Review Le Coureur 1776 - Shipyard 1:72-scale Laser-Cut Card Model Kit

[catopower]

 

This is a review of Shipyard’s 1/72-scale French lugger Le Coureur laser-cut card model kit.

Shipyard is a Polish company that produces many very high quality paper/card model kits of sailing ships, lighthouses, and a few related structures. Regarding their sailing ship kits, they divide their products into three lines: Paper Kits (1:96 scale), Laser Cut Kits (1:72 scale), and Wooden Kits (1:72 scale)

 

Paper Kits

First are paper kits, which include color-printed parts on large sheets that the builder must cut out to assemble. This can involve cutting out hundreds of small, often delicate parts, to be glued together to build up the model. The builder is generally expected to use wooden dowels for masts and spars, and most of their kits provide laser-cut hull framework parts to simplify construction. All Shipyard’s paper kits are in 1:96 scale.

 

Laser-Cut Kits

Shipyard also makes a line of laser-cut kits (formerly referred to as “Laser Cardboard” kits), which are very complete and come in a boxed set. The kit includes sheets of laser-cut parts, paints, brushes, dowels for the masts and spars, pre-cut and printed sails, 3D printed or cast resin cannon barrels and decorative fittings, cardboard blocks and deadeyes the you assemble, rigging line, illustrated instruction book, and several large plan sheets. All Shipyard laser-cut kits are in 1:72 scale.

 

Wooden Kits

This is a relatively new line of products from Shipyard. Essentially, these are the same as the laser-cut kits, but the parts are laser-cut wood rather than card, and they're not intended to be painted, so no paint or brushes are included in the kit. There are currently only 4 wooden kits available, with a 5th kit soon to be released. All Shipyard wooden kits are in 1:72 scale.

 

 

The Le Coureur Kit

Shipyard’s laser-cut card kits come packaged in plain cardboard boxes, about 20″ x 14″ x 2″ thick. These folded boxes are very sturdy, and have printed paper covers glued to the front, back and sides. This seems to be more than adequate, and seems flexible and cost-effective for the manufacturer. The whole thing is protected by a clear plastic sleeve that encloses the box.

 

Upon opening the box, you’re faced with a very well packaged kit. As you can see, the components are very well protected, being in separate cardboard box inserts that serve to keep things from moving around during shipment and storage.

 

While these separate boxes are mostly air, they do a good job protecting the contents of the main box, and keep the components well organized.

These component boxes are well labeled. In some cases, these are the only detailed descriptions of the accessory parts and their quantities. For those that don’t know, the Ø symbol is pretty universal, indicating diameter. 

 

Early Shipyard laser-cut kits used to include wooden blocks and deadeyes, but now provide laser-cut cardboard blocks that you assemble. Wooden dowels are provided for the masts and yards. Three sizes of rigging line are provided. This is unbleached cotton that looks like good quality, but you will need to dye the line the appropriate colors.

 

As stated earlier, the kit includes a set of Acrylic paints. These are very high quality artists colors, manufactured by a Polish brand called Renesans. I’ve seen comments by other ship modelers that they just throw out the included paints, but I have a hard time understanding why. These are nice quality paints that are provided very thick, so they must be thinned down with a small amount of water. But, these paints cover well, and dry to a nice matte finish.

 

Because these paints can be difficult for individuals to source, especially in the U.S., I try to keep a supply of them from past kits I’ve done. I’ve even gone so far as to find a European online art shop that carried the brand and would ship to the USA, but that was in pre-tariff days.

 

The paints are subject to drying out, though they now come in plastic jars that contain a rubber seal in the cap. But, it’s a good idea to check them periodically and to add a little water to keep they from drying out. Also, the rubber seals of the jar lids tend to come loose, so it might be a good idea to transfer the paints to containers that seal well if storing for long term.

 

Four colors are need for this build, and more than enough paint is provided to complete it. Instructions are provided for mixing the paints to get the appropriate shades to simulate wood to a very good effect. And, since the paint comes very thick, with thinning, the paint goes a long way.

 

 The brushes included are very nice quality artists brushes in wide/flat and small/round.

 

The rings, eyebolts, and deadeye strops come in the form of coils of copper wire, from with you need to make these components. The accessories also include a piece of clear acetate for stern gallery windows, color printed stern decoration, and the French white naval ensign.

