HMS Wolf 1754 by catopower - Shipyard - 1/72 - CARD - 10-gun Brig

[catopower]

I know I've got some other things in progress, and a couple of them are paper/card models. But, I've been trying to promote card model products for Ages of Sail, and I finally couldn't stand it any more, so I broke down and bought one of Shipyard's laser-cut card kits that I've been eyeing ever since it came out. In this case, it's Shipyard's 1/72-scale laser-cut card kit of the 10-gun snow-rigged (brig) sloop, HMS Wolf, 1754.

 

Now, this has been something of a "closet" project, in that I hadn't posted any build log details, though I've been working on the kit since July 23. So, I'm going to maintain on this first page, an up-to-date photo of the build. Then, I'll go back to the beginning and share my build details from there, working my way forward. Someday, there will be a great convergence in the Universe, you will all feel a strange shift in the Force, and the build log will get caught up with the build...

 

Photo taken 9/23/22:

 

 

I bought Shipyard's 1/72-scale HMS Wolf kit from Ages of Sail. Officially, the US Distributor for Shipyard products. Yes, I do some work for Ages of Sail, and this build just shows how dangerous that situation is for me. But, I also build some things to make myself better acquainted with the products. At least that's my excuse for some of my partial builds. This build, however, has been so much fun and it's come along so nicely that I'm really looking forward to completing this model. 

 

In order to simplify this build log, I posted all my components photos into a kit review, which you can now find here: 

 

 

[druxey]

Nice to see you reappear, Claire! That is a sweet prototype to model.

[catopower]

Thanks Druxey, did you miss me?

 

I don't know how accurate the kit is, but I really like the ship. It reminds me a lot of your Speedwell. Also, I find it's just an incredibly fun kit to build. I'm actually quite amazed at how much fun I'm having with it. More on that later...

[catopower]

Building the hull of this Shipyard kit is really a lot like building the hull of any of their kits in that the skeletal structure of the model is very well engineered.

 

As with just about all Shipyard ship model kits, there is a main keel piece and a series of bulkheads, much like with any wooden ship model kit. But, Shipyard kits often then have a longitudinal piece that crosses the frames, horizontally, and often another piece that crosses most of the frames vertically as well. This kit is no different.

 

 

Certain critical bulkheads are laser-etched with reference lines for aligning other parts The parts all go together quite well. I don't think I ever had a bulkhead taken right out of the parts sheet that didn't line up exactly like it was supposed to.

 

 

I'm not quite sure why the instruction have you do this, but the stern assembly is built separately and added to the model later.

 

Here, you can see the stern assembly is now in place. You can also clearly see the bulkhead numbers that are laser-etched on the parts.

 

Getting this far takes a very short time, and begins with simply test fitting all the parts of the framework together.  Once satisfied, it was all glued together, making sure the keel was nice and straight, with no bends or twists in the hull.

 

You’ll note that there is a row of windows in the bulkhead at the back of the main deck. The instructions don’t say anything about this, but show that they painted the interior of the space behind the windows black, as well as the space a the stern where the stern gallery windows will show through. So, I painted these spaces black before I added the quarter deck.

 

The next step will be to begin adding the first hull layer onto the model. There will be three layer for the hull, which should go a long ways towards making a smoothly curved hull. The process is referred to by some as "skinning", though to me the term conjures up the opposite image.

 

[catopower]

Next comes the process of adding the first layer of the hull covering, or "skin" as some people like to call it. With this kit, the process is made simpler by the fact that all the paper parts are pre-cut to proper shape. This speeds up the build, though I found I still took a lot of time making sure that the pieces went on correctly and were well shaped.

 

At this stage, I tend to use contact cement to put these strips into place, but I apply it more like rubber cement, just to one surface, and put them together while it's mostly wet. This is why you'll notice some staining of the paper, left over from the wiping off of excess cement.

 

Some modelers like to add some kind of filler between the bulkheads before they start putting on this layer. But, since this kit has three layers applied, I didn't bother. Other models I've built with three layers, tend to turn out with relatively smooth hulls. The danger is building a model and having the ribs show through. Something that many refer to as the starving cow look. But, more on this later.

 

 

I took a couple breaks during the process of adding this first layer. For one thing, experience with past paper and wooden models taught me to consider well in advance how I intend to mount the completed model. I'm still not sure how I'm going to mount the model, so just in case, I decided to cut a few blocks of wood and glue them into the hull, to provide a little more solid support for possible screws or posts. I realize that the weak point here is the cardboard between the wooden blocks, but at least these should help with whatever method I end up going with.

