catopower

I bet you thought I wasn't going to ever make any more progress on my Kitamaebune project, didn't you? Well, I had decided to move ahead with a sail construction plan I came up with in order to try to mimic the different nature of Japanese sails. Well, I spent a lot of time experimenting and just staring at sail material and at the kit provided sails. Then, I decided to go ahead with what should end up being a pretty labor intensive sail construction. I decided I'm going to assemble the sail from separate panels. I MAY stitch the panels together in some fashion, but at the earliest stage, I'm going to be gluing up the panels. I glue most of my ship model sails now, as it avoids creating out of scale machine stitching. Cutting the sails was simplified greatly by using my Silhouette Cameo 3 machine. I drew up a series of long rectangular panels using the Silhouette Studio software and used it to cut a 12" x 12" piece of cloth. To make sure the cuts were clean, I pre-treated the cloth with Terial Magic, which I believe I talked about in a previous post. This stuff, when dry, makes the cloth somewhat paper-like. The cloth cutting session itself didn't take all that long to draw up and run the cutter. Of course, a lot of cut strips, when peeled off the adhesive faced cutting mat, makes kind of a messy bunch with lots of strands stuck together. I cut the loose threads and then cleaned up each strip, trimming away loose threads. I then applied a thin bead of Aleen's Tacky Glue to one edge and attached a piece of thick, beige thread to one edge. I did this with each strip one at a time. It really didn't take me as long as I thought it would, but I still had to spread the work over a couple nights. The main sail on the Kitamaebune is made up of 24 strips in panels of 6 strips each. I haven't quite decided if I am going to juse use the one piece of thread separate each neighboring strip, or if, like on the real sails, I should use two threads, basically lining each panel with its own piece of thread on each edge. Actually, I lied. I created the strips narrow enough to require me to use two threads between each neighboring panel. So, if I don't use two threads, the completed sails should end up a little too narrow. So, two threads it is. Now, I didn't really think about it before I glued the threads to the sail strips, but the identification markings on the sails should really only appear in the cloth, I think. I don't want the threads painted, so I will have to be careful with the painting. I should also do the painting before I add thread to the second edge of each strip, just to be safe. Now, I haven't decided what identifying pattern I'll use on the sail. I could try to do a little research and see if I can identify one that's specific to a certain ship or trader. Few people would ever "get it", but I guess I'll see if I can look something up this weekend. If nothing else, I'll probably just paint a short segment of a couple sail panels. Below is a photo of a model in a museum in Japan, though I don't recall which one. This is actually one of the old Woody Joe kits before they went with the laser-cut parts. It's a bit more of a "shipmodeler's model" requiring more woodworking and it's also a noticeably larger kit. Not as detailed or as accurate, but it sure looks like a Japanese ship model. There were actually two different kits available of similar large side. Sadly, these kits aren't available anymore, but I did manage to squirrel away one of each when you could still get them. I'm afraid to start one, because then the kit will be gone for good. I've thought about just scratch building a model based on one of the kits, so I can keep the original kit intact. Does that sound silly? Anyway, I still have 5 sail strips left over, so I think I'll prep those too, as I'll need them to make the bow sail.

Hi Peter, LOL, the Kitamaebune is acutally a smaller model than the either the Hacchoro or the Yakatabune! 😉 At least, it's smaller in length by about 3" and even an inch or two shorter in height than the Hacchoro. But, the Hacchoro and Yakatabune are both much simpler to build, and better introductions to Woody Joe kit building. The nice thing about the Yakatabune kit is that you have an opportunity to add some details if you want, since it has a little tatami room interior. The Hacchoro looks pretty nice with it's sails set and all the sculling oars. There are things that could be done to detail it too. I've considered building another one that's modified slightly to include details that would show up on a real Hacchoro, or at least on the two remaining replicas. The mini-kits are kind of neat too and they're small enough to base a diorama on one. I've considered having the mini-yakatabune in a diorama of a river or canal lined with cherry blossom trees. Still might do it, as I have one spare kit AND the cherry blossom trees that Woody Joe makes. Water dioramas always look cool to me.

