BLACK VIKING

Evening all,   I spent a pleasant afternoon  at the table,   it was detail painting time -  I started by painting the mortar, then the  tile slabs, then I blended it all together with a few coats of flat clear coat.
 
OC.

The longship is officially finished, just over a year from when I began it. It's spanned a rather intense period of my life, including the decline and death of my father-in-law, a lifelong scholar of Old English language and Anglo-Saxon history who was very important to me. In his final days, I stayed at his bedside night and day, at times reading Beowulf to him, including these lines:
 
You have fared in life so that far and near
Forever and ever, you will be honored…
Thus it is duly just
That one praise his prince in poem and story
And hold him in heart when he must head away
Forth from flesh elsewhere. 
 
This build is dedicated to him, as well as to my proudly Norwegian grandfather who was a mentor and role model to me, and who would have loved to see this model.
 
I can't express how much the support, advice, and discussion from all of you following this has meant in the past year. Life has been rough in many other ways beyond the above, that I don't need to go into here, but this model will always be tied to this period of life and I thank you all so much for helping me carry forward. With that being said, here are the twelve images I officially submitted to the NRG 2021 photo contest this morning (there's still time to enter your own models, the more the merrier). The first eight are required angles:
 







 
After this are four optional shots highlighting whatever details are desired. So I included this close view down the central hull:
 

 
This view of the chests, shields, and rope coils at the stern:

 
This overhead view that captures more of the cargo and deck detail:
 

 
And this shot of the crew ready for their next adventure:
 

 
 
I also took these additional shots that weren't submitted but that I also like. First, another of the crew, this time at the stern:
 

 
Then these two vertical views:
 

 
And finally, this one of the model's temporary home. I'm working on getting a full-size display cabinet for my models that will protect the large ones like this and my Arabia more efficiently than individual cases, but for now  this works pretty well:
 

 
To address the inevitable question, my next two projects won't be nearly as interesting to others. I purchased two NRG learning projects to work on my planking and scratchbuilding skills.
 
First, the half-hull planking kit, which I want to do in part or whole with wood I've cut and milled on my property:
 

 
Second, the capstan project, with the same goal for wood sourcing:
 

 
I'll do build logs for these, and am looking forward to working on something smaller for a change after this Viking behemoth!
 
Thanks, again, with all my heart for sticking with me on this voyage.

Sails.
 
The idea was to have a model with masts and standing rigging by September this year (after 5 years of building). We're going faster than planned 👍.
 
Before starting with the sails I need to make some templates first (Me, first drawing something before making it, an exceptional event...)
Drawings of the masts with the yards.

The drawings that wil serve to cut the templates for the sails. These are also useful to see if there is enough room for the runnin rigging.

And I have a large cotton sheet and a sewing machine older than m
Next to do.
Testing the sewing machine (has not been used for over 20 years)
 
Thanks for following, likes and comments
 

Background - 
One day earlier this year I found what I thought was an old penny at the entrance gate to the field where our horses are kept.
When I got it home and cleaned it up it looked like a token with the letters CD with a crown between on it.  After some research it turns out it is the cover of a button from the uniform of a Civil Defence Force member.
I asked the farmer if it could have belonged to a member of his family so I could return it, as he regularly uses rubble from a dumping ground to fill in holes in the tracks.
It wasn't, and he explained that he has an area of land that, during 1941 - 43, Bootle council used as a dumping ground for clearances from the bombing, mainly from the May blitz in 1941. Over the years lots of bits and pieces have turned up, including, gruesomely, some body parts. Over the years other local councils have used Crosby beach front to dump their wartime rubble, and to help create a sea defence.
After 1943 these buttons became plastic / bakelite, and where it came from definately dates it to the Blitz. The members of the Civil Defence Force were initially Air Raid Wardens, but widend into the CDF and became responsible for many other roles during and after the air raids. Liverpool Civil Defence Force
I've found bottles and cutlery but probably this is the most poignant and personal item I've found, belonging to an unknown person who, for whatever reason was unable to join up, took on this thankless and often dangerous job.
My grandfather was a member of the Home Guard during WW2, and one of his friends drove a fire engine His Story which he told me himself but here is told by one of his daughters. And more Civil Defense Liverpool stories Liverpool CDF Awards 1941
These stories and the brave actions were repeated all over the UK.
 
