BLACK VIKING

Resizing masts done  :    

More work on the oarsmen. Two new guys added (figures I and J),
 

 
and figures G and H have had their hands carved to shape to fit the oar handles and arms glued in place.
 

 
Here's the process I use to get the hand to fit the handle (Figure I - left hand - the right is already done).
 
Rough cut: the hand is just a squarish block of wood - at this stage I work out where I have to carve the hollow the oar handle will fit into. Note the arm is pivoted on a friction-fitted bamboo pin at the shoulder, which allows me to remove the arm to work on it and also to swivel it down into its final place when I've finished shaping it.
 
  
 
Next, after taking the arm off, carving the hollow and replacing the arm. Then doing it again to get it closer still to the the shape I need:
 
 
 
A bit of shaping of the hand itself:
 
  
 
More shaping of both hand and arm, and cutting a demarkation line at the cuff between sleeve and hand 
 
    
 
And adding grooves to show the fingers.
 

  
Not a perfect work of art I'm afraid, but they do the job well enough (and I'm making a ship model - the figures are just for atmosphere).
 
And here are Figures G and H with their arms swivelled into place and glued in position. I've put wood filler in the gaps between arm and body. Note the enormous shoulders (and upper arms) which are then trimmed to shape once the glue and filler have dried properly.
 
    
 
And here they are sanded and ready for painting.
 

Thanks, I am going to go with the story that this stronghold has been sacked a number of times.  I am getting better due to the help of a file.  Once I get past the bell tower windows will post some learnings.
 
Added a layer of terracotta bricks for contrast and also applied a Matt varnish to that level. 

Around 100 plus Awning stanchions, I ran out of  ones provided with the upgrade so used some I left over from Yamato 

Another update. Lower QGs are enclosed and I am working on closing the stern on the next deck. I finished planking the sides of this deck as well and will soon be working upward on the quarter deck. Progress is slow but forward. 

I know some of the trim looks weird in these pictures, especially on the QGs. That is due to the lack of the decorative pieces that still need to be carved and fit into place. I installed some trim as kind of a place holder and some that will remain but will be trimmed or embellished as needed. It is definitely a work in progress. 
 

And four more . . . two complete and in place, two newly under way.
 

Hi,  Continuing, I’ve made a start on the second planking. This planking is done using 1x6mm lime wood strips, in my opinion far from the best wood for a good finish. I unpacked the bundle of strips and found that unlike the first planks they were of quite poor quality, they were very course grain and the edges were roughly cut and looked prone to splintering. To tidy them up a bit I sanded the edges, I held about six at a time in a sort of simple jig and sanded them as a block. Photo.    It’s a big hull and there are rather a lot of planks to do so being able to do many at a time helped.
 
I started the planks from the top of the waist deck and continued down. My fears about the edges splintering happened, a lot of very fine ones occurred spoiling what I had hoped would be well butted seams. The very rough grain was even more noticeable seen with many of the planks fitted, I’ve shown a photo of this, it really is bad and as this will be a smooth painted hull I can see a lot of work will need to be done to make it acceptable. At the moment I think that it would have been better left as single planked, just another challenge.
 
Ken
 

 

I haven't finished the roof of the village's communal oven yet. I had very little time these last few days to model...
But I devoted myself to one little thing anyway to complete the main constructions: a wall separating the village from the cloister. 
It was out of the question to let the villagers and other visitors see the inside of the monastic part, contrary to the assembly of the basic kit. 
 
So a separation was almost obligatory! 
I added a well leaning against the wall and a drinking trough for the herds and/or the animals in the market place. The layout of this well is inspired by a real site. 😉
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OK. So Wales are fitted at this level and I've offered up the previously made stern counter to see how it all goes together. I've marked the width of this on the main wales so I can cut where necessary to let in the counter back to the aftmost frame. Very carefully re cutting the rabbet line to take the 1mm final planking. At the stern the thickness of the first planking has been fettled a bit too -  allowing for the additional 2mm of final planking.  Trying to maintain something of a taper here for the stern post shape. 😀

Don't go there, Cathead! That way lies madness! I've got 48 oarsmen to do, you'd have 58! (I just checked on your build log). 
 
And anyhow, if your sail is up, you don't have to have anybody rowing. Add to that, you can buy Viking figures, though there are some pretty bad ones out there. Having been a Viking period re-enactor for over 20 years I know. No, they didn't wear ugg boots, helmets with horns, they didn't look like the guys on the tv series Vikings, they wouldn't have worn armour while sailing (it's heavy, plus what happens if you fall overboard) . . . more like this- not a bad selection (the last one is very high status, and I have to say, super-cool):
 
           
 
[Edit]: NOT LIKE THESE!
 
           
 
 [/Edit]
 
OTOH, if you just want to carve a few crew members, maybe that wouldn't send you bananas. Always nice to have another person on MSW carving figures. 
 
