Black Falcon by danwind - FINISHED - Mantua

[danwind]

I bought the Mantua Black Falcon on eBay, mostly because the price was reasonable. I also liked that it was laser cut, figuring that the bulkheads should be fairly accurate, especially since I don't have the facilities to cut out the bulkheads and keel from the thicker wood. And last...the 12 year old boy in me loved the idea of building a pirate ship. I had just finished building a Chinese kit for the HMS Victory in 1:200 scale and was ready for something different. The small Victory kit turned out to be much more involved than I anticipated, so the Black Falcon looked like a good follow up.

This won't be a true build log, as I've already built the model and just have a very few small details to finish. I took a few photos during construction, and will take some of the finished model to illustrate a few things.

The kit is my first Mantua kit and looked pretty interesting until I started looking a little closer. It was unstarted, so I hoped all the parts and pieces were there.  The packaging was nice, and the plans looked very nice. I didn't look closely at the instructions except to see they were in 5 different languages. I'd seen this sort of thing before, so went through and crossed out all the other languages to prevent confusion. The really interesting part was when I started to assemble the bulkheads onto the frame and noticed that the instructions at the back of the book showed bulkheads that didn't match the bulkheads in the kit. It had drawings and instructions on how to cut off the little ears on top of the bulkheads and prepare for a 2nd planking. I finally realized that these were obviously for a different kit, so I just ignored them and just followed the plans. I later learned these instructions were for Sergal kits, which I found out when I started to later build the Sergal President. After this kind of start I was a little concerned about what I might find in the rest of the kit, but it turned out that for the most part, I enjoyed building it. I made a few changes and additions, but nothing very drastic.

I'm attaching just a couple of photos to start, to see if there's any interest in this build. I'm showing my high-tech workbench, which is a glass top dining room table from Ikea, because when I worked in hobby shops, a common complaint was that they didn't have a workbench to work on. I had no sympathy for this argument.

Last...I know this certainly isn't an accurate model, but that doesn't concern me. I have neither the time nor the desire to do research. I enjoyed the build process and like the finished model. 

[danwind]

Once I actually started to attach the bulkheads to the keel everything went smoothly. I had to do a little filing and sanding in spots for a good fit, even though everything was laser cut. I used a small machinist's square to make sure the bulkheads were square to the keel before gluing and followed the plans with no problems. 

I installed the decks next, again with minor sanding in a few places. Now it was time to plank the hull. I've used a simple plank bender for a few years that works very well for me. It was listed as an Amati when I bought it, but I just checked eBay to see the current price and availability and was surprised to find only a couple of listings for it, neither of them Amati. There were a lot of various plank benders listed, most of which were the electric bender. Evidently the one I use is rather hard to find, and is kind of expensive, with shipping fees.

A pack of dye powder is included in the kit for staining the wood, but I stain everything with Minwax Golden Oak. I like the color, and it stains each board with just enough difference in color to give a nice sort of texture to the hull, while also showing that it really is individual planks. I tried Minwax Walnut but thought it was a little too dark.

I've found that my limit for planking is two planks on each side of the hull. After I do the four planks I work on some other part, like cannons or deadeyes, just to break the monotony.

The plans are very nice and were an absolute necessity in constructing the model. The instructions manage to take essential information that should probably be spread out over a couple of pages for clarity and readability and cram them into a tightly spaced paragraph. This is definitely the weak point of the kit. 

[danwind]

After I do my limit of 4 planks, I work on other parts of the model. I decided to work on the cannons because they looked so nice. The barrels are very nice, very small brass turnings. As a former self-taught tabletop amateur machinist, I'm always impressed by this kind of work. The cannons went together with no problems, even as small as they are.

Later in the build I kept looking at the solid pieces of wood that were supposed to represent the windows in the stern galleries and finally decided I had to do something different. I pieced them together from small strips of basswood. This took a while but was made easier by using a tool I saved from my years modeling in O scale. It's made by North West Short Line and called The Chopper. It's one of those tools that you don't use all that often but is a terrific time saver when you need it. Cutting multiple pieces to the exact same length is easy using it. Mine is pretty old, and is an earlier version. I checked eBay and found slightly updated versions, along with the very first version, which I also have. It's rather pricey, though, and probably not a necessary tool for most ship modeling.

At this point I had finished the hull and was ready to start on the masts and work on assembling deadeyes. That will be next.

[Ronald-V]

I also used that Amati "form a plank" bender a lot with my build, I find it very easy and useful 👍

 

Lovely build so far!

[danwind]

Thanks for your comments, Ronald. I hope you continue to follow this interesting build. My time is limited, but I try to keep up fairly often.

Dan

[danwind]

Working on the masts was my next step after doing 4 more planks. I hesitated about showing my basic tools and approach but wanted to keep showing that a decent model can be built without having a dedicated workbench for building models. I live in a 3-room apartment and use the dining room table to work on. This means I have to keep everything in a closet and take it all out, then put it all back in the closet again when I finish. I had hoped this process would make me a more organized modeler, but it hasn't worked so far.

