Wasan 1628 by Nazgul - FINISHED - Billing Boats Vasa 1:75

[NMBROOK]

Stunning work Matti    You should feel duly proud for what you have achieved.More than worth the care time and effort and dare I say the odd slightly warm finger.

Kind Regards Nigel

[NAZGÛL]

Cheers Lawrence and Nigel! Yeah I'm missing the summer. And I did burn my fingers a few times, but sanding the smsallest figures thin burned me more.

 

/Matti

[marktiedens]

Looking good as always.

 

Mark

[NAZGÛL]

Thanks Mark! I'll try to get the bow done and try to catch up with your build. Im looking through the reference I have to try to get it right.

 

 

/Matti

[Salty Sea Dog]

That is so cool - love the 3rd picture!

[NAZGÛL]

Cheers mate!

 

/Matti

[md1400cs]

Matti,

 

Yes to all of the above. I really like your perspective on this ship. Beautiful....

 

R/     Michael

[NAZGÛL]

Thanks Michael!

 

It feels great to build some wood again. I have built the ground structure for the bow, and stained and weathered it to blend it with the rest of the ship.

 

 

/Matti

 

 

 

 

[NMBROOK]

Looking good Matti Are the cross pieces standard kit parts?I ask because kit makers quite often supply these of far too large a section and yours look spot on.

Kind Regards Nigel

[NAZGÛL]

Cheers Lawrence and Nigel! Yeah it's a good feeling to move on. I really like the bow on Vasa so I have been longing to start building it.

 

The parts are standard. It seems to fit well, so far anyway. This area is a bit tricky as I had to guess how to build the earlier stages and hope it would work.

 

/Matti

Edited November 3, 2013 by NAZGÛL

[NAZGÛL]

Hey all, Ive done some progress on the bow. Also scribed and weathered the side walls.

 

 

/Matti

 

 

[marktiedens]

Looks good.Mine don`t really have enough curve to them but they will have to do.

 

Mark

[NAZGÛL]

Thanks Mark, I think you did great with yours.

 

 

/Matti

[NAZGÛL]

Cheers mate, yeah I try to get the same feeling on the walls as te rest of the ship. I had to rework them a couple of times to get the finish I want. I dont like the scribed lines to be to black and obvious, but still visiable. After building the galleries and painting the figures it feels like lightspeed building the bow area.

 

/Matti

[NAZGÛL]

Thanks Lawrence, Ive built the basic bow structure. moving on to the ledges.

 

Off topic trivia: yesterday was Gustav Adolf day here in Sweden.

 

 

/Matti

 

Edit: Added a few more pics, now with the ledges in place.

Edited November 7, 2013 by NAZGÛL

[NMBROOK]

The prow looks fabulous Matti   Whilst you may have to thin them down,at least you shouldn't have to bend any of the figures for here

Kind Regards Nigel

[clipper]

Hi Matti, looking good mate, I am hoping to paint my Wasa in the same way as per the original. I hope I can do half as decent a job as you have.

Tony

[NAZGÛL]

Cheers guys! Yeah It was a good feeling to put the soldering iron back Nigel. Good call on the colors Tony, polychrome is beautyful. If I can be of any help dont be afraid to ask.

 

 

/Matti

[md1400cs]

Matti,

 

Nice update. looking very excellent. Be sure to put the "first class" toilets in the right place (:-)

 

Regards,

 

Michael

[NAZGÛL]

Cheers for the kind comments! Yeah, toilets are soon to be made.

 

Its funny how different the bow makes her appear. Ive grown so used to see the model without it.

 

/Matti

[mtaylor]

Matti,

 

From here on out, she'll take on life and look different to you every day.   The prow really looks great. 

[NAZGÛL]

Thanks Mark! Did you change the construction of the big lion in front?

 

/Matti

[jthemanjack]

Hi Matti,

  I have just spent a very enjoyable  hour going through your log......and your doing a lovely job, i would love to take on the vasa one day and was just wandering who do you think makes the best kit and how many man hours do you think she will take to finish.

 

  Cheers 

     Jack

[NAZGÛL]

Thanks Jack, I'm glad you like it. When I started to look for a wood kit I found posts where Fred Hocker at the Vasa museum recommended Billing Boats. Its also the kit they sell (sold?) at the museum. I agree with this,it is the closest in shape and details at the stern, galleries and bow. The overall shape is close also. You "need" to make open gunports though, and that was a little tricky. The sculptures could be better I guess, but do their job and are based on the real ones or Landströms drawings. They are pretty easy to rework and be made to fit as they are made in plastic.

I have no idea how many hours, the sculpture painting takes a lot of time if you do them polychrome. The gunports mod also took many hours to do. It's my first wood kit so it took some time to figure things out for me, if you are experienced you would be faster.

The Revell is the best plastic model but idealized and the scale is rather small.

 

 

/Matti

Edited November 9, 2013 by NAZGÛL

[mtaylor]

Thanks Mark! Did you change the construction of the big lion in front?

 

/Matti

 

Matti,

 

Mine build is bone stock... from the box with just different planking and some rigging changes.   I was too far gone on her by the time I found DDM (before there was an MSW. 

[NAZGÛL]

Lawrence, I'm having a really warm winter so far. I'm not complaining as the last ones were long and cold. Downside is that it's a lot of rain here.

 

Mark, cheers. I'm moddding the original lion as it's pretty good from the side. I post an update later on.

 

 

/Matti

[NAZGÛL]

Lawrence, I love snow, but at the same time I save a lot of money now as I dont have to use any wood to warm it.

 

The galjon lion is finished except the Vasa heraldic shield its going to hold. The original figure are only done in two halves. The sides themselves are not bad and no doubt better then anything I could carve but it leaves just the wood between them and have no face and topside head. I decided to make the face and head out of putty.

 

 

/Matti

Edited November 10, 2013 by NAZGÛL

[NAZGÛL]

Cheers mate! The one against the back looks like a triton. The one behind the head im not sure of yet. Looks like it could be two lying tritons or mermaids but hard to tell. They are not included in the kit and I haven't decided about what to do about that.

 

/Matti

[md1400cs]

Matti,

 

Super nice.

 

After following the Vasa Builds here, I agree with you, the Billings, in retrospect should have been my purchase choice as well. The Corel, for all of its nice features is not very accurate. It needs a lot of customizing. Your Billings right-out-of-the-box is very well designed. The only deficit for a kit of this cost are the decorative pieces. They would have been much nicer in metal, in my opinion. However since they all needed to be painted I suppose that it is a small fault. The pieces are certainly very accurate to the original, Corel's are not.

 

You chose well. Your build is excellent.

 

 

Regards,

 

Michael

[NAZGÛL]

Thanks Michael! I prefer plastic as I can rework them easily. To make, say, the towers the way I wanted I needed to reshape the sculptures and to fit they all ended up different from each other. Plastic makes it easier to get the ship the way I want. I can tweak and reshape the wood construction and then shape the sculptures after what I made.

 

 

/Matti