 

Anyway, with the blocks in place, I could continue with the hull covering.

 

 

The final part of this first layer was the bulwarks piece. To be honest, this is the part that worried me most.

 

Beside the Shipyard kits I mentioned completing, there have been a couple stalled projects and one of the things I had issue with was with the bulwarks construction. So, when I got to this step, I wanted to be sure that I did everything correctly. So, I pre-bent the pieces as indicated in the instructions and glue them into place.

 

Actually, before I did this, you may notice that I have the deck in place. These decks are laser cut and etched with the planking and treenail details, but are left to be painted. The instructions provided information on the color mix to use and how to pre-paint with a provided light color which serves like a primer.

 

Having experience painting card stock, I knew that technique is everything here, as it's easy to end up with a blotchy looking deck. So, I was as careful as I could be. And yet, I ended up with a blotchy looking deck! At least for the moment.

 

I've since don't some work to clean it up and even it out somewhat, but it's still blotchy. I'm just hoping that over time, as I add deck details, the blotchiness will end up less noticeable and, in the long run, just look a bit weathered. I didn't do too much more as it's a short journey from blotchy to ruined. So, the decks were glued into place and the bulwarks pieces were glued into place.

 

You'll notice that the model also has it's first big splash of color at the break of the forecastle. The initial red color provided seemed way too bright to me. It's straight out of the jar of red paint that the paint manufacturer calls cynober or cinnabar. I wanted my ship to look a little less than brand new, and I figured the red color should appear a little duller, due to oxidation. So, I mixed up a jar of the color toned down just slightly.

 

At this stage, the model is pretty delicate, as it's only covered by a thin layer of paper. I'm anxious to get the second layer on, as that will make the whole think a lot sturdier. Unlike the 1/96 scale version of this kit, there is also a third layer with actual individual planks. I'm hoping this will make the model very solid. I know it will make it visually more like an actual planked ship model.

 

The whole time I'm building this kit, I'm always thinking about the HMS Mercury kit I started. So, I'm applying things I've learned there, and also thinking of how I can apply some of the things I'm learning here for when I eventually get back to that build.

 

[ccoyle]

The "blotchiness" is less obvious at a distance. I suppose if one wanted, the etched deck planks could be replaced with some very thin strip wood, like holly.

[catopower]

Hi Chris, I agree. Also, to mitigate some of the blotchiness, I masked off individual planks, and applied addition thin washes of paint to them. That's the main problem with blotchiness, is that it helps to kill the illusion of actual separate planks.

 

Using wood strips is one way to go, though you'd have to be very careful about not bulking up the deck. You wouldn't want to plank over the laser-etched deck, as it would end up raising the deck. Plus, the deck detail is so well done, it would be a shame to lose it. However, a wood deck would make anyone looking at the model think that the whole this is done in wood, since the deck would essentially be the only unpainted part of the ship, except for the masts and spars, which are wood also.

 

In fact, someone here I believe posted this link to a presentation by a ship modeler, who built the 1/96-scale paper model versions of HMS Wolf, and maybe HMS Alert, but used thin wood for the deck and the hull planking. I found it a very interesting presentation: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[catopower]

Thinking ahead here, this kit calls for the hatch coamings and the gun carriages to be painted a natural wood color. 

 

Is there some discussion around here regarding the color of gun carriages and hatch coamings, particularly in the 1750s? 

 

There seems to be some variation and I don't know if there are any rules about it, but I'm considering painting both of these the same red as everything else. Below is a photo from the kit instructions.

 

I suppose an option would have been to present the ship in more of a working appearance. I presume that might have less red on deck. A varnished wooden ship's wheel, more natural wood or more black paint?

 

I think I'm beyond that point anyway, with all the decorative work at the stern, etc.

[catopower]

Also, thinking ahead, I PLAN on adding sails and stowing the sweeps that are shown in the box art. 

 

I'm figuring I'll close all the sweep ports, except for one, just to show what it is.

 

I think the one thing missing from the kit is that it really should have a ship's boat or two.

[catopower]

The second hull layer is made up of strips that resemble whole bands of hull planks. In fact, this second layer is basically the same as the final layer of most of the 1/96-scale Shipyard paper model kits. But, with the laser-cut card kits, this layer is substantially thick. It’s application stiffens the hull further, and should give the third and final layer of planking a good surface to build up from.

