Srodbro

I’m currently enjoying a cruise aboard Viking Orion, in New Zealand, heading for Australia in a couple of days. Gathering some good info for what I think will be my next scratch build, HMS ENDEAVOR. Viking ( a Norwegian Cruise line) really promotes their Scandinavian heritage. Along with an abundant supply of really good Aquavit on board, there is a display of examples of some Viking ship and historical artifacts ( replicas) and artwork, all very enlightening. Unfortunately, the model of the Viking ship is really not very good. The description says ships were clinker-built (true) but the model isn’t, and those oars ... wow, are they to any scale?. The ship is shown under sail, but since people expect a Viking ship to have oars, I guess some marketing person just added some. Disappointing. Hope the pic goes thru ... limited bandwidth aboard ship. The model of the cruise ship is much better.

Thanks, all, for responding.

Looking good. Glad to see progress.

Hello, Ensign I know this follow up message is very late from your post ... Did you ever succeed in finding a satisfactory rigging plan? If so, what was it? I am considering a scratch build of Endeavor, and am gradually trying to assemble information, plans, etc. In a couple weeks I’ll be on a cruise to New Zealand and Australia, and hope to get to Endeavor in Sydney, and see if the Maritime Museum might have anything useful for a modeler. Thanks.

I am currently building the Gokstad Ship by Dusek. Integral to the rigging of the shrouds and stay is this “ thing”, to facilitate frequent raising or lowering of the mast. The kit variously refers to it as a shroud block, or shroud cleat, in spite of the fact that it also occurs in the stay. N.Nicolaysen’s beautiful treatise from 1882 on the Gokstad Ship Discovery has a great sketch of it, but does not name it other than “ unidentified implements “. I’m sure 9th or 10th Century Scandinavian sailors had a colorful or functional name for it, probably referring to some animal name, or something to do with a sexual reference ( or maybe both) as sailors are wont to do. In this pic I’ve installed it in the stay. Any suggestions?

Just found your build log on the way to looking for something else. I’m currently cobbling together the Gokstad Ship kit and can appreciate some of the challenges you’ve faced. Will be following your further work ... which is great. Also, big thanks to Louie-da-fly ( and others, as well) for the links he provided on the construction of these viking craft. Great stuff.

Love the insight of your modeling techniques! Really nice craftsmanship.

I’ve been following your build with great interest. This is going to be a great project. Your recent posts cause me to raise a question: On a ship with a complicated hull shape, that will present huge ( at least to this modeler) planking challenges, why not create a solid ( bread-and-butter) hull lay-up to begin with? Admittedly this question is coming from a rank neophyte modeler, clearly out of the league of you and most of your followers, but it seems to me most plank-on-frame and plank-on-bulkhead scratchbuilds wind up adding so much blocking that one has nearly a solid hull in the end, anyway. Why not start with one? Obviously, if one desires to model any interior detail a solid hull is out of the question, but aside from that, I am at a loss to come up with drawbacks to using a solid hull method. I am, of course, ignoring the satisfaction one may enjoy approximating true shipbuilding techniques, and the fact that one may have a sizable investment in technology and tools aiming to perfect POF or POB modeling (which can be big considerations), but to more quickly go from 2D plans to a 3D object, a bread and butter lay-up seems the ticket. ( Kit manufactures, I assume, find producing POF and POB kits more economical than producing kits with solid hulls AND planking to cover them) I apologize for sounding critical ... that’s not the intent. Merely trying to ascertain the fascination with POF method when scratch building. Maybe it just comes down to personal preference. Thanks. Sorry for the soap-boxing in your log. I’ll enjoy following your progress.

Yeah, Wyoming at 1:96 would be an impressive kit. I was intrigued by reading the book A Shipyard in Maine and, just to appreciate the size of her, built a half-hull model Of her at 1:96 a few years ago. She was really big! Took up all the space on the workbench, and I made her with stubby masts!

We’re Here is a nice choice. After I built Hero I did Fannie Gorham, then We’re Here. My last one was Niagara, but Instead of building her plank on frame, and having only experience on solid hulls, I built Niagara’s hull solid, then planked it. Got all the thrill of planking without the hassles of trying to keep bulkheads square and aligned with the keel, and had an infinite points at which planks could be glued. Had, I thought, very satisfactory results.

Nice job. What’s next?

How do you keep your ratlines straight before and during gluing them to the shrouds? Run them thru beeswax? Maybe saturate with dilute Elmer’s and let dry?

I really like the look your method produces. Do you think it could be adapted to partially furled or brailed sails?

Mark Please allow me to slightly hijack your log to ask OC about his suggestion in the post above. Can you ( OC) expand on your technique of painting CA onto wood to strengthen it? Does that help only with minor surface chipping, or does it penetrate enough to actually reinforce, say, a timberhead, or, say, a small spar thru which you want to drill a hole near the end? Again, Mark, sorry for the digression.