMS Scharfschütze 1/250 available from GPM Hi, Gang! This will be a sort of quick-and-dirty review, since the kit is not a new release. Whenever I order stuff from Poland, I like to order the most stuff I can get for a particular shipping cost -- if I'm going to get a few items, I might as well get the most for my shipping buck. My most recent order from the Polish firm of GPM arrived today, consisting mostly of after-market canopies and wheels, but I was able to squeeze in a new card model as well. This one is SMS Scharfschütze (Sharpshooter), one of twelve Huszar-class destroyers built for the pre-WW1 Austro-Hungarian navy. The kit has been out for roughly a decade (there is no release date on the cover sheet), so I'm a little lucky that one was still available all these years later. It is available in either 1/200 or 1/250 scale. I chose 1/250, since pretty much all of my other card ship kits are in that scale. At that scale, the finished model will be 26 cm long -- a little more than ten inches. The kit has a number of interesting features. One is that it doesn't come in the usual booklet form, but instead is printed on individual sheets. A second unusual feature is that the designer's name is not given anywhere. However, the kit and its diagrams look remarkably similar in style to the V108 kit which served as the basis for the tutorial I posted in the card models section. That makes me suspect that Digital Navy's Roman Deytna may have designed the kit. Perhaps one of our august members can confirm that for me. One bit of good news with this kit is that it doesn't just come with Polish instructions. The bad news is that the only other language is German. I read German, so that's great for me, but perhaps not so great for the rest of you. Fear not, though, since the kit does include a sufficient number of diagrams to guide the builder to a finished model. Also, the model is not overly complex -- I think that anyone who has built V108 or any similarly simple kit, such as the ones available from Paper Shipwright, will be able to build this kit without too much difficulty. There are only two pages of printed parts, so the total parts count is low. Optional parts allow for the model to be built in either a full-hull or waterline configuration. The print quality is good. Here's where it gets a little more interesting. The kit is a "limited edition" offering -- a kind of deluxe kit that includes both laser-cut details and a laser-cut frames set. It costs only US$13.64, so it's a pretty darn good deal. One of the two pages of parts is laser-cut, which will save a lot of fiddly cutting, even if the laser-cut parts give a sense of being very delicate. Whether they will prove to be delicate during construction remains to be seen. A separate key for the laser-cut parts is provided. There is a separate laser-cut fret containing railings. The frames are cut from the standard "beer mat" used in Poland. At one time, metal gun barrels were also available, but they have been out of stock for quite a while. So, that's it in a nutshell. I think this is an intriguing kit, design-wise, and it depicts a very interesting and infrequently seen subject. The price is definitely a plus. Given my fondness for small warship projects, I may have to make room in the queue for this one sooner rather than later.
  10. SMS Sleipner 1900 1:250 HMV Catalogue # 3047 Available from Fentens Papermodels for €13.99. All images by the author except where noted. Image courtesy of Fentens Papermodels History From the publisher’s website: “The name Sleipner comes from the eight-legged horse Sleipnir of the Nordic god Odin. The name of this extraordinary horse describes gliding on land, water and in the air. How fitting for an elegant dispatch boat like the Sleipner. The torpedo boat's maximum speed was around 26.5 knots, which was impressive at the time, and with a length of 61 meters and a width of 7 meters, the Sleipner was quite impressive. Image from Wikimedia Commons: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/SMS_S_97.jpg When commissioned, SMS Sleipner carried the designation S97. The torpedo boat destroyers S90 to S101 are sister ships of the Sleipner. All of these ships were built at the Schichau shipyard between 1898 and 1901. S97 Sleipner was launched in Elbing on December 16, 1899 and was put into service on May 28, 1900. Sleipner's two propellers were powered by two triple steam engines and Schichau-Thornycroft water-tube boilers were used. The maximum water displacement was 394t. The ship was supposed to have a crew of 49 men. The SMS Sleipner was intended from the start as an escort ship for the imperial yacht Hohenzollern. That's why we often talk about the imperial dispatch boat Sleipner. The usual accompaniment of the Hohenzollern when traveling consisted of at least one warship and a dispatch boat. This task was carried out from 1900 to 1914 by SMS Sleipner. Many pictures show Hohenzollern with Sleipner somewhere in the background. The Hohenzollern's journeys took Sleipner, among others, to Venice, to Alesund, and also to the Norwegian south coast. It happened that the emperor himself was on board SMS Sleipner and he used the ship for visits or events occasionally. During the Kieler Woche and similar sailing events the SMS Sleipner occasionally worked as a yacht tug for large sailing yachts such as Germania or Meteor. The dispatch boat also was applied to the service of science and on July 1, 1904, under the direction of the German meteorologist and geophysicist Hugo Hergesell and the French naval officer Sauerwein, it brought a kite probe to a height of 1,880 meters. The Sleipner's armament consisted of 2 rapid-fire cannons of caliber 5 cm, which were used as saluting guns. The torpedo boat sister ships had 3 of these rapid-fire cannons on board and were also equipped with 3 torpedo tubes. On September 4, 1914, the Sleipner was renamed T97 and used as a coastal defense ship. In 1917 and 1918 she also performed patrol duties and served as an escort ship. After the war, the former Sleipner served in the Reichsmarine for a short time. On March 22, 1921, T97 was struck from the register of the Reichsmarine and then sold to Düsseldorf for demolition on May 26, 1921.” The Kit HMV (Hamburger Modellbaubogen Verlag) have added another tempting kit to their lineup of high-quality card models in 1/250 scale. This time, the subject is one we don’t