Ryland Craze

1:85 Fram
OcCre
Catalogue # 12011
Available from OcCre for €199,99
 

 
Fram ("Forward") is a ship that was used in expeditions of the Arctic and Antarctic regions by the Norwegian explorers Fridtjof Nansen, Otto Sverdrup, Oscar Wisting, and Roald Amundsen between 1893 and 1912. It was designed and built by the Scottish-Norwegian shipwright Colin Archer for Fridtjof Nansen's 1893 Arctic expedition in which the plan was to freeze Fram into the Arctic ice sheet and float with it over the North Pole.

 
Today, the historic ship resides at the Fram Museum in Oslo. It is one of the most visited and renowned museums in the city. This prestigious museum is a must-see for travellers interested in polar exploration and maritime history, as it provides a unique experience combining detailed information, immersive exhibits, and the chance to closely admire the resilient vessel that once braved the Arctic and Antarctic ice fields. The Fram Museum has become a world-renowned landmark, reflecting the legacy of adventurers like Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen, whose feats helped broaden our understanding of the most remote regions of the planet.
Abridged from Wiki and OcCre
 
The kit
Fram is packaged into OcCre’s medium size generic box that has an opening to see the parts tray, plus a product label secured to the top of the lid. The package is quite sturdy, which I always good for shipping. With the lid off the off, the box contents are accessed by pushing open the sides and then opening the formed card flaps which hold the various parts in place to stop them rattling about. There seems a modest number of timber parts in this, relatively speaking, but the model itself when complete builds up as below, with this image showing the size of the finished vessel.
 

All timber materials are supplied in a shrink wrapped cellophane sheet, protecting them and stopping them rattling around in the box. Fram is constructed in the standard plywood POB style. A dozen bulkheads are laser cut into a single piece of ply. Note that there's no part numbers engraved. These are shown on the plans, so it's a good idea to write the ID on each of these key parts.

 
The main deck is split into two to represent the split level nature of the ship. Other parts you see here are for the lower deck access door housings, poop deck stairways, etc.

 
On this ply sheet you will find the cradle for building and displaying Fram. This will need a good priming/sealing and paint/stain to make it suitable for actual display purposes. Bow and stern filler parts are included on this sheet.

 
 
Fram's false keel is supplied in a single piece on this sheet.

 
 
We are now onto actual timber sheets, and here you will find keel parts and various gunwale sections.

 
 
Whilst there are some deck fitting elements on this timber sheet, the rest of the parts sheet, and the accompanying ply sheet are concerned with the building of the four ship's boats, which are identical. These are constructed in very much the same way as others that you may have seen me build on my prototype work. This involves creating a framework over a base. The frames are then planked before the base is removed, leaving you with a little boat.  

 
 
Three bundles of strip wood are supplied, along with brass wire. The first hull planking layer is lime, followed by the darker, second layer of sapele. The wood is nicely cut and is of consistent quality throughout. All bundles are supplied with elastic ties to keep them together.


 
 
If you like adding sails to your models, then there is a full suite of thirteen here, all pre-stitched and ready to fit. The colour of these is cream/off-white, so could be fitted to the model without any extra colour treatments. All sails are supplied flat, packed into an OcCre envelope.

 
Another envelope is supplied in the package. This includes TWO brass photo-etch sheets, plastic mesh sheet for deck fittings, fabric sheet for boat tarpaulins, and eight spools of rigging cord in both dark and natural. 



 
 
There is a single fitting box with this kit, chock full of components in both bras and cast, along with rigging blocks, brass pins, brass wire, and more rigging cord. A printed Norwegian flag is also included. All rigging blocks and other machined wooden parts, such as barrels, are also found in this component box.




 
Fram is bundled with a set of paper instructions, totalling 44 sides of colour-printed sheets which show Fram being built in a series of photographs. Included in the sheets is a parts list, parts map, rigging drawings, and plans. If you like to watch build videos, then this is also covered by OcCre. Click THIS link to access the Fram videos on their YouTube channel.
 
https://youtu.be/UmquIiY-UjE?si=g4mQPVGyqvv-eTJp
 







 
 
Conclusion
OcCre have certainly been surprising the modelling community with their recent releases, and this was one that we didn't see coming until it was almost upon us. From a builder's perspective, I would say this was aimed at the advanced beginner/intermediate modeller, and to that end, this should serve its purpose perfectly, with plenty of detail throughout, including all of those sails, should you wish to add them. 
 
 
My sincere thanks to OcCre for sending out this kit for review/build on MSW. To purchase directly, click the link at the top of this article. 
 
 
WAIT!!!! 

That's not quite it. We have also been sent the paint set for this kit. This can be bought from OcCre for €29,99 via THIS link. This set contains the following:
 
Sapele wood dye Satin varnish Grey Light green Red Dark brown Black White Judea bitumen Primer  
Paints and primer are supposed to be 20ml, although my grey and white bottles are larger in size. The varnish and dye are 50ml. These also appear to be acrylic, and I'm not sure whether any of these can be passed through an airbrush. You would need to dilute, possibly with distilled water, and test them first. 
 
