Airfix Golden Hind 1/72 with added rigging and details

[europapete]

Cool! The initiation has started. Which one?

 

[johnlattanzio]

Salmon 2 A2 according to the box

 

[europapete]

Ahhh.....nice kit. Got one in the stash. This is wandering from ships, will PM you so that this can return to ship modelling

 

[johnlattanzio]

So, I have been looking at various completed GH builds, to get ideas for colours. Many look too bright for my liking. But in doing this I have found something interesting (to me, at least!) The Airfix model seems to be different to the Revell and the Mamoli and Eugen.T's plans! I suppose it is not the first time that Airfix (or anyone!) has made errors. But I thought I would show you what I mean. Maybe things like railings come and go, but the level of the bowsprit and the decks seems more important...! Anyone got any ideas? The Airfix kit seems to be the one that is different to the others...


Note that the decorative line on the Mamoli model is in line with the guns...but is above them in the Airfix kit.


The Revell seems to match the Mamoli....


I also compared to Eugen.T's plans and they seem closer to Revell and Mamoli.

i.e Airfix seems to be an outlier!

Thoughts?

Perhaps I should not be surprised - on their Endeavour the mizzen shrouds foul the railings so they got some measurements very wrong there!

 

[Submarinerblue]

There are no original plans of the Golden Hind and they didn't discover it's wreck lying on the bottom of the English Channel. All model kits as well as the full size reconstructions they made in Britain are based on pictures of what similar ships of the time looked like, or are educated guesses. So, do whatever you think looks good on your model. The Revell version is probably smaller than the original and has too few guns, but who knows?

 

[johnlattanzio]

There are no original plans of the Golden Hind and they didn't discover it's wreck lying on the bottom of the English Channel. All model kits as well as the full size reconstructions they made in Britain are based on pictures of what similar ships of the time looked like, or are educated guesses. So, do whatever you think looks good on your model. The Revell version is probably smaller than the original and has too few guns, but who knows?

Thanks. I wondered if it was something as simple as that Appreciate your reply!

 

[europapete]

Yep, agree. No photo's either apparently. I would do a dry run of your kit parts to check the shrouds and chains don't foul the gunports and rails.

 

[johnlattanzio]

Yep, agree. No photo's either apparently. I would do a dry run of your kit parts to check the shrouds and chains don't foul the gunports and rails.

Agreed! I will be very wary of such things having been caught with the Airfix Endeavour. The main role of that kit was to teach me!

 

[europapete]

This one will be a lesson also, lol

 

[johnlattanzio]

This one will be a lesson also, lol

Absolutely!
The motto of my University is "Ancora Imparo" = "I am still learning".
This hobby brings that to life very vividly!

 

[europapete]

Off the wall question. Have you looked/searched the National Maritime Museum in England or Australia's Archives for any contempory paintings or illustrations ( if any exist)

 

[johnlattanzio]

No, but that is a good idea. I did buy the Anatomy of the Ship volume on the Susan Constant, since this is a contemporary ship and probably very similar. So likely a good reference - I think I saw that on one of the forums here.
I must try to avoid "rivet-counter-syndrome" and not get too fussed with reproduction. They are models, after all, not replicas

 

[europapete]

Totally agree. If it were Victory, then yes, rivet count away because of the cast amount of references available, but the GH, not so much. I say model away to your hearts content! No one can prove you wrong!

 

[Jim Fortnam]

rivet count away because of the cast amount of references available, but the GH, not so much. I say model away to your hearts content! No one can prove you wrong!

I certainly agree the sentiment, but there is a yawning rabbit hole just a step ahead of you, and it is this.

When you go back a couple of centuries, there are no plans, no science. Shipbuilders learned what worked by seeing which ships came back from their voyages. And that means that if you look into the history and origins of the ship, you could discover more, and if you then look into other ships of the same period you could discover more about what features and shapes were fashionable. Then you create some drawings to note those features, and see what fits, and how a builder of the day might have prepared such a ship for such a voyage - bearing in mind that altering the rig, the masts, and so on wasn’t impossible.