often see, if ever, in the card medium—a handsome dispatch boat from Europe’s Belle Époque. The cover of the kit (see above) features several digitally rendered views of SMS Sleipner. The ship’s sleek lines suggest that Sleipner was built for speed, as indeed she was, considering her torpedo boat heritage. But other visual cues hint at her more aristocratic and less-deadly purpose, such as her lack of armament, ornate railings, and awning-covered salon. The cover also informs us that the kit consists of 329 parts and has a difficulty rating of mittel (intermediate), suggesting that the kit is appropriate for anyone having a few card models already under their belt. At 252 mm in length, the finished model will not make huge demands on anyone’s limited display space. Let’s look inside the kit and see what you get! Instructions/Diagrams As is typical with HMV kits, there aren’t any written instructions other than a very brief overview consisting of a list of required tools, general tips for building card models, and a key for the various codes used in the diagrams. A circled letter ‘L’, for example, means that the indicated part can be replaced with a part from the optional laser-cut detail set. Fortunately for us, HMV’s diagrams are first-rate and cover all phases of construction. Parts Not all of HMV’s kits have full hulls, but this one does. The design gives the builder the choice of building either a full-hull or waterline model. The hull is designed with the usual HMV “egg crate” construction. Sleipner’s hull has noticeable turtle-back joints between the deck and hull sides, and this might be one of the trickier aspects of the model to pull off neatly. The printing is crisp, and the registration is flawless. Sleipner wears the white topsides and buff funnels of the peacetime German Imperial Navy. The design includes doubled elements (see part 27a below) that will make the proper location of superstructure features, such as the salon walls, much easier than was possible using the old folded-tabs method. Optional parts are included for adding depth to printed elements such as watertight doors. Nice additional touches include a stand and an optional sunshade. Laser-Cut Detail Set To help cope with some of the smaller and more delicate parts of the model, a set of laser-cut detail parts is available to purchase separately. The set consists of six frets in various colors, including metallicized card for the propellers. Particularly nice are the lattice-work railings. The part numbers for the set are laser-engraved on each fret, but—just in case—the set includes a list of all the parts in the set and a pictorial key. Conclusion For years now, card modelers have counted on HMV to publish new kits depicting attractive subjects that tend to be off the beaten path, with an emphasis on Germany’s rich maritime heritage. Sleipner slots into the HMV lineup very nicely. With high-quality graphics, clear construction diagrams, and the option to use laser-cut details, Sleipner should appeal to all fans of card model ships, from novice builders to seasoned veterans. Sincere thanks are due to Benjamin Fentens at Fentens Cardmodels (see link at top) for providing this example for review. Tell them you read about it at Model Ship World!
  11. First build log. I teach electrical engineering and a colleague who teaches mechanical engineering is a retired sub driver. Captain Paul Dinius skippered the USS Helena, SSN 725, during one of his tours. I thought I would make him a model of the type of submarine he was on. I looked for a reasonable sized card model. This is a model of the USS Los Angeles which was the first of the 688 class. The Helena was a Flight II version and had 12 vertical Tomahawk missile tubes. I may look at adding details for those if I can figure out an easy change. Here is the front cover with a couple sheets of 1mm thick (40 point) chipboard that will be used for section bulkheads. The text inside is all in Polish. Thank goodness for Google translate: Hover my Android's camera over the Polish instructions and Viola! English translation appear in real-time! I think I can figure out 'rung' should be 'ring'. 😃 Here we go!
  12. First, I’d like to wish you all a happy New Year. May Dame Fortune grant you peace, contentedness and many, many hours of happy modeling time! Now, a little back story: Kathryn and I have quite a lengthy relationship. Well, frankly I’ve been infatuated with her for years but she doesn’t know I exist. (But the story of my adolescence doesn't need to be retold here!) I started designing a card model of the skipjack Kathryn in 2016 based on the HAER papers available from the US Library of Congress (https://loc.gov/pictures/item/md1454/). I refer you to an old build log I did at PaperModelers.com: https://www.papermodelers.com/forum/design-threads/37710-1-100-scale-chesapeake-skipjack.html. Life happened, other hobbies took priority, and I drifted away from model building. Meanwhile, the unfinished Kathryn sat ignored on the mantel in my ‘man cave’. But I didn’t completely forget about my old flame. One of the competing hobbies is the open source flight simulator ‘Flight Gear’. Being a contrarian, I wanted to use it to simulate sail boats. So I enhanced the basic virtual model of Kathryn, ported her into Flight Gear and started (with the help of the Flight Gear forum members) to tinker with the configuration files in order to ‘sail’ the virtual seas. I called it ‘Float Gear’. I refer you to the Flight Gear forum if you’re interested in that unfinished journey: https://forum.flightgear.