 
 
 



 
 
 
 
 
For now, here are some completed images of Fram...




 

 
 

 

I had some time over the last few days and spent it attaching the brass rudders in anticipation of painting the hull. Also added and faired the observation bow nose.  Now it looks like the Calypso I remember. To create the openings for the port holes, I marked where they would go and then heated up a pointed awl and created small dimples in the ABS rounded plastic nose where I would drill.  That prevented my drill from dancing around the curved surface.  I anticipated some separation in the two halves of the bow nose when drilling since the material is so thin and there is not much surface area to glue. Before I installed the nose, I glued some scrap ABS plastic strips across the seams on the inside which worked well. Also started with a small drill bit and worked my way up carefully. So far, so good.
Cheers from Florida

Hal,
welcome aboard. I think you'll enjoy building the sardine carrier--it has the right amount of everything to teach skills without being overwhelming. I'm building one right now from scratch using plans drawn by Dynamite Payson.... John

Hi Keith, welcome to MSW. When you start a new topic, I think you have to click on the drop down arrow to the left . Only it is selectable on my iPad 
 

Good luck on your journey!!!  
Bob  M.

From one Keith to another Keith, welcome to MSW. Glad to have you aboard. 

Keith,
You should be easily able to start your build log by following these steps:
 
Go to the appropriate menu by clicking in order, 'Browse'; 'Forums; and then in 'Build Logs' click on the appropriate date menu under 'Build Logs for Ship Model Kits' - I believe your model is of the era 1801 - 1850.
 
From there click on the 'Start new topic' button at top right, and away you go.
 
John

Well @Gabekmaybe not lol. I stared a swear jar for the Sea of Galilee Boat that I did awhile ago, 25 cents a word. In the past week I all most have enough for a Surprise.  Dang, as they Texas  lol.
 Today I got to thank @John Ruy for telling me about this rigging tool.  I have one from the Hannah-SIB that I did as well. Completely forgot about it. I starting using it today and things went alot better. Way way better Thanks.


lines still get crossed. Belaying is a Neanderthals night mare . Running all the lines for the Bowsprit mast and the foremast.we have them all tied on . Not glued because they may be adjustment later.


Man I can't afford to break the Bowsprit mast any more, now that I have  finished rigging it lol. Pile grabed a quick nap, but woke up screaming he was having a nightmare about me breaking the Bowsprit AGAIN lol

Moving on to the mian mast then Mizzen 
mast.couple of days lol. Then the anchors and stand leaving only the optional ships boat lol
Rigging is insanely fun frustrating work, but I am doing it lol.  Thank you for stopping by and peeking in. 
I am grinning now. Pretty sure of what's left, but there is always surprises  😮. 
Knocklouder 
 
 

Nicely done,  Congratulations.   
Bob  M.

Your pram looks great! Nice work! Good luck on the smack.

As a footnote to this build, I discovered today that Andrzej Halinski has listed a new model at his website. This is big news, because ever since Andrzej's wife passed away three years ago, the card modeling community has debated whether the Halinski publishing house would ever publish any more kits. It had, after all, been four years since Halinski released a kit of any kind and over five years since the last aircraft kit went to print. My excitement upon reading this news was tempered by the fact that the new kit is a Bf-109F-4/trop and is an updated version of a kit first published two decades ago but now no longer available. I have that kit in my stash. It's a great kit, so I don't believe the updated kit is sufficiently improved to entice a purchase from me. On the plus side, the new kit includes two different liveries, the original Hans-Joachim Marseille version plus optional skins to depict the mount of Wolfgang Lippert (who, like Marseille, was mortally wounded while attempting to bail out of his aircraft over North Africa). Interestingly, the kit is dated 2021 -- I can only guess at the reasons for the delayed release. Hopefully we won't have to wait another five years for another Halinski airplane!

Time for the decks. The instructions recommend contact cement, which I opted not to use because contact cement allows absolutely zero working time -- make a mistake and it's permanent. I used wood glue and worked quickly. The edges wanted to curl up, but I held them down by clamping clothespins atop them along the bulwarks until dry.
 

 
Next I worked on the aft cabin bulkhead. It's two layers of veneer, with painted hinges and faux doorknobs made of cut-off brass nail daubed with white paint. Just dry fitted for now.
 

 
Cheers!

With the bench now finished the next task is the installation of my biggest piece of equipment. My wood turning lathe came into my life back when I was also running woodwork based evening Adult Education classes. The school had a couple of wood lathes which were so popular we had an informal rule that access was restricted to alternating weeks, with a second project being worked on in parallel. I received a letter from a friend of one of the course members offering her late husband's lathe, at a very reasonable price, that would certainly reduce the pressure on the existing equipment. Unfortunately the senior staff rejected my request for the funding. The lathe was too good to pass, and with the Admiral's consent, I scraped enough together to buy it myself. It graced my school workshop for the majority of my career, retiring when I did.
When I collected the machine the previous owner's wife mentioned that her husband had been a pilot in the Battle of Britain and then went on the become chief test pilot for BEA. He was the Captain of the first ever fully automatic commercial airline flight landing. I found this story on-line:
https://bbm.org.uk/airmen/Poole.htm
A fascinating bit of history, and I do wonder if they would get away with not telling the paying passengers until after the event these days!
The lathe came with a piece of branch from a Madagascan ebony tree, allegedly smuggled back in the cockpit of a Trident. I still have some of it in my material stash. There was also a half turned bowl mounted on the chuck and my first job once the lathe was set up at school was to hollow it out and finish it. Once completed I presented it to her.
When originally purchased the lathe came with plans for a sand filled timber stand. While renovating it I added two layers of wood to raise the spindle height to a better height for me and my creeking back.