So this turned into my own little homage to these brave people.
This is the first time I've touched a plastic model airplane in about 45 years, but the button desreved a display, not just to be put away.
 

 
Thanks for reading,
Bob

I went a bit further with this model.......unfortunately,  real life called and I had to obey   as mentioned,  the fuselage was cemented together allowed to
dry.
  
the seams were touched up and the nose bubble was added.  I then realized that I had forgotten to add the stand button,  but was at ease,  seeing that it could be added after the fact    the wheels were painted....terrible to paint because the rims aren't raised enough to make the distinction.  this was where I ran into the fit issues with the glass and the nose turret.   even the clear plastic is soft.......trying to be very careful with trimming the parts.

here it is in place on the fuselage...

this was when I got the idea to compare the Revell kit.  hopefully,  in these pictures you can see the difference.

 

the clear parts even look clearer in the Revell kit.   the flat black detail was done on the wings....the starboard wing was done first.

the port wing was done this morning.......still need to touch it up

I still need to do the stabilizer and rudders,  but I needed to deal with the fit issues first.   one half of the fuselage was thinner that the other half,  and it caused the assembly to sit on there lop-sided.  the port side half was sanded to remove the extra material.....I think I got it looking half way decent.

errands are looming.........I'm gonna try to do more on her before we go.   I've done a bit of painting to the B 24D kit......it's a lot easier working with that model,  the parts are so much nicer,  without having to do all the extra clean up.  I haven't done anything to the Pacific Raiders kit.  it has the same problems as the Atlantis kit.......the landing gear vs the closed gear doors being the biggest issue.  I'm sure the fit will be better,  but I noticed that there is no slot for a stand.......makes me curious if the original Buffalo Bill model had one.  I was thinking of taking the stand from the B 25 kit I have {another Atlantis kit},  bit I'd still likely end up making one for it,  so I'll just make one for the Pacific Raiders kit and leave the other to it's own  
more to come!

I work on the sides of the head deck..
 

 

 

 
The ship gained a new image..🎨
 

 

 

 
 

Doing a test piece to see if I can make deadeyes small enough for the foretopmast shrouds. I found card just wasn't structurally capable of dealing with this size, even when impregnated with glue, so I've moved to plastic - the lid of a container of "Nature's Cuppa" - a coffee replacement drink with no caffeine (don't get me wrong; I still drink coffee, but only now and then as a treat.)
 
Here's one of the deadeyes:
 

 
Or in metric:
 

 
and the two deadeyes with lanyards:
 

 
and if you speak metric . . .
 

 
and in my fingers (note Landström's The Ship as the background):
 

 
 
I think I've pretty much hit the limit for small deadeyes, at least with the technology available to me. Fairly labour-intensive, too 
 
Steven 
 

Planking the inner front of the bow turned out as difficult as the stern planking and the result is not my best job. I don‘t know if it is my lack of skill or misshaped pre-cut planks. I spend some time carefully sanding all of them to shape so they fit into each other. I watered them only for minutes and used head to bend them to shape. But when time to install had come I had to force all of them into position knowing something went wrong. Sanding didn’t help very much. Not a good sign for further progress and motivation .. Stay safe.
 

 
 
 

good evening everyone
 
warm here in the UK at present, and we aint used to it, so not much done to the build, the carriage has had a top coat, i will fine sand again and do again
 
the wheels are made up but nothing is glued, so i will strip them down again and do a much better clean up job on them, they can then be filed to shape to get realistic looking spokes
 
 

It has been about two and a half weeks of very focused and intensive paint work.  The starboard, forward bulwark is fully painted, and I have the base colors down for the port side.  Here is an illustration of the effect that the walnut ink has in muting the intensity of the base colors:


 
These pictures give a sense of the difference, but the effect is more clearly apparent, in person.  The brown of the walnut ink lends just enough of a green cast to the lighter, cerulean blue to better approximate a period French blue.  It also has the effect of transforming the darker cobalt to more of an ultra-marine shade.
 
