Oseberg Viking Ship by Norseman - Billing Boats - 1/25 Scale - 9th century

[norseman]

Hi everyone,

This is my first try at building a wooden ship from a kit. I have been slowly working on it since the first of the year. I have been looking at the build logs of Von Kossa and Jack Panzeca. They have done such a nice job and I can only hope to come close to their work.

[dgbot]

Keep at it you will do fine.

David B

[dgbot]

Keep up the fine work.

David B

[Jack Panzeca]

Hi Norseman,

Welcome to the party. This kit is a lot of fun to build. I will follow along and please let me know if I can help. You are off to a great start keep it up and good luck.

[Von_Kossa]

Welcome to the club. Any questions just ask.

[ausura]

I too am just starting to build my first wooden ship from a kit--the Oseberg 720 from Billing Boats.  I got interested because of a study I did on 8th-11th Century vessel construction. But I find myself on Page 1 of the instructions a bit mystified.  Figure 1 shows the assembly of the keel, and bow and stern structures--all straightforward. But inset into the instructions are two small drawings that seem to indicate splitting or otherwise cutting the bow pieces, and for the life of me I cannot figure out what I am supposed to do, especially since throughout the rest of the instructions the parts indicated seem to be fully intact. I have contacted Billing Boats and gotten no reply.

A scan of the instruction step is attached. The small drawings are the circles.

Many thanks for your help.

Edited September 17, 2016 by ausura

[norseman]

Hi everyone I am back working on my ship. It has been a while but I now have some time to work on it. Just finished planking the bottom of the ship. Have to do some research into what comes next.

[norseman]

I am trying to follow the way Jack Panzeca and Von Kossa did with their ship build. I removed the strips (Rabbetparts in parts list) from the keel where the planks butted up against. This allows the front scrollwork to fit more flush with the planking.

[norseman]

Had to remove a little bit of the front of the planks to fit the scrollwork even with the keel edge. Had to be careful not to remove too much as the planks don,t have a lot of glue area touching the keel at this area.

[norseman]

Before I glue the front scrollwork on to the keel I am trying to fit the rear scrollwork and side pieces to the planking. Their are lots of pieces and getting them to fit is taking awhile. Jack Panzeca and Von Kossa indicated they had trouble fitting these parts also.

[norseman]

I cut small pieces to glue to the keel to help the rear scrollwork fair with the front scrollwork.

[norseman]

After gluing those on to the keel I then removed one layer off the back of the rear scrollwork piece. This also helped with getting it to fair to the front scrollwork. Had to do a bit off sanding also to get a good fit. Time consuming but it turned out well.

[norseman]

Finished gluing the rear scrollwork pieces on. Will have to go back and do some sanding to make everything look good a little later. From what I can gather from the scant instructions and what Jack and Von Kossa did was put a strip (part 56) along the top plank on the keel for the bottom side plank to fair up against. As I fitted the strip along the plank and set the side plank against it I see I have a lot of sanding and fitting to get everything to look good. The notches on the frames aren't exactly cut perfect. They need to be faired and the notches are too deep in places. Gives me a lot of respect for the Vikings who actually built the full size ships. 

[norseman]

After much fitting and thought I think I am going to have to build a steam box to help bend some of my pieces easier into place. I bought a clothes steamer at a second hand store and some 4 inch pvc pipe. Just have to do some modifications and hopefully it will work.

[norseman]

Steam box worked good for helping to curve the strips that the bottom side planks use as a filler to the keel planks. Just like Jack P and Von Kossa with their build I had a hard time to get those strips in the correct position to actually be fillers. I am hoping when I put the top 2 side planks on everything fits okay.

[norseman]

I built the mastfoot using the pieces that Billing Boats supply with the kit. The pieces are made out of plywood. Didn't care for the look of the ends looking like plywood so I used some thin birch veneer to cover the ends over. The mastfoot looks more like a solid piece of wood now and the birch veneer matches the wood color fairly close. Hope it matches up close when I finally stain the boat.

I have been still following the build logs of Jack p and Von Kossa to build my ship. They added 6 more frames that the planks attach to so it looks more like the original Oseberg ship in Oslo. I think I will do the same but it adds a lot work as I will have to manufacture the frames. Bought some basswood at the hobby shop to try with.