Time stored in a damp garage had left some surface rust in places but elbow grease, oil and wire brushes soon restored it to it's former glory. 


It runs as smoothly as ever, but will need bolting down to the floor before I can use it in anger.
Attention can now turn to tool storage, and benching out the model making area. Happy days!
Cheers,
Graham

Steve,
 
This is a great summary and a very interesting and fact filled "report". I particularly liked the Wipe-On Poly solution. I too will tuck all this away for future builds. Thank you!

I use this technique quite often too Keith and for that very reason!

@Keith Black Doh!   I missed that critical step for sure.  Even with waiting the CA approach worked well.  Thanks for the ideas.

The hull looks peachy, Steve. Thank you for the review on the different filling techniques. Regarding using CA, one has to sand while the CA is still wet or else it will harden and become hard to sand with a finner grade sandpaper. 

Thank you immensely for all the great ideas.  I tried every one and they all worked well.
A report of sorts:
 
1. Sanding sawdust into the various recommended adhesives is something I did very successfully prior to danish oil/poly coloring with good result.  Definitely better than the poorly matched wood filler I tried in some places.  I chose not to use that technique (sanding sawdust) here to ensure more uniform finishing.  But I know this works well and probably would have worked fine.
 
2.  UV curing resin - my daughter had some for jewelry making and I used it on a test piece.  Very fast and easy to sand.  I only chose not to use it due to it being a "new" material and not part of my current system.  Longevity/interaction concerns.
 
3.  Super glue - again filled a test piece crack with CA and sanded.  It is very hard when cured so requires more effort/time to smooth, but it definitely worked well.  I didn't want to work that hard.
 
4.  I didn't actually try the shellac although as a new material to me it was very interesting.  The drawback was this - only sold in 1 quart cans (946 mL).  As I learned, I only used about 4 mL "fixing" my mess and had read shellac has a short shelf life when opened, thus I would have to discard 942 mL eventually.  I will try shellac on a future project because it sounds awesome.
 
5. PVA glue by itself was also successful on the test piece.
 
6.  An argument could be made for leaving her alone - not sure the juice was worth the squeeze here.
 
Ultimately what I did do was careen the ship on her side, fill a syringe with Watco Satin wipe-on poly and then lay a bead of poly in the cracks.  After cure there was shrinkage so the process was repeated.  Sanding was easy-ish and finish was re-applied over the whole lower hull.  The results were pretty good. 
 

 

 

 
And the final result.  Needs a final coat of satin to tone down the shine but turned out ok.

 
Benefits include:
 
The filler matching the overall finish for expansion/contraction (thermal and humidity).
 
The applicator needle matched the gap size and would follow the gap when applying.
 
Easy-ish to sand.
 
Follow on poly coats bonded to the fills pretty seamlessly.
 
Anyway, VERY appreciative of all the great options.  They all clearly have their merits and I have added them to my "toolbox" going forward.
 
Detail of my "sample piece".  White glue on left joint, CA (superglue) center, and UV resin on right.  All three would have accomplished this task.  
 
 

I agree with you @SaltyScot  sand dust but I wrote saw dust    . Lol.
Bob M.

I have also used the glue/sand and fill method mentioned here. By adding a little glue to the crack (I use an aliphatic resin glue, applying it with a fine dental tool) and sanding shortly afterwards, the sanding dust basically applies itself to the glue in the crack and fills the hole - if it is not too expansive of course. I prefer this method to the mixing sawdust with glue beforehand method but we all have our preferences, right?

Another thing you may try is to , if you have planking left over from the build , make sand dust out of it, then apply wood glue that drys clear.  Apply the glue pack the cracks with sand dust. Wipe off the axcess and pack it again with dust, sand,  after drying repeated if is  necessary . Then refinish it with two coats of  the oil you used. I am not sure is right but this is what I do for mine, good luck.
Bob M. 

Thanks for the comments. The chain shot are actual musket balls, and the chain is from costume jewellery bought from a charity shop. The Swab bucket was painted black inside, then filled with clear 2 pack resin to replicate water. The Tampion is just turned oak with a Royal Navy uniform button set into it.
The tools are certainly on the cards. I am sort of making it up as I go along.
How did you get the Cork screw effect of the barrel tools, very effective. Are the shafts from bbq skewers?

Unfortunately, that is the case. There are very few settings in the Gallery app, and it would need either a 3rd party plugin (not available) or a code customisation. We would also like to set it so members HAVE to create an album to add their images to, but that option isn't available either.