Maid of the Mist

Less than 4 months in, and your work on this kit looks like a year's labour. Seriously impressive.

At the front of the ship, I put together the carronade, which went together quite easily. I went with lots of black paint and added a touch of walnut stain to the wood. As for the cannon itself, I decided to keep it simple and paint it entirely black. The official instructions suggest painting it black and then dry brushing with copper for a bit of shine, but I preferred the plain look, it feels cleaner. Next up was the windlass.. This turned out to be a fairly intricate assembly, featuring a large metal piece that I painted with ochre, copper and black. It also involved some tricky wire bending, and the entire assembly had to be inserted and glued as one piece since it stretches from one side of the ship to the other. Aligning it correctly was a bit challenging, but I’m about 90% happy with the result. I really enjoyed wrapping the chain around the windlass, presumably simulating the anchor chain. Watching the chain weave through the deck is a surprisingly satisfying visual effect, and I think it looks really cool. At the rear of the ship, I assembled the depth winch, mostly following the instructions. I left some parts as polished brass and painted the rest black. It was a fiddly little assembly, but I was happy with how it turned out and had no trouble gluing it in place. And now for the part that almost every model ship builder loves: the cannons. Like the carronade, I painted the main cannons plain black, and for the gun carriages, I went with a simple walnut stain to give them a natural wood appearance. I’m not entirely sure whether cannon carriages from this period would have been painted red, I suspect they probably were, but I’ve mostly been building this model for enjoyment rather than strict prototypical accuracy. If I were really focused on authenticity, a lot of the polished brass on the ship would have been painted black anyway, so leaving the carriages as stained wood feels fine to me. I did think about adding red for a bit of visual interest on the deck, but I worried it might look a little toy-like, so I stuck with the walnut stain for a more classic, realistic wood look. Current state of play: I've decided to skip ahead a few steps and tackle the figurehead, using this little chap as a reference photo. There don’t seem to be any records of what the HMS Beagle’s figurehead actually looked like, but a bit of research helped guide my approach. By the time Beagle was built, the Royal Navy had moved away from the elaborate, gilded figureheads of earlier decades, opting instead for more realistic designs. I'm taking took my time painting a Beagle in tricolour style.

I have a quick question for anyone with knowledge about gun carriage colours. From what I’ve read, Royal Navy gun carriages of this era were often painted a brick red, which would add a nice bit of colour contrast to the deck. I kind of like that idea, it feels more authentic and visually interesting. What do you guys think? Any recommendations for the particular colour? Humbrol No. 100 Red Brown perhaps?

Thank you, and thanks to everyone for your messages and encouragement so far 🙂 Still a long way to go with this one. I'm taking my time, but I reckon completion around New Year is possible.

I spent quite a bit of time working on the quarterdeck this past week — all of it very enjoyable. The rudder wheel and binnacle are metal parts that turned out nicely with a coat of dark brown acrylic. I added a touch of gold dry brushing to the wheel to give it a subtle shine, as I imagine it might be the only part of the ship finished with a bit of gloss varnish. Gluing the wheel in place proved tricky, since it sits tucked beneath the quarterdeck and tends to tip forward due to its weight. It’s not perfectly centered, but I doubt the King needs to know his ship is being built by an inexperienced craftsman. I also found the use of rope for the handrails quite interesting. I wonder if that’s realistic? In any case, it probably doesn’t matter much, as there will be boats on either side of the quarterdeck once the kit is complete. Current progress:

Chain plates are all finished now. I've moved on to making tiny little ladders. More experienced modellers seem to dislike that these parts are made of PE brass rather than wood, but I think they look good once painted with a bit of dark brown acrylic. Nice clean edges. My “gateway drug” to model ships was book nooks, and I’ve always loved the feeling of putting together a miniature world, which is what you get with deck furniture!

Fairly decent progress. I fit the rudder, the most challenging part of the process turned out to be cutting the nails down to a suitably small size and then gluing them into the pre-drilled holes without creating too much of a mess with the super glue. Judging from other builders’ logs, this seems to be a fairly common headache, regardless of kit, so it’s nice to know I’m not the only one who wrestled with it. I also finished up the bow decorations, which turned out to be a fairly enjoyable task overall. The 1.5 mm brass wire was easy enough to work with, though the real challenge came when trying to get both sides to look identical, which I failed at rather miserably. That said, I’m not too concerned, since only one side of the ship will ever be visible when on display. So if one side looks a little different, no one will ever know… apart from me. In hindsight, I think using laser-cut wood, as some manufacturers do, would be a preferable approach here. It’s a bit more precise than trying to get artistic with metal wire. Still, I really enjoyed the painting aspect, lining everything up with the black and white stripes on the hull was quite satisfying, and it gives a lovely sense of continuity across the whole ship. I made slow but steady progress on the gun ports. These tiny wooden squares were cut from the gunwales, then veneered front and back, painted black, varnished, and fitted with four pieces of PE brass each. A very fiddly job, especially since every tiny brass piece needed a slight trim to fit properly. The instructions seem to suggest applying a black wash over the brass, but not feeling confident, I skipped that. The bright metal adds a nice bit of contrast and visual interest, and since this build is more decorative than strictly accurate, I don’t mind a touch of shine. You can see I've also made a start on the chain plates. I absolutely love adding these. So much visual interest and three dimensional detail....