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=40606 Now that the worm has turned yet again and my interest in ship models has resurfaced I’d like to revisit the old girl yet again. One thing I want to accomplish is a larger scale. The original card model was at 1/100 scale—common enough for card models but a bit small for my eyesight these days. I wanted to go to 1/72 scale to match the Viking ship I recently finished. I also wanted to try out a different electronic workflow. I still enjoy using Wings3d (www.wings3d.com) to create virtual models and the original model is still valid. However, back in ’16 I wrote my own script to extract UV coordinates from the model and output them in SVG format in order to create the patterns for card modeling. UV mapping was (and remains) a tedious process in Wings3d. And, UV coordinates don’t necessarily reflect the true shape of the model’s surfaces. Let’s just say it was more work than it was worth. Making revisions was a nightmare. However, over the intervening 7 years other tools have become available. I recently came across a plug-in for Blender which ‘unrolls’ a 3d model. I want to explore that option and see if it really is usable for card modeling or if it is still too limited. So far, the signs are good. In future posts I intend to document how I’ve used Wings3d, Blender and Inkscape to design a card model of Kathryn. While I’m not entirely certain this experiment is going to work, I’m fairly convinced that—at least for a fairly simple model—the real challenge is going to be my rather limited modeling experience. But for now I’ve accomplished enough with a test build to show some progress. The pictures pick up after I’ve cut the longitudinal spine and various bulkheads out of 1mm chipboard. The keel/spine is then doubled to give a final thickness of 2mm. I have explored having these pieces laser cut by a third party but I finally decided I was putting the cart before the horse. I think I need to ensure the design is good before committing to that. After all, I want to make sure it's functional before going for efficiency and ease of construction. As mentioned elsewhere there was a fair amount of warping going on with the spine and the bulkheads. Nevertheless, I dry-fitted all the components in order to assess the situation. Puzzling this out it dawned on me that I had the locations of a number of the bulkheads and the spine marked on the deck piece. That was not intentional, it was just a by-product of the modeling/unrolling process. But I figured I could use those marks to ensure the straightness of the framework. Then I proceeded to cut out the various side pieces. Again, the dotted lines represent the triangles of the electronic model. But as I assembled the model I found that they provided reliable guides to aligning everything. Notice the bottle of isopropyl alcohol in the background. I had inadvertently skipped gluing the 'skin' to one of the bulwarks. This resulted in a bit of puckering since the side pieces do undergo a bit of twisting to make them fit. So... I had my first experience of using IPA to unglue things. Actually, it works pretty well. Poured a little IPA in my paint tray and used a cotton swab to apply it to the glue joints. After giving it a few moments to soak in I carefully started to separate the joins with a dental tool I keep in the hobby toolbox. I had to unglue four bulkheads to get to the puckered area. No harm done, though. The IPA did cause some of the printed ink to run slightly but it did not affect the paper at all. You can also notice that Kathryn suffers from 'hungry horse' syndrome. The smaller, 1/100 scale version didn't suffer like this. IIRC, the card I'm using for the skin is 67#. Maybe 90 or 110# would be better for this larger model. While the model in general is incredibly sturdy, the skin seems more flimsy than in the smaller model. I suppose this is due to the card having to span larger distances at 1/72 scale than it does at 1/100. You can really notice it along the sides of the hull from an end view. Here's a view of both the old 1/100 and the new 1/72 scale models for comparison. And finally a shot to compare sizes between the two models. I've not yet attached the transom and it appears that I've cut the deck about 1mm too long. But I think the next step is to lay on a second layer of skin to smooth out the starving nag look. I'm not sure if I need to apply some putty and a sanding stick to smooth out the inner skin or whether that would just be extra work with no significant benefit. My intent is to make the outer layer slightly longer than the first and to arrange them so that the seams between the top and middle pieces are staggered (probably at the waterline rather than higher up as they are in the first skin). The seam between the middle and bottom will of course still be located at the chine. A second skinning will also allow me to finish up the graphics. After that I'll deal with the transom. Well, that's how things sit for now.
  13. As my interest in jigsaw puzzles and ship modeling is well know by my friends and family, I was presented at X-Mas with this 3D model kit of Queen Anne’s Revenge (Blackbeard’s ship) by my wife's nephew and family. It’s more or less, a combination of my two interests in one box weighing in at a substantial 3 lb. 7 oz. While it is certainly not an accurately detailed rendition of the vessel, it will be my first entry into card models and I look forward to it’s assembly, which judging by the 23 page illustrated step by step instruction manual, (in 7 languages no less) should not be too difficult to complete. There are a total of 391 pieces including the display stand. The vast majority is printed on 15 sheets of 11” x 16.5” pre-punched sheets of 1mm card stock printed in color, but the sails are on 3 sheets of textured paper and there are 22 plastic canons, a small sheet of double sided tape, a card hole puncher, and small sheet of prefinished Mylar to represent stained glass on the rear of the ship. Although glue is not required for construction, obviously if you would like to keep it for display you might like to use some. No tools are required, other than the hole puncher that is included with the kit. It claims to be rated as a 6 in complexity, but not sure if that is out of 10 or what. I tend to believe that according to its estimated construction time of 4 hours it can’t be all that complicated. This kit is designed and manufactured by CubicFun Toys Industrial Co. Ltd out of Guangdong, China and is referred to as an anniversary edition, but I’m not sure if the company has produced an earlier model or if it refers to something else. While there is no indication of scale, the completed size of the model is listed at 29.1” X 10” X 24.4” (or 74cm X 25.6cm X 62cm). As this was a gift, I have no clue about its cost or if it’s a pirated copy of some other company’s product, but from what I can see, it is well produced and nicely packaged. While the model is admittedly more toy like, it is not pretending to be anything other than a 3D puzzle. Overall, I think that it seems to be a good introduction to card models especially for modeling fans that are inexperienced or just want to get their feet wet, so to speak.
