Scottish Guy

Thank you for that, never checked Amazon for model kits like that. The price is quiet shocking but also in USD, have to check if it´s sold in the UK as well. Thank you for that as well Christiano, will have a look at those links. Looks like the Japanese kept a lot of secrets, as in the past as well lol Micha

That`s why I wrote that you should send some greetings to my old hometown (city). The Roar Ege kit is in 1:25 scale, the Skuldelev kit is in 1:20 scale and yes, I agree the Skuldelev 5 would be a nice kit, trying to find some plans / blueprints for it. Skuldelev 1 is also very interesting as a long distance going ship (Atlantic crossing). Micha

I know the history of the Skuldelevs, that`s why I have choosen the model kit. Unfortunately I found the 1:20 kit later than the new version called "Roar Ege". The builds differ completely in the way of being build (even if I have somewhat choosen the Skuldelev way to build the Roar Ege). I have seen the replica which was built in 1982 but decomissioned in 2007 and is now on display. In 2017 it was again rebuild as Estrid Byrding. Skuldelev 1 was rebuild in 1999 as Ottkar. Skuldelev 6 was rebuild in 1998 as Kraka Fyr and in 2010 with a name I can´t recall. Skuldelev 5 has been rebuilt in 1990 / 1991 as Helge Ask. Good luck in finding the time to build the amazing little ship. I´m always impressed what the vikings could archive with this little ships compared to some bigger ships from the other countries like England or Spain. Schöne Grüsse an meine gebürtige Heimat (Düsseldorf). Micha

Hi Johnny, thank you for this nice comment. I have to say, afterwards, since I did it the way I did I must say. I wouldn´t do it again this way. I would use the jig as I did again for sure, that idea is much better than the way BB explains it to do. The two sides build and then glue it together is not ideal. The jig I build works well but I would next time do both sides at the same time to maintain equality in the planking. I noticed slight differences in the sides right now where the lines look ok in each side, but when looking at the ship from above you see that they are not exactly mirrored. But that is the learning effect and that is why this LOG might be helpful to others, to learn by my mistakes. Again, I would always build the ship again with a hig as I did, not both sides separately, but then I would advise to plank both sides at the same time to adjust the equality of the planks on both sides. Thank you for this kind and polite words Johnny, I really appreciate that. They help me to keep my mind on it (it can be challenging as it is my first wooden build) and gives me a confidence boost. Micha

Why does it sound so... weird Simon? hehe You know that this is cheating Simon, but I love it, smart thought and looks really good to me Kudos to you for this (will borrow this thought when I´m in the situation to do rat lines). Micha

Looks really good, sorry to hear that your airbrush played up (gladly I never had such issues yet). But the results are amazing. I like the dark shade on the lap joints. Looks really authentic And you made me blush lol to mention me . Looking forward to the next post Micha

I know that video (I mean, I live in Scotland on the North Coast) and I rewatched it (have to admit, the first time I watched it I didn´t check on the pennant) and there are more videos (also from the ship itself - they have their own YouTube channel). Here in the video it`s clear to see that the name is written backwards on one side (starboard). But again, the question is, has it been this way all the time or is this just a modern thing (the manufacturing process of flags changed dramatically over the last century) and most flags are made in one layer and not in two or more layers (which you would need to write the name in the correct way on each side to prevent it to be unreadable by shining through). But thank you for bringing a video of my home to this channel made me smile even if Oban is way to much "touristic" for me... Micha

I don´t know where you can read names backwards on those pictures (paintings) because I can´t. In the 2nd picture to be honest, the name OTTO is a palindrome therefore it doesn´t matter which way you write it because it will read the same in both ways like rotator or kayak or... OTTO? The name in the 3rd picture I can´t read a name at all, therefore it´s unclear if the name is written backwards or not. Also does the flying of the pennants (tbh of all flags) look a bit weird compared to the sails. Especailly when you compare the national flags with the smaller flags and pennants. The flow doesn´t look natural nor correct. Like I stated in my privious answer, I´m wondering if this is not an artistic "freedom" by the painter to give the ships names and make them unique. There is nowhere any kind of evidence to be found that merchant ships or civilian ships flown pennants at all. Only on military ships it is proven by historical documents. Micha

I had the same issues, I could find a lot about military ships flying pennants, most likely for displaying the ship with leading officers (commodore, admirals etc.) or even squadrons but nothing about civilian merchant ships flying pennants. I found pictures (drawings and paintings) with merchant ships flying pennants but the question here is, was it the artistic freedom of the artist to just draw them in to make it easier to identify his intentions or was this based on common habits that ships at the time were flying pennants? I prefer to think that it more likely is an artistic statement but not presenting common habits of merchant ships of that time. Otherwise there should be evidence or descriptions of any common habits in historical documents of this times. Micha

Looking forward to it Peter Micha

My Billing Boats Roar Ege is from Cornwall Model Boats ^^ and as stupid as it sounds (since the manual is so crappy and the quality of the plywood sheets is so... "low" I still enjoy doing it my way (which is not the way the manual tells) but the way it is intended to do is just confusing. Therefore I will check them out again for some plans especially. But first I finish my Roar Ege and wait what folks say... maybe I´m not good enough for scratch or other than little viking ships . One thing I learned quickly right now, don´t overestimate your own skills, just be honest with yourself and I´m honest with myself. I like the hobby, even if I might not be good enough but skills can be increased by experience and training... Micha

As sad as it sounds, I have to agree again but they are hard to get nowadays. Congratulations for having some. Being a bit jealous, I mean I have some myself from the 1970s (inherited from my dad) but not many are left as today, only 6 or 7. But I have roughly 30 of the new plastic ones 🤣 Micha