The following closeup gives a good sense for the interplay between the darker old gold and the brighter gold used to highlight all of the larger ornaments:

 
It is also more apparent in that picture, the way the ink gets into the moulded depressions of the yellow ocher trim; they dinge-down just enough to have credible depth.
 
While it may or may not have been a feature of actual practice, in the 1680s, I have made an artistic decision to incorporate silver leaf into areas of the ornamental program where it adds emphasis and clarity to the carved works.  Here, I’ve decided to highlight the under reliefs of the acanthus branches:

 
I am pleased with the dolphins, and even used silver to pick-out the eye relief.  One thing to note, this is the one dolphin hancing piece where the hancing moulding is located properly beneath it; on the aft bulwarks, owing to the layout of the sheer steps and the timberhead railings, that is not the case.  I included the mouldings there, anyway, because they added more than they detracted from the overall design.
 
Well, after very much retouching, this is the highest quality brushwork I can produce.  I will methodically continue along this path, right up to the show in October.  At the least, I am hoping to have one full broadside installed.  We’ll see.  It is a very busy summer, and the days and weeks are just ripping by!
 
Today, I am giving myself a little break from painting, and am making the hanging knees that are just visible beneath the break of the quarter deck.
 
Thank you all for looking in!

To say that my self-imposed deadline has lit a fire under me would be an understatement!  It has been a week, now, and I’ve been painting in the day AND in the evenings.
 
At this stage, all of the primary colors are down and I am ready to spray the ink wash before the gilding of the ornaments.  It is all extremely vivid, right now, but these pics will give a sense of how the frieze will come to life on the aft bulwark pieces:
 

 
Yellow ocher, I think, is a good unifier of these three colors as they all seem to play nicely with the yellow.
 
Figuring out exactly how I wanted to highlight the timberheads took a minute, and execution of the painting took many more minutes!
 

 
I wanted to draw attention to the fore and sprit sheet block entry, so I painted it black.  It seemed unlikely that the sheaves, at this time, would be cast bronze, so I painted them a dark wood brown.
 
Merely by padding the thickness of the sheer railing by 1/32”, I have created a much more realistic sense of scale for this detail:
 

 

 
So, I will finish up the wash and ornamental paint for this piece at home.  Incidentally, the dolphin hances will get the same aqua treatment as the figurehead, and this will be a consistent theme that runs through the ship, all the way to the dolphin on the rudderhead.
 
Tonight, I’ll airbrush the red base-coat for the port side bulwark piece, and the whole process will begin again!  Despite my urgency, this is the standard that I will doggedly maintain.
 
Thank you for the likes, comments and for looking in.

Was able to get several hours of work in on the Hood but still didn’t finish the bridge. A couple of the quad .5 inch guns mounted on top.
 

I see this style very frequently here, and I’m curious about the origin of the style.  

Hmm. Good question. The easy answer is 'tradition'. I assume you are referring to historical English ships. The early 'Navy Board' models of the later 1600's were painted in this style, also reflected in paintings of the period. This was apparently standard on ships of the day. 'Bright' wood was originally oiled, later painted ochre, to protect it. Deck furniture, bulwarks, etc, were red ochre. Again, this was for protection and ochre (earth) colors were inexpensive. The idea that would hide blood was, we now think, simply coincidental. 
 
Later models were not elaborately framed, and solid hull models showed a white or cream underwater body. This replicated  'white stuff', tallow and sulphur based, to deter underwater marine organisms and growth.
 
The black rails and hatch coamings were painted black, I believe, not only as charcoal black was cheap, but because it stood out in sharp contrast to the decks for higher visibility at night as a safety measure.
 
The black wales were not painted black, but coated with pitch for protection.
 