I doubt that serious ship modelers are paying any attention to this build, as despite Mantua's assurance that this is a faithful reproduction of Captain Kidd's ship, this kit is pretty much a fantasy ship. I don't really care about this. My wants in a kit are pretty simple: I want an interesting kit that will provide me with some fun, and possibly challenging hours of building time. I want all the parts to be in the kit, especially ones unique to the kit.  Most of all, I want good plans and fairly complete instructions. This kit came pretty close on most points, so in spite of probably not being very accurate, I enjoyed building it. Yes, there were a few speed bumps, but nothing I couldn't overcome.

I just have basic tools, with the plank bender being the only specialized ship modeling tool. I don't have any special clamps or fixtures unique to ship building, and just want to show what can be done very simply.

The Zona saw and miter box are fine for cutting the dowels for the masts because the miter box has a groove for holding round dowels along one side that holds it in place. I use the larger saw and miter box for cutting larger pieces of wood. I cut all the pieces of dowel for the masts at the same time and put the pieces for each mast in a separate plastic bag to keep everything separate for later staining and assembly.

I use an ancient electric drill to taper the dowels for mast sections and yards. I finger tighten the chuck just enough to hold the dowel in place without damaging it. I make a pencil mark in the middle of each yard piece so that I have a better chance of making the taper on each side match. I start with coarse sandpaper and work down to fine grit to smooth it. Then I put it all back in the closet.

[danwind]

Continuing with my description of using just basic tools for the build, here is how I approach working with deadeyes. As I mentioned earlier, I like to work on different parts to avoid getting bored with any one procedure. I had finished cutting and staining the mast and yard sections, so decided to start assembling the deadeyes. The thread included in the kit wasn't satisfactory, so I substituted some of my own. The first step is to pull pieces of thread against a block of beeswax to help straighten any tendency to curl from being on the spool. I wrap the thread around the deadeye very tightly, holding it between my thumb and first finger, leaving a short length of the free end to hold on to. Next, I place a small alligator clip on the deadeye, then pull my fingers back a little while still holding tightly to both the deadeye and the alligator clip. This is awkward at first but becomes easier with practice. I then turn the alligator clip a few turns with my other hand to get the desired look, then spread a small amount of CA glue (super glue) on the twisted thread with a toothpick, and use another toothpick to hit it with accelerator. I couldn't take any photos of putting the glue on the thread because I needed another hand to do it. The last thing is to snip off the remaining small length of thread. This procedure goes very quickly once you get used to it and it took longer to describe than actually doing it. I use a much longer length of thread than necessary to make sure I have enough when I start stringing the shrouds from the masts. I happened to have a couple of the alligator clips, but any sort of clamp would work. I liked this style because the tubular end made it easy to rotate the deadeye.

[danwind]

One of the handiest gadgets I found for assembling deadeyes was in the instruction booklet for the Harriet Lane from Model Shipways. I had seen different ways of stringing deadeyes, some involving putting the deadeyes on pins stuck into blocks of wood, and others bending lengths of wire to hold the deadeyes at the correct length, but this was the easiest one I'd found. The instruction booklet was written by Ben Lankford and is a classic example of what an instruction book should be. It was a great help when building the Harriet Lane, with clear, concise directions and helpful drawings, especially his "spacing and reeving jig". His looked a little fancier than I needed, so I reduced it to its basic parts, which were two lengths of basswood strip and a thin piece of basswood, shown in the first photo. I spaced the two strips about 2 mm apart and glued the thin piece at one end to hold them apart. I then measured the distance needed between the deadeyes and cut holes to hold the deadeyes. I filed the holes to make sure of a tight press fit. The photos show the fixture I'm using on my President build, but the principles are the same. Lankford says to use a vise to squeeze the free end together to solidly hold the deadeyes for stringing, but I had a small hand-held vise that worked very well, as it allowed me to easily turn the fixture around for the stringing. I've used this style of fixture for all of my plank on bulkhead models, and since many deadeyes are the same size, I was able to reuse many of the fixtures. I had to make a new fixture for the President because the spacing was longer than any other fixture I had. The last photo is the Black Falcon with the finished deadeyes.

[danwind]

This will be my last post on the Mantua Black Falcon.  As I said at the beginning, I had already finished the model and had taken a few photos during construction, so I sort of recreated the build to show how it went together.

There are just a few things to add on the build. I didn't like the silk sails provided in the kit, because any stain I tried didn't work on that material very well. No matter what I used, they still looked like silk sails.  I had some material left from my unknown Chinese HMS Victory kit that looked much more like canvas, so I used the silk sails as a pattern and cut them from the other cloth.

Some of the photos show short lengths of thread lying on the deck. I intend to make coils of thread and left the lengths in case I need it to fasten the coils to the belaying pins.

My ancient phone has made the thread in the rigging in some photos look odd, but that's the phone camera, not the actual look.

I'm not sure how useful this build has been, as it's very obviously a fantasy ship, and I doubt that serious modelers are very interested in it. I probably don't have the right attitude, but I'm not concerned with how historically accurate it is. I accept it for what it is, and the bottom line is that I enjoyed the build, and that's really all that's important to me.

 

[ccoyle]

Nice work!

[Ronald-V]

That is a really nice result! Well done! 👌