  14. I know I've got some other things in progress, and a couple of them are paper/card models. But, I've been trying to promote card model products for Ages of Sail, and I finally couldn't stand it any more, so I broke down and bought one of Shipyard's laser-cut card kits that I've been eyeing ever since it came out. In this case, it's Shipyard's 1/72-scale laser-cut card kit of the 10-gun snow-rigged (brig) sloop, HMS Wolf, 1754. Now, this has been something of a "closet" project, in that I hadn't posted any build log details, though I've been working on the kit since July 23. So, I'm going to maintain on this first page, an up-to-date photo of the build. Then, I'll go back to the beginning and share my build details from there, working my way forward. Someday, there will be a great convergence in the Universe, you will all feel a strange shift in the Force, and the build log will get caught up with the build... Photo taken 9/23/22: I bought Shipyard's 1/72-scale HMS Wolf kit from Ages of Sail. Officially, the US Distributor for Shipyard products. Yes, I do some work for Ages of Sail, and this build just shows how dangerous that situation is for me. But, I also build some things to make myself better acquainted with the products. At least that's my excuse for some of my partial builds. This build, however, has been so much fun and it's come along so nicely that I'm really looking forward to completing this model. In order to simplify this build log, I posted all my components photos into a kit review, which you can now find here:
  15. And now for something completely different! I usually like warships. However, this is an unusual subject that looks like a fairly quick and easy build. The Sampang/Sampan is a traditional boat originally of Chinese origin that is still utilized throughout Asia. I got an Amati Sampang kit off EBay that only had the rigging supplies and the plans. I paid $7.99 for it with free shipping. I decided to build it in card, because I like building in card. I am making it out of a couple of Honeycomb boxes which are about .6mm thick, and a couple of Little Debbie boxes which are .5 mm thick. Most of the pieces are 3mm thick so I copied the plans 5 times. I think there are under a hundred pieces to the entire model. This will be a fun quick build! Here is the start:
  16. I once owned a rescue dog who needed a lot of behavioral work. So after some one-on-one sessions with a specialist we eventually graduated to attending obedience classes with others. I can’t say that we ever overcame all the issues (and I’m not sure who was training whom!) but I certainly learned the value of positive reinforcement. Consequently, since I have a tendency to be easily distracted and leave unfinished projects laying around, I wanted to reward myself for completing my first wooden ship model. While I enjoyed the wood model, my situation is perhaps not the best for them. Simply put, sanding wood makes too much dust for me to do in our living spaces and I really don’t have an interior space to do it. With the arrival of Winter sanding outside isn’t much of an option. So I’m putting off the next wood model until Spring and the return of good weather. So returning to my interest in card models I read up on the models produced by Tomasz Weremko, aka, Seahorse. Card models are certainly more apartment friendly than wood models and they are much more budget friendly. Level of detail, of course, is entirely in the hands of the builder and designer. While I’ve tinkered with designing and building my own card models, I’ve never actually built a commercially available kit. I still consider myself a novice builder and while I love the look of fully rigged ships I hesitate to commit to building one. I wanted something small, preferably in 1/72 scale to match my last model, and without too much rigging. I first decided that Searhorse’s Armed Virginia Sloop would fit the bill. However, its 1/100 scale means that some of the details are going to be quite challenging for my hand-eye coordination. I confirmed that by reading Clare Hess’ build log. (Mr. Hess’ log can be found here: https://shipmodeler.wordpress.com/2022/07/29/building-the-armed-virginia-sloop-paper-model-part-1/) But Seahorse also offers a US Revenue Cutter in 1/72 scale. In addition, according to Mr. Weremko’s complexity scale the cutter ranks as a ‘2’ as opposed to the sloop’s level of ‘3’. It ticks all the boxes! Did I mention the budget friendlyness of card models? I ordered both as full kits complete with laser cut parts, sails, dowels and (almost) all the necessary bits and bobs provided. Both kits and shipping from Poland came in at $72.00 USD. I ordered directly from the Seahorse web site on December 4th and eagerly awaited the arrival of the kits from Poland. After checking the tracking website daily (which stopped showing progress once the packages arrived in Los Angeles on the 9th) they arrived in my mailbox on December 16th. Mustering my dog-training discipline, I’ll save the sloop for later but I instantly opened the cutter package and reviewed the contents. As expected, there’s nothing disappointing about this kit. The basic model is presented as a saddle-stitched (e.g., stapled) booklet with full color photos of a finished model on front and rear covers. Ah, something to aspire to! There is, of course, a minimum of written text in both Polish and English comprising of a short history of the ship and ‘Basic Rules and Tools’ for construction. There are four pages of pictorial instructions, two pages of parts printed in black on white paper and two pages of parts printed in color on card. Now, in my set there was a second set of the card-printed parts inserted into the fold. I’m not sure if this was an oversight or if the second loose set was included because the printing of the first set (which is bound into the booklet) is a bit weak. Or, perhaps Seahorse can sense a ‘newbie’ and kindly included spares. Whatever the reason, intentional or not, it gives me a sense of security and a makes me think that Seahorse is a quality operation. (It’s also a bit unsettling that I joyfully anticipate looking at a centerfold of a model… ship!) There are a couple of hazards for neophytes. The first is that the required thickness of card for laminated parts is appended to the part number and is easily overlooked. The number is followed by ‘//’ or ‘*’ or ‘**’ to indicate 0.3, 0.5 or 1.0 mm card thickness. However, I think I’ve shielded myself from this potential error by purchasing the laser cut parts sheets. I’m also puzzled by this sentence in the instructions: “To avoid too many symbols, uncommon thickness of some parts should be matched to the width of the stripes covering its edges.” I can only assume that this refers to the keel which is considerably thicker than 1.0 mm and has a piece that runs along the bottom edge of the keel. That ‘edge’ piece appears to be about 4 mm wide so, therefore the keel should be laminated to that thickness. Now that I’ve typed that up it makes sense to me. I also see a couple parts with ‘W’ numbers which are not part of the printed sheets. I believe these need to be created from wire (which is mentioned in the ‘Basic Rules’). The templates for these parts are on the fourth page of instructions along with the mast and spar diagrams. The most numerous of these appear to be the rail stanchions surrounding the deck to prevent crew from falling overboard. My last observation is in regard to the copper sheathing below the waterline. It’s interesting that Seahorse has provided a simple solution and a detailed solution to the sheathing. On one side of the copper colored sheet the sheathing is designed as strips to cut and apply much like the hull planking. But if you flip the sheet over you find that it has been printed to represent the individual sheets of copper. So, depending up on your sense of fanaticism, er, level of detail, you have options. I like that. All said and done, I’m quite happy with my purchase. I’m not certain when I’ll get started on the cutter and the Virginia sloop is certainly farther down the line. (Maybe the sloop will be next Winter’s project.) At this point I’m still mustering my canine-induced self-discipline and working on resizing my skipjack design. But once I’ve hit the ‘proof-of-concept’ stage in that project it’s ‘game on!’ on the cutter. Pictures (or it didn't happen!):
