Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'Billing Boats'.
-
.thumb.jpeg.ee4d205046163acd786c8b7e92026d43.jpeg)
Started building a old Billing Boats kit. PS hull was told to be the last kit, they started a new production in wood some years later, available today. some tip about glue will be asked for 🙂- 80 replies
-
- 4
-
-
- ps
- colin archer
- (and 1 more)
-
About a year ago, an offer was made on a Swedish model building forum of a barely started model of Billing Boats Meta. At the time, I had just started to work on my Sloop from Roslagen and had begun to read about the costal sailers and small workboats of the late sailing period in the Baltic. I was considering a fore-and-aft schooner as a possible future subject. When I learned that Meta originally had such a rig, I reached out to the man offering the model. As it turned out, he lived just 15 minutes away, and I went over an evening in August last year. He told me that he had gotten the model in about 79 and had started to build it. But soon he went of to university, and it was abandoned. It had then been sitting in first his parent's house, and then in his own basement. Hopefully waiting to be finished. Now he had sold his house and planned to move to something smaller. Apparently he still felt for the model, as he had kept it all these years, and had now reached out to offer it to someone to complete. What I got was the box with all material and fittings, and the bulkheads and keel assembled. As can be seen from the pictures, this kit was made before the introduction of laser cutting. The paler wood looks like Obeche and the darker strips as Walnut. The pale wood is relatively soft and has quite visible grain, but is otherwise of good quality and clean cut. I plan to replace some, possibly all, of the wood with better quality. The same goes for the fitting, a few pieces looks usable, others must be replaced. The brass belaying pins looks OK, while the plastic blocks and dead eyes are terrible. When I got it, the keel and bulkhead assembly was slightly twisted. It might have been assembled such, but I though that it had been lying on the side for many years in a basement. I bought a building slip from Hobbyzone, soaked the assembly and put it to dry for several months while straightened in the building slip. It did not turn out totally straight, the last bulkhead must have been misaligned when installed. I have not decided if I should disassemble the offending bulkhead, or if I can correct it in place with shims on one side and filing on the other? My plan is to modify the model to make the model look like the ship was originally built. In a future post I will present what I have found out about so far, and what I plan to modify in the model to get her to look like it.- 10 replies
-
- 4
-
-
- billing boats
- kit bash
- (and 1 more)
-
The boat This is one of 5 boats deliberately sunk in the mid 11th Century in the Roskilde channel in Denmark to serve as a defensive barrier protecting the upper reaches of the fjord near Skuldelev. The wrecks were numbered by the archaeologists excavating the find and this model is of Skuldelev wreck 3, which is one of the best preserved. The recovered boats are now housed in the Viking Ship Museum at Roskilde. https://www.vikingeskibsmuseet.dk/en/ The kit This the same kit I completed some 50 years ago. The story behind its subsequent demise is briefly told in my introductory post (Hello from Mid-Wales, 24th August 2021). The kit has been discontinued but I picked this one up on eBay. As bought, all timber to build from the kit instructions is present, including sail material, rigging thread, wood stain in granule form, two sets of plans and a bag of small steel nails. I presume the latter are meant to be used to represent rivets although their use is not detailed anywhere and in my original build of this kit I used drawn bamboo pegs; the kit instructions says that treenails were used (up to date literature shows this is actually not the case for most strake to strake fixing) and they could be simulated by ‘marking this with a ball-pen’. I will have to return to the issue of rivets and roves later in the build. Having decided that I wanted to do it better this time round I turned to the available literature for information and advice. Research My original source in 1969 was an academic publication from 1967 describing the initial findings from the Roskilde wrecks and on which the Billing kit was obviously based. The more recent Billing kit ‘Roar Ege’ is based on the Roskilde Museum’s replica of Wreck 3. In the past 50 years the literature on both the Roskilde find and research into Viking boat building methods has expanded phenomenally. The Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde is an amazing resource, not least their experience in building replicas and thereby researching construction methods and rigging. In 2002 much of this was consolidated into The Skuldelev Ships I, edited by Ole Crumlin-Pedersen; the Billing kit is 1/20th scale