Cazador by Etcher - OcCre - scale 1:60 - Xebec

[Etcher]

There seems to be little information on this ship, with OcCre themselves having nothing useful to tell us. Apparently xebecs played a big part in the second siege of Gibraltor, but that happened four centuries before this ship would have been built! Okay, thanks OcCre.

 

Now to the model,

 

 

It's actually quite an exciting kit to open with lots of little compartments full of goodies. Not sure of the quality as yet but to a relative newcomer like me it seemed impressive. My only previous build being a Caldercraft Sherbourne.

 

This is the keel with bulwarks attached upon my primitive keel base.

 

 

Even at this early stage I like the shape of the ship. I'm not a big fan of massive, bulky ships and I find the Cazador quite elegant.

 

At the moment I'm laying the deck planks using 1x4mm maple strip I bought separate from the kit.

 

 

[S.Coleman]

It's looking good. Should come up nice.

[Etcher]

Thanks Paul and S.Coleman.

 

Main deck planked and quarter deck support installed.

I need to varnish the deck and add tree nails. For treenails I was thinking about drilling small holes, whatever is scale size. Not sure what to varnish with.

Also, I was going to sand the deck with fine wet and dry but have been reading scraping with a blade is better. I used pencil for caulking.

I've also been adding balsa fillers between bulkheads and sanding to shape.

 

Edited December 28, 2015 by Etcher

[Etcher]

I have been scraping the deck with a blade and it has come up okay. The upper deck is half planked now too.

 

it seems as though decks generally weren't varnished. I'm not sure if that means I shouldn't seal the deck at all? Or should I use something to give a more weathered appearance?

[Paul Baayen]

What's the status of thus build?  I have mine coming in the mail soon. Curious where you are at right now...

[mikiek]

Hope he's still out there. I'm curious as well Paul. Got this one on the shelf. Keep us posted when you start yours.

[Paul Baayen]

I will do that, for sure.

[Etcher]

Am I allowed to resurrect this thread from neglected oblivion? How long is it now - over six years since my last post? The model has been rescued from storage and is pretty much where I left it here. Except for a few nibbles from my cat (little bugger).

 

Which bring me to the reason for the post. My model making skills and experience are limited and I’ve never scratch built anything. So I’m wondering if you could advise me on this:

 

it’s where the cat did most of the damage. How would you go about fixing it? Is it possible without replacing the whole frame if I can find some suitable plywood? What would you more experienced fellows do?

 

thanks

Darren

 

oh, the culprit

 

Edited January 7, 2022 by Etcher

[yvesvidal]

I think your cat was mad for not getting enough attention. I have had many many cats and wood models, and I have never experienced such thing.

You need to spend more time with your cat :-)

 

Yves

[gsdpic]

I dunno, the cat looks pretty innocent!

 

I am no expert but seems like you could remove those planks from the front of the transom, saw down at about a 45 degree angle to remove the chewed portion, add in new triangular pieces to restore the original shape, then plank front and back of the transom to hide the repair.

Edited January 8, 2022 by gsdpic

[Etcher]

19 hours ago, gsdpic said:

I dunno, the cat looks pretty innocent!

 

I am no expert but seems like you could remove those planks from the front of the transom, saw down at about a 45 degree angle to remove the chewed portion, add in new triangular pieces to restore the original shape, then plank front and back of the transom to hide the repair.

Thanks. Yes I’ll start be removing the planks. Then I suppose I can glue an oversize piece to replace the bit I cut away and then cut that to size. If I can find a template.

 

Darren

[Etcher]

In the end I did replace the whole frame. I used the chewed transom as a template to create another, drawing up the missing angled part in freehand as best I could. Here is a pic with the new transom planked:

 

 

Now I’m starting to glue the bulwarks to the ship having soaked it a bit and used my electric plank bender for the first time! I’m using ca glue in areas and pva. You can see another nibbled bit by my cat above the third gun port from the back which I’ve repaired and need to re-plank.
 

 

That bulkhead was planked along the inner wall six years ago and has been waiting patiently to be added to the ship ever since 😂

Edited January 15, 2022 by Etcher

[AJohnson]

Hi Darren,

 

I think it salvageable, but I have also seen you looking into a fishing trawler by Vanguard, which would also be a good reintroduction; I'm building one of them at the moment and the instructions are very good for someone "new-ish" to the hobby.

You could always park this build and, do on of Chris's trawlers and armed with that experience tackle this one again? 👍

 

kind regards,

 

Andrew

[Etcher]

3 hours ago, AJohnson said:

Hi Darren,

 

I think it salvageable, but I have also seen you looking into a fishing trawler by Vanguard, which would also be a good reintroduction; I'm building one of them at the moment and the instructions are very good for someone "new-ish" to the hobby.

You could always park this build and, do on of Chris's trawlers and armed with that experience tackle this one again? 👍

 

kind regards,

 

Andrew

Thanks Andrew. That’s what I’m intending to do really. Although I might work on mini projects for the Cazador, I’ll plank the Vanguard kit before planking this one. I’ve looked at the instructions for the Vanguard kits and as you say they’re very good and far superior to OcCre’s instructions.

 

thanks!