 

Something I learned recently, is that it’s best to apply glue only at the frames in order to avoid what some people call the “starving cow” appearance, where the hull frames show through the hull planking, so I tried the technique. It seemed to work pretty well. But, I think it also helped that the layer was fairly thick card stock.

 

Note that the kit has you apply these layers starting at the bottom of the bulwarks piece and working towards the keel. This worked okay, but I can’t help wondering if it would be better to start at the keel and work upwards. Any gaps or overlap would then be covered up by the wide strake at the base of the bulwarks which represents the thick planking of the wales.

 

 

When I got all done with this layer, the hull was definitely a lot sturdier. In the photo below, you can still see a lilttle amount of waviness, where the frames poke through a little, but it’s not very pronounced. In my experience, this should be taken care of by the time I get the third and final layer on.

The main issue I had was that the bottom edge of the bulwarks piece protruded just a little bit. But, at this stage, you can actually do a little trimming and sanding. And, by the time the last layer goes on, things like this should be pretty well evened out.

 

The first of the third layer pieces is shown below, ready to apply to the hull. 

 

[catopower]

So I'm still contemplating the color of the gun carriages and hatch coamings. Also considering how I want to do the sails. The kit sails are nice, all pre-cut, and laser-etched with the panel markings and reef bands. But, I don't know how I want to present the ship just yet. I have time to think about this, but I'll need to decide on the hatch coamings and gun carriages soon. 

 

 

In the meantime, the addition of the hull's third layer begins. The third layer of the hull is pretty much actual, individual hull planks, with the exception of the bulwarks. There are two sheets of thin, laser-cut card stock for this layer, one for each side of the hull. It's nice how the planking is all pre-spiled,

In the image below, some of the individual planks have been glued into place. To make it clearer, I marked the last plank to go on with an arrow. The planks are added from the bulwarks down toward the keel, as per the instructions. Note how the second layer's markings serve as a guide for the placing of this final layer's individual planks. But, you can see that it's a bit hard to line the pieces up exactly, as I had some trouble getting the second layer to lay down nicely at the bow. This didn't turn out to be that big an issue.

 

 

It was just a matter of time before I had all the planks added. I ended up with some gaps close to the end, but the whole model gets painted later anyway so it wasn't a problem.

 

 

There is some excess length to the planks, so that has to be trimmed trimmed off. Below, you can see I’ve now added the keel and stem.

 

 

 

I had some high spots with the edges of some of the planks still, so I did a little light sanding. I also applied some gesso to the bottom of the hull to fill in some of those gaps in the planking prior to painting the hull, which will come up next.

 

There's a little bit of unevenness at the base of the bulwarks piece, but this should be pretty well covered by the addition of the wales.

[catopower]

As I mentioned last time, I had some high spots with the edges of some planks, so I did a bit of light sanding, and applied some gesso to the bottom of the hull to fill in any gaps in the planking. Finally, I used my waterline marker to define the waterline, then masked it off using some Tamiya brand masking tape.

Following the kit instructions, I painted the upper hull yellow and then re-masked and painted the bottom white.

 

 

I decided I didn’t want to use the paint straight out of the provided jars, as the colors seemed too intense. My initial concern was really about the use of red. The outside hull gets some pre-printed frieze design with red background that looked like it matched the color of the paint straight from the jar. Fortunately, the designs were only on the outside of the hull. All my painting of red would be on the inside of the hull. So modifying the red color shouldn't cause any issues.

 

As for the yellow, I lightened it up to reduce the intensity a little, which I decided was only on the outer hull, so it shouldn’t be an issue there either.

 

 

Below is the first piece of the printed frieze design. I don’t know if the design was actually on the operational ship, or if it only appeared in some painting somewhere of the proposed ship, or if it might have eventually been painted over. I considered not using it. But, it adds so much to the decorative nature of the model that I saw no good reason to leave it off. Sorry the lighting wasn't very good for seeing the artwork in the photo.

 

 

At last, I got to work on the face of the stern cabin, which is such a cool little project and looks so nice on the model. I decided to paint it red, but to give some depth to it I painted the underlying piece a dark brown to add contrast. I also painted the columns brown as well.

 

There are several pieces, and it was a lot of fun to put this all together. I think there were 22 or 23 pieces, not including 5 clear acetate pieces for the window glass, which was added later and glued into place using Formula ‘560’ Canopy Glue, which dries clear.

