James H

Not just a makeover, totally built from the ground upwards. You won't believe the work involved in keeping the old site online, and then the constant battles with flaky software etc. It wasn't viable, so good riddance to it!! A million % improvement!!

This is how I do it.

In that case, you'll always be waiting to see what improvements are made, while never allowing yourself to actually buy it, in case more improvements are made Thanks for the comments. It's a lovely model to build. I'm currently assembling plank runs in between learning guitar.Two full strakes are on each side now and I've just made planks 3 and 4 for both sides, and waiting for glue to dry.

As far as I'm aware, it's only the oars which will change as these were originally being designed for the Nef kit.

Damn, I'm so sorry to hear that. I hope all goes well for her and you both. Family is more important than anything else.

I did say there was another jig to build, and this one takes up 8 sheets of MDF. There's more in work involved with this one too, and just make sure everything is absolutely flat when assembling it. To help, I used a 1kg weight to hold things down when installing the various assembled plates. An engineers square also comes in very handy. This shows the hull turned upside down as a test. What I did need to do at this point was to fit those temporary prow/stem doublers as they not just protect those thinned and vulnerable places, but they also help align the hull properly. To aid this, I added a couple of pieces of spare MDF to hold the prow/stems at that point. You can see these in the third photo down from here. The first plank is applied after sheathing the keel sides in beech. This creates a nice uniform colour to the mix'n match colour of the alder keel. The first plank is supplied in 3 sections. The middle section is fitted first. Now the outboard sections are fitted, to the ends first and then trimmed to the middle plank. Then it's onto the second plank, supplied in four sections. I'll do another update when the hull is planked.

I've never seen the Billings up close but know that it can be difficult to build, plus the planks are ply. There are some very nice renditions of it though, and I'd be proud to have built a number of them. Pavel's V2 looked like the ultimate at the time, but this has lots of clever quirks, a much better design, and of course those extras like resin viking and galley. Vanguard Models will have a number of these in a few weeks, and I hope we see a few more build logs here.

They are very different. Entirely. This is my review of the V2: Look at the parts shapes etc. Compare that with the V3: The V2 isn't available now, so any purchase will be the V3.

I have had to use my cutting mat photos here as it's difficult to get that huge jig into my photo area at the moment, but I have done some detail shots in my usual; style. Work resumed by thinning the top of each keel end. In the manual, this is supposed to be only 20mm down from the top edge, but the videos for this show it to be 60mm, meaning that the top of the prow and stern will taper in nicely to incorporate the carved head design. I wasn't supposed to do this at this stage, but it would be harder to taper these areas when the bulkheads were fitted. I tool the risk and it was fine. Here you see the mast foot assembly and also a temporary double for the thinned areas. I didn't fit these just yet. The keel is first slotted into the jog and before the two-part longerons are inserted to the bulkhead slots, an MDF 'clamp' is slotted onto each side of the bulkhead. All the bulkheads are now glued into place, and the longerons are inserted. I didn't glue the longerons themselves as I felt some lateral flexibility would be useful when the model is placed in the next jog for planking. Two photos here show the mast foot in place, but it's only a temporary fit. Here you can now see the clamps being used in conjunction with the small series of wedges. These hold those top sections of each bulkhead, which are now being reinstated. One of those top sections, for central bulkhead #0, has another block attached to it which is a part of the visible mast foot on the deck. A supplied paper template is attached to the top of this using Spraymount adhesive. A Dremel is then used to shape the part and cut the partial mast hole. This is then fitted to the model as per the others. I left a photo here showing what this looks like on that bulkhead before I fitted it. With all the bulkhead tops glued and set, the hull is removed from the jig and the clamps removed. The hull is then returned to the jig for the next stage. This is fitted the shelves onto which the floor sections will fit. These are now installed except for one side of bulkhead #0, as that needs to be laminated and shaped. You can never have enough clamps... That last floor beam is now laminated with three parts and then popped into place to mark a ledge and also the mast position. These are then shaped with a Dremel and the part fitted to the model. The mast foot is now glued into position. I mocked up a 9mm diameter down section which is representative of the final shaped part, to make sure that everything aligned vertically. All was good to go. Oseberg was now removed from that jig for the very last time and readied for the next stage of building, which requires another large jig.

A pleasure!

Like this?