 

well most of the first planking is complete, however it surrounds the two upperdecks, and i wanted to deck the midships section, so i have delayed that, The deck planks are Lime 3mm, as i find the supplied 3mm brown strips very brittle and to dark for my liking
altogether, this is working out very well, everything is fitting better (well im happy anyway)
 
 

 
 

 
 
 
 

I added some balsa filler blocks where needed. They secure a smooth plank run and give more gluing surface. Sanded them to shape with a dremel and selfmade sanding sticks. They are all made of scrap plywood and double adhesive tape. Bevelled all bulkheads. The hull is now ready for the first planking. And I will have to clean up my workshop!

 

 

A step forward. To start with, there were several times in finalising and positioning an oarsman where I had to sit on my hands while I waited for glue to dry between one step and the next, but now I've worked out a way to increase the number I'm working on at any one time, so while I'm waiting for the glue to dry on one, I'm working on another.
 
Unfortunately, there is a limit to how many things I can do at once. For example, although I could glue all the upper oars onto the gunwale at the same time, I don't want to because I could easily undo the work with a careless hand movement. However, once the oarsman is permanently in place the oar is also fixed more permanently -it's glued both to the gunwale and to the hands of the oarsman, who himself is glued to the seat and his feet are glued to the deck. 
 
However, as I have now completed several figures I've become able to work on a new figure at each end of the row that's already done. So Figure A has just been completed - he's had his final shaping and sanding, and has been painted and glued in place. Figure B is the first on the starboard side. He's got his arms shaped and glued on, and he's ready to be removed from his seat, and filler put in the gaps between arms and body ready to finish the shaping. 
 

 
Figure C has just had his arms temporarily glued on, ready to be pinned to the body so I can do the hands and roughly shape his arms. This usually takes several tries - I work out where and what shape I think the hands should be in relation to the oar handle, unpin the arm, carve it to the shape I've decided on, then pin the arm back in place. Check to see what still needs to be done, take it off, shape it some more, put it back on again etc till I'm happy with it. Once I've got the arms and hands the way I want them, I glue them permanently in place, as in figure B.
 

 
Finally, as the figure at A is now complete, that leaves me able to glue the next oar to the gunwale (D). As you can see in the first photo the oarblade is being supported (by a little plastic tub) at the same height as the others till the glue dries. In the second photo I've got a bit ahead of myself - I've placed the next oarsman on the bench, but in fact I don't do this till the glue dries on the oar, as it's fatally easy to dislodge the oar by careless hand movements (don't ask me how I know). 
 
Once the starboard figure (B) is permanently in place I'll be able to have four oarsmen in progress at the same time - one at each extreme end of the row on the port side, and the same for the starboard side.
 
I have to keep up the supply of arms, so in between times I'll be cutting out new ones and carving them roughly to shape.
 
Not quite mass-production, but a faster procedure than before.

@victory78
@md1400cs
Thanks for the nice words and for the many LIKES.
 
A quick update:
Today I could finish the starboard futtock shrouds.

Frame Build and The Plankening, Part 1
 
Having read through some of the included instructions (yeah, I know..) and other build threads on this forum I decided that, as a complete beginner, the best thing that I could do with the instructions was to ignore a section of them (yeah, I know..). This kit seems to want the user to build up the hull planking in an unusual way, its probably more beginner friendly but I want to learn more planking skills for future kits so Im going to do my best to plank he hull in a more 'traditional' manner. Anticipating a few mistakes along the way I ordered some extra planking.
 
As you would expect the first thing to do was to build up the hull frame. The bulkheads came away from the sprues easily enough and I only needed to do a bit of sanding to get everything to fit together straight and true. Off to a reasonably competent start at least.
 

 
At the bow of the boat this kit included a couple of pieces to be glued perpendicular to and ahead of the foremost 2 bulkheads. Looks like the purpose of these pieces is to provide a bit more support and gluing surface to planks as they bend around to the front of the bow. As I was sanding the rest of the bulkheads to fit the bend of the planks I had to remove a lot of material here to get these pieces to fit correctly. It was hard to keep both peices uniform and I think if I were to re-do this kit I would subsitiute these pieces for some balsa wood blocks.
 

 
Once I started to fit the planks I decided to work evenly upwards from the keel and downwards from the top (?) towards the middle of the bulkheads. I was able to fit full plank lengths, trimming the planks down to about half of their origional width at the bow and stern. Once the top couple of planks had been added there was a supprising amount of strength to the frame, certanly enough to withstand driving a few pins in to hold the planks while the superglue did its thing. One thing that I did notice was that the second bulkhead from the stern seemed to be too greatly recessed at the top of the boat. If I let the planks lie naturally this bulkhead did not seem to offer the planks any support and I was worried that if I sanded away enough material from the other bulkheads to bring it into line then I would mess up the lines of the hull. Everything seemed go fine with the topmost planks missing that bulkhead anyway.
 

 
One thing I did have trouble with was figuring out the best way to cut my planks. Im sure that this isnt the neatest way but for this build Ive settled on marking out the line I want to cut in pencil, clamping a metal ruler to the line, and then cutting with a scalpel using many passes and a light pressure.
 