  17. A few days ago, while surfing the forum, I came across a very neat build of the Waratah, an HMV card kit. I pay a lot of attention to card models because I have found that I enjoy building them quite a lot. This set me to looking for HMV kits, and @ccoyle showed me where you could get them on Amazon. While looking at those, I discovered the Orel card kit of the Solferino (Magenta’s sister ship) which I had to have. It is in 1/200 scale, which is very small. I like larger scale models, and 1/72 is very convenient. At first, I wanted to just triple the size of the kit. Then I started doing research. Solferino is one of two Magenta-Class Ironclads. They were broadside battleships. Essentially they were armored versions of conventional 2-decked ships of the line. They struck a chord in me and I decided I needed one, or as it turns out, both of them, lol. They are very neat looking vessels. I started my research by going to Wikipedia, which led me to the original builders plans, hosted by the French Navy’s Historical Office in .tif format, which regrettably won’t display on the forum. I like builders plans, they are fun to develop models from. I will be building Magenta from the builders plans, difficult, but fun for me. The French Musee De La Marine has a model of Solferino which I will also be using for reference (these are from wikimedia commons). I am specifically building Magenta because I will also be building the kit of the Solferino whenever I get it and I do not like building the same ship twice. I have not yet decided on the building material yet. I may build in card or cardboard, or I may build in wood. I will most likely make the final decision on the day I cut the first piece, which will be shortly after I finish the Victory. Actual construction will likely be starting in a few months because I need to finish Victory, do thorough research and print the plans/update them with the findings of my research. Thanks for visiting!
  18. The paddlesteamer Pevensey was built in 1910 at Moama on the Murray River (Australia), as the non-powered barge called Mascotte, but in 1911 the vessel was equipped with a steam engine and renamed Pevensey. This turned it into one of the largest towing boats on the Murray, and it itself was capable of carrying 120 tons of cargo. In 1932 she was almost destroyed by fire, was rebuilt in 1933-35, ran a regular cargo run in 1939, but was then made redundant and tied up at Mildura. In 1975 she was slipped at Moama and completely restored. A 1983 Australian TV series called "All the Rivers Run" starred her as the PS Philadelphia. The Pevensey is now based at Echuca and runs tourist trips along the Murray. The kit from World of Paperships (from the Netherlands) has two sheets of general information (with some photos), one sheet of diagrams, four sheets of English instructions, five sheets of printed parts (some sheets are printed on both sides) and one small sheet of lasercut parts. The sheet of diagrams is complex and in places difficult to follow, hopefully this won't cause problems later. The bottom of the hull was tacked to a sheet of glass to act as a building board for the initial stages of the build. Two dabs from a glue stick sufficed for this. The sides were glued to the frames and the rubbing strakes added (forgot to take photos at this stage) then the deck was fixed in place. A portion of the foredeck had been removed and a replacement glued lower down to represent a shallow cargo hold. A cutout was also made to allow for the engine space. There are triangular supports between the underside of the deck and the sides. To ensure that the deck did not develop any waviness, a small steel rule was clamped to the top of the deck (the hull was off the glass and upside down for this step) while the supports were glued in place. Many of the parts of the boat could be made either as a simple version or a detailed version. This photo shows the simple version of the engine and its surrounding safety railings, folded up from the provided card print. The detailed version has 40 parts... ....and is the one I built. Unfortunately, I've somehow lost/deleted the photos I took of the completed engine, standing alone. A template was provided to allow construction of the main framework that is around the engine space, and it, and the safety railings, were made from 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 mm square styrene stock. The framework supports the base of the superstructure that will be above it, and so had to be carefully fitted so that it was flat, even and of the correct height. Temporary "scaffolding" of wood strips and folded card was put in place to achieve this. The engine, engine space and surrounding framework (the latter is not quite complete). There is a small crew cabin just aft of the engine space. Cheers
  19. I started the project in the middle of another one and due to limited space I wanted to not have sandpapering and etc for a while. The kit is excellent and very cheap to start with paper models although not the easiest perhaps. In the photo below, the first 26 steps have been completed. In step 27 the mast base and radar platform was cut and glued in place. Next the anchors and breakwater was cut and glued in place. Assembled and glued in place the the escape two hatches Finally for today I prepared and double glued the pieces for the steps 32-23. To keep them straight I placed them under a heavy 2" angle plate.
  20. Okay, back to ships! I'm really biting off a lot on this project, but it's such a nice model that I just had to take a crack at it. Hopefully I will be up to the challenge. I wrote a review of this kit, which you can read HERE, so I won't go into great detail about it here. I will, though, repeat that if you like this model and would like to get your hands on a copy, or perhaps try a different card kit, be sure to check out all the HMV kits available from Fentens Papermodels. Unlike my recent aircraft builds, I expect this project to take longer than a month. How long, I can't say. We'll see how it goes and maybe take a break or two if necessary. One nice thing about this project is that I will need only a very small number of edge colors -- the ship is depicted entirely in Measure 21 dark blue-gray. But . . . it has a considerable number of parts -- close to 2000 in total. Ten pages -- wowzers! Happily, I have the laser-cut detail set to replace many of those parts. It consists of six frets. And now I can share what Santa brought me this past Christmas. This lovely 3D-printed hull, available from Shapeways, will replace ALL of the usual egg-crate construction. Only the external skins need to be applied. This will be the most stable card ship hull I have ever worked on. So, that will serve for an introduction. The first thing I will need to do is the usual spraying of the parts sheets. Hopefully tomorrow it will be warm enough in the garage to move forward with that task. Cheers!