Hi Peter, I went through the small selection of Woody Joe kits of traditional Japanese boats. The Kitamaebune is really the last one, though I do have another Hacchoro and another Higakikaisen kit. For the most part, everything I'm doing is scratch now, including this Takasebune. It was hard to find a drawing with sufficient information that I didn't have to guess on a whole lot. Here's the whole boat, only about 9" long. I was going to make it 1/20 scale so it could be compared with other 1/20 models – a good scale for the medium-sized Japanese boats. But, it was still 36" long, and I'm running out of room here. So, I went with 1/72 scale so it could be compared to the Kitamaebune and later the Higakikaisen model. The model represents a 60-foot (60-shaku, really) boat. These riverboats ranged from around 30 feet to close to 90 feet long. If I recall correctly, a boat this size would typically carry 500 bales of rice.

Hi Carl, you know, I considered making them more detailed, but they are already so small and require me to double-wrap 6 pieces of thread around each one of them that I just don't think I care about adding any more detail to them. At any larger scale, I would have to do more, but these are 10mm lengths and each and every one are done individually. I originally planned on making them from polymer clay, but the softening, rolling to get just the right size, cutting, shaping, baking of each one just added a lot more time than cutting off and shaping the wood. If they were clay, I was going to flatten them a bit. Regarding the color, I've seen bales from newely green rice straw, and I've seen bales from older yellow rice straw. They're definitely a gray green here, but it's also a hand tinted photo, popular in Japan in the late 1800s, and the paint itself seems a bit colorful and unnatural to me, so I mostly ignored the colors. Still, you may be right and a more greenish tint could be called for. I'm not so worried about these in 1/72 scale. Actually, I made these after I started trying to make one in 1/20 scale. I shaped it with polymer clay, and I made it a bit of a flattened cylinder, but making it actually look like straw mat has me a bit perplexed. I have some ideas to try. But, to be honest, I'm not very hopeful that it's going to look right. Which is why I suddenly took to making some 1/72 scale cargo!

Yes Mark. Yes, it is a consolation... 🙂

So, here's something I've done since my last posts back in April and May. I started experimenting with the making of cargo. I am absolutely no expert on the kinds of cargo that these ships carried and how it was packaged. But, I think there are three main types in appearance: rice bales, barrels, and packaged goods. Rice bales, called tawara, are the most regular of the cargo in packaging and quantity, since it's the main staple product in Japan. Rice was put into straw mat bags, which were tied up in a pretty specific manner. These were about 1-1/2 feet in diameter and about 2-1/2 feet long. I found this great photo on the Internet that wasn't accompanied by any description, but from the bow planking of these boats, I can identify these as being from the Lake Biwa area. A little digging leads me to determine that these are Sosuibune (so-soo-ee-boo-ney), which were canal boats that carried rice and firewood to Kyōto in the late 1800s. Anyway, I've been making some tiny, 1/72-scale tawara. I don't know if I'll add them to this model, but I think they would work. They're just so small and time consuming to make as many as I would need. I ended up making them initiall for this project that I whipped out in a couple weeks. It's a Tonegawa Takasebune, a river cargo transport that brought shipments of rice from the farms upriver from Edo. They were famous boats and numerous. One of the noticeable features is a small cabin near the bow. These models call for a large number of these tiny things to be made. But, if you look closely, you might be able to see how I can cheat a little. The bags that are completely hidden can just be plain dowel, the ones on the bottom, can mostly just be detailed on the visible end, the ones on top are the only ones that really need the full detailing. The same would be true for any I decide to mount on the kitamaebune. They take time to make and so many are needed...

