BLACK VIKING

Ok, I thought it would be lazy not to do one in the 3 tone camouflage.
dry fit. Should look good weathered, one OD and one Camo. 

So there will be a Holt tractor for each piece plus a lorry 

https://news.yahoo.com/dna-woman-famed-17th-century-120324640.html

Hi ☺️
 
March 2013
 
 

Final pics:
 
 

As Jerry Garcia said, “What a long, strange trip it’s been.”  More strange than long though.  When I look at the build logs on MSW for full-size ship models, I am constantly amazed at the perseverance the craftsmen have focusing on a project that can take years to complete.  It makes the 3 months I spent on this Kraken SIB pale in comparison.  So we’ll just call it a strange trip. 

Before I describe the final efforts of this past week, I want to take a moment and give a big THANK YOU to all the amazing people that have been a part of the adventure:  @Keith Black, @mtaylor, @gjdale, @Ian_Grant, @Landlubber Mike, @Knocklouder, @FriedClams, @BANYAN, @GrandpaPhil, @Louie da fly, @gsdpic, @Javelin, @O.B.one, @Snug Harbor Johnny, @ccoyle, @John Fox III, @Roger Pellett, @Prowler901, @BLACK VIKING, @Charter33, @Paul Le Wol, @woodrat, @Jim Lad, @The Gimps Chimp, @Auger, @bolin, @Bryan Woods, @AJohnson, @DonBMichigan.  When I post entries to this log and see your interest, likes, comments, suggestions, and humor, it's a large part of the enjoyment I get from these efforts.  As with all my other SIB projects, y’all made this one much better than it would have been had I just stumbled thru it on my own.  I cannot thank each of you enough.

Now, the final chapter - the last pothole on this trip was trying to turn the water into a living, breathing, ocean.  My thought was to have relatively calm water around the Kraken’s head with churning, active water underneath the bottle and around the tentacles.
   
First, I added some minor froth where the head and tentacles of the Kraken meet the water.  The froth was cotton pulled from the tips of Q-tips and heavily diluted with white glue.  Then I did some paint shading on the waves to achieve a gradient of dark sea blue at the base to a lighter blue/turquoise tint at the tops.  I used various mixtures of acrylic ultramarine, lake blue, yellow, and gel gloss for the different shades.  Next was adding touches of white paint to the tops of the smaller waves and ripples, followed by adding wave crests to the tops of the larger waves (cotton again with diluted white glue).  The final step was adding cotton splashes at the bases of the tentacles to give the appearance of tentacles violently coming out of the water.  Here's an in-progress pic.

 
I finished all that work on Tuesday and thought I was done.  However, when I backed away and looked at it, something was not right.  But I could not put my finger on it.  I got up Wednesday morning, looked at it again, and it hit me.  Instead of ocean waves, my water looked like snowy mountain ranges.  And what’s the main thing about mountain ranges compared to ocean waves?  Mountains are static.  My ocean looked static.  Blah.  It needed some excitement, movement, churn, swirl, chaos.  

So back to google and studying pictures of ocean waves.  Then it was a matter of repainting the sides of many of the waves and redoing a lot of the crests and froth.  At the end, I think I was able to add a decent amount of life to the water and sort of make it look like it’s being whipped into a frenzy by thrashing tentacles.  Comments and criticisms (good and bad) are much appreciated on the result.



I was breathing this YUGE sigh of relief when a friend reminded me of something I’d mentioned to her a while back.  She asked me, “What about the bit of water running out of the bottle’s mouth?  Are you still going to do that?”  Of course she was talking about @Javelin's suggestion which I had told her about.  I had pretty much decided not to bother with that.  But my friend pointed out that the water in the bottle would not just stop at the mouth’s edge, especially with the angle of the bottle.  
 
She was right.  Furthermore, now that I looked at it, the water in the neck of the bottle looked kind of static just like my ocean had earlier.  It needed an element of movement as well.  So I mixed some epoxy and set up some various ways of capturing a drop.  When they got good and sticky, but not quite hardened, I peeled off the one I like best and stuck it on to the lip of the bottle.
 

 

And with that, my strange Oseberg/Kraken trip comes to an end!  I will add some final pics on the next post.
 

There is a lot of detail to file off on the cockpit bits. Good luck and have fun.
At first, I thought these were location points for the LG assembly, but now believe they are ejector pin marks which need to be filled. Will double check then fill and retouch as needed. Does your kit have these marks, Arthur? No biggie, just something to be aware of.
 