  21. Introduction Ah, summer! When you live in a cold place (the centre of Canada) summer is the time to take advantage of the warm sun and, if you’re lucky like I am, to relax at your cottage. You would think that going to a secluded forest, being away from the bustle of city life, yard work and the lure of the internet you would have quality time with your modelling hobby. Not really. I found transporting a model and as many tools and materials as I anticipated needing an exercise in frustration. Inevitably I was missing something and there really wasn’t adequate space to set up a long-term work area. Until now. Several months ago I joined the Model Shipwrights of Niagara (MSON) and, as a member, I was able to attend a couple of online workshops this spring that featured card models. Veteran card modellers gave us invaluable advice and espoused the virtues of a hobby that was easy to transport, used very few small tools, and promised fun. Christopher Cooke, owner and proprietor of Marcle Models in the UK, presented an incredible range of models from several vendors. I had found my cottage hobby! Not long afterward I ordered the H.M.V. model of HMCS Agassiz - a flower-class corvette - plus the laser-cut accessory kit from Marcle Models. Mr. Cooke did inform me that there would be a delay because he did not stock this kit but it arrived as anticipated in perfect shape. So, on our next trip to the cottage I added a small satchel with the model, some Aleene’s glue and a few tools to our regular cargo. And now the build…
  22. After reading the review by @ccoyle about Paper Shipwright Card models:- I bought a few to have a dabble, so far I have I made Flamborough Lighthouse and the Puffer "Starlight" from their range. I wasn't thinking in terms of doing another until I had completed one or two other sadly neglected projects; my Caldercraft Bounty being the most neglected! 🤫, but a leak in the loft has turned the house a bit upside down and many items from the house have filled up the garage (my workshop). So while we dry out and await the builders to arrive, I can only build something small that fits in my mobile model station and a small card model fits the bill perfectly until I need to do re-decorating in the house! I won't go into the model too much as Chris has covered what you get in his review, but here are a few initial pictures of what you get.
  23. Hi, Just made a short video of "unboxing" the card kit 1:250 HMV SMS UNDIN. Included in the and of the video also, the Lasercut set from the same company. A quick look in the kit and it seems very detailed. https://youtu.be/tPKftt8peZs
  24. F.H. af Chapman (1721-1808) was a brilliant 18th-century shipbuilder working as a manager for the Swedish Karlskrona navy shipyard. He ended his study in England under Thomas Simpson with a tour around English, French and Dutch shipyards. There he draughted many ships on the stocks and in 1768 he published his Architectura Navalis Mercatoria, in which he presented his drawings, all accompanied by his calculations of draught, stability, center of gravity and more sort like scientific data. On plate LIX we find (amongst others) the lines of a 64½ feet long fish-hooker, a type that has been in use in Holland for several ages. If you don’t have the book, you can find it on the digitalmuseum site of the Sjohistorical Museet, right here: Digital Museum. You can download the drawing, which is the penultimate one on the page. I will tell more about the ship type later, first I will say some things about building in paper and card. For many years I have professionally build wooden ship models, as a method of research. Nowadays I have thrown off the burden of science and concentrate on models that look like real ships. I know we all have our own philosophy about what a model should look like and what it should stand for, but what I try to achieve is a certain degree of realism. Not by duplicating every nail or piece of rope that was there in the real thing, but by creating an impression of the vessel as it sailed in its days. It is more about atmosphere than accurateness. I won’t try to convince you that what I do is the only way to build here, on the contrary, I just tell you what I do for fun and who knows it may inspire you one day to give it a try. The fact that my son Emiel uses my models to create wonderful ‘photoshop-paintings’ has of course been a factor in the decisions I made. Not only did I leave strictly realistic constructions on scale behind, I also chose for a rather unusual material that makes building a lot easier and faster for the model maker than wood does: Paper and card. You might call what I do ‘model-building-light version’. Don’t think I consider my builds examples of how things should look or be done. I have spotted many members on this forum who are a lot better builders than I am, but hey, this is all about fun and not much else. Easy building with easy results. About paper One of the many advantages of building in paper is that it is incredibly cheap. I am Dutch, so I will not dwell on that too much. If you have purchased paper kits you know they are usually not the most expensive way to spend your money compared to wooden kits, but scratch-built paper models don’t cost you anything, except for some paper, glue and paint. Even my largest models never cost me more than a few Euros. So if half underway you think you failed your mission and you decide to abandon ship, make a run for the dustbin and start anew. All you wasted is time and as a model builder you have plenty of that, don’t you? Otherwise you would have spent your precious time on more useful things… Another advantage of paper is the speed you can work with. Some of my models were made within three weeks, although I must admit that the Lenox model took me 5 months. Still an incredible short time for such a complicated ship and in no relation to what it would have taken if executed in wood. A last positive point I would like to emphasize is the mess you make, or actually you don’t make. After working on the model you can simply clear the table and your wife is as happy as before. No wood-dust, no shavings, just some paper snippets to be moved into the dustbin. Everybody happy…. Plans Especially for people who are used to buying kits, it might be useful to explain how an original plan can be used. Looking at the Chapman drawing we see there are several ships on the sheet. We just need the upper part, where we see an elevation (or side view) of the hooker with a body plan and a section to the left. There is also a top view underneath which we will use later when some deck-details have to be filled in. 1. The first thing we have to establish is the scale. I work with a 1/77 scale because it fits me, but you can pick any scale you want. The length of the vessel is 65 ½ feet, which is 18.25 meters in Amsterdam feet (28.3 cm). On a 1/77 scale that is 23.7 cm for my model. Print the drawing, measure the length, calculate the percentage you need to get the size for your model and print again. 