Polacca Veneziana by Buntzi - Amati - 1:100 (maybe)

[buntzi]

Hello everyone.

I will start this build log half way, and it is meant to be as a warning for others about mainly how not to do things.

The kit was ordered from Amati 08 march 2020. Few days later, northern Italy was struck by the pandemic so the kit arrived in Dubai on 09 June 2020.

There is a caveat though. For reasons that are not quite important, I only started working on this kit sometime in October 2023. I will not spend too much time describing the kit, although it may be of help to someone, some day.

It's planks on bulkheads, single layer planking. Components are laser-cut in 3 or 4 mm plywood, with some other parts in 2mm sapele. There are planks in 3mm walnut for the hull and some thinner planks for the deck, and a collection of dowels for the masts. There are also some prefabricated items (guns, gunports, anchors, oars, belaying pins, grating and stairs, brass ornaments and such). The reason I'm so vague about it is that well...there is no list with the parts. Usually you suppose to check the content of your box to see if everything is inside or not and such. Nope, not here.

The bulkheads are not numbered on the sheet. 3 and 4 are almost identical, but none of them fit perfectly to the drawing in the "instructions" (I'll explain the air quotes in a bit).

The material quality looked good at a first glance, but proved so and so when actually working with it. The quantity though...you'll see.

Now the "instructions". There is one sheet with the arrangement with the rigging on the other side (so you cannot look at those in the same time) and some instructions on the second page about various furnishing on the deck. For a beginner, is quite difficult to figure out what you have to do. Anyway, the fit was not so bad, so it all looked promising.

Due to the curvature of the deck, the fitting was not so great. Also, the deck itself does not have notches for the top side of the bulkheads so something needs to be done. Following some ideas from the Amati site itself, I cut off the top ends. Those will be fitted afterward to the deck to continue the planking for the bulwark. At the end, it turned out that it was not a good idea and it would have been better to cut the notches in the deck. It was a real pain to fix those things again, strong enough to be used but not so strong so they can be removed afterwards.

I also used some balsa wood that I had laying around to fill the curves in the stern for better support of the planking.

Well, the planking. Single layer is always difficult, and even more so when the box photo shows natural wood finishing. The pressure to achieve far better than average results is high, without the second planking to hide all the mishaps.

Horrible, I know. However, after a lot of work and pain, I've reach to some results:

One may wonder why the hell I choose to cut so many short strips and so close to the final shape. Well, after all this work, this was the situation of the materials for hull planking:

In this photo you can see also the cardboard template that I've used for the stern part. I used each and every piece of scrap material to keep the same texture, but to no avail. I've end up using some leftovers from the Sultan build to complete the hull. You can see the color difference:

Anyway, after sanding it didn't look awful, just bad:

More sanding and some work, there are the gunports frames almost done, handrail installed, inside of the bulwark planking done, and such:

After a lot of thinking and consideration, studying the build of our colleague @Cristiano and @Slowhand and some other photos, I've decided that leaving anything in natural wood is not feasible. Thus, use of wood filler (in decent amounts though) was no longer forbidden so there it is:

However, the painting schemes of the historical examples were not to my liking and I've decided that the ship will be painted in Venice red and some black accents:

Of course, it cannot go well from here. I've manage to break of of the gunports, I've lost a cannon barrel in the ship and I struggled for almost one hour to retrieve it, though it was impossible to glue it back on the carriage, so the gunports in the aft were installed closed, and then the large ornaments on the castle didn't fit. I've used some putty to fill the gaps, somehow imitate the pattern to hide the difference and after a little bit of paint, it turned out like this:

Then, the channels were interfering with the gunports, so I have to modify them as well. Also, the brass wire available in the kit was completely unusable (for my poor skills) to make the chainplates from it, so I've decided to use...chain. Probably completely wrong and horrifying for the history buffs here, but it is what it is:

Afterwards, there was not that much. I struggled with gun rigging and it turn out so and so, and somehow I reach the mast and rigging stage:

The rest is for another post, when I will manage to actually DO something, other than whining about things...

[Knocklouder]

Nice work buntzi  ,looking forward to seeing it rigged ,  

Bob  M.

,  

[Keith Black]

There is nothing wrong with your model, Bogdan. Beautiful work thus far and I look forward to following along till its completion.

 

 During the course of our builds everyone of us is forced to make compromises due to the lack of preferred material or our lack of skills to perform a given task and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. We are after all, only human. 

