BLACK VIKING

A big update from the watchtower:
The watchturrets are glued down, the roofs are done, the wooden defense gallery is there too! 😎
In fact, there are still 2 or 3 details for the tower itself... But it has to be attached on both sides to pieces of wall. The whole will make a whole.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
And a view of the current state of affairs with the entire village.
There's still a lot to do !   😉
 

 

 

 

Thank you Ernie, and for your very kind words!
 
The sails are actually this colour, not pink (thanks to Photoshop masks..). The sail set is sold un-dyed, so you can choose what colour - anything from brown to dark red is fine.
 
I would advise using a cocoa brown dye for sails, or brown for one and dark red ('Brick Red') for another, shades seem to vary greatly.
 
For Alert and Speedy, I have laser cut a new batch of parts, and because I now know my machine, they do look a lot better, presentation wise.

Railings added, barrels for the waist guns plugged in, kit provided plastic sticks Davits replaced with generic aftermarket Ones, and the port side boats added. 
 
I’ll leave the paint touch ups till the end. 

Thanks EQ and Edward for bearing with my admittedly prejudicial viewpoint. Especially as I have not seen almost any of the movies listed.  I apologize for my behavior and attitude but after decades of being branded as damaged goods, (Mostly generally rather than directly) I have a problem with subjecting my senses to more abuse from Hollywood for the sake of watching the tidbits of a movie that may be accurate or close to it.
 
My personal experience as I care to remember it was not all that bad looking back. I enjoyed my job and saw and did many things that others will never get to experience. I went from a naive teen, fresh out of high school, to a full grown adult able to be trusted with getting the job done and taking responsibility for others, and most of all able to think for myself. All this in a matter of just a few months. I saw how other people in the world lived and how good I had it by being born in the country I came from. There was no escape or short time calendar for millions who were born in that country and most just wanted to get up in the morning and live a peaceful day and safely go to sleep at night, just like all of the people in my home country were doing every day. There has been 67 or something other years in my life that didn't involve the military but it will still be the time I grew up for real.
 
My feelings exactly Ken, but as always better expressed! It was not so much about how real the movie was, but how evenhanded.  

I think you're right about the branding, Lou.  We were evil bastards back then even into the 80's.    As for your experience, I still feel the same way for most part.  Up until about 25 years ago or so, I had a hard time being comfortable in my own skin due to certain people I was around.
 
Peace, my brothers.  We're home now.

Thank you Popeye. The last of the more complex flowers is supposed to be hung on the roof later. It is made of light and dark green paper and paper covered wire. The wooden flowerpot is supplied.

I see a lot of new faces here in this forum.......I welcome you    I think that at one time or another,  most of us have cut our teeth on a plastic kit.   some have moved on to wood models for more of a challenge.....to pick up one now reminds us of the challenges we left behind {or so we thought}.    so welcome.......did in........perhaps it will bring memories back and make you feel like a kid again.
 
I have never built one of these kits,  let along heard about the manufacturer.  the Roden company is based in the Ukraine and produces a wide variety of plastic model kits.  I got this one from Oldmodelkits.com this past Christmas.  
  
from the kit,  four different aircraft can be built.....save the box,  since the paint scheme in the instructions are in black and white.
  
the decal sheet is quite large enough to hold all of the decals required.

the plastic appears to be of a hard plastic.......the parts have very little sheen,  as in most kits I've worked with.   I had taken some pictures of the sprues earlier,  but they were still in the bag that they came in.  so I ditched that and opened the bag to show you all of the parts involved.  the kit itself is fairly detailed and does give you some room for options.

keen to note here that there are two propellers......depending on where the plane was built,  different manufacturers were used.  Axial,  Wolff,  Wotan,  and Heine were the major manufacturers at the time.  I've yet to ascertain the specifics on what prop was used.......heck,  I haven't even decided on which one I'm going to model yet     I'll let ya know though     another thing about this kit,  is that there are two stabilizer fins and elevators.....I've yet to figure that out,  although other Fokker D VII and Dr 1 kits I've built had a choice of ailerons and stabilizer / elevators.   I went to Revell {which is now Hobbico} to view instructions of their kits.....I know that some of them had this option.   I found that Hobbico.......nor Revell/Germany,  allows you to view or obtain instruction sheets {sad to see......but that settles that}.  so I went on my own research jaunt for answers.
  
these are the wings.....easy to denote the top wing halves.......the cut outs for the ailerons.......the center wing halves above them,  and the bottom wing halves on the other sprue.  the instructions tells you which stabilizer fin to use......part of my research too.

