HMS Beagle by Maid of the Mist - OcCre - 1:60

[Cathead]

Yikes! Dodgy instructions are the bane of way too many kits.

[Maid of the Mist]

It’s frustrating and baffling in equal measure.  

 

I could prepare a better set of instructions for this kit than OcCre have and I’ve been building model ships for all of 10 minutes.

[Mowzer]

I'm coming to the end of my Beagle build, and I can only confirm that the instructions get worse the further you go. When we get to the rigging, the paper instructions are completely wrong and omit essential connection points, the video instructions for the same ropes don't make it clear what goes where, but firmly contradict the paper instruction, but at least there's an option on the box photo showing a third way to get it wrong.  

As an "entry level" model for Occre, I'm amazing anyone ever buys another of their kits after their experience of this one. 

[Maid of the Mist]

Fairly decent progress.  I fit the rudder, the most challenging part of the process turned out to be cutting the nails down to a suitably small size and then gluing them into the pre-drilled holes without creating too much of a mess with the super glue. Judging from other builders’ logs, this seems to be a fairly common headache, regardless of kit, so it’s nice to know I’m not the only one who wrestled with it.

 

 

I also finished up the bow decorations, which turned out to be a fairly enjoyable task overall. The 1.5 mm brass wire was easy enough to work with, though the real challenge came when trying to get both sides to look identical, which I failed at rather miserably. That said, I’m not too concerned, since only one side of the ship will ever be visible when on display. So if one side looks a little different, no one will ever know… apart from me.

 

In hindsight, I think using laser-cut wood, as some manufacturers do, would be a preferable approach here. It’s a bit more precise than trying to get artistic with metal wire. Still, I really enjoyed the painting aspect, lining everything up with the black and white stripes on the hull was quite satisfying, and it gives a lovely sense of continuity across the whole ship.

 

 

I made slow but steady progress on the gun ports. These tiny wooden squares were cut from the gunwales, then veneered front and back, painted black, varnished, and fitted with four pieces of PE brass each. A very fiddly job, especially since every tiny brass piece needed a slight trim to fit properly.

 

The instructions seem to suggest applying a black wash over the brass, but not feeling confident, I skipped that. The bright metal adds a nice bit of contrast and visual interest, and since this build is more decorative than strictly accurate, I don’t mind a touch of shine.

 

You can see I've also made a start on the chain plates.  I absolutely love adding these.  So much visual interest and three dimensional detail....