and many of the illustrations of the original find material in this book are at the same scale. Also of value has been McCarthy - Ships’ Fastenings, 2005, and, of course, the internet which abounds with illustrations of boats or replicas of such from the same era as the Roskilde find which are useful for deciding on how to build the stern section of the boat which was missing from the archeological find. Sailing into the Past, edited by Jenny Bennet, 2009, gave useful insights into construction but the stricture made by Toni Levine in her recent workshop, that replica construction has to meet current safety standards certainly appears to apply to the question of the frequency of rivet fixing in a clinker built hull of this period (mid-11th Century). It goes without saying that MSW is an invaluable source of information both regarding historical accuracy and building techniques. First steps (in no particular order) Build keel, construct planking jig, decide how to transfer strake outlines from printed 0.8-1 mm mahogany to 1.5 mm mahogany sheet. I shall report back with the results. -
I bought this kit many years ago and it is now at the top of the pile - actually it is the last kit in the pile for now. Here are some pictures of the box and contents. The wood looks OK as do the larger laser sheets. The thin sheets are a bit warped so I may have to remake some pieces. There is just one two-sided plan sheet but it is a real plan and not an isometric view. There are some plastic trim pieces that I am not thrilled about but I'll deal with them when the time comes. -
Since other members have posted extensive build reports of this boat kit I will focus primarily on the choices I have made. The main issue of the kit is the scroll parts for the bow and stern which are far too thick. This is the solution I opted for : Some modifications to turn the model into a working rc one : I have also added some 1/24 figures (I will order or make some more in the future): I have finally finished the shields and now I'm going to tackle the oars (also a rather boring and repetitive job). I think that the oars should all have a different length (the midships ones should be shorter than those closer to the bow and stern), although BB do not refer to this in their instructions. Regards, Arjan -
I have decided to start this build log because there is not a lot of information on the Norske Love out there. I have spent hours crawling around the web looking for a completed build log and was only able to find one. It is not just information on the model ship kit that is lacking but also acquiring information about the real life ship has been challenging. The up side to this is I’m working with pretty much a blank slate. I bought this kit online from Great Hobbies PEI, Canada in July 2019 and it has been sitting on my shelf as I completed other projects. This will be my second Billing Boats build so I am very much aware of the lack of instructions common with Billing Boats. However the detailed one-to-one drawings are a definite plus and require careful study to figure out where pieces fit. Right off the start the lumber provided for the keel was twisted. I tried to straighten it by soaking it in warm water overnight then clamping it to my build board. No good. I ended up cutting the keel from one of wood panels that contained the laser cut bulkhead pieces. Made of plywood instead of solid lumber it is dead straight and true. The notch at the bottom of some of the bulkhead pieces was only 7mm so they had to be carefully braced while fitting. Placed a one Krone coin on the keel for good luck. The first deck required a little tweaking to get it fit but the two sections lined up pretty good. The instruction called for the deck planking to be drawn on with pencil but I am going to use wood stock so I used nails to secure the deck to the bulkhead frames. So that is the start, I still work full time so this will not be a fast moving build. I hope to complete this project within three to four years but we shall see. Also my math skills are better than my english ones so grammar police take no offence. Cheers -
I started my build of the Andrea Gail. Small in size but has many details on the finished model. Billing building style of splitting the hull in half then combine together after planking is finished. -
Buildweek 1 - entry 1 Hi there, I just received the kit Havmågen by Billing. Since this I really the Norden, with some colours and additional decals, I chose to place it under Norden. As I am from the Norwegian west coast, these boats are a common sight for me and I look forward to getting to know the hull shape better. In the kit a colour for painting the hull above the waterline is included, however this is not common here. So I'm wondering if I'll be able to plank it so well as not to paint it on my first build, or if I should just focus on gaining experience with this build. Any thoughts on this? I will try to follow the building instructions closely an not make any changes other than absolutely required ones. Possibly with the exception of the painting scheme. Next post will be unboxing and checking that all the parts are there and in good condition. Best regards, Halvor- 33 replies