It’s frustrating and baffling in equal measure. I could prepare a better set of instructions for this kit than OcCre have and I’ve been building model ships for all of 10 minutes.

Attaching the prow adornments gives me another opportunity to have a quick moan about OcCre's dodgy instructions 😆 See below the attachment location for H13, as per the paper instructions. Then the same step in the YouTube tutorial: The attachment location of that piece matters for the vertical supports. Only a minor adjustment, but it means yet again having to detach and rework pieces I've already done! That said... I've found the wire bending at the prow to be quite enjoyable 🙂 It's much thicker wire than used at the stern, so it doesn't lose it's shape easily.

A shipwright drinking on the job? Living up to the highest standards of the Royal Navy, I see 🫡

Over the past few days, I’ve been working on some smaller details. They may be minor compared to the big changes from earlier weeks, but they took just as much time. Plenty of shaping, painting, staining, varnishing and finally gluing. The bow pieces went on without much trouble, though the catheads required more shaping than the instructions let on. Next came the stern details: the davits and the stern galleries. For the windows, used the medium blue provided by OcCre. On a ship that’s otherwise mostly brown, black and white, that small touch of colour is a bit of fun. I like to imagine it as the reflection of sea and sky in the glass, as though the vessel were already out on the water. Finally, the rudder. This only my second model ship. My first was the OcCre Polaris and I still find the rudder really catches the eye on the finished model since OcCre does their pintles and gudgeons in bright brass. The rough section at the top of the rudder slots into the hull and disappears from view once the rudder is installed. Fitting it all together without making a mess proved a bit challenging. Although the gudgeons came with pre-drilled holes, they didn’t line up for this rudder size. I had to cut the gudgeons down, re-punch or drill new holes, and shorten the nails to just a couple of millimeters before fixing them in place with CA glue. I still need to fit the rudder to the ship, but here is the current state of play, after almost 7 weeks. Perhaps approaching the halfway point? P.S. Bending brass wire is no fun at all. I didn't like it for the stern decorations, and I'm dreading it for the bow.

An elegant solution to avoid glue 🙂 Looking good, sir.

Update on a few bits and pieces I’ve noticed that many modelers struggle with the stern piece, since it has to curve both around and underneath the stern at the same time, a tricky fit. I’ve seen a few different techniques: some people use nails, while others soak the wood and clamp it into shape as it dries. Everyone seems to agree it’s one of the more challenging parts. My own approach was simply to glue and clamp it directly in place. Seen above with only one clamp as I had to re-glue one side. Practically no gap on the sides: I chose not to worry about closing the gap underneath. It won’t be visible, and I didn’t want to risk snapping the stern piece by forcing it into two opposing curves. A more experienced craftsman might have managed it with relief cuts and then hidden any flaws with veneer strips, but I didn’t feel confident enough to attempt that. I may break out the wood filler and then paint it and be done with it That said, I do think this section of the kit could have been designed better to allow a flush fit. Still, at this price point, compromises are to be expected.

I’m still fairly new to the hobby, so my experience with paints is limited. That said, I’ve found the OcCre colours to be excellent, provided they’re the shades you actually want to use. A little really does go a long way. Those small bottles hold far more paint than you’ll need to finish a ship, probably three times as much. I bought the Beagle paint set from Amazon.co.uk. It had the exact same product code as the one listed on OcCre’s website and came in identical OcCre packaging. So the mystery remains… If I do have one criticism of OcCre, it’s their instructions. Yes, they provide plans, photos, and YouTube videos but many important details get left out. I often only notice these subtleties after I’ve already glued a part in place, which means reworking it. Clear, thorough written instructions in proper English needn't be the preserve of high end manufacturers like Vanguard.

Lots of painting and staining small parts this week. I thought I'd take the opportunity to discuss the selection of paints OcCre provide for the Beagle. I'm hoping you guys may be able to guide me on some of the more eccentric choices they made 😆 First off, the strangest choice has to be the enormous 50 ml bottle of blue paint. As far as I can tell, it’s only needed for the gallery windows at the stern, and those took literally a tiny drop to cover. I’ve now got a whole bottle left over with no clear use for it. Next up is the gold paint. From what I can tell, there’s nowhere on the ship that actually calls for gold. Maybe a couple of small details, like brushing the ship’s wheel with the tiniest touch for highlights but even that feels like a stretch. I’m also scratching my head over the ochre and the copper. What are these actually meant for? Is the ochre supposed to pass as a kind of wood tone? I know some of the ladders are metal and need to be painted to look wooden, would ochre be the right choice there? Is the copper for the cannons? Those would look better painted black, in my view. Even more oddly, the instructions call for walnut stain in several places, but no walnut dye was included, only sapeli. I've had to use what I have left over from Polaris. Honestly, swapping the huge blue bottle of blue for a smaller one and including walnut dye instead would have made much more sense.