Gold decorative carving is more controversial. Thinking today is that the carved work was picked out in yellow and varnished. Only models were gilded. Of course, there were exceptions for 'prestige' vessels where decorative work was gilded, sometimes with an ultramarine blue background (ultramarine being a very expensive pigment) or a greenish blue called smalt; a much less expensive substitute.

Thanks for the detailed reply @druxey   It seems quite common with the Winchelsea and Cheerful builds.  It looks extremely clean and almost stylized in some respects.  
 
I like it very much, but I’d be curious to see a build done in the style but aged, weathered and used for a realistic appearance.  Even a ship out of the shipyard wouldn’t look that perfect.  
 
Perhaps someone will get brave and do an “aged Winchelsea” build just to buck the trend

Good Morning Tim;
 
To expand further on one aspect of Druxey's reply above, the use of actual gold rather than yellow ochre paint was continued for longer than might be expected.
 
Contracts for ships built as late as the end of the 17th century, in the reign of William and Mary, specify that the royal arms on the stern are to be gilded with real gold. 
 
Mary Harrison's contract for painting the ships at Portsmouth, dated 1703 (Queen Anne's reign) states that the painters will apply 3 coats of primer, & one topcoat 'of a fair colour' to the carved wreaths of the gunports, for 1 shilling and three pence each.
 
Gilding of carved work is more expensive, at 4 shillings & 5 pence per square foot. 
 
Interestingly, the same lady's contract dating from 1676, much earlier, specifies a price for the same work for the carved ports of 1 shilling and 6 pence each. There is no price given here for gilding though, so a comparison of that cannot be made.
 
All the best,
 
Mark P
 

Finally got the foretopsail yard fixed and sewn to the sail.

 
 

 
And I've now done the lateen sails as well. Here's the complete suit of sails, with yards attached.
 

 
And I've finished gluing ratlines to the lower larboard foremast shrouds.
 

 
Paper from the guide stuck to the shrouds before I put the sticky tape onto it, and glue blobs that stuck between the back of the shrouds and the sticky tape, that had to be removed.
 
  
 
I picked the paper off with tweezers. For the blobs of glue I've used water, rubbing alcohol etc.
 

 
Not a perfect result and I think I'll be revisiting these shrouds to clean them up further. And I'll need to re-think the whole process for the next sets of shrouds and ratlines.
 
Steven
 

Got a surprise build I have just pulled the trigger on  (it wont be started for some time though as I have my heart in my  Waterloo build at the moment)
 
When I was a youngster I visited my brother in London and he took me the the Natural History Museum,  I was gob smacked to see not just the Huge  skeleton of Diplodocus  - but what made me stand there open mouthed  was the skeleton of T Rex.
I always wanted to do a skeleton  model of T Rex  but factors never allowed for this  - till I found a monster of a skeleton kit on flea bay  - couldn't help it the pull was too strong.
The attraction of a skeleton over a flesh model is I have only known the skeleton and it represents  what I saw in the flesh, same with the admiral she remembers seeing the same one.
Its Three feet long by about Two feet tall.
 
So this is the bad boy kit  - 
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/110629895158
 
OC.

NEW AT VANGUARD MODELS! - 'BUY NOW, PAY LATER' (Pay In Three) from PayPal.

 
I've been helping Chris with his website and PayPal have really been bugging us with rolling out this system for VM customers. VM satisfies their criteria which allows customers to make purchases from £30 to £2000 using a three-payment system. 
 
Once you go to PayPal checkout, you will have an option to choose this. The total cost is split into three equal payments at 0% interest, and then the remainder is paid on the due dates over the following two months. 
 
The great news is you of course get your items shipped straight away as you would if you'd paid up-front.
 
That'll help break up some of those costs we all have when it comes to buying our kits and stuff!
 
https://vanguardmodels.co.uk
 
https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/paypal-payin3/faq
 
There are some territory restrictions, but can't remember them at moment!
 
