buntzi

@chris watton If I've been there, I would have asked why most of your models don't include the sails even as an option. I'm sure there is a reasonable explanation (also thinking on the least favorite part of the design>rigging) but I just cannot see it on my own.

Beautiful work Kurt, congrats! My experience is very limited (going towards none) and I only had contact with Artesania and Amati. Since I'm pretty much locked to Speedy for future build, I've downloaded and read the instructions. I fully agree that from what I've seen so far (I mean even without the main drawings), the instructions for Vanguard's kits are top notch and second to none.

You're most welcome. Your build is so much neater than my own...😞

How nice it should be to have proper plans and explanations for your kit instead of having to guess which one of the lines represents what...😔

My eyes are a gone for a while, and my fingers are a little numb... The blocks are a little on the large size, but it's the best I can achieve with the skills and tools that I have. See you.

Oh yes, I have those and indeed they are extremely helpful (managed to thread the gunports and 1.5mm blocks for the gun's rigging). Wonderful little things!

Good morning folks! Hmm, I think I shall adopt for myself the old Top Gear motto "Ambitious, but rubbish!" Well, I'm trying to use the solution the our friend @Cristiano used in his Polacre build for securing the lateen sail yard. I've manage to replicate good enough the goose neck solution that he used here, but got stuck at those twin 4-way blocks (apologies, I really have no idea what this thing is called) How big were those kind of things IRL? I've tried to make a sketch to see what I have to construct, but then I've realised that Cristiano worked his model at a larger scale and duplicating his work identically would make it a 1m thing IRL for the scale of my ship, which is out of question. My assumption is that it could have been somewhere in the realms of 40x20x20 cm (15x8x8 inches in freedom units). If this is confirmed (help please) then my device should be about 4x2x2 mm, with maybe a little leeway on on of the 2mm dimensions, so maybe 4x2x3mm. In that small part I cannot dream to drill 6 holes on 2 axes, but I will try to make it 3-way instead of 4-way. How I will manage to squeeze also the ropes through those 0.3 or 0.4mm holes, I have no idea now. If anyone wonder why bother with all of this and not use the solution Amati proposes, is because Amati believes (and thus shows in the drawing) a single line, passing through the goose neck and secured with a simple knot on the yard. I doubt that this is even close to how it was done on the ship...

Many thanks to everybody for your warm welcome. Regarding the caveat that I've mentioned in my opening post for my Polacca build, there is a short explanation: My main interest lays primarily with ships. I had a short stint of work in a shipyard in my hometown, which probably awaken my interest in working ships, such as tugboats and fishing ships. The sailing ships are a later addition to it, while trying to build something related to the places where I've lived. Initially I've tried to find a kit/information about an Indonesian pinisi, but failed and soon after I moved back to Dubai and forgot about it. So, I got back to working boats and build the Nordkap as an RC model. After finishing that one, I wanted to try something different and started looking again for something "local". There it came the Sultan, the kit from AL. At the time I was travelling a little bit more with business, and I've got the habit to look around the location for a LHS to see what they have. In one of those trips I've got few hours to spend in the Hamburg Maritime museum, from where I've left with the Fairplay harbor tug kit from Revell. From one of my trips to Istanbul I've return with a kit of a local fishing boat. However, I also enjoy reading stories about the Pacific theatre of the WW2. Now, my brother is building WW2 war birds in 1:72, so many of our discussions around some beers and bbq would inevitably drift towards that subject. During one of those, the idea of a collection related to the subject "the most significant equipment that shaped the operations" came up. So, I end up with a F4U Corsair and a TBF Avenger kits, given to me as "to start your Pacific War collection". Which of course I had no intention to start at the time , we were just talking. Well, seeing how much of a hoarder he became over the years (I think his stash is somewhere near 100 kits in the "to do next" list), I've decided that I will build in the order of purchase/acquisition and I will purchase only when I have a single box left - one kit on the table and another one waiting. Well, easier said than done 😐 So, between Sultan and the current Polacca, I've built those aircraft kits. After the Polacca, the next in line will be the fishing boat, which is also somewhat related because is a wooden kit. I've mentioned before the drastic space constrains that I have for my working desk, so once I'm done with this iteration of wood builds, I will stow away all the wood-working tools and set the desk for plastic models. The plastic models that I have are all related to the Pacific War theme. My brother already gifted to me a Hellcat and a Catalina, which will not be part of any mention here. Alongside though, I've purchased the 1:350 kits for the "John Brown" Liberty Ship and for the "Sullivans" Fletcher class destroyer. When their time will come, I will present them here. As of now, only afterwards I will work again on a sail ship. This may not be such a bright idea, because with such a long pause between similar builds (plank on frames, rigging etc.), a lot of techniques and tricks will be forgotten, some materials will deteriorate and such mishaps. Now you know...