 

 

After that, I added the wales, which covered up some of the irregularities in the hull that were bothering me. I painted the wales black before applying it, then I finished off painting the black portion of the stem.

 

 

The inner bulwarks pieces went in just fine, though they were just a tad long. I carefully lined them up with the gunports to figure out which end I had to trim and by how much. You can’t see it in the photos, but the bottom edges at the forecastle showed a little gap, so before gluing those forward pieces into place, I painted the hull behind the pieces first where the bottom edge would show through. So, now, you can’t see the gap so well.

 

 

Painting the inner edges of the gun ports and the sweep ports resulted in getting a little paint on the outside of the hull. So, I had to clean up as best I could as I went along, then touched up the outer hull with the yellow paint.

 

 

I am super thrilled about how nicely this model has been turning out, and I find it just incredible to get this far so quickly, and to have something so beautiful and amazingly detailed in my hands.

 

Edited September 20, 2022 by catopower

[catopower]

Clearly, the crew is not doing a good job holystoning that deck!

[catopower]

Next step was to add the friezes to the hull. This comes as, if I recall exactly, five separate pieces for each side of the hull. The gun ports and sweep ports provide the perfect guides for alignment of these printed pieces of paper. This printed paper, by the way, is the only thing in the whole kit that needs to be cut by hand. 

Then, the build actually gets a little tricky, when it comes time to add all the moldings that border the friezes. You have to look at the instructions very carefully to make sure the right pieces go in the right places. It can be very easy to get mixed up, and there are also some REALLY TINY pieces. With no extra pieces provided, this is one place where you have to be super careful with the build.

Below, you can see the first really noticeable mistake. I didn’t notice when I glued the clear acetate to the back of the quarter gallery window frames and the frames on one side got deformed in the process. I left it, rather than trying to fix it and probably destroying it. I may eventually see if I can make the deformity less noticeable. But, for now, it’s only really noticeable in a close-up photo.

 

The next mistake, which I did manage to overcome was this knee. I thought it was a single piece, but turns out there was a second piece. They were supposed to be glued together to form one, thicker knee. But, the instructions don’t really make it clear and I only figured it out when I found the second piece.

 

 

I just sliced the second piece in half and glued each slice to either side of the knee that was already in place. Problem solved!

 

The stern gallery was another one of those cool detailed assemblies that would really stand out on the model. This one was 29 pieces, including the frieze.

And, here’s the model at this stage, with all the moldings in place. I was afraid that some of these molding pieces might get knocked off, so I made sure to brush some diluted Aleene’s Tacky Glue along the edges of the molding pieces to help secure them. Even so, I’m extra careful with the model as I’m working on it.

 

 

 

Edited September 21, 2022 by catopower

[catopower]

There's a bit of a big leap here from my last post, which didn't have any of the railings. That was a bit of a challenge, mostly in trying to keep all the timber heads straight, as well as adding the swivel gun stanchions.

 

 

The small timber head pieces that stick up from the rail at the bow are simply glued on to the rail. The pieces are very small, and a bit tricky to mount properly over the lower parts that form rail stanchions. On top of that, they need to be straight. I thought mine were okay, but a closer look showed I was wrong.

 

 

So, I ended up removing some of the timber heads, cleaning them up, and re-mounting them.

 

 

Finally, I come to one of the big steps in the model’s construction, one that I have been waiting anxiously for: the figurehead and decorative carvings.

The figurehead itself and the carvings across the top of the transom and along its sides are made of cast resin and come pre-painted in a bright gold finish. Apparently, in more recent kits, these come un-finished.

 

The figures at the sides of the transom were a bit tall to fit easily, tucked into the spaces for them, so I had to trim the bottoms of these until they fit, after which I could glue them into place.

In addition, there were a number of highly decorative laser-etched card pieces that made up the decorations around the quarter gallery windows, as well as some kind of dolphin decorations that fit along the nearby fashion pieces at the stern. I pre-painted all of these using some gold-colored acrylic paint that was included in the kit. Later on, in order to make the details on these decorations stand out more, I thinned down some brown paint and carefully brushed it into the recesses of the scroll work. Then, I re-applied some gold paint to the high spots on the decorations.