-
- 7
-
-
- first build
- billing boats
- (and 2 more)
-
A new shipyard to change a little bit the stones... This is the BillingBoats kit of a boat that you don't see much: a Nordlandsboat! Direct descendant of the landskips of the peoples of Northern Europe. The Nordlandsbaaden is a type of boat from Nordland, northern Norway, and dates from the 17th century. As a fishing boat, it had its most popular days from the 18th century until the appearance of motorized fishing boats. These boats were extremely efficient and seaworthy. They represent a culture and a form of expedition that originated in the Viking era. The boats are still built today, and they participate in races and regattas along the northern coasts. I find these boats very elegant and racy. It is of course a clinker hull, I have not yet determined the colors I will put on it. As it is a descendant of the knarr hulls, it will be a good start for the one I will make later... And then, on a scale of 1:20, it allows you to do things ! Length: 710 mm Height: 710 mm Width: 160 mm Beginning of construction : -
Ahoy! from Snug Harbor Johnny, this is my first build log but not my first build. All (but one) of the models I constructed (ships, planes, rockets in wood, paper or plastic) growing up in the 60s & 70s did not (alas) survive transitioning to adulthood, and my adult non-work activities ranged through a wide variety of Colonial crafts demoed in public with my wife - who got me into 're-enacting' time periods ranging from Renaissance to Edwardian ... but mostly of the 18th & 19th century. Now in semi-retirement, I want to more-or-less finish the old first-issue Billings Wasa that works out (as best as I can compare the model to the original) to about 1:105 scale. The information on the newly-raised warship was in the early stages in those days, so I don't fault the kit for making some assumptions to 'fill in blanks' (which there were a few then) - perhaps influenced by a contemporary model of another Wasa built in the late 18th c. (A 17th c ivory model of the Norwegian Lion - a near contemporary warship to the first Wasa comes much closer to the mark, and could be a 'twin' ... but that's another story.) Here is the aging plan (separated down the middle and slightly misaligned) from Billings, which shows the ship having an 18th c windowed stern cupola, the stern not as high as now known, a forecastle deck and a figure head not as jutting as later restored to the original in a Stockholm museum. In fact, the state of restoration and knowledge of the original (and pictures available on line and in books) is astounding - so I'd like to do at least some 'surgery' to make my model come reasonably close to the original. It will by no means by 'museum quality' or 'dead-on' accurate, but still should be recognized by knowledgable modelers as the Wasa. I anticipate that the effort to undo the forecastle deck (forced by the internal bulkheads in the kit at that time) may not be worth the effort. Or I could be wrong about this and with a little guidance I might chance to undertake it. Ah yes, note the hank of full-sized jute rope in the upper left of the picture, which I made myself on a real rope walk that is one of the crafts I demonstrate at historic houses and fairs. (Other crafts have included book binding, candle dipping /molding, colonial gun making, harpsichord playing - on one of three I built myself - and dancing, of all things ... I was strongly encouraged by my wife to help her start an historic dance group.) So I mat yet build a mini-rope walk for making my own scale rope for ship models. Well, there's the hull - untouched for decades - that was single-planked, and has a slight 'bulge' from the middle bulkhead being just a tad fat as supplied (and can be seen on other vintage build of this kit not corrected by fairing) ... and I did not appreciate the finer points of fairing in those days. I drilled little holes and filled then with round toothpicks to simulate wood pegging (tree nails ?). The modeled rings around the gun ports of the weather deck were done as follows: I modeled one in clay on a piece of glass, then painted successive layers of latex gunk (drying thoroughly between coats) to produce a one-sided rubber mold, which I peeled off the glass and cleaned out. Modeling plaster over the back of the latex mold to support the flimsy latex and then multiple 'copies' of the gunport rings could be made from hard dental plastering the mold - taken out when cured. I did the same for little lion's head for the inside of the gun ports (yet to be made.) More on those gunport later. Here's the stern, and the 'carvings' were modeled as described above - except that due to the complexity, I just slathered wood putty into the mold and slapped it onto the back to set. After all, it will all be