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Mare Nostrum by greyhawk - Artesania Latina - 1:35 - 2016 Redesign


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In November 2016 Artesania Latina completely redesigned their Mare Nostrum fishing trawler, making it more accessible to beginners both in the way it is built and the instructions provided. The end result stays the same as the old Mare Nostrum, but the way to get there was optimized. Once I stumbled upon it I instantly fell in love with the cute little thing and it's greek style colour scheme.
So a few days later my greek fishing boat with a latin name, produced in Spain, crossed the German-French border. Now that's multicultural model building

 

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Inside the box we find 3 sheets of laser cut wood, a box of small parts, two packs of diverse wood rods and strips and a sheet of 1:1 photos as a sort of building plan. If the box seems suspiciously empty, you have better eyes than I did at the time. AL forgot to pack in the hull planking strips. New kit, no biggie, these things happen. AL is sending out the missing strips.

 

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There's no printed instructions anymore, instead one receives a DVD containing a 76 page manual featuring 430 photos and a bunch of videos split into 34 building phases.

 

There's not much text, but the photographs are very very thorough. I'd post an example page but I'm not sure if this is permitted on MSW.

 

Link to the boat at AL

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Phase 1: Hull structure.

 

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As usual we start with fitting crossframes to the logitudinal main frame. This one's a single piece, sorely needed as it is only 3 mm plywood. A sub deck is fit which will carry the non functional model boat engine.

 

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All cross frames fitted. There's minimal warpage on the top part of the main frames bow and stern halves. Not entirely surprising as the material along the sub deck is only a centimeter in height. Easily cured with a bit of filling and sanding until the level gives its okay.

 

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Adding the mast holder and bow strengtheners. Those are roughly sanded a bit in preparation

 

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The engine deck is painted white and then it's on to the main deck. Now we have both a camber and a positive sheer, so this is fun, as the main deck needs to wind against itself in different directions across its length and width. Pictured here is the deck drying for a day after a several hour watering session to preform it before glueing it down. The outer veneer of the decks plywood apparently wasn't glued down correctly in production, so it started to roll up from the board at one location. A bit of sanding solved this quickly.

 

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Perfect fit, if I may say so myself. At least from my point of view. I don't usually build boats this small in size, so I wouldn't know. To close out this stage the hull is faired for the planking, which goes remarkably quick.

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Stage 2: Building the stern former

 

ALs solution to the ridiculously difficult to plank stern section is to not plank it at all. Instead we build up a former out of overlapping wood pieces. Mare Nostrum veterans will notice this very different from the stern former used in earlier kits. Only the upper part of this is sanded to accommodate the stern bulwark right now. The piece itself will not be added to the boat until after hull planking is done and it will be sanded to form even later

 

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Stage 3: Planking the decks

 

A simple alternating pattern is used to plank the deck. The veneer delivered is an absolute joy to work with. It's plyable and flexible and holds a very nice and clean edge. Other manufacturers could learn from this. I mean you, OcCre.

 


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The tiny quarter deck is shaped, sanded and also decked with the veneer. Also pictured is 

 

Stage 4: Building the boat stand

 

The next stage is hull planking, which means we lose the option to use the assembly holder for a short while. Instead the boat stand is assembled and it will give the boat a place to rest in that time.

Not pictured yet: The stand was painted black.

 

And now we wait for my replacement planking strips.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Stage 5: Planking the hull

 

So Friday I came home to find Artesanias delivery of replacement strips...

 

.... rammed 20 cms deep into my angled mail box. Thanks, DHL delivery guy. After spending 30 minutes trying to pull, wedge and cut the package free I was surprised to find the strips entirely unphased and in top condition. Great quality and great packaging by AL.

 

So this means I can continue with my build, which I promptly did. The strips are very nice to work with so far. 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

With stage 5 the hull planking is done for now. Before filling and smoothing a couple of other parts are added though.

 

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First up as stage 6 is the stern part we prepared earlier. While it makes planking the hull much easier, it's not all that helpful in positioning the stern bulwark. Major adjustments are needed here.

 

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Stage 7: Adding the bulwarks was no easy task. As predicted the stern former interdicted with proper placement of the stern bulwark and had to be resanded into a different shape. The scuppers on the left and right bulwark were sitting too high, easily remedied by taking off a bit at the bottom of the bulwarks. The bow section had to be refaired to allow the front bulwarks to sit at a proporly wide angle.

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I really don't like when the instructions go "and now do a thing that's not geometrically possible in 3 dimensional space". 

 

Case in point: This little filler to be attached in step 8. AL steps off for a short trip into n-th dimensional space while supposedly showing how to build this filler. None of it makes any sense whatsoever. I thought about sending that page to Stephen Hawking or Michio Kaku for an explanation, but I'd rather they deal with easier stuff like developing a quantum field theory for gravity. I suspect there's a reason why I've not seen this part turn up in any other Mare Nostrum building log ever anywhere.

 

In any case, I somehow managed to shmorgle it together my way and I never want to hear about this thing again. It breaks my  brain.

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

So finally the weather was cooperative enough I could finish step 9, which involves fairing the stern former to match the rest of the hull, then filling and sanding all of the boat. Special care needed to be placed on the filler pieces which required several layers of filler until they could be sanded into a nice organic contour with the surrounding hull. I'm glad this is over.

 

 

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10: Stem and "false keel"

 

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Welp. This certainly was something. As other have noted with the new Mare Nostrum the stem doesn't actually fit at the top, extending too far ahead for the bulwark to connect. Deepening the front "socket" a bit and modifying the angle slightly allows the stem to fit to the rest of the boat and a short session with filler and sandpaper makes this change largely invisible. At least to me it does.

 

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Stage 11 gives us lots of fun while installing the belting. And with fun I mean wood strips that remain inflexible and prone to breaking no matter who much you water them or apply heat. So I happily went through and destroyed the entire supply of 2x2mm strips until one was found that could take the curvature in the stern. Luckily the model shop is 10 walking minutes removed from my office.


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  • 6 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Installing the first half of the stanchions on Mare Nostrum. If you are building Mare Nostrum: Please be aware there is an error in the instructions. In steps 110 and 111 distance between stanchions is given from edge to edge. This will not fit. Distance must be measured from middle of the stanchions as it is done in steps 112 following.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 years later...
On 4/24/2017 at 3:21 AM, greyhawk said:

I really don't like when the instructions go "and now do a thing that's not geometrically possible in 3 dimensional space". 

 

Case in point: This little filler to be attached in step 8. AL steps off for a short trip into n-th dimensional space while supposedly showing how to build this filler. None of it makes any sense whatsoever. I thought about sending that page to Stephen Hawking or Michio Kaku for an explanation, but I'd rather they deal with easier stuff like developing a quantum field theory for gravity. I suspect there's a reason why I've not seen this part turn up in any other Mare Nostrum building log ever anywhere.

 

In any case, I somehow managed to shmorgle it together my way and I never want to hear about this thing again. It breaks my  brain.

 

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It's been breaking my brain all evening!  WTF?? 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I am building this exact model atm and the instructions state a coat (or more) of nitrocellulose Varnish before painting. Did you do this? And did you use enamel or water based paint?  Could anyone offer guidance or point me to a link in regards to the preparation before painting?  Thank you.  

Edited by blubarb
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