 
 
 

So it’s been awhile since my last update, she says in my cupboard for a while between little bits and pieces. So thought I’d do an update.
planning how to do the camo was what caught me out and it just sat there.
 

primed and then some base work by airbrushing through a sponge.

 
then grey coat of paint.
 

 
took awhile how to work out the best way to mask so it has a slight feathered edge. Tape would have been a last resort. So using ziplock bags traced the camo with a pencil.
 

 
then traced it to paper 
 

 
cut them out and stuck them on with Tamiya tape turned on itself to be double sided, took a few days!
 

 

 
I then redid the base effects
 

 
and applied the green top coat
 

 

That is looking mighty fine EJ,   I agree on your decision about the Yellow Ocre  - surely the gold would have been left to the ornate carvings.
 
OC.

First set of rail decorative carvings are ready for paint. Will have to repeat these three more times for the other rails. Not sure if I am going to paint them gold as the kit shows or a yellow ochre. Thinking that I may reserve the gold for the forecastle for country showmanship, and the quarterdeck for flag status and do the midship rails in the ochre. 

Marc, OC, thank you both very much for the kind words. And thank you as always to all the likes and those following along. 
 
Another update as I have had a productive weekend. Rails are up around the bow and now I have started a in-filling the decorative pieces in the rails. These are being carved out of polystyrene sheets as I did for the other carvings. 
 

 

blew my mind too Mark.........the things one finds in research?!?!?!
 
been an interesting turn of events going on here........the Revell kit will be a separate log.  I found some interesting information to go along with it.   I went back into the Mega Hobby site to find decals.  it wasn't going too good....there are no aftermarket decals for Dornier or Heinkel aircraft {this is where I was going to get the call letters from}.  but then.......I saw them!  there is a decal sheet made by Kits World {warbird} for the B 24 'Sunshine'.  they were done depicting the captured plane.  as I looked further.......I was bummed to find that they were 1:48 scale........noooooooooooooooooooooo!
      I contacted Mega Hobby asking if they had them in 1:72 scale.......they replied with a no.......    I didn't bother inquiring about the decal I already got.....my fault for not reading thoroughly.  I did reply to them,  telling them....that's OK......I still love ya,  and proceeded to look up the Kits World site.  I not only found them,  but I found the decals too!  naturally,  I ordered them straight away!  I still need the call letters........I could use what I have,  but they may not look correct........at the moment,  I'm walking on eggshells 
 
I have the Revell / Monogram '60 Chevy Impala hardtop kit......it's what my dad drove when I was a kid.  on the old Model Kit site,  they have a '59 Chevy Impala {bel-air} hardtop........My mother drove this one {it was her first car}.  I always referred to them as Chevy Bel-airs.   the past week I was bummed to see that someone was buying it..........today I looked and they must have decided not to,  because it was back into 'cart' status.  so after a bit of 'carrying on about it',  the admiral gave in...........but I fear that I burned the last of my bridges.  she was pretty stern when she said....'no more!"
 
one thing I need to look into with these two models,  is that neither had a V8 engine.  as I recall,  they both had the L6 engine {I'll have to look up the CID}.
  my dad's car for certain........after all,  I fell on the hood with the tricycle,  piercing the hood and the valve cover! 
 

that is correct.........as I read,  they were stock.  not to get too far off track here,  the L6 was a 235 C.I.  small blocks were next  with the 283 C.I. {the best engine in my view.  larger engines were the 348 C.I. { you could get it turbo charged and with fuel injection.   the 350 C.I. ,  409C.I. and larger came into place a couple of years later.   what surprised me,  is that fuel injection went back that far.......heard about it { like the maintenance free battery},  but never read up on it.  the kit is in the post.........there will be a log     I haven't seen the '59 kit yet,  but these kits do not supply the engine as an option.  they only come with the V8......last time I looked in the box,  it had the triple carb set up. I have never seen one of these cars with a V8,  let alone this carb set up {not even four barrel}.
 
as for the Liberator,  I forgot that I had found another site devoted to captured aircraft.  some of the plane look quite interesting.......
Harold A. Skaarup web pages
......and for anyone looking at getting one of these kits?
Atlantis Plastic Model kits Made in the USA!
......and for those who are looking for decals...
kitsworld Model Decals & Photo Etch for the Modelling Enthusiast