painted anyway. But the arrangement of the carvings and size of the stern were what was thought by Billings around 1970. I plan to cut of the top below the feet of the lions and move that piece upward to raise the stern to where it needs to be - as well as correct the relationship to the pair of cupids below ... and many more figures need to be added - another challenge. Now for those gun ports. After cutting them (many are not quite square) I glued false 'decking' below each line of ports to support gun carriages and pieces of wooden dowel I drilled-out so that the 'half-cannons' supplied in the kit would fit into them. I also 'lined' the gun ports with small pieces of wood for a better look. Yeah, I know now that the plank widths are out of scale - they should be half the width - and the pegs are way out of scale ... they are what they are, and they really look OK on the model to the casual observer. Now you can see the 'stanchions' (extensions of the kit bulkheads are fat, but they can be trimmed and additional false stations added. There needs to be a third level in the stern, and raining the stern will provide space for that - but it will won't be exactly like to original ... just closer. I'll have to make the 'coffin-like' doored companionways as well. And there's the darned forecastle deck - most warships (at least drawings of them) before and after do have it this way, and perhaps I'll leave it but add a bulwark plus railing. There would be a lot of nasty cutting to get rid of it, and the deck would definitely show a surgical 'scar'. Under where each mast is to go I've already glued a large block of wood to drill a hole into for the mast. Do I try and mess with it, or just leave it alone? Here are some of the kit fittings. The full cannons leave much to be desired, but the ports on the weather deck already align to the carriages as-is. I can carefully belt sand some off the underside and glue 'wheels' on the outside so there will appear to be a little space underneath the carriage. Yeah, the blocks an deadeyes are plastic - but I bought a bunch of wooden ones to use instead. I'll have to make triangular deadeyes for the shrouds. Those bits in the plastic box are little lion heads cast from a latex mold - a few are flipped over to the flat reverse. Now here's a view with the 'half-cannons' installed, and they look OK - a whole lot better than just painting a black square and drilling a small hole to stick the half-barrels in as the kit suggested. Decals were provided for the lion heads for the open gun ports, and the ones I make with 3-D gold painted lion heads will be a definite improvement ... but I might glue the lids open against the hull. I'm trying to imagine the trouble of trying to fashion hinges that will be covered-up anyway, since almost all will be open. Plenty of guns, yeah, I'm all for that ... maybe its a 'guy' thing to build a warship bristling with cannon (a compensation or wishful thinking?) Here's a close-up of the guns, and they have a natural patina from just sitting around for so long. I know I have a great 'head start' (after a long hiatus) to build on what I have and end-up with a pretty good model. I'm NOT aiming for 'perfection' - 'good enough' is good enough for me. I don't want to put sails on - in fact, I'm considering to build it to the restored state of the original in Stockholm that has the first sections of the masts in place and shrouds/ratlines on them. That would be like some sort of Admiralty or dockyard model - plus the lower masts instead of cut-off (or serrated) 'stubs'. Or I could just do the masts and yards complete with standing rigging. That way the sails and scads of running rigging won't be needed. The third option would be to have just the few sails set that were actually used on the disastrous 'maiden voyage' ... most of the sails were found still in storage when the ship was salvaged. Your comments/suggestions are welcome. Fair sailing! Johnny -
Well here we go, with my first log. The Wasa. It looks quite challenging but extremely interesting to build. The history of the ship is fascinating, and one day I will visit the WASA Museum in Stockholm. The attached file is just the beginning, with the layout, and the review of the drawings. I will keep you posted on the progress with as many pictures as I can spare the time for. Looking forward to talking to you all and those in particular building the same boat. JM -