I'm just getting back to the Kitamaebune model... yikes, 4 months later! I'm really happy with this model, though it some rough spots early on. At this stage, I feel it's a very accurate model of a 19th century trade ship. I'm going to try going with a kind of complicated and possibly fragile sail construction, but I think it should look very good... right up until it falls apart. More on this later. I just wanted to share this link that I learned about this past week that might be particularly beneficial to those who are building, or are interested in building, one of the Japanese coastal transport kits from Woody Joe. There is a book published by the Tokyo Maritime Science Museum on Higakikaisen and Tarukaisen (barrel carrying transports). It's a small format book that I think cost me only about $10 or so. But, of course, if you want to buy a copy, you pretty much have to be in Japan to do it. Fortunately, what I found was that you can download a pdf copy of this book for free from the Nippon Foundation website (Japan Foundation). Here's a link to the download page (in Japanese): http://fields.canpan.info/report/detail/4963 And, to make life easier for those of us who can not read Japanese (all of us, maybe?), here's the direct link for the download: http://fields.canpan.info/report/download?id=3233 I hope more people will build one of the Woody Joe coastal transport kits, though I know now is a terrible time to try to get one, since normal mail service from Japan to the US is non-existant right now. And, while DHL shipping is available, it's SUPER expensive. One thing to note is that there is a Japanese shipping service that's now available in the US called Yamato Transport. Our favorite Japanese online shop Zootoyz.jp is able to use this to ship the mini-kits to the US, and he can fit 2 or 3 of them in a package, that should cost $20 to $40 to ship, and it shouldn't take more than a couple weeks to get, if that. If you just contact Zootoyz about what you want, he can tell you what they can do.

Well, I'm liking it so far!

Very nice! I'm not sure why, but I've discovered that I really like these Spanish warships. Maybe it's the cool names. My favorite name of these OcCre kits is the Neustra Señiora de las Mercedes – It's just so enjoyable to say. The San Ildefonso is a nice looking ship, and the kit looks nice too. Sorry to hear about the delays, waiting for the additional planks. I know that things like this do happen occasionally. Clare

No. it's so he can identify himself in the mirror.

Hi Jeff, The Amati kit has gone through various changes, but I'm not aware of it being out of production. I do a lot of work with the Amati importer Ages of Sail, and it's still being sold, though now with tools. I think the same kit used to come with a resin hull, and that's no longer available, if that's what you mean. As for blocks, Amati just uses standard Amati wooden blocks. Might not be very accurate for a 1934 boat, but wood is pretty. The kit should come with a parts list in the instructions that identifies the needed blocks. If you want more accuracy, I think the metal blocks that BlueJacket sells might be more correct, though they have to be painted. If you can't find the parts list, I can see if someone in the Ages of Sail shop can dig up the info.

It actually says "INCH" in the front left corner. That's a 1/2" grid. 🙂

Always feel free to ask questions! Asking them inside a build log is perfectly fine, particularly if you have people following it. Occasionally, you may need to go outside of your build log, as sometimes, it's hard to find answer from just those who follow your build. Good luck with your first build!

Beautiful work, Chris! I think this puts you, Chuck, and myself roughly at the same stage. Only, I've had a lot of unrelated issue get in the way that's pretty much halted my progress for the past month or more. Hope to get some progress going again, so I don't fall too far behind you guys!

Hi Bolin, you're doing a great job showing what can be done with a Billing Boats kit. On the spreader, that tube looks awfully thick compared to the plans. As far as drilling it, have you considered just making it out of wood or a styrene strip?

Sorry for the lack of progress on the kitamaebune. I've been going back and forth on the method for making of the sails, but I think I'm going to settle on sewing the seams, but making 4 distinct panels, and lacing them together. On the fore sail, or yaho, I'm considering leaving it off the model. I noticed that all of the drawings that depict the yaho, show it in profile, as if it is turned sideways. This works out fine, because the bottom of the sail is shown below the main stay and its tackle. If the sail is facing squarely forward, the stays would be in the way. So, I'm wondering if that sail was really used primarily for beating or reaching, to use sailing terms? Meanwhile, the big delay is due to work on a model of the boat that Douglas Brooks built last years with Nina Noah and Japanese boatbuilder Mr. Mitsuaki Bansho in Toyama prefecture last Fall. The boat is called a tenma, and is a small, general purpose boat about 13 foot long. My model is close to complete, I just have to add a beam across the top of the bow, and two pairs of half-frames, noting that in Japanese boats, frames are usually added after the hull is constructed. I just finished building a sculling oar and adding simulated nails. Like on the kitamaebune, the nails are copper wire that's been blackened with liver of sulfur. This weekend, I think I'm going to do a little sewing...