There you are not alone Phil, I´m in the same "boat". I never did a rigging or any sail boat / ship from this era. Tbh, I never did any sail ship yet, I did a lot of space ships but not sail ships. But you know what... I would love and appreciate to join you in this journey because I soon will need this skills myself. I keep saying, shared experience is a good experience . But in my opinion it looks good of what I can asses it by what I saw in other LOGs. Micha

I agree to that welfack and I have tons of the alligator clips and even 4mm banana-plugs at home (perks of the job I would say) and it´s easy to build something out of those. I appreciate them, especially when they are "brand new" out of the box they are pretty tight and strong. The only disadvantage of the ones I have is that they are insulated with a plastic / rubber sleeve or housing in red or black. Micha

I´m not a specialist on this topic but if logical and honest, it wouldn´t make sense to write the name backwards on the pennant. I think it´s hard already to read a pennant from far distances but then even backwards would make it even harder. Also people had issues with reading in that times. I saw some penannts of naval marine ships (for a Commodore) which shows a mirrored image of the port side on the starboard side. Which makes sense because they have a ver strange shape and putting it the opposite way around on the starboard side doesn´t make any sense. Left: Flag for the Vice Admiral White Squadron (1805-1864) │ Right: Flag of the Vice Admiral White Squadron flying on a Mast Unfortunately the newer flags (pennants) look different to the older ones... Left: Pennant of the Royal NavyFlying │Right: Pennant of the Commodore of the Fleet Royal Navy AS you can see in the right picture this is taken from the starboard side view and the pennant shows exactly the same just morrored. I think this is attributed to the way how flags are made (at least nowadays). They are not multi-layered so it would shine through anyway. Which would explan why the name in this case of the "Atlantic" makes sense, the name shines through and maybe got just some stitches on the starboard side. But it wouldn´t make sense since it would be much harder to read. The question here would be more likely if name pennants have been as dual layer flags (with two layers sewn together with the name in the right - readable - direction). With military flags stating a rank or country it definitely doesn´t make sense because it could falsify the identity by reading or aknowledging the country wrong. My humble opinion about it, I also couldn´t find much about pennants with names on it, most likely military penannats stating a rank or which ship has the high ranking officer on board. Micha

Hi Peter, looks good so far. May I ask why you not tokk the parts out of the cast / sprue? In the past as I was doing plastic models (most likely space ships) I always cut the parts out of the cast, trimming them and painted (sprayed with an airbrush gun) the parts. I think it´s easier than fixing the cuts / trimmings after the parts are painted. But that is just my humble opinion. Would be interesting to read other opinions about it. Micha

It´s getting there Phil. Looks really good Micha

* Chapter Four * The Orgy of Super Glue or How to do the Port Side and then start with Starboard Side Hello my fellow model builder, here we have now finished one side (I think it should be port). I started now with the second side (should be therefore starboard) I hope since I’m not yet sure where the bow and where the stern is (have to check the instructions again) but I’m certain that I’m correct with my sides. Here some closer looks to the planking (stern)… Center part of the hull… and the bow… Much closer look to the bow and how the planks came together. Also a look inside the ship from stern… to the Center of the ship (mast support)… to the bow… Unfortunately do my planks not end up equally so I have to sand it nicely up. Also some of the planks are warping badly and the glue seems not to do a proper job… Starting in starboard with the planking… trying to align them properly with the mirrored plank (part 11) on the port side. Micha

I think we all want to become friends with her 🤣 Micha

I gave up on VPN since Disney+ stopped ESPN and took away the NCAA football games of me. Can´t see the point in paying for a service I don´t need or not use anymore. I was using Cyberghost for more than 6 yrs, to watch the NCAA football games of my favorite team. Unfortunately Disney (owner of ESPN) stopped the service last year here in Europe. Therefore I can´t watch any games since then, so there was no need for me anymore to use a VPN host since I don´t use streaming services and especially not foreign streaming services. Micha

Belated happy birthday and get well soon. Micha

Thank you for the additional information. Will wait till the book arrives. Maybe I can contact the author and he is even willing to share information that is not written in the book or has plans to share. Micha

Hello Harvey, thank you for your suggestion, that´s exactly the only book I could find. I ordered one (just don´t know how long it will take to be delivered to Europe) but what I read about it, it doesn´t quiet give me the plans of the boats / ships. It more describes how the boats where made. I will give it a go, but I look more for books or plans that I could utilise to create a scratch build for one of those boats / ships. Micha

The size of the picture was 20kb so not the biggest size at all. All pages took ages (roughly 40-55 seconds). The picture in my LOG was 2.1mb. So different sizes and that`s why I checked with iPad and laptop, both didn´t work. I also checked three browsers now, Safari (iPad and iMac) and Firefox and MS Edge, all with the same results. My broadband speed as well has been checked with the network provider app and my physical tester (I`m a Service Delivery Engineer for the national telecommunications provider). There was no fault found. Line tested ok, broadband speed is ok and within parameters. So I don´t know, maybe it´s the connection between the countries (don´t know where the server is located that hosts the forum software). But I checked it again, at least the response time of the forum is back to normal. Don´t know yet about the picture upload. Upload also works now again. Above you can see the error code (server error: -200). Micha

Hi everyone, I tried a couple of times today to upload pictures to my LOG, every try just failed with an error code 200. I tried it from my iPad and from my computer (laptop). Every single try just failed. Is it just me or is there a known issue with the forum at the moment? Also seems the forum / homepage very slow, responding to commands (like opening a thread or editing) is very slow and takes a long time to respond, twice I got timed out already. Micha