This summer I bought an old second hand kit that had already been started. I think its previous owner bought it in the mid nineties, the certificate that comes with the kit shows number 455. He had already fitted the deck, superstructures, bulwarks, chain plates and bow sprit. Also, the winch was assembled and the hull painted. Buying a kit that has been started by someone else is always a bit of a gamble and usually some mistakes have to be corrected and some parts may also prove to be missing. Fortunately, the only missing parts were a bag of small brass nails which could easily be sourced. Unfortunately, the previous owner of the kit made quite a few mistakes and I will only mention the most annoying ones now. The fore deck companionway and hatch were positioned incorrectly (one full centimetre too far forward). The plastic bulwark end parts were assembled and fitted incorrectly. Winch parts not assembled and painted properly. Needless to say, the colour of the hull bottom will also have to be addressed. Finally, no ballast was added to the hull and since the deck has already been fitted adding the lead ballast will now be more difficult. I started by shaping and assembling the masts and spars. The first pics : [img]https://i.imgur.com/LchH0C3.jpg[/img] [img]https://i.imgur.com/uLYrEYd.jpg[/img] For sanding the main mast into shape I temporarily screwed a metal rod into its base so it would fit into the electric drill head (the diameter of the mast is 2.2 cm, almost the size of a broom handle). Some pics of the boom : [img]https://i.imgur.com/QAz4dSY.jpg[/img] [img]https://i.imgur.com/PKWRqPC.jpg[/img] [img]https://i.imgur.com/R069kAc.jpg[/img] [img]https://i.imgur.com/u1tLn4f.jpg[/img] I applied a uniform colour to the darker pieces of wood : [img]https://i.imgur.com/oOoHPtj.jpg[/img] I have by now also shaped and assembled the boom of the mizzen mast and the gaff of the main mast. I will make and post some pics of these parts later. Regards, Arjan edit: not clear to me why the pics I posted don't show
-
Hi there, all you steam-paddle-boat lovers since I was a teen I had an eye on this lovely boat. It is the long time already out of production vintage Billing Boats kit named "HJEJLEN" Golden Plover, German : Goldregenpfeifer. A few days ago I could hardly believe my luck in finding this offered complete kit-built boat, on Ebay, a bit damaged, together with a suit-taylored glass case, so I invested a drive to the seller in the region of Bremen area, and picked it up. After thorough inspection back home I determined the minimum of parts and components required to restore and overhaul the charming old lady. I shall show the sequences of recovery and restoration in the next weeks to come, here in this tread. As this will be no complete new build, but certainly worth an shorter thread on this forum, as I`m sure that there is interest for this model by the one or other fellow member. Credit goes to the late father of the seller who built this steamer many years ago. It is known to be the oldest live steam, still cruising boat with passengers in the waters of Silkeborg in Denmark Nils name giver birdie, Hjejlen, Golden plover, Goldregenpfeifer -
I'm off on a new build of Billing Boats 1:45 scale model of Jacques Cousteau's research ship Calypso! I've always wanted to build this model ever since I saw it back in the early 1980s but could never seem to find the time (nor the money!). Of course now that I have time (and now that by children are grown and on their own) and more income for fun, I couldn't find the Calypso model anywhere! I read that Billing Boats only make a handful of kits of the Calypso every year and what kits you can find are well over $600 USD! I finally was able to find a model on eBay from a seller whose late father had this unopened kit in storage. When the kit arrived I went through the contents and everything appears to be there and in pristine condition! I'll be going through the instruction manual and studying the assembly illustrations for the next few days. Meanwhile, any words of wisdom or advice from any MSW members on building this kit would be appreciated! -
The making of this model was started in 2006 After visiting the Wasa museum in Stockholm. It's my 1st wooden ship model. Normally I only build military vehicles in 1/72 scale Ps, I understand and read English. But i've never learned to write it. So. All I write in English will be translated from Dutch to English with google translate. Sorry for that. -
Hi all Slowly and steadily construction goes on. Hull planking driving me mad 😠. Started 30 years ago and now returned to finish as I am retired from sea. Billings boats recommend the Power-speed 660 motor but is out of stock in UK. Any suggestions for equivalent would be gratefully received.😊- 2 replies
-
- 4
-
-
- radio
- smit rotterdam
- (and 1 more)
-
Hi Everyone, as this is my very first build, please have patience with me if I do something wrong, and point it out such that I will not make that mistake again! As for the era of the ship, I bought this model because I liked the style of the ship, I loved sailing on a flat bottom ship before, so I have a preference. But the model kit does not tell me anything about the era in which it belongs. I did some research but could not find any information on it besided the model page written up by Billing Boats. The description tell me that these ships whre decomissioned when rail transport was introducted in france, therefor I chose this era to put the buildlog into. After opening the box and reading the instructions (which isn't all that much or elaborate), I