Hi Chris, Just saw you started your wooden Wütender Hund build. Looking forward to following your progress. I have some other work getting in the way at the moment, so I haven't made any new progress on my Shipyard card model cog, but I hope to be back to it shortly. Nice start!

I think Don Dressel's book is a great addition to any ship modeling library too, but I always thought it was strangely titled. Given that there is so much more beside planking, I always thought it should be called something more like Planked Hull Construction Techniques, though it would be a more awkward title. The book is still in publication from McGraw-Hill Books, only in soft cover.

You're doing a fine job, Johnny 007. Congratulations on raising sail!

Hi Chris, you're going to have a crowd of people forming a line, waiting to see your Wütender Hund build...

Thanks Moab. As I mentioned to PD Sergeant, it's been a fun build, but it does have its challenges. Chuck, funny you should ask. The order for both wooden kits, the Wutender Hund and the new Kogge von Kampen, just shipped from Poland this morning. Not sure how long it will take to get to Ages of Sail, but they're on their way now. Probably be 3 or 4 weeks before they show up online. Interesting that the new kit looks identical to the Hanse Kogge kit I'm working on, but has a smaller, simpler stern castle, and has a plain sail.

Hello PD Sergeant, good luck with your build. Most important thing is to take your time, test fit the parts, try out painting and gluing on scraps before you try it out on the real parts. Look ahead in the instruction book, so you know what the future steps are. You'll want to uderstand how the steps you take will affect later steps. Also, it's a good idea to take photos and start a build log here, so you can get help here on MSW. So far, it's been a fun build, but it has it's challenges!

I decided it was time to make some more progress on the Hanse Kogge today. Actually, last week I added the upper planking strake to the hull. In the process, I discovered that my planks were running a bit too low, particularly towards the bow. I'm not sure how this will affect the build in the end. For now, the timber heads look like they will stick up too high. Later on, I may just have to trim them down. That's a bit hard to do with card stock, so I treated each of them with a shot of thin CA to stiffen them up. It wasn't a problem, but I noted that when I hit them with CA, there was some kind of chemical reaction. I know this, because every time I did this, there was a waft of smoke! I watched carefully to make sure my card model didn't burst into flames, but I needed the CA to stiffen the cardboard. The only think I can figure is that it was reacting with either the paint, which I think is unlikely, or the contact cement. Now, I've used CA and contact cement together before and never had this issue. So, I don't know what was going on. Anyway, it's done and I and my model survived. Anyway, today I started adding the deck, beginning with the sub-layers... I finally got wise and started writing the part number on the piece in pencil. Below, you can see how much the timber heads stick up. The instructions show them flush with the upper edge of the planking. I'm not sure how I got this far off. I guess I was worrying too much about covering the black reference lines printed on the hull planks, which serve as alignment guides. I placed the planks so as to cover these lines, but I guess you're supposed to only line the plank to the edge of the line, even though it means the line may be visible. It's in the joint between the clinker laid planks, so I guess it wouldn't be noticeable anyway. Below is the deck after adding the strips of planks. As you can see, the deck planks ended up a little splotchy. As Chuck mentioned, it's a bit hard to paint these pieces that make up groups of planks, side by side, without the splotchiness. The next step has me a little nervous, given the issue I had with the bulwarks height. Next, I have to add all the visible framing, of which there is quite a bit.

Hi Chuck, Yeah, my multi-plank pieces look splotchier. I'm just living with it. What I found was that if you don't get it in one thin coating, you have to wait and let it dry over night before you go over it again. Basically, after it's all dried, you can then go back and apply a very thin wash on selected planks, so you get some kind of variation. When it's all done, I think you'll find it looks better than you think it will.

Hi Tim, Thanks for the comments. I use a lot of reference materials including books (mostly in Japanese), websites, personal photos, plus the Higakikaisen kit that I built a few years ago, and have posted many of the sources here. Which reference info are you referring to? Also, there are some very fine builds of similar ships here on MSW. There's this scratch build by guraus. And, there is this Higaki Kaisen by BRiddoch.