 
 

One last dry fit before gluing the fuselage halves together. A lot of detail buried inside there. You can clearly see the offset between the tandem seats that Ken spoke about in an earlier part of this thread. Thanks again because I would surely thought I put something together wrong if he had not mentioned this fact. Looks odd and have never seen that on another two-seater
.

Hi,
Work in progress update. Got all of the LED’s needed from Evan Designs (excellent source!!!). So started the installs – Yikes this would have obviously been SO much easier had I decided to add lights earlier in this project. But enjoying the current challenge this is creating for me.
 
Where to locate the batteries and two needed on/off buttons to be determined. Battery packs will, of course, fit inside – on/off button locations TBD. Will also make some kind of candle looking housings for the lantern LEDs
 
Thanks for dropping by….
 

And the base coat done. I’m not sure if the colours are exact but Meh!

Quick question (hopefully). When a ship of the 1500s  etc. left the port, which sails were set? I don't imagine all sails were set. I would like to set the sails on my Mayflower the same way. Thanks in advance or the help.

Well, just imagine it.
 
Which sails would be set would depend upon whether or not the wind was blowing and, if so, how hard and in what direction. simple as that. There could be no hard and fast rules. In the 1500's, for sure, it could take weeks or months to await a favorable tide and a fair wind to escape a harbor.
 
Given the limitations of many harbors and the risks imposed in trying to sail large ships in tight quarters, I would expect that the majority of ships were towed out of the harbor far enough that they had a wide berth to work far enough off shore to set sail to their best advantage. In the 1500's, towing was accomplished by oarsmen in small craft rowing so as to tow the boat toward the open sea. Sometimes these small boats were the ship's own boats which were taken aboard once  the ship was under way. Other times, the small boats were supplied by shoreside companies that provided such services for a fee. In fact, most of the U.S. tug boat companies like Crowley and Foss got their starts in this fashion.

Some progress. Can't do models if you dislike painting. So I left my dislike of any kind of paint job outside, and knuckled down. Aided by my 2.5x magnification loupes from work, it looks better than without magnification. Or at least the errors are less obvious. Not quite done and some touching up needed. But overall happy. The purple plastic things on the left are microbrushes used for fillings. It should be freely available on aliexpress. "Dental Microbrush" should get you a hit, if anyone is interested

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate it!
 
@Egilman I wouldn’t claim to be a master yet, but given how inexpensive a package of poster putty is (and how far it goes), I can afford a little error in my trials. 
 
Well, I received some good news this morning, Airfix has shipped out the replacement landing gear parts. Yay! 
 
Andy
 

ok...truthfully....i give myself a 70%ish all around.....and that's way generous compared to the pros around here 😄......now i've got to spend over $100 for glass to slide into the front of the cabinet........damaged one of the side stern lanterns, so i replaced them with a couple i had left over from a different previous kit.....
  oh....i put the figures at the stern, back up
where they belong, cause without them, the top of the transom reminded me of the slab in 2001 space odessey.....it needed company.......😄...sorry if i need to see humor in everything.......just a basic rigging......
   now i have to start rigging my revell constitution with the two sterns, and that's it.....may just do some clay sculpting after that's done...no more rigging...yea!.....so cheers to all 😀.......vic
   
    

good evening everyone,
thank you for comments and likes
 
day 21 1st planking port side complete
 
i needed to fair the parts 29 on the stern post, so i then continued with a rough grit sanding pad and gave the hull a once over, i was real happy with how it turned out, no where ready for the top coat though
i am about an hours work from completing the stbd side, will try and finish that tomorrow, but the boi is in for an operation at the vets, so i might be to stressy for that

good evening every one
thank you for comments and likes
 
day 13 hull faired
 
the weather here has been pants recently, with snow and rain, so i have been doing some smaller projects on the build, but i will post photos later on in the build as I would  like to keep this log in some sort of order, (never achieved that before)
the deck has been sanded and varnished with a water based varnish @50/50
to day a few days delay the hull went outside to be sanded, brilliant, oh thats getting hot fizzle bang me mouse blew up
anyway an trip to Wickes (other palm sanding tool outlets are available0
this is what i have now
 
 

While I'm waiting for glue to dry, or planning my next step, I make blocks . . . I find it quite restful.

And though all the flags are complete, I still have to make the pennants. Here's the first one.