really wanted to get started. Examaning the box content: Everything seems to be present, looking at all the parts it looks doable for a beginner, so far I'm happy with my choice. The only thing that is annoying me a bit is the fact that you by a wooden scale model kit which has a lifeboat on its deck, but they provide you with a plastic injection mold replicate of that lifeboat... That one may have to go and might get replace with a home made version out of wood. I wanted to make the build easy on myself so before I started putting anything together with glue I had to improvise a way to make sure the Keel and Bottomplate would be put together straight on a small scale (for normal woodworking I have special clamps for this). But some childhood goodies helped me out here. Lego is one of the few small things I have lying around that I am sure of that the angles on it are as close to 90 degrees and you can get. The Keel requires (you cannot see this on the image) a small strip of wood at the bottom to make it complete. Clamping it all together firmly to allow the glue to set properly. Lets let that set properly and continue onwards tomorrow! If you have any tips and or tricks, let me know! Kinds regards, Ben -
My first goal was to build the Billings Dragen. I loved the clean, traditional look of it. I had purchased the kit 10 years or so back, but life got in the way of starting it. When I was ready to build it, I looked at this forum and discovered it might not be a good "first effort". Thinkin I needed something a little more basic, I went for the "advanced beginner" and thought I build it first, then the Dragen. I found the Will Everard on eBay, and it looked like a good candidate. That's where this story starts. there were some good build blogs and comments here, so that was encouraging. That gave me a lot of confidence, we'll soon see if that confidence was well-founded! As others have noted, Billings is not great with detailed instructions. I don't think I was being overly cautious when I numbered the ribs. As this was my first laser-cut model, I was very impressed with the fit. If you've never build a kit from the bad old days, you have no idea how this speeds up the process! things were moving along pretty smoothly, but from reading other builds, I knew there was a big challenge ahead. More on that next time... -
Hi All, I'm staring a log to show my progress and to get feed back. The model was bought approx. 25 years ago (getting to old for remembering details that far back) at a local bobby shop. I had some model experience before but only plastic, but it look cool and I had high expectations for doing the build in a ferally short time. But the reality came pretty fast. It turn out to be a hell of a lot bigger project that I thought. The instruction was very limited to say the least, only 11 pages with drawings and instruction (in 4 languages). It also turned out that several of the structure was bent. What I've should was return the model and get a beginner model. Well that did not happen. I started building the hull and planking and got frustrated and set it aside for 25 years. Know I'm 25 years older, gotten some more experience and more patience. And want to finish my ship and learn more about ship building. So this is status so far. And here you see one of my challenges, the frame is twisted. So I need to do some visual cheating but compansating on one side to make it look even. Right now I'm waiting for some more planking to finish the hull. I see from other logs that my drawing is quit different in many ways. So will do some more comparing to see if I can pick up some useful tips. I order the Masting and Rigging the Clipper Ship and Ocean Carrier and The Armed Transport Bounty (used, they are to expensive new) to help me out with getting through this build. That was before I came across this forum, where there is a ton of information and experienced people. -
As mentioned in my Fisher34 build log, I have two Billings Colin Archer kits 1/15th scale in the cellar store-room. One of them is now in the broom-closet in my apartment, and the build has just started. Some work was started last summer, but the Fisher soon had full focus again, and the Colin Archer went down again! Andreas Sundt has posted a lot of his Colin Archer build already, so I won't be trying to compete with his efforts. I will however post a few words and photos, as there will probably be some differences between our respective builds. Cross-beams only loosely fitted.They'll be heated and straightened before installing. 6Kg of ballast added in bilges, and a removeable cover made in 3mm light-ply.' George -
I recently started a build of the Danmark by Billings which I started nearly 30 years ago and then let sit idle during several moves over the years. It received some damage during this time which I've repaired. Upon starting it up again I've noted that some3 of the wood pars aren't laser cut but just printed on the wood and need to be manually cut out (which is a lot more work and prone to errors). Enclosed are photos of its current state. I will start on the planking next. The instruction manual is mostly useless with the exception of the drawings.- 39 replies