 

Cannon Barrels

In early kits, Shipyard provided turned brass cannon barrels, which is what you see in most of their product photos, even in the current kit’s instruction booklet. They have since switched to 3D-printed resin cannon barrels, swivel guns, and belaying pins.

 

In the older kits, I believe they only included one size of cannon barrel. I was pleasantly surprised to see that they now correctly include two different sizes to represent the 2pdr and 3pdr cannons carried by the actual ship, and I believe the new barrels are more scale accurate.

 

Laser-Cut Parts

All the laser-cut parts come on eight A3-sized cardboard sheets of varying thicknesses. These come enclosed in a clear plastic folder to protect them during shipping. Unlike with their paper kits, the parts come pre-cut, but the plain cardboard requires the builder to paint all the parts, which is why paint and brushes are provided.

 

Many structural parts have a part number etched in them, and in some cases, registration marks for properly aligning the parts. Parts that will be visible, often have details etched into them, such as plank outlines, part locator markings, and treenail details.

 

Card stock is much easier to laser cut than wood, requiring less power and can be cut more more quickly, so there is very little char, though there is still some. Since some of these parts much be painted, I think it may be a good idea to take a large soft brush to clear out any loose char, as it may otherwise stain any paint that’s applied.

 

Sails 

The kit includes six cloth sails that are nicely marked with seam lines, reefing bands, and tablings. These lines are very clear without being overly dark and don’t stand out too much. The builder will need to glue on bolt ropes, and to add reefing points, and such.

 

The remaining components of the kit include the 20-page, color illustrated instruction booklet, a set of three double-sided, A3-sized (11.7″ x 16.5″) plan/instruction sheets, one single-sided, A3-sized plan sheet, and a set of printed cloth sails.

 

The large plan/instruction sheets include one page of history of the ship, given in English, German, and Polish.

 

The diagrams are very clear, but provide very little text. What little there is, is printed again in English, German, and Polish. Some of the pages are printed in scale. Those that are not, are clearly indicated. For the dowels shown on the plans, the shape and size of their cross-sections are indicated clearly. Length can be measured directly off the plans sheet.

 

On the diagrams that show rigging, the numbers in triangles indicate the size of the appropriate rigging line. Numbers inside a circle indicate part numbers, while number with no circle identify individual rigging lines for matching them to their appropriate belaying points.

 

The color instruction booklet is 20 pages long, containing mostly color or black & white photos. Short text descriptions label some of the photos, and are given in English, German, and Polish.

 

 

 

The instructions show how to get a finish that nicely simulates wood, if followed carefully. For the most part, there are no paint color guides, except for reviewing the provided color photos. While builders may choose to make their own modifications to the paint scheme, following the kit photos, everything is either light-colored wood color for the deck and hatches, or a medium wood color, or black.

 

Overall, this is a very nice looking kit, but it is also one of Shipyard's earlier laser-cut kits. Having worked on Shipyard's paper model kit of the same subject, I've read ahead through the bigger kit's instructions, and I can see that there are some parts that the instruction skip over. In particular, there are platforms underneath the open hatches, representing the deck below. The parts are included for these platforms, but I haven't been able to find any indication of them in the instructions. So, clearly, the builder will want to proceed very carefully with this build. However, this is a fairly simple looking ship to build. It is about the least expensive of this line of kits. The rig is about as simple as it can get, so this should be a good kit for beginning paper modelers, if caution is observed.

 

This kit was purchased from Ages of Sail, but is also available for about $150 direct from Shipyard.

 

There are several other similarly designed laser-cut kits made by Shipyard, including HMS Alert, the Santa Maria, the schooner Berbice, and their biggest kit of all, the British 28-gun frigate HMS Mercury. 

 

For a review of a similar, but more complicated Shipyard kit, please see my review of Shipyard's HMS Wolf Laser-Cut Kit here. 

Or my review of Shipyard's Hanse Kogge Laser-Cut Kit here.

 

 

Edited yesterday at 07:21 AM by catopower

[GrandpaPhil]

Clare,

  Looking forward to seeing this model as a build log!

 

I have Shipyard’s 1/96 scale version of this kit.

Edited 23 hours ago by GrandpaPhil