Main martnets. This time I'm doing double martnets, instead f the single ones I did on the foresail. It's going to be very difficult getting everything to line up.


  

 
Steven
 
 
 

Adjustable footrest in place..

Hi,
 
Been away from the yard for a bit of time - so no real updates..
 
Peter (@Katsumoto)
 
Thanks for your very kind post. Yes, you are right the Amati decorations tend to be a little more yellow. I think that over time that they will hopefully fade. Judging from the Amati bits that I added to the forward bulkhead, the others may also “fade” a bit more as well. Good luck with your current project, as well a possibly later starting a sovereign as well.
 

 
Wade13, Wow – so touched by your thoughts – that, BTW, go way beyond my perceptions of what I am capable of. You are overly kind – So appreciate that this project is of great interest for you. You also have a great gift for the written prose….also loved your exaggerations of my skills (;-)))
Again, so touched by your words….
 
I have finally ordered from Evan Designs as many LED’s of different sizes (took three orders) – both flickering and solid, and of different sizes as well that now can move forward installing lights were they may be the most useful. The power source locations are still a work in progress - given that the lights were an afterthought....
 
Regards,
 

 

So a bit busier than the instructions 

The Dock Pilings
Completion of the Main Dock is fairly straight forward. Having previously determined the correct length of pilings required, it was simply a matter of graining and staining the 1/8” diameter dowels and cutting them to length. The position of the pilings is indicated on the provided template and the instructions suggest adding three rows of full height pilings and one row of half height pilings – the latter being to accommodate the addition of scenery base.
 
I will digress for one moment to show off my newest toy. It is a hand operated disc sander (by Ultimation) and is brilliant for fine tuning and especially for squaring ends. Although I already own a very good, powered disc sander (Byrnes), the hand operated version offers excellent fine control. I stumbled across this reading through the Sierra West forum.
 

 
A neat feature is that there is a ledge at the end of the table that provides a perfect 90-degrees – very useful for squaring up ends.
 

 
Once all the pilings had been cut and the ends de-fuzzed and squared off, I drilled a 0.6mm hole in the end of each and inserted a piece of 0.5mm brass rod to act as a locating pin and to assist holding the pilings in place while the glue dried. The pilings were all attached using 5-min epoxy. The instructions also direct us to add barnacles to the first row of pilings at this stage – a task that would be better left until after the addition of the bracing.
 

 
Bracing strips are then cut to length (using the template) from 0.020” x 3/32” strip that has been grained and stained. The instructions then again direct us to add barnacles to the first row. This is the right time to do this, as having already done it prior to adding the bracing, I then had to scrape most of it off to allow the bracing to be placed properly. I also decided to add the barnacles to all of the first three rows.
 

 
That completes the main dock. I then decided to re-visit my brick wall. One of the Sierra West gurus had kindly suggested that it might be a good idea to tone down the brightness of the mortar by applying a light wash of alcohol and ink. I did this and am quite pleased with the result.
 

 
The next step will be adding the scenery base before “planting” the ship and adding the scaffolding around the ship. I must confess to being somewhat apprehensive about this stage, only because I have never done anything like this before. What could possibly go wrong?
 
In the meantime, here are a few “spin” shots of all the completed work to date. The diorama has been cleverly designed to present an interesting view from all sides.
 

 

 

 

 

 
I’ll be back once the scenery base is underway…
 

I found this on Facebook.
 
"Stillingfleet. Yorkshire. The church is Norman. The ironwork hinges and decoration on the south door date to much earlier, probably to the middle of the 10th century when York formed part of a Viking kingdom. That would mean that either there was a church here several centuries earlier than was thought, or, more likely, that the door was brought here from elsewhere."
 
  

The ship appears to be incomplete - by rights it should have an upcurving bow similar to the stern, but it's presumably been lost over the centuries.
 
Steven

The other decorations are also interesting.Are those Adam and Eve, perhaps? And the now incomplete items at the top. The figure upper right might be a flying angel. What, one wonders, is the significance of the ship?

Is the implication that the iron decorations are pre-Christian (e.g., pagan Norse)? If so, the man and woman might well represent the first humans formed from ash and elm wood in Scandinavian creation mythology.
 
It's also interesting how three of the curved straps end in a split design that's mirrored on the ship's sternpost. To me those look like serpent mouths, also a strong symbol in pagan Norse beliefs.