these are the small parts sprues.......note that there is a choice of ailerons........more research.   the wing parts are of a thicker plastic.....not much of an airspace when assembled.  the fuselage however is of a thinner plastic.......this is prevalent throughout the kit....what needs to have some beef........does.    I think the scale factor is good....I don't see anything out of scale,  as I've seen in other kits .
  
the width of the prop blades is the main difference.  one may provide more push and likely had a slightly different pitch.   the Sopwith Triplane was wreaking havoc in the skies during the first half of 1917.   armed with a single Vickers machine gun,  it was out maneuvering the German fighters.  the Germans struggled to maintain,  but they came to the conclusion that they needed to counter this new menace.  they managed to bring one down....how intact is not known.  Anthony Fokker visited Jasta 11 to take a look at it.  it was April 1917,  that the idea for the Dr1 had begun.   one nice feature in the kit,  is that they give you two sets of  "Spandau' machine guns.  one set does not have the cooling cans on them,  in the event one chooses to use PE.

I'm not going to use pe for this model........but the machine guns does give me an idea or two.   more on the story next........

Hello, encouraged by Kikatinalongs i will submit my own build log of a carrack. I had the fortune to buy it at an auction for the equivalent of 20 $. Although not complete and lacking plans. I bought the plan from cornwall model boats. From start my intension was to use the wood as spare. The big con with my kit, which is quite old probably at least 30 years old, is the quality of metal casting. It is brittle and badly cast. From a personal view i think it quite ugly. Looks like someone put a caravan on top of a lumberyard. Mamoli did not bother to check how guns or windlass were constructed in the 16th century. 
Based on that i decided to make my own interpretation of a 16th century ship. Could possibly look like something sailing in the baltic sea.

Next step...

IBG 1/32 scale aircraft.
 
My current build in the process of finishing up is a PZL P.11c
 
 

 
Then a heavily kitbashed Lanc Mk. 10MR
 
 

Interior needed full rebuild and re purposing. Many little differences




Here’s a big fuselage mod that is a huge spotting feature of Canadian postwar Lancs.
All Canadian built Lancs with heMartin electric turret fitted had the extra fishplate doublers added under where the turret mounted. If you see a Lanc in a museum today, look for these plates. If they’re there, it’s definitely a Canadian built machine.  Postwar, turrets weren’t needed for long anti submarine patrols so the turrets were eliminated at the Unit level. Often, the resulting patch was quite brutally done. Like by a monkey with duct tape and a screwdriver....
 

The RNAS’s pride and joy were the Curtiss-Felixstowe Patrol boats. Twin Rolls Royce Eagles, five Lewis guns plus bombs, these were the original “flying fortresses”. 
I tried to replicate salt staining on the fabric and lower hull, along with the ever present paint chipping on flying surfaces. Aircraft generally show a lot of wear and tear, so I concentrated on showing occasional patchwork, paint wear on ribs and edges, and on a couple areas, at patchworkof continual paint touch ups.
If I had to do it all over, and I might, I’d go for a more factory fresh look. Less controversy that way. But the model has had some continual minor touch ups since these pics and I hope to compete with it in the future.
Taking full pictures of this monster proved difficult.

 

To someone who was not even born the first 15-20 minutes give me a sense of reality and I cant think what they felt, but still got up and pressed on. I for one will be forever grateful for the courage and sacrifice of the armed forces in ww1 and 2 and subsequent conflicts. 
So thankyou. 

Cheers guys!
 
OK, just taken delivery of the Zulu box label, plans and manual, so the kit is now in stock (apart from optional sails, still delayed due to lockdown restrictions..)
 
There is a 36 page full colour manual and 7 50x70cm plan sheets.
 
 

Congratulations on your next best seller.  Well done!
 
And...amazing instructions. I agree with the best way to bring on new modelers is kits with sufficient instructions to guide them to success. Chris does just that. 

Jack once I get the two cabinets built which will be 48"L X 32"H X 22"D I should be good for quite a few years I just have so many little projects going on on the other side of the shop momma likes to keep me busy.I will in fact be  finishing up a chair for the front porch today.Some pics of the wood work side.

Gluing flat to flat in that small area is going to be iffy, Steven.   Maybe fix then in position and band it with something thin?  

Thanks everyone for the likes.
 
A little more progress. I've recycled the old fighting tops from the fore and main topmasts. Even though I'd made a new fore topmast I was pleased to find that I could salvage the old one - though it was broken into three pieces, they were all intact so I could glue them together again. I'd far prefer to keep as much of the original build as possible rather than replace it with new. I'd also made a new main topmast, but in that case the old one was past saving. So here are the old tops in their new homes.

