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About a year ago, an offer was made on a Swedish model building forum of a barely started model of Billing Boats Meta. At the time, I had just started to work on my Sloop from Roslagen and had begun to read about the costal sailers and small workboats of the late sailing period in the Baltic. I was considering a fore-and-aft schooner as a possible future subject. When I learned that Meta originally had such a rig, I reached out to the man offering the model. As it turned out, he lived just 15 minutes away, and I went over an evening in August last year. He told me that he had gotten the model in about 79 and had started to build it. But soon he went of to university, and it was abandoned. It had then been sitting in first his parent's house, and then in his own basement. Hopefully waiting to be finished. Now he had sold his house and planned to move to something smaller. Apparently he still felt for the model, as he had kept it all these years, and had now reached out to offer it to someone to complete. What I got was the box with all material and fittings, and the bulkheads and keel assembled. As can be seen from the pictures, this kit was made before the introduction of laser cutting. The paler wood looks like Obeche and the darker strips as Walnut. The pale wood is relatively soft and has quite visible grain, but is otherwise of good quality and clean cut. I plan to replace some, possibly all, of the wood with better quality. The same goes for the fitting, a few pieces looks usable, others must be replaced. The brass belaying pins looks OK, while the plastic blocks and dead eyes are terrible. When I got it, the keel and bulkhead assembly was slightly twisted. It might have been assembled such, but I though that it had been lying on the side for many years in a basement. I bought a building slip from Hobbyzone, soaked the assembly and put it to dry for several months while straightened in the building slip. It did not turn out totally straight, the last bulkhead must have been misaligned when installed. I have not decided if I should disassemble the offending bulkhead, or if I can correct it in place with shims on one side and filing on the other? My plan is to modify the model to make the model look like the ship was originally built. In a future post I will present what I have found out about so far, and what I plan to modify in the model to get her to look like it.
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Hello all Here we go Welcome to my META 484 by Billing build Please feel free to comment or add suggestions There is just not much information available out there for the Meta that I can find - I found some photographs of completed models but nothing as far as build logs are concerned. If somebody has a possible source for any detail etc I could check it would be appreciated. Here are some which I have found: Meta Images and Meta images 2 For the time being, I have put the La Toullanaise on hold until I receive the planks and wood I ordered. I was just frustrating myself trying to do something and achieving nothing. So for now - I have decided to start the META 484 from Billing. This is an old kit [would love to know exactly how old] which I bought from a friend a good while ago and its been sitting on my shelf for the best part of 2 years - time to do something about that . Fortunately, the kit appears to be complete along with its accessories as well so that's a plus. And if needs be, I can pilfer wood from the La Toullanaise kit until my stock arrives - woods are similar between the two kits - and looks like they are from the same manufacturing era. First inspection of the kit revealed everything foreseeable to be present - most importantly, the PLAN! Opening the box. The wood appears to be VERY dry so I will have to watch that All the wood seems to be in the box
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