Building the "Red Dragon" junk (Update 15.10.14 finished hull)

[Admiral Benbow]

Last year I was asked to try my hands on another ship model, this time a chinese junk for an upcoming BoB/Pulp-game. There are two options to do that: scratchbuilding from plastic or foamcore like this fantastic example http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=54453.0, or, working with Artesania Latina's 1/60 scale pre-cut wood kit for the "Red Dragon" junk. I've never before tried to build a wooden ship around a set of frames using small wooden strips, so I had serious doubts about this endeavour ... But my customer was quite clever sending that kit over to me "to just have a look around and decide later" ... Well, he knows me quite well. When the large box arrived I was hooked again and started to gain some basic knowledge about the shipmodellers trade. But one thing was quite clear from the start: it would be a time-consuming process!

This picture shows the finished ship model (built by someone else ...):




A fine ship, and showing the first major problem: it doesn't have a waterline hull! How to achieve that? Finishing the hull and cut it down then? The risk that all inside frames would crumble and break would be too high, even if you could manage to work with a fine bandsaw and keep the angle at precisely 90°. After much thinking about I decided to cut the keel and all frames separately before glueing them together. Estimating a correct waterline all parts were cut to the same final height. After that I fixed the keel with three metal brackets down to a piece of thick and plane plywood to prevent any warpage of the keel and keep the framework absolutely straight. As always, a pic shows more than many words:





This was in December last year, and after a couple of hours of accurate work I had the basic ship's frame glued and finished. It's astonishing sturdy and solid. And this has a reason ...




After some days of hardening time I started to add the outer planks from 1,5 mm thick basswood. The strips were soaked into water to get them more pliable and then happy gluing and hammering started. And here the sturdiness of the framework came into play, enabling the modeller to use a hammer without shattering the frames at all. The kit contains 500 smallish nails. After working through the planks you can see on the following pics, I had 132 of them used. In 5 hours time yesterday. Oh my ...








To be continued ...  

[OSHIROmodels]

Looks to be a very promising build Micheal 

It's a shame you're not making it from scratch but that said, I am looking forward to seeing your progress 

cheers

James

[Silent Invader]

Another fascinating project 

[fastolfrus]

Although I suppose you could trace around the waterline frame parts to make a second one?
Before you nailed it all together.

I'll be interested to see this progress - I picked up an Artesania Latina kit in a local charity shop (unopened, I took a gamble that it's all there but paid a price that was less than the deck guns would be worth) - so I shall view this as a photo tutorial on how to assemble my kit.

[FramFramson]

The Admiral takes to the high seas again!

I'll be holding my breath for updates on this one!

[DoctorPete]

It'll be a beauty.  Good work so far! 

[carlos13th]

Looks like a lot of work, cant wait to see the result.

Ever thought of making a kit like this for your Bune Jim?

[OSHIROmodels]

Ever thought of making a kit like this for your Bune Jim?

Yup, wasn't happy with the results though.

cheers

James

[carlos13th]

That's a shame. Maybe in the future then.

[von Lucky]

A promising start. I remember a model ship my father made when I was a child and seeing it progress a little bit each weekend. I look forward to your progress.

[Ignatieff]

Looking good buddy!

[HerbyF]

Wow that looks like a lot of work.    Best of luck on this project.

[Argonor]

 

Quite an endeavour (see what I did there  ). Looking forward to see it finished!

[Zafarelli]

See, this is what happens when someone sends you a model kit, "just to have a look"

Brilliant, looking forward to see the result!

[Amalric]

....Brilliant, looking forward to see the result!

What he said.

Pics of this kit were one of the inspirations for building my junk.