Hello, a major update today. I used the better part of my easter holidays to work on this, err, spanish kit. The problem is, it's no kit in the conventional sense as lots of parts are within the box, but they are only partly finished or just basic materials. Mostly basic materials like wood strips, rod, mountings and some precut plywood parts. And most of those precut things don't fit exactly, only partly or not at all. Don't know if that's a trademark of most wooden ship kits or just the spanish ones.
Much frustration programmed.
When all planks had been nailed and glued down onto the frame, everything was cut to length and shape and some hours of coarse, medium and then fine sanding came next on the workplan. A new base for the hull was cut from thin ply and glued down, sanded afterwards.
I decided to completey leave the second set of thin veneer strips out, they would have been glued on top of the first planks to hide all the tiny nails. Only more work, and for a wargames model which would be coloured and weathered anyway I even liked the rows of nails. Some pics from the net show chinese junks in absolutely washed-up and battered conditions, so that seemed suitable. Instead of that secaond set of strips the hull was painted with a Humbrol medium brown enamel thinly and got drying time of two days. Then it was sanded again and had a nice shine already (will be varnished later).
Then I started the deck and superstructure. Of course, everything had to be planked again, let dry and cut to shape before mounting to the appropriate places; did I say it's very time-consuming?
Then followed the worst nightmare, fixing the sides to the main hull. The precut front support for the sides was much too thinly constructed and couldn't stand any pressure; it broke, and I had to saw out another sturdier one. I started using white glue, but due to the thickness and rigidity of the planked plywood this only worked in the back parts of the hull. Next came a strong contact glue, but failed as it was very difficult to get some strong clamps in place. Du to the twisted shape of the bow my clamps slipped off again and again. In the end - after much swearing - I used a two-minutes two part epoxy, my hands and much fixing tape. It worked.
Most decks and balkonies got some outer hardwood strips afterwards, the after deck some supports and two accessions to the outer balkonies had to be cut into the side plates. Sanding again, of course ...
That's it so far. 47 hours of work. Yes, I'm keeping a man-hour log. I think most of the harder work is done, but lots of smaller things have to be added, and of course the masts, sails and rigging. Did I mention that the sails are just a large plain piece of fabric?
27 March 2013, 09:27:59 PM