 

 I am glad that you chose to start a build log, 👍

 

   Keith 

[buntzi]

Well, thanks for your kind words. I will post the progress...when there will be any.

 

Edited Wednesday at 04:56 PM by buntzi

[JacquesCousteau]

Despite the challenges, the model looks great so far!

[Keith Black]

 Bogdan, I forgot to mention the supplier Cornwall Model Boats (link provided below) they have a great selection of models and fittings. I believe they have a 50 pound min and shipping cost are okay. They provide two types of shipping, Royal Mail for 17+ pounds and UPS Express for 27+ pounds. Up till my last order I have always chosen Royal Mail but it took 10 days plus for my orders to reach me here in the States. This time I paid the extra 10 pounds and choose UPS Express and my order arrived 3 days after the order was placed. Incredible!

 

 Please take note, I have no financial incentive in mentioning them.

 

 https://www.cornwallmodelboats.co.uk/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=20303646385&gbraid=0AAAAADCl8FfzKOMKjRE2G3kHWu5506oGp&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIusbg3o_tkAMV40l_AB26iR6EEAAYASAAEgK7APD_BwE

[buntzi]

11 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Cornwall Model Boats

Thanks for the tip, I'm still looking for the next purchase but I will keep them under scrutiny. To be honest, so far I'm very much tempted by the Speedy from Vanguard due to the association with Sir Thomas Cochrane > Sharpe book series. I know, stupid reasons...

By the way, Vanguard are selling pretty much ALL their models without sails? If there is a trusted source for a sail set for Speedy, I would appreciate a tip on it.

 

11 hours ago, Keith Black said:

I have no financial incentive

🤣🤣 I couldn't care less even if you had. Recommendation from a known source is always preferrable to "internet reviews".

[ccoyle]

8 hours ago, buntzi said:

I know, stupid reasons...

 

Not at all! Many modelers have chosen subjects associated with favorite films or books.

[buntzi]

Good morning folks!

Hmm, I think I shall adopt for myself the old Top Gear motto "Ambitious, but rubbish!"

Well, I'm trying to use the solution the our friend @Cristiano used in his Polacre build for securing the lateen sail yard. I've manage to replicate good enough the goose neck solution that he used here, but got stuck at those twin 4-way blocks (apologies, I really have no idea what this thing is called)

How big were those kind of things IRL?

I've tried to make a sketch to see what I have to construct, but then I've realised that Cristiano worked his model at a larger scale and duplicating his work identically would make it a 1m thing IRL for the scale of my ship, which is out of question. My assumption is that it could have been somewhere in the realms of 40x20x20 cm (15x8x8 inches in freedom units). If this is confirmed (help please) then my device should be about 4x2x2 mm, with maybe a little leeway on on of the 2mm dimensions, so maybe 4x2x3mm. In that small part I cannot dream to drill 6 holes on 2 axes, but I will try to make it 3-way instead of 4-way. How I will manage to squeeze also the ropes through those 0.3 or 0.4mm holes, I have no idea now.

If anyone wonder why bother with all of this and not use the solution Amati proposes, is because Amati believes (and thus shows in the drawing) a single line, passing through the goose neck and secured with a simple knot on the yard. I doubt that this is even close to how it was done on the ship...

[Knocklouder]

Not sure what to do about the blocks, but I do know how to thread them. You need to get a collapsible eye needle. They don't have to be these ones but something similar  you can pick up at a fabric  store.

https://www.michaels.com/product/beadalon-fine-collapsible-eye-needles-10427047

  My buddy @Gabek told me about these, marvelous little  tool. 

  

Knocklouder 😄

Edited yesterday at 04:19 AM by Knocklouder

[buntzi]

Oh yes, I have those and indeed they are extremely helpful (managed to thread the gunports and 1.5mm blocks for the gun's rigging). Wonderful little things!

[buntzi]

My eyes are a gone for a while, and my fingers are a little numb...

 

The blocks are a little on the large size, but it's the best I can achieve with the skills and tools that I have.

See you.

Edited yesterday at 01:56 PM by buntzi

[Cristiano]

Hello Bogdan,

you have made a very good work, don't be too hard on yourself.

Consider that finishing the hull, you have finished the most complex part of your model.

The level of completion of the rigging depends only by you, but keep in mind that your model is of a small size and cannot fit everything that "theoretically" is needed on these type of sails.

Probably Amati has made some simplifications too.