Ships' Boats by Richard44 - FINISHED - Vanguard 1:64 and Master Korabel 1:72

[Richard44]

Many months ago, I ordered the Master Korabel (MK) kit, but pandemic struck and delivery was delayed. Meanwhile, Chris (Vanguard Models, VM) released his cutter as a standalone kit, so I also ordered this. Both kits arrived within a week or so of each other, so I thought that I would do  a comparison build log rather than two separate logs. The log lacks a little as I somehow managed to lose some photos and couldn’t recover them.

 

Although the VM model is to a scale of 1:64 while the MK one is 1:72, I think they are close enough to stand comparisons.

 

I have put this build log into the 1751-1800 time slot, as is my Pegasus build, though the boats could easily belong to other periods.

 

The two kits. The VM is on the left and has two laser cut sheets, a sheet of PE and a bundle of 1x2mm pearwood strips. Instructions need to be downloaded from the VM website. When the kit contents are compared to the instructions, it seems that something is missing. There are only 1x2mm strips in the kit yet the instructions mention 1x3mm strips in a few places. I checked this with Chris and he told me that he re-considered the 1x3mm strips as he thought that they were over-scale and replaced them with 1x2mm. The MK kit contains only seven laser cut sheets of various thicknesses - no PE. Instructions are included - a sheet of photos at various construction stages, a sheet showing all the laser cut pieces with each identified, and a double sided sheet of written instructions in English, though the terminology takes a bit of getting used to.

 

 

Both kits start out the same - make up the jigs which are used until planking is complete.

 

The keels with the VM one on top. The MK one has small slots along it through which ribs are inserted, and has small fairing blocks glued at the stem. These have laser etch marks to show how much bevelling is required before gluing in place.

 

 

The two jigs, the VM one on the top. Formers are glued to the keel, and the formers in both kits are partly cut to allow removal from the shell of the boat once planking is finished.

 

 

Fairing blocks are in place at the stem of the VM model.

 

 

The VM kit is relatively simple, and planking starts immediately. I started by gluing in place the garboard strake, then continued as per the instructions. Tapering of the strips is required, I did this by eye, and finished up by only needing one stealer strip next to the garboard strake.

 

 

 

The MK kit requires you to glue ribs in place first, with the first four at the bow being pre-cut to allow them to fit together.

 

 

The first four glued in place.

 

 

There is a horizontal former (I guess you’d call it) slotted to let the ribs be fed through it, then through the keel slots and back up the other side. A few minutes soaking allowed this to happen relatively easily. With care no breakages should occur.

 

 

The next set of ribs are positioned over the formers glued to the keel, and can be carefully glued to the very bottom of the formers, but not the tops. The dark lines on the formers show where they will be broken to allow the tops to be removed later

 

 

Once those ribs are in place, planking starts. All the planks in the MK kit are laser cut and spiled.

 

 

Once planking is complete, the shells are carefully removed from the jigs and the formers broken away. At this time the remainder of the ribs in the MK kit are fitted. MK boat on the top.

 

 

VM's cutter on the left and the MK boat on the right.

 

 

As I intend to paint both boats, putty was liberally applied to the hulls to cover  the places where adjacent planks didn’t quite meet (ie the gaps). The VM boat is on the left.

 

 

Next will be the interiors.

 

Cheers.

 

 

 

 

[bruce d]

Like the side-by-side demo, thanks.

[Richard44]

Work on the boats has continued, albeit slowly. The following photos show them after finishing most of the interior fittings. The VM boat uses PE for the floorboards and gratings whereas those in the MK boat are laser cut and scribed.

 

The ribs for the VM were made from leftover 0.6x1mm pear strips from the MK kit, rather than trying to cut down the 1x2mm strips as supplied (the new cutter kit does provide 0.6mm pear for this purpose).

 

The ribs in the VM boat have not yet been trimmed. The instructions say to trim these level with the top of the planking, which makes gluing the gunnel on top of the planks awkward as there is little or no support (as B.E. has pointed out in his log).  A photo of the new cutter shows the ribs extending above the planking in order to support the gunnel and I have kept the ribs overlong at this stage in order to do this.

 

I have added lifting ringbolts in both boats and a small foredeck in the VM boat to cover the ply stem.

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers

[Eugenio Treviño]

Great work Richard!

They are very nice.

[Richard44]

Once all the ribs were in place in the VM boat, the gunnel was glued in position. The ribs were then trimmed flush with the top of the gunnel. The small slots in the gunnels for the oars, three each side, were carefully cut using a standard razor saw, albeit one with 54tpi. The MK boat has thole blocks (I guess they’re called) on top of the gunnels for the oars.

 

Both boats were then just about complete, but both lacked rudders. The VM kit comes with a wood core (rudder plus tiller) and PE facings to go on each side. The facings have the pintles and gudgeons as shown.

 

 

For some reason I didn’t particularly like this setup, so I just used the wood core. The MK kit just has separate rudder and tiller, both wood. I now had to make the pintles and gudgeons for both boats, but after several attempts I decided that my skills were not sufficient to make such tiny parts. I therefore glued, using epoxy, the rudders to each boat, and used narrow paper strips to represent the braces for the pintles and gudgeons.

 

The Vanguard boat complete with rudder and tiller.

 

The Master Korabel boat complete with rudder and tiller.

 

 

The oars for the VM boat were PE, and only needed painting. The MK kit supplied very delicate laser-cut wooden oars that needed the handles built up and rounded off. These had a rounded end which I squared up. They too were painted.

 

 

Vanguard supplied two PE grapnel-type anchors, shown in the above photo. These were assembled (only two parts each), rings added to the shanks and rope tied to the rings (neither were supplied). I decided to put one anchor in each boat.

 

The painted oars, assembled anchors and boat hooks.

 

 

Black painted planks were glued below the gunnels to be the wales. Finally the bottoms of the boats were painted white, the topsides and interiors left natural.

 

The Vanguard boat.

 

 

 

 

The Master Korabel boat.

 

 

 

 

 

Both kits were tricky to build. Vanguard have now released an updated cutter kit, so while I have a few niggles about my kit, they’re irrelevant now. The Master Korabel kit had superb laser cutting that needed almost no sanding to get pieces to fit. The instructions though needed some interpretation, but otherwise were perfectly adequate.

 

Cheers.

[James H]

They both look real nice. That's a lovely write up too.

Quite tempting to get out my MK Yawl while I'm waiting for some Granado parts to turn up.

 

The reworked VM cutter was a lot nicer, in my opinion, to build than the one released first. The planking of the new one is also 0.6mm (laser cut, but not spiled). The finished result is a lot more refined than the original, and I built it with less swearing 😇

 

 

 

 

[Richard44]

54 minutes ago, James H said:

and I built it with less swearing

Thanks for your comments James. Yes, some swearing was involved especially when I dropped one of the knees (that go on the thwarts) onto brown pile carpet 😬😬. It took me about 20 minutes to find it, using a torch held at a low angle - probably could have made a new one in the same time. Cheers