 
Edited for crimes against english
 

Thank you Phil. I added a rabbit and corrected the bulkheads so all sizes remain the same as before. After tapering the stern and adding a rabbit I‘m now ready to to glue all bulkheads in place. I will use an alignment-tool from Hobbyzone (that was obviously made for bigger models) for that.

His all, thnx for checking in. Small update: lower shrouds are rigged:
 


 
On to the ratlines 🙂 Question: as the instructions don't mention this, what should be the distance between ratlines at 1/75th scale, in millimeters? Did some looking around, numbers vary from 4 to 7 mms, which is quite a margin I think... Thnx for the help!

Update on the Progress of my take on Revell's 1:96 "English Man O'war"
 
Its been a long 2 weeks or so since my last post because of various other factors and problems outwith my control.
I have now Improvised the Colour scheme which took longer than I thought to decide on piece by piece, as well as doing improvising on some re-engraving of the design on the sides. Gallery sides and balconies all done and fitted with the stern. Also doors, windows, bayling pins, ladders all painted and fitted as well as the shroud stantions. Will be leaving the Anchor, Long boat and Rudder which are painted to near the end before fitting.
 
Next up will be dealing with the Masts and part rigging, but since they seem to be done on a cheaper plastic, I will have to at least sand them down(maybe reinforce them inside as they are in 2 parts) before I can apply paint properly to the part.
All in all its been along 2 weeks outwith this kit, just glad to get bk on it and getting the buzz again. Happy Modelling everyone Take care and #staysafe ⚓⚓⚓🤺🤺🤺

Thank you very much, guys, for your kind compliments.
 
It isn’t so much that Mermaids have legs above the knee, but that Berain was maybe suggesting musculature.  Here is what Berain drew, originally:

Now, if you compare that with this Nat Geo photo of Daryl Hannah in the wild, I think we can agree that Berain was on to something:

Can't go wrong with Daryl - - -
If I say she has a beautiful body, will she hold it against me?
 
Dan

Hello,  I continue tuning up here and there towards realism  redesigned poop with proper base line and corner columns ets...with paneling...i  shaped up figurehead a bit more to pronounce skirts waves ( needs to paint)  and made a prototype of rail panels new  look ,  i tried to mimic paneling with knife strokes, i guess its not worth hassling  beyond that. It will take me few weeks to finish them anyway so i will keep silent for longer. Learning that patience is the rule. All done with one bloody sharp carving knife / walnut beast/ and steel liner. Holes with drill. What do you think folks? Thank you  you for likes dislikes and whatever comments. Vlad 

Well, I said it's not a model unless you've bled on it . . . But this time I didn't cut myself with a scalpel blade while carving. Oh, no - I got much more inventive with self-harm. This time I was drilling a hole through the newly carved arm and into the shoulder so I could insert a pivot to join the two together. Unfortunately I drilled a little too far and into the finger that was behind the shoulder . . . Here's the figure with the first arm and pivot in place
 

 
and here he is with the bloodstain, and the band-aided finger beside it.
 

 

And finally, with his new arms, all painted and in place.
 

 

 
The loose bits of cotton are for the oar-loops - photos further down the page. 
 
Here's the fourth oarsman with left arm partly carved and marked for reduction, then carved to that mark:
 
   
 
Still more carving to be done to get it looking like an actual arm . . . but here he is with one arm carved to shape and glued in place - the other arm is temporarily positioned, ready for trimming to final shape.
 

 
First oar-loop part done.
 

 
 
Oar-loops around the first two oars (far left)
 

 
 
And around the thole.
 
 
 

 
And first, second and third oar-loops completed and trimmed off:
 
    
 

 
I now have both arms of the most recent (unpainted) oarsman carved to shape and glued in place. Next I have to take him back off his seat, add filler where the arms meet the body and carve to final shape.
 
Note in the first of the above three photos how much better this last oarsman's hands are than on the first guy I did (in blue), whose right hand not only has its fingers pointing the wrong way, but isn't even in contact with the oar handle.  I might fix that later down the track, or just leave it as evidence of my improvement.
 
I've also drilled the holes in all the upper oars, to take the little brass pins that will keep them in place on the gunwale, plus added cotton for the oarloops. You can only see a couple of the holes because most of the oars are turned the other way. However, after I did the first few oar-loops I decided to take the cotton back off again and glue it on each oar after it  is in place - it works better that way.
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I just caught up on your build log, Dave, and this hydroplane is a beauty. It's a great tribute to your father as well. It looks really big. What are the dimensions? 
 
I'll put in a vote for making it RC. I'd bet your father would have loved to see it skipping across the water at a blistering speed with a tall rooster tail following in the wake!
 
Good luck on the rest of your build.

A few more photos of the boat on its stand 

Looks like they're now in Spain.   They had a heck of a roadtrip from Italy to Vietnam and now Spain.