And here's the old fore topmast rebuilt,

and the broken off stump still attached to the lower mast. It might be a bit of a problem to hold the two pieces in alignment while I glue it together again, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I won't be doing that until the hull planking is complete, possibly later.
 
The main sanding of the upper deck is done. Only a little tidying up to go.

The foredeck is proving a bit of a devil to clean. When I was a kid I slathered white glue everywhere, including on this deck, and the dirt is ingrained in the glue. So I have to carefully remove the glue within a pretty confined space. I've tried slicing it off with a blade, scraping it off, and removing it with isopropanol. None of those techniques is perfect - I'm just having to wing it. I'll probably have to remove the foremast bitts to get at the front of the deck, but there's a great glob of glue at the base of each upright anyway, so it's probably just as well.
 
Steven

Finished the planking on the upper deck. A little difficult at the end because the frames were so far apart there was no support for the "pointy" end of the last couple of planks. 

I got a bright idea - glue two planks together for each side.

That seemed to make it possible to cover the gap - that plus friction against the adjoining planks held them in place well enough to glue them in. 
 
So that's done. It has to be sanded down and then that will be complete. I'm pretty happy with it - it's in keeping with the existing decking but can be seen to be different.
 
My next major job will be planking below the water line. Wish me luck!
 
Steven

Thats why I love this forum   so much  of different talents  that  come together   "Priceless"
 
OC.

I took the model/diorama outside in the early afternoon direct sunlight to get some better lighting - the one I took this morning had too many shadows and this digital camera I have doesn't compensate well. So here's the same photos with a little better lighting.
 

harsh.........very harsh........I'm glad I have a merciful admiral  
 
the fun continued.........on with the bottom wing halves!  I thought I was going nutz....  this one certain part.......the rear bulkhead for the inboard engines would not fit.   the landing gear connects to these parts,  so they have to sit flush.   looking the parts over,  I did notice,  what looked like flash on the elongated part that covers the rear section of the landing gear opening.  no.........it looks too thick to be flash.........but a small curved bulge was evident at the base of the elongation.
rear bulkhead and side manifold parts cemented in place
this elongated part in the back of the bulkhead was the problem
check fitting again made me decide to cut the extra plastic off and expose the small curved area.   that did the trick!  the part fit in place perfectly!  the outer bulkheads were fitted in the outboard engine narcelles.  the inboard has them too,  but there are a couple more parts to add.  there are these two tanks that needed to be added.......until the rear bulkheads were in place,  I was baffled how they fit.
  
I had a couple of pictures with the outer bulkheads added,  but they were too blurry,  so I dumped them.   with the two side panels dry,  they were cemented to the openings in the fuselage.  they will be painted Olive Drab along with the outer surface of the fuselage.  I need to mask them so to keep over spray out and off of the interior
I wasn't impressed how these fit....
the bomb bay area of the interior assembly received it's inner hood.

still more to go........more painting to be done with the interior.    still plenty of parts too!

Hi all and thanks for the comments and likes  
A bit more done the wings and tail fins have been fitted and the fuselage glue together.
I have dry brushed the whole aircraft to give it a worn look.
 I have found out that she was hit by flack and number 2 engine caught fire but was put out quite quickly. It was replaced and a new cowl fitted but wasn't painted for a few weeks so I have shown this.
Just a little bit more to do then she will be complete.
Thanks for following 
Martyn

So much for my attempts at coppering the hull.
Pegasus is now back in dock, without copper plates but with white hull below waterline instead.
For the record, it only takes about 30 minutes to undo about 2 days' coppering work.  Still, it was worth it for the experience.
With Pegasus about 99% finished, I've gone back to my other build, the brig Mercury.  A change is as good as a rest...

Very little progress lately. I’ve been occupied with a couple other things. One being getting my dust collection system set up in the workshop which I finally have in place.
I painted the canoe-poorly, I might add. The tape didn’t do its job and there was plenty of bleed of red into the striped area. I did a bit of cleanup and it looks much better.
It took a while to get to this point because when I first went to paint, I taped everything off just fine and, because I don’t have an airbrush (actually, I picked one up after this all happened) I went outside with a spray can. All went well until I dropped the canoe onto the grass, still wet with dew. Needless to say, I had to sand everything and basically restart the whole process. Oh well.
I’ve got the gunwales dry fitted on and they look pretty good. Perhaps this week I will get them glued up and maybe finish this project by the weekend. Maybe.