 

Note also that I added the rudder into place, along with the rudder hinges. It’s definitely not perfect. I placed the rudder hinges according to the markings that were visible on the rudder and on the hull’s sternpost. Not perfect, but it looks okay. I have yet to add eyebolts for the mounting of the preventer chains, which would provide an alternative method of steering the ship if the tiller gets shot away in battle. It also would keep the rudder from floating away if it ever breaks loose in battle or in a severe storm.

At the bow, these models feature an object that you rarely see on a kit model. If you look at the base of the stem you can see the horseshoe, which helps fasten the components of the stem together.

 

At this point, the model shows off the level of detail provided in this kit, and it gives a sense of how detailed all of these laser-cut card kits from Shipyard are. I’ve come to realize that I am going to absolutely finish building not only this kit, but I’m going to have to build their other 1/72 scale laser-cut card kits, HMS Alert, Papegojan, possibly the Le Coureur, and most definitely, their massive HMS Mercury kit. At least, that is, unless something happens to change my mind about the kits.

 

By the way, I found the details a bit washed out on the decorative pieces, so I've started to give them a wash of brown paint to try to fill in the deep set areas and give the details a bit more contrast. Hopefully, that's starting to show.

 

 

For now, I’ll be working on this kit, and I’m afraid the apparent progress will start to slow down a lot as I get more and more into the smaller details.

 

I’m starting to consider a few options, like what color the hatch coamings and the gun carriages will be, what I’m going to be doing about the sails, how I will be mounting the model, whether I’m going to use the provided laser-cut card blocks and deadeyes or use wooden ones, etc. 

 

Regarding the hatch coamings and deck details, the kit instructions call for most every structure on the deck to be painted red, except for the hatch coamings and gun carriages, which are shown to be left a natural wood color.

 

I was contemplating painting these items red as well. But, now, I'm wondering if I should just paint all the deck furniture a natural brown color? Any thoughts?

 

There seems to be a more recent trend in wooden ship modeling to paint deck furniture red. The old tradition was leaving things natural. But, that was to show off the wood of a model. This model is not wood, so there's no need to show off wood. Still, wood colored deck furniture will make the model look more like it's wooden cousins, which is part of a valid visual effect for a paper/card model. Opinions are welcome!

 

Below, you can see the hatch coamings dry fit into place to give some idea of what I'm talking about.

 

Edited September 23, 2022 by catopower

[catopower]

After a pause to get some other work done, I'm back to making some small progress on HMS Wolf.

 

I took the time to consider the painting of the deck details, and got some ideas and information, but I'm dragging out the decision by working on parts unaffected by the decision, and working on parts that will be painted later.

 

Some of the parts shown below need a bit more paint, but I might deal with that after some further construction work is done...

 

Organizing assorted parts, some assembled, some not yet...

Hinges on the sweep ports are incredibly tiny and there are NO SPARES...

 

Advance work on mast tops. Why not?

 

Capstan looks a lot better when not magnified by a camera! There are 23 parts that make up this assembly...

 

Okay, the gun carriages don't look too bad when heavily magnified...

 

FYI, I'm leaning towards painting the gun carriages red, and possibly the hatch coamings as well. This will make the deck very red. But, I don't have any models that display this kind of color scheme, so it will stand apart among my models.

 

There's a long way to go yet, but I am getting close to the point where I'll have to start dealing with the masting and rigging. I've actually made up the deadeyes and just need to finish them up in preparation for mounting them. 

 

Pretty soon, I'll post photos of the full model again, once I have some of the deck furniture and other details in place. But, in the last photo of the previous post, you can see the model with most of the sweep ports in place. I actually did those a while back.

 

Edited October 25, 2022 by catopower

[catopower]

Progress continues to be slow at this stage, but I did decided on the above the deck paint scheme. I'm going all red, primarily. So, red gun carriages and wheels, and red hatch coamings. I chose this, mostly because I haven't used this color scheme before and, of course, because it does fit the era. I'll save natural wood color for wooden models, at least this time.

 

I finished assembling the gun carriages. I had the common problem of the thicker cardboard parts being a little "squishy" and prone to damage, so I gave the completed carriages a touch of thin CA glue here and there, which hardens the parts as well as the joints, making them very solid. Afterwards, I painted them red, again, using a red mixture rather than the red paint straight from the included paint jar.