-
- 4
-
-
- billing boats
- danmark
- (and 1 more)
-
I started the Billings Boats "Norske Love" in about 1986. At the time I was living in Venezuela and purchased the kit No. 437 while on a trip to Europe. The picture shows the wear and tear on the box after travelling through three continents and various home moves. I reached the decking stage before business commitments prevented me from continuing. Now, 25 years later, I am retired and returning to the hobby, picking up this build again. Pictures of the current state of construction will be attached in the next post. -
these past couple of weeks, I've been looking through the logs to see what others have done with this kit. so far, none of them answer the questions I have concerning the winch that sits on the deck, or the winch like apparatus that sit on the base of the pilot house. I went looking for Danish coasters online, to see how these pieces of equipment were rigged.......if they were rigged.......and what their function is. I found a salvage site that showed many different types of winches......but they weren't on board a boat or set up in any way. they are a weather detailer's gold mine! I also found a site...a data base, if you will, of all boats in Danmark that were either for sale, or have been decommissioned and scrapped. here is a real good picture of the apparatus, on {what we would see here in the southern states} what could be considered to be like a swamp boat. what are the shape of the reels? in the kit, and what I've seen so far on models online, none were given much detail......even the picture on the box. if this is a winch use for seine fishing, I would imagine them to have a concave look to them. on the other hand, these types of vessels are usually pulled on shore at the end of the day. the boat is ran to shore as far as the tide will take them, and beached further with the use of a rope or cable, tied to a post onshore. the other question I have, pertains to the use of this winch, located on the base of the pilot house. I have found no pictures of it......this is all I have to go on. hopefully, someone will be able to help me out with this........I think this model has quite a bit of promise, being an advanced beginner's kit. I think a little more depth and detail my enhance the model. I also did not find anything on the Norden either. -
Just got this kit. I haven't built anything for about two years due to arthritis in my hands, so I might not do the rigging, but I think i can still do the carpentry work. So stay tuned, and follow along. I could only find one other log on this ship by "alpayed", and his work is fantastic. Don't expect this quality from me, but i'll try. -
Folks, This is a model that is not seen too frequently on this side of the pond: the famous and legendary Calypso of Jacques Cousteau. The model was produced by Billing Boats in the early 1980's and was offered with an ABS molded hull, lots of injected plastic parts, brass and some wood for the construction of the cabins and decks. The model was offered with all the parts and details (which was not the norm in the 80's) and could be radio-controlled. The model at a scale of 1/45 was close to 95 cm long, 33 cm high and 19 cm wide. I purchased the Billing Boats model in 1985, spending my first monthly pay on the kit and two Mabushi motors. I was working for IBM on the French Riviera at that time. This was my first big kit and I was (and still are) in love with that vessel and its legend. The pictures you are seeing below show the model after 30 years of almost no activity. The model would have to be seriously cleaned up and re-painted. I have removed a lot of parts (the crane for instance) as well as all the radio control gears (battery, receiver, servos, motors, switches and speed controller). That model, like his big sister, has sailed in a few places in the world: the Harbor of Cagnes Sur Mer (salt water) in the Alpes Maritimes in France, some lakes in the South of France near Toulouse, a couple of lakes in Massachusetts near Boston and Lake Lynn in Raleigh, NC. I built a sturdy box that was used to transport it and move it from Europe to the USA. As some of you may know, the Calypso was sunk in the Chinese harbor of Singapore, following a collision with a barge early 1986. One year later she was lifted from the bottom of the harbor and stored in a shipyard. Sadly, Jacques-Yves Cousteau died the same year. In 2006, the wreck was given to the Cousteau Society and after many years of transaction (French administration is heavy and slow), the restoration of the ship started recently. Calypso is considered as part of the French Patrimoine (like the castle of Versailles) and as such will receive governmental funding for its restoration and the assurance of a long and cared for life (hopefully...). Yves
Our Emblem™