Is the debonder a fluid? Usually it's viscous. Acetone is fluid and would be able to run underneath the parts quite easily. Keep away from plastic parts though as they'll melt.

Hi Pavel, Which decorations are you unhappy with? It all does seem to fit. You do have the stern too low, so the wooden rails on the stern do not match the height of the wooden rails on the quarter galleries. That's not a fatal mistake....just aesthetics. If you wish, you can remove the metal parts by flooding acetone around the part. That will dissolve the glue so you can move the part. Just be careful with any other areas with CA glue, and also those fumes!

I decided I didn't like the workshop photos on the blue cutting mat. They were too difficult to see things clearly, and they gave me a headache just looking at them. So, I'll revert, for the majority, to my VM-style photos. This last week has seen me torn between various things, such as looking for a job, guitar playing/learning, and playing a fantastic new RPG called Deliverance 2, on my PS5. Anyway, that aside, I do now have all the bulkheads ready for installation. I ned to clean a few keel slots up first, and then these can be dry fitted. You'll see there's various other things to do before I commit glue. In these photos, I carved the bulkhead plank runs as I felt it better than wielding a file and ending up with uneven and curved plank surfaces. Tedious, but I can adjust once on the model. The upper deck sections are only taped in place at the moment, for reasons you'll see, as the log proceeds. Anyway, I'm off for a chippy tea, so catch you later!

Welcome, and you now have your shiny new NRG badge under your avatar.

I really should take a further look at V2 to try and see the differences in the parts and construction method.

I've spent a few days beavering away on the keel and bulkheads. The keel is made from alder, and you need to ignore the colour variation in this as you won't see it when it's all faced in quite pale walnut. There was a small variation in the length of each side, strangely, so I built the side which was more to the plan sheet and they built the second layer directly on top of that, pinning with the walnut pins as I went along. The last piece in the centre just needed a little rework at either side and it then fit in with not much of a problem. I spent a whole lot of time cleaning up the char, just for aesthetics, as you really won't see much/any of this when complete. The bulkheads, as I said, are walnut. I've never worked with walnut this pale, so that was surprising. it's like a slightly off-golden colour which doesn't really show up here. The parts fit together nicely. Some bulkhead parts just needed a little kerf removing from the joint faces, while others didn't. On parts where I could flip them over to compensate the kerf, I did so. Where I couldn't due to bevelling marks, then I used a file to reduce the kerf and make them fit. I do have to say that you barely need to remove any material to make anything fit perfectly. It's more or less just the char.

Please can you post in ENGLISH as requested? Thanks for your cooperation- Admin

Fantastic work!

I sure did leave. I came back and the text was still there, in the test area I was going to post it. I didn't do anything that I wouldn't normally do when it comes back to post text I'd written.

Yes.

How odd. I just tested this and left the site. I came back and went to the same place and my text was still there 🤔

Outstanding!

I suspect it's based on the Oseberg design. These things were knocked together by craftsmen all over Scandinavia. I suspect no two were exactly the same.

Well, I needed to build something, and plastic wasn't thrilling me too much. So, as this kit arrived fairly recently, I thought I'd jump straight in and build it. I always wanted to build a viking 'longboat' or drakkar, and this ticks all the boxes in terms of design and possibilities. I'm also planning to use the antique stain set too, but maybe leave the outer hull a little darker to semi-represent how these looked. Not sure yet, so I'll play it by ear and do some reading as I go along. I recently reviewed this kit HERE, so you can get an idea of what's in the box. The first job with this kit is to build the cradle. You really get a sense of the size of the hull when this goes together. The cradle is assembled from a few of those thirteen sheets of MDF. Construction is quite easy, but of course, it pays to take things slowly so you can ensure everything is aligned and absolutely flat on your bench, so there won't be any twists in your hull. I used a large cutting mat, sat on top of the totally flat kitchen worktops I have in my workshop. Some of the dovetail joints on the horizontal sections, were a little tight, but gentle tapping with my Amati hobby hammer with plastic head, made short work of those. I also found it necessary to remove a little char from slots. With both of these, the whole thing came together perfectly. All joint are assembled first, and then glue painted over them in the same way I do the VM hulls. My Viking overseer, Harald, has made an appearance. Ideal to show him from time to time for you to get a sense of scale. This is the figure that comes with the kit. Two heads are provided. The other has a helmet, but I didn't want that whilst he was on his ship!