Thanks for the tip, I'm still looking for the next purchase but I will keep them under scrutiny. To be honest, so far I'm very much tempted by the Speedy from Vanguard due to the association with Sir Thomas Cochrane > Sharpe book series. I know, stupid reasons... By the way, Vanguard are selling pretty much ALL their models without sails? If there is a trusted source for a sail set for Speedy, I would appreciate a tip on it. 🤣🤣 I couldn't care less even if you had. Recommendation from a known source is always preferrable to "internet reviews".

Well, thanks for your kind words. I will post the progress...when there will be any.

Thanks Chris, your Cautionary Tale topic actually inspired me to do so.

Hello everyone. I will start this build log half way, and it is meant to be as a warning for others about mainly how not to do things. The kit was ordered from Amati 08 march 2020. Few days later, northern Italy was struck by the pandemic so the kit arrived in Dubai on 09 June 2020. There is a caveat though. For reasons that are not quite important, I only started working on this kit sometime in October 2023. I will not spend too much time describing the kit, although it may be of help to someone, some day. It's planks on bulkheads, single layer planking. Components are laser-cut in 3 or 4 mm plywood, with some other parts in 2mm sapele. There are planks in 3mm walnut for the hull and some thinner planks for the deck, and a collection of dowels for the masts. There are also some prefabricated items (guns, gunports, anchors, oars, belaying pins, grating and stairs, brass ornaments and such). The reason I'm so vague about it is that well...there is no list with the parts. Usually you suppose to check the content of your box to see if everything is inside or not and such. Nope, not here. The bulkheads are not numbered on the sheet. 3 and 4 are almost identical, but none of them fit perfectly to the drawing in the "instructions" (I'll explain the air quotes in a bit). The material quality looked good at a first glance, but proved so and so when actually working with it. The quantity though...you'll see. Now the "instructions". There is one sheet with the arrangement with the rigging on the other side (so you cannot look at those in the same time) and some instructions on the second page about various furnishing on the deck. For a beginner, is quite difficult to figure out what you have to do. Anyway, the fit was not so bad, so it all looked promising. Due to the curvature of the deck, the fitting was not so great. Also, the deck itself does not have notches for the top side of the bulkheads so something needs to be done. Following some ideas from the Amati site itself, I cut off the top ends. Those will be fitted afterward to the deck to continue the planking for the bulwark. At the end, it turned out that it was not a good idea and it would have been better to cut the notches in the deck. It was a real pain to fix those things again, strong enough to be used but not so strong so they can be removed afterwards. I also used some balsa wood that I had laying around to fill the curves in the stern for better support of the planking. Well, the planking. Single layer is always difficult, and even more so when the box photo shows natural wood finishing. The pressure to achieve far better than average results is high, without the second planking to hide all the mishaps. Horrible, I know. However, after a lot of work and pain, I've reach to some results: One may wonder why the hell I choose to cut so many short strips and so close to the final shape. Well, after all this work, this was the situation of the materials for hull planking: In this photo you can see also the cardboard template that I've used for the stern part. I used each and every piece of scrap material to keep the same texture, but to no avail. I've end up using some leftovers from the Sultan build to complete the hull. You can see the color difference: Anyway, after sanding it didn't look awful, just bad: More sanding and some work, there are the gunports frames almost done, handrail installed, inside of the bulwark planking done, and such: After a lot of thinking and consideration, studying the build of our colleague @Cristiano and @Slowhand and some other photos, I've decided that leaving anything in natural wood is not feasible. Thus, use of wood filler (in decent amounts though) was no longer forbidden so there it is: However, the painting schemes of the historical examples were not to my liking and I've decided that the ship will be painted in Venice red and some black accents: Of course, it cannot go well from here. I've manage to break of of the gunports, I've lost a cannon barrel in the ship and I struggled for almost one hour to retrieve it, though it was impossible to glue it back on the carriage, so the gunports in the aft were installed closed, and then the large ornaments on the castle didn't fit. I've used some putty to fill the gaps, somehow imitate the pattern to hide the difference and after a little bit of paint, it turned out like this: Then, the channels were interfering with the gunports, so I have to modify them as well. Also, the brass wire available in the kit was completely unusable (for my poor skills) to make the chainplates from it, so I've decided to use...chain. Probably completely wrong and horrifying for the history buffs here, but it is what it is: Afterwards, there was not that much. I struggled with gun rigging and it turn out so and so, and somehow I reach the mast and rigging stage: The rest is for another post, when I will manage to actually DO something, other than whining about things...

Thanks for welcoming me Keith. I'm sure that each and every ship or boat have their own appeal and they are worthy as model subjects for someone there. However, personal preferences plays a great part in this and we are all subjective observers in this. There are people that point blank refuse to touch anything military, people that are only building tug boats, etc. For sure all of us we are finding our way somehow. As for this one I already found two build logs with better results than my own, so I guess there is no real need for further embarrassment 😐

Hi Sal I don't know if you're still interested in the RC details for the Nordkap. If so, please give a sign and I will share with you all the details from my own build.