 

I also started the long process of making and adding all the eyebolts and ringbolts. 5 eyebolts and 2 rings on each cannon means making a total of 50 eyebolts and 20 rings. I'm making them because the kit provides only spools of wire for the metal parts, and because commercially available eyebolts are too large. The kit actually has you using thin copper wire that they provide. But, I found the copper to be too soft for my liking. I've always made my own eyebolts out of black annealed steel wire, so that's what I went with here.

I learned to make them the hard way, and still do it, forming a closed loop in a end of a piece of wire with the aid of a drill bit to form the loop. I'm going to try to make myself switch to the simpler method of forming an eye in the middle of a piece of wire, twisted around the drill bit. But, old habits die hard.

 

It took a while to finish the gun carriages, but most of that effort was mental – switching gears to the production of the small metal work. As long as I'm on it, I'm going to continue the process for the gun carriages of another model project that's been sitting around. Plus, I need to make all the eyebolts and ringbolts for the bulwarks for the gun tackles and breeching ropes. 

 

Then, once I get the guns dealt with, I think it will be easier to then fit the deck furniture into place.

 

[catopower]

Gun carriages nearly complete, with the cannon barrels now added. Next will be to add the trunnion caps and then rig them into place on the model.

 

Here's the model with most items on deck just test fit into place. Once the guns have been rigged in place, I'll start permanently adding all the deck furniture.

 

 

[druxey]

Just catching up on your build. What a delightful little model! Nicely done, Clare.

[BenD]

Looking really good mate 👍 looking forward to more.

 

My kit is still teasing me on the shelf. 

Edited November 16, 2022 by BenD

[catopower]

Thanks Druxey, Ben... slowly but surely!

 

I managed to finish making all the ringbolts I need, for now at least. And, I set up the breeching ropes, though the ringbolts haven't been glued into place in the bulwarks yet. I've been waiting until I figured out how I'm going to deal with the gun tackles.

 

At 1/72-scale, this ship's 3-pounder guns (according to the information provided in the Shipyard kit) have very small carriages. At this point, I don't think I can properly rig the gun tackles, so I'm now considering leaving them off. 🤔

 

Here, three of the guns are shown temporarily in position. Once I fix them into place, I'll adjust the breeching ropes so they look more natural (i.e. not floating in the air)...

 

 

[ccoyle]

The tackles on the 1/64 scale 4-pounders for my Sherbourne required 2 mm blocks -- they were tiny, and definitely a challenge to work with.

[catopower]

Yikes! It's been a long time since I posted an update on HMS Wolf...

 

The project continues, somewhat in the background and temporarily shelved at times as I work on other things. However, I turned my attention to it again recently and have been making a fair amount of progress.

 

I didn't like the breeching ropes I had on the model as they looked too thin. So, I ended up replacing them, which mean re-rigging all the ring bolts. It kind of helped that I was similarly rigging some cannons on another model, so I was in the "mode" anyway. Moving forward, I also went ahead and mounted the guns into place, though I haven't glued them down or rigged train tackles. I'll start making those. 

 

Since these will be my first blocks on the kit, I hadn't fully decided if I'm going to use the card blocks or wooden ones. But, I expect I'll use the card blocks, so I'll try making some train tackles using them.

With these in place, I feel more free to start adding some more of the deck details. I have to add the tiller and all the associated steering lines that stretch across the quarter deck. But, I figured that first I'd make the ship's wheel.

 

The ships wheel was a new challenge for me, as I've only ever used purchase fittings for it. With card models, it's necessary to build them, and it was an intimidating detail. When I finally got around to it, though, it was quite fun. Below, you can see the wheel, which consists of at least 6 pieces for the rim and hub, with wire cut for the spokes. I used tiny drops of Aleene's tacky glue on the spokes to give them the nice turned wood look, after which I painted it as per the kit instructions.

 

Below, you can see the completed wheel with drum attached and mounted on its stand. I think the spokes turned out quite well and I'm surprised at how easy construction actually turned out to be. You can also see the binnacle box going together. The binnacle box you see here consists of 17 parts, not including the 6 acetate windows which have been installed. There is yet a 2-piece lantern and a roof to install, plus the eyebolts on the sides for the tie-downs.

More soon, I'm on a roll...

 

 

[druxey]

What is a year or so between posts, Clare? Seriously, nice to see you and Wolf back. I like your technique on the steering spokes. Looks good at small scale.

[BenD]

Back at it! I like how the ship's wheel turned out. 

 

You'll be done with your Wolf before I even take mine off the shelf.