[norseman]

After a few tries came up with first making a template out of cardboard first and fitting it to the ships planks and beams. Lots of fitting. I then traced that template on to a piece basswood and cut the frames out with my scroll saw. Still had lots of fitting and sanding to get them to fit good but it is slowly coming. Not much else to do with this virus scare.

[Cathead]

Your progress looks great so far. I love the look of these vessels. Hope you'll keep posting on your progress.

[norseman]

Started to glue my frames into the ship structure. Hoping that when I go to put the 2 side planks onto the frames everything lines up. It is real hard to determine that at this point. Did some rough fittings with the planks and I know I may have some problems. Both Jack P and Von Kossa ran into the same problem. The curves on the planks (plywood pieces) do not have a perfect curve to them to fit nicely around the ships curvature if that makes sense. I don't think putting them into my steamer will help.

[EricWilliamMarshall]

Looks amazing! Can you describe a bit how you fit your planks?

[norseman]

Just by clamping them in place and taking a look at them. The notches on the frames give you a rough placing for the frames. What I found was the curvature in the planks from the kit do not line up well with the notches. Have to move the planks up or down so there will not be a gap where they over lap. Hopefully that answers your question.

[norseman]

Have all the frames glued into place. I have made some strips which I will put on the top of the frames along with a thin strip of birch veneer so the plywood ends of the frames the kit supplied won't will not show. I was going to put them on now but will work on some other parts of the ship first.

[norseman]

I am thinking of opening a hole in the most forward and aft frame so the ship will more resemble the real one in Oslo. Von Kossa did this on his build and it turned out looking good. Will be a little tricky cutting the piece of frame out behind the frame.

[norseman]

Got brave and did one side to see how it would work. I used my Dremel with a small drill bit to make some holes. Then I used a small saw blade and roughly cut the hole out. A little bit of sanding and the hole turned out not bad. Just have to do the rest now.

[Arjan]

Very nice build ! You should be careful about the shape of the foremost and rearmost bulkheads/braces because these are not identical . The BB bulkheads are also wrong because the original Oseberg ones are positioned at an angle, see this Graupner drawing :

 

 

For my build I mainly used reference photos of Saga Oseberg, the working replica. There are lots of pics of this vessel on Facebook.

 

 

My take on the rear bulkhead :

 

 

The foremost one :

 

 

Regards,

 

Arjan

 

 

Edited March 25, 2020 by Arjan

[norseman]

Thanks for the info Arjan. I didn't realize the BB bulkheads were suppose to be at an angle. It may be to late to correct that with my ship. Probably do more damage trying to correct it than leaving it the way it is. Also thanks for the pictures. Nice job on your ship.

[Arjan]

I haven't changed the angle of the two bulkheads either, that would indeed do more harm than good. The Graupner drawings seem to be much more accurate than the BB ones, e.g. the former also show the oars didn't all have the same length (the midships ones are shorter). 

 

Regards,

 

Arjan

[norseman]

Arjan did you have any problems when you put the 2 side planks on you ship? I know when I was roughly fitting them to see if they would fit correctly the angles seem to be not quite correct. You have done a great job on yours. 

[Arjan]

If I remember correctly I first fitted the top planks 23 and 24 before fitting the Obechi strip 56 which connects the top planks 23 and 24 with the lower planks. Later I realized I had mistakenly fitted the wider Obechi strips 55 instead of 56 (4 mm wide strips instead of the 3 mm ones ). In fact this worked out pretty well because at some points the gap between the top and lower planks was actually 4 mm rather than the 3 mm of the 56 strips. The only problem was that I later had to cut some additional 4 mm Obechi strips myself (for the shields strake) having already used the ones supplied in the kit. I did have to file down the top of the 24 planks midships at the joint of the two 24 planks (they were too wide there). I still had to file down the top of the 24 joints a bit more when I made this photo :

 

 

Arjan

[norseman]

Got my openings done on my forward and aft bulkheads or frames. I will probably widen the opening on the rear bulkhead to more accurately match the original Oseberg. Think I will now put the strips and veneer on top of the frame edges to make them appear to be solid wood instead of plywood. Will also veneer around the openings I made in the forward and aft frames. Not the best pictures shown here as the holes are actually better than they appear.