Hello, and thanks for the welcome. Well, I think you'll be disappointed with me I've build the Sultan arab dhow, but I doubt that I will build another one. And considering the shipbuilding tradition in the arab world (which is that the boats were build by local masters, without blueprints or anything, with calculations made in the sand based on the log they found available for the keel), chances are slim to none to find related documentation. I guess the chances are better in Oman though... Maybe I will make a "finished" build log for the Sultan - for the sake of history, but I'm afraid that it will not be of too much help to anyone.

Good morning to you all! My name is Bogdan (online "known" as Buntzi) and I live in Dubai. As pretty much everybody in this city, my roots are somewhere else. Mine lays on the Danube in Romania. I started building ship models (of some sort) long time ago, but most of them were just pieces of wood and cardboard (loosely) put together. I tried several times to get back to the hobby, but only some 15 years ago I really started again. Inspired by a guy that was building a cardboard ship, I put together a small river tug similar to the ones that were used in my home city to ferry things across the Danube. It was a kit of some sort - printed in a 50 years old Polish magazine, it was meant to be cut directly from the magazine, pasted on thicker cardboard and used as such. I was in a small village in Indonesia at the time, so I used the cardboard from the company office calendars, ice cream sticks and school supply acrylic colors. That was the new beginning. Since, I've built 3 ships: Nordkap from a Billings kit (that one is an RC model), then a Fairplay harbor tug from the Revell kit, and then the Sultan arab dhow from Artesania kit. The Sultan was one of the most enjoyable builds and I got the "sail ship bug". My approach to this hobby seem to be quite different from the majority of this community. I enjoy building things and I try to make them as good as I can, but I'm not going too far in the historical accuracy realm, which seem to be the main focus. It is also one of the reasons that I didn't post (almost) anything until now. I don't know the correct marine terms even in my own language, let alone in english. I read explanations from people here and I need time to understand the subject because each object or line or plank or crease seem to have a name. For me, I try to make things to fit the practical purpose. If a rigging line has a purpose, I need to understand for what was used and how, and then I will try to make it as accurate as possible...under the circumstances. Which is my next drawback: Quite severely hampered by space availability (both for working and for display afterwards) I restricted my builds to models that are small enough to fit my place. I don't enjoy repetitive work, so...100 guns? No, I don't think so. Also, the rigging is quite a scary thing and I tried my best to chose subjects that have a simpler rigging. Unfortunately, the kits that are fitting those criteria are either very simple and uninspiring, or to such a scale that details are painful to replicate with my skills, basic tools and not so great eyesight. I've opened up on this subject because I've noticed the weight of the historical accuracy on the threads. Apparently, if the color of the planks is wrong, this is frowned upon. That board supposed to have 5 nails in it, not only 3! Another trend that I've observed is that people seem to have any tool imagined for any specific task. I have a bit of an issue with the "Let's save 20$ and make this part ourselves - using this house sized 150k$ worth of tooling fully-equipped workshop" approach. Also, you people seem to have (quite instant) access to any sort of material needed. Is not the case with me, unfortunately. The modelling hobby is almost non-existing in this place. There is ONE shop that sells model-making related stuff, but is focused 99% on plastic kits and their accessories. Luckily they have quite a good selection of Vallejo paints. Wood, ropes, blocks or pulleys? Insert "Nobody ain't got time for this" meme. Sure, people will say "there is the online shopping now, stop bickering about it". True, but only to some extent. IRL, you end up waiting for 3 weeks for your supplies, and this after paying 50$ for shipping 12$ worth of materials. Those things considered, I beg for your patience and understanding. Peer pressure is a thing, you know? Here comes the Polacca from the Amati kit. After reading the topic with the "dead first builds", I've decided that for the Polacca I will start a build log, despite being quite advanced in the build. See you there...

Ten years later, this build log is still a very rare gold mine for information about Polacca (yes, mainly the rigging, but many other details as well) and @Cristiano is a rare gentleman. Thank you for your help and explanations, you have helped me a lot.

You're stressing too much for a minor issue. I don't blame you, but you need to relax The nails will come off quite easily with a cutter or a cutting plier (or any tool that have a flat face and a cutting edge that can get under the nail's head), and as @barkeater mentioned above, the first layer is just a support for the second one. This is the beauty and major advantage of the two-layers hulls. You can be a little rough with the first layer, use wood filler to get the proper shape and then finalize beautifully with the second planking. Good luck with your build!

And no wonder, since the dhows are built from the outside. Nice looking boat, I've built one myself some 5 years ago.

Gobi, maybe you can cover only partially the inside, to let those beautiful frameworks visible.