2. Now we can cut out the shape of the side view and paste it to a 1 mm thick piece of card. Lets call this longitudinal part the ‘spine’. Use so-called eskaboard or gray-board, a solid sort of card, used for making sturdy boxes. You can use old boxes, but your art supplier sells it in different sizes and it is not expensive. (in fact I use 1.3 mm thick card, but it depends on what you can find) Use glue from a spray-can, to make sure the paper sticks to the card at all places. Don’t take the top of the bulwarks as the upper side of your spine, choose the line of the deck instead, it is visible on the drawing. Draw your topline one millimeter lower than what the plan says, because your deck will have some thickness and you don’t want to end up with a deck that comes too high. Don’t forget to make cuts for the masts. 3. Next double your keel, stem and stern on both sides with the same type of card, so that you get a rabbet. 4. Now we need the body plan. What we see on the drawing is the shape of the ship seen from fore on the right side and from aft on the left side. Make three copies and cut one of them in halves over the centerline. Hold one half drawing upside down against a windowpane or lay it on a light box and take over the lines on the backside. Now paste the half body plan precisely next to its counterpart and you have the shape of the full frames. Check the width! Do the same for the other half. If you can manage a computer program to do the trick, even better, but in the end you will end up with this: Go back to your printer and print 6 copies of the front part and 8 of the aft part of the ship. Paste them on eskaboard. Now you will have to mark the height of the deck on the frames. The best way is to cut the whole frame as it is on the body plan and draw the height of the deck later. 5. Now you will have to bring the spine of the ship and your frames together by cutting slots. Decide how deep your slots will be. Cut them in the spine from the top downwards and in the frames from the bottom upwards. Most of the time the waterline is your best option. If all goes well your frames will butt against the doubled keel and all will be in line. Mark the height of the spine on each of your frames and remove them from the spine. Now you can draw the exact height of the deck on the frame. You can make a mold with deck-camber and transfer it to the frames. Cut slots in the sides of the frames to half the distance to the centerline and perforate the remaining center part with light pressure of your knife, so that the whole part can easily be removed later on. 6. Take two strips of card of the ship’s half breadth and mark the position of the frames on them. Make slots in them halfway from the inside outwards. Now carefully fit the strips into the frames, so that the two meet just on top of the spine. This will add strength to the construction. Take the shape from the outside of every frame and cut out the shape of the upper deck. Also cut the hole(s) for the mast(s). The afterdeck is made separately, as the picture shows. 7. The last thing to do is to double the parts of the frames below deck level. This is to ensure that you have a good landing once the skin will be applied. The frames fore will be doubled on the front side, the frames aft on the aft side. At the extremities you will have to slightly correct the shape with a knife. Finally we glue the whole thing together. PVA glue can be used, as well as any clear plastic glue, or whatever you prefer. Make sure not to apply glue to the part above deck, which will be removed in a later stage. What you have now is about what kits offers you, but all done by yourself in an afternoon’s job and at practically no costs. Next time we will apply the skin of the ship.
  25. An Introduction to Seahorse Kits (photos Courtesy of Seahorse and the author) Regular visitors to MSW may recall having seen some delightful, scratch-built card models made by a member who goes by the username “0Seahorse.” The real name of the man behind the username is Tomasz “Tomek” Weremko, a resident of the small town of Ulanów in southeastern Poland. Happily for us card modeling types (and those who are intrigued by the medium), Tomek not only designs and builds card models – he publishes them, too. At first his designs, mostly coasting craft but which also included the brig HMS Badger, were published by WAK, a well-known Polish publishing house, but like some designers, Tomek got the itch to publish his own work. His first effort, the Dutch exploration ship Duyfken, came out in 2019, and that first effort has now been followed by four additional offerings. Tomek’s earlier designs are still available both at his own website and at WAK. Ever eager to get enterprising card model designers some time in the MSW spotlight, I asked Tomek if he would be interested in having his latest kits reviewed. He agreed to the idea and said he would be sending “sets of models with accessories.” Expecting these to consist of one kit or perhaps two at the most, I was very surprised when the package arrived from Poland containing four Seahorse kits along with their laser-cut accessories. As I have found to be pleasantly normative for packages coming from Poland, everything survived the three week journey in fine shape. Because the Seahorse stable of designs are the products of a single designer, they have similar attributes. As for the earlier review I did of Paper Shipwright, I will treat the Seahorse kits as a collective. The kits we will look at are : · Nr. 1 DUYFKEN 1606 (1:100) · Nr. 2 SAO GABRIEL 1497 (1:100) · Nr. 3 LEUDO VINACCIERE (1:72) · Nr. 4 ARMED VIRGINIA SLOOP 1776 (1:100) The first thing you’ll notice is that there are no steel warships in Tomek’s stable of designs. Tomek says he enjoys older ships, both military and civilian. You’ll also notice there’s no example of Wasa, Sovereign of the Sea, etc. Says Tomek, “I rather focus on smaller ships, so that they are within the reach not only of top modelers, but also to encourage those who do not have a cardboard sailing ship in their collection yet.” Once you get a peek at Tomek’s work, I think you’ll agree that the temptation to try out a card model sailing ship can be great indeed. You might also notice that most of Tomek’s designs are in 1:100 scale. This might cause you to panic a bit, but have no fear. 1:100 scale is considered small for wooden models, but it is actually on the large end for card models, which are most often rendered in 1:200, 1:250, or 1:400. Still, because these are sailing ship models, the finished items will in fact end up being small models. None exceeds 41 cm in length. Another thing worth pointing out is the cost of these kits. This is a strong selling point for card models in