[catopower]

Thanks BenD. But, now you've given me a challenge. I'd better keep at it!

[catopower]

Thank you druxey. I guess 1 year between posts is better than 2 years between posts. And, I'm certainly guilty of that and worse!

 

[catopower]

I'm starting to work on some of the various tackles on deck. I'm going to try to make the train tackles for the guns, but I also need to rig the tiller ropes, so I've pulled out the cardboard blocks I made using the laser-cut block sets that are included in the kit. 

 

I used wooden blocks on my 1/96 scale HMS Alert paper model, and I've always felt I had to qualify my descriptions of the model to mention them. So far, this is an "out of the box" build. Might as well keep it going, if I can, though I'm already using some rigging line that wasn't in the kit.

 

I haven't decided if I'll continue using 3rd party rigging line or start using the kits rigging line, which appears to be nice quality linen. The definition doesn't look great at the larger sizes though, and it'll need staining as well. I could just use the smallest sizes, which are 0.1mm and 0.3mm, but they'd still need staining. I'd just have to figure out what to stain them with. I have some stains on hand, so I guess I can try those.

It may not look the best, but there's a certain challenge and ideal of building a model like this using kit materials. I'm almost sorry I used the 3rd party line for the cannon breeching ropes.

 

Anyway, here's the updated build photos. Many things aren't not permanently in place yet, so I can simplify access to the deck are for adding some small details yet.

 

Looking at it now, I think I can secure everything shown in place and leave off the boat gallows and the capstan for now. These are easily put into place, even if there's a lot of rigging in the way. The gallows stick up and I can see them getting easily snagged and damaged during the rigging process. The capstan is just really simple to drop into place later.

 

 

 

[catopower]

Being rather productive this holiday season, I decided to press forward by working on the bowsprit and masts of HMS Wolf.

 

It's amazing how many laser-cut parts are provided for the detailing of these. There are some dozen little parts plus the wooden dowel, which requires shaping, and another seven or so, just for the bowsprit cap, not including the half dozen eyebolts that have to be made and added to it.

 

My completed bowsprit. Still have to add eyebolts to the cap...

 

The lower masts were next and this was the first time I'd encountered the built-up card for the mast tops. The cheeks and above are all laser cut card and I found the part of the mast that will make up the doublings to be too flex, and I was not confident they would survive my rigging work. So, I added a little strip of wood front and back at the cheeks – I figured they be painted black, like the whole area of the mast head, and be pretty well hidden. I also made sure to soak the thick card masthead with thin CA glue. This did stiffen them up and made the whole masthead feel a lot sturdier.

 

The thin paint used on the wood beaded up at the CA soaked card parts, but this area will be later painted black, so should look much better.

 

Test fitting the mast tops. Here, you can see the wood reinforcements at the cheeks...

 

The assembling of the main topmast, showing the dowel and 5 of the 8 laser-cut parts that make it up...

 

Complete main topmast after assembly and "primer" painting...

 

I expect I'll continue preparing all the mast parts and start on the yards and gaff as well. By the time I'm done with these, I'll have decided on the rigging and blocks I'll be using. Then, the rigging can commence!

[catopower]

I completed the lower masts and the bowsprit, adding the mast hoops and the wooldings.

In order to get the width of the wooldings consistent, I measured them out on the plans and then cut some adhesive backed vinyl as a guide. I cut the vinyl on my Silhouette Cameo 3 machine. It allows me to make consistent strips of precise widths without error.

 

After I mounted the hoops, I painted them and then painted the space between them black. Just in case I don't do a good job with the wooldings, it won't be noticeable.

I wrapped the wooldings with some black rigging line. To be honest, I don't even know what line I used. It was just laying around my work spaces in a bit of a tangle and was the right size, so I used it.

There are a LOT of parts going into each of the lower masts. It was a bit of a challenge building them up, but it felt quite rewarding.

 

Here's the ship with the masts and bowsprit test fit...

I'm in the process of making all the yards (and gaff) now, but that's a lot more straight forward and easier than the masts. I do have to figure out what to do about the t'gallant masts still. The poles at the tops get might thin. Perhaps I'll use some brass rod.

 

Meanwhile, I'm starting to give some thought as to what her sailing configuration will be. The kit includes a full set of sails. I will have some of the sails set, might try furling the main courses to pull them up out of the way. I'll do a bit of research before I have to start dealing with them.

 

Next step is to finish rigging the cannons and adding the remaining cleats...