general, which I have pointed out elsewhere. The basic Duyfken kit, for example, is only € 6.67, which is pretty darn cheap. Compare that to the same subject offered in a wood kit from another manufacturer at € 209, and you quickly see what I mean. Of course, card model kits usually cry out for after market accessories, which I’ll describe later, but even with those goodies added in the Seahorse Duyfken still only comes in at € 31.51—a real bargain for modelers on tight budgets. And if one has a really tight budget and a lot of time available, the aftermarket accessories are of course only optional, and the kits can be built without them. So, what do you get when you crack open a Seahorse kit? Let’s flip through some pages and have a look. As is typical for card models, each kit comes as a bound, A4 size booklet (American builders will need to keep this in mind if they want to scan any parts pages before building). Covers feature fore and aft views of the prototype models. As much as I appreciate artwork on kit covers, I like to see what the model actually looks like when it is built (assuming of course that I’m half as talented as the prototype builder). Flipping to the first page, one finds the instructions in both Polish and English. Again, card model instructions are usually not very detailed, mainly because there are only so many ways one can say “stick part 1 to part 2,” etc., etc. But where instructions are needed, it is certainly helpful when they are legible. English-speaking modelers will be pleasantly surprised at the quality of the English instructions. Tomek has a much superior grasp of English than the average English-speaker has of Polish, and this shows. You will not need someone to translate the English instructions into real English, as sometimes seems warranted with the instructions in Italian kits. There are plenty of diagrams—the key element in card model instructions—to cover every phase of construction. Some of the construction stages even include photo illustrations. One very nice touch in the rigging diagrams is that the various lines are printed in different colors, which makes it easier to visually untangle multiple lines where they cross each other in a two-dimensional representation. Turning to the parts pages, we see that everything is printed on good quality stock, either regular bond or card as appropriate. Colors are sharp and registration is excellent. Decks and other unpainted parts are shaded to imitate natural variations in wood tone and texture. Each kit includes extra color swatches so that any gaps can be filled in with matching card. Hull construction begins with internal formers, covered with three layers of skins. The first layer produces the basic shape and provides an underlayment for the additional layers (Fig. 3 in the image below). The second layer finishes the hull shape in sturdy laminated card (Fig, 5). The seams of the first and second layers are at roughly right angles to each other to strengthen the hull structure. The third layer (Fig. 10) is a veneer consisting of the outer planks. Of course, any sailing ship model done in card stock has a lot of cutting to do as well as a multitude of small, repetitive structures, such as blocks and gun carriages. An ideal and inexpensive way to deal with these issues is to purchase aftermarket laser-cut sets. The Seahorse sets include structural pieces such as hull formers, the second set of hull skinning, and other pieces that otherwise require lamination onto thicker stock before cutting out. The laser-cutting is superb, and parts are laser-engraved with their parts numbers, either directly on the parts or, in the case of small parts, adjacent to them. Hull formers also have laser-engraved lines to indicate the proper locations of joints between mated parts, e.g. between longitudinal profile and bulkheads. Additional laser-cut sets produce blocks, hearts, deadeyes, gun carriages, and other small items. The blocks are made from layers, which when glued together eliminate any need to drill holes into the finished items. Having used similar laser-cut blocks for my build of Wütender Hund, I can attest that these are not as difficult to assemble as they might appear at first glance. They can, of course, be replaced with wooden blocks, but the card blocks are a perfectly viable option. Also available are printed sets of sails. These are single-side printed on fine linen and show panel lines and seams. Each sail set also includes a set of flags. For modelers who want to save a bit of money, each printed kit includes full-size sail patterns. In addition to sails, sets of dowels for spars are also available. These are made of either linden or beech, are cut slightly longer that the spars to be turned from them, and must be tapered to the desired dimensions. Tomek did not send any of the dowel sets for review, since as he pointed out they are “just dowels” (you have to love candor!), can easily be locally sourced, and would have added unnecessarily to the shipping costs. Nevertheless, they are available if one wishes to purchase them. There are a few non-kit-specific items that builders will need to source for themselves, such as rigging cordage and chain. Tomek does sell some of the former at the Seahorse website. At this time, there are also no aftermarket cannon available as kit-specific sets. One can find cannon in 1/100 scale if one searches around a bit, though finding the correct patterns for the older kit subjects, i.e. galleons, might be a challenge. All in all, I find the Seahorse kits to be delightful additions to the card modeling side of our hobby. The quality of the materials and design at their price points make these outstanding values. It is also apparent from reading through the instructions and diagrams that Tomek has indeed put much thought and effort into making these kits manageable projects for intermediate-level modelers. Each kit will produce a finished model that is comparable in appearance and detail to any wooden kit and moreover will not take up a huge amount of space to display. Not one to rest on his laurels, Tomek has already released a new kit for 2021, the galleon Meermann 1627, a participant in the defeat of a Swedish flotilla at the Battle of Oliwa. As mentioned earlier, Tomek confesses a love for older ships, particularly Dutch vessels, so it is likely that we will see additional offerings of these attractive subjects in the not-too-distant future. Meermann, now available in 1/100 scale from Seahorse Thanks again to Tomek for sending out these examples for review. If you would like to purchase a Seahorse kit, you may do so at the Seahorse website. Be sure to tell Tomek that you heard about Seahorse at Model Ship World! MSRPs: Duyfken: € 6.67 Sao Gabriel: € 10.58 Leudo Vinaccieri: € 7.82 Armed Virginia Sloop: € 7.13 Meermann: € 10.12 CDC
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