And now you can build a model and rightly claim a level of authenticity. Change kit parts, add and modify away, and when questions may be asked, you quote sources, and justifications for the ‘angle of the foremast is more indicative of ships of that period than the kit makers represent.’

Now, my lad, you are deep in the well of shipbuilding research, and you may never be able to get back to ‘just’ assembling a kit without needing to check on ‘just a few’ details.

But the sense of achievement is way greater than mere assembly and a good paint job. It takes that an multiplies by 5, by 10…

Welcome.


Jim

 

[johnlattanzio]

I certainly agree the sentiment, but there is a yawning rabbit hole just a step ahead of you, and it is this.

When you go back a couple of centuries, there are no plans, no science. Shipbuilders learned what worked by seeing which ships came back from their voyages. And that means that if you look into the history and origins of the ship, you could discover more, and if you then look into other ships of the same period you could discover more about what features and shapes were fashionable. Then you create some drawings to note those features, and see what fits, and how a builder of the day might have prepared such a ship for such a voyage - bearing in mind that altering the rig, the masts, and so on wasn’t impossible.

And now you can build a model and rightly claim a level of authenticity. Change kit parts, add and modify away, and when questions may be asked, you quote sources, and justifications for the ‘angle of the foremast is more indicative of ships of that period than the kit makers represent.’

Now, my lad, you are deep in the well of shipbuilding research, and you may never be able to get back to ‘just’ assembling a kit without needing to check on ‘just a few’ details.

But the sense of achievement is way greater than mere assembly and a good paint job. It takes that an multiplies by 5, by 10…

Welcome.


Jim

You are absolutely right Indeed I have already experienced this in a small way. When I was attaching the driver to the Endeavour, I realised that if I did what it said in the kit, then the sail would look ridiculous because it was only attached to the gaff. It was too late to attach to the mizzen mast (too many lines in the way now!) so I added an eyebolt immediately behind the mizzen and ran a line from the clew to the eye bolt. That at least made the sail look plausible! It still needed a sheet, of course, or it would just blow in the wind and be useless. I discovered that the real Endeavour had an iron-horse so I made one of those and attached the sheet line there. there was really no room - it is not a great model! But it looks OK to non-experts. It also has my first coil of rope!


As for the evolution of the technology, I again agree. The Master of the replica Endeavour (Anthony Longhurst) recommended some books for me as references. One was "The Way of a Ship" by Alan Villiers (who lived right here in Melbourne). And he has stories telling the evolution of certain technologies...e.g. Captain X thought this could be better if it was modified in this way....and then someone from England took the idea and extended it by adding blah blah. Fascinating stuff.

There is no avoiding these rabbit holes. And...would we really want to?

Cheers Jim!

P.S. I recently watched Billy Bud (highly recommended if you have not seen it) and the technical advisor was Alan Villiers.

 

[johnlattanzio]

So I started actual work on the kit in the last couple of days. Test fit and some bathing in hot water to correct twists and now the hull and deck seem to fit much better.

I spent most of two days tidying up flashing on the railings along the top and I noticed some thigns that need attention....

1) Railings
2) gun deck
3) windows
4) foremast

Lets look at these in order.

1 Railings
The pic below shows the hull pieces. While the outside has nice wooden textures, the inside is SMOOTH!

So I guess I nbeed to practice scribing some textures before I paint this. But the railings...they only exist ont he outside! Here is the cross section:



While clearly it should be like this:


I can think of three ways to do this...

#1: .Just paint the inside as it it was a rail. eg if a white rail then just paint a white line on the inside, of the same width as the rail is on the outside. This is easy but not convincing? Low chance of serious problems arising…


#2 Add styrene on the inside to be the rail. Can probably get it to be about the right width and height. But then there will be a line visible on the top where the existing rail joins the new one…unless filling it all with putty and sanding. A lot of work, but would it look better?



#3 Remove what is there and add a piece of styrene. Riskiest of all. Need to carefully smooth the corners of the railing so its not perfectly square. In principle this can be done and might look better. More chance of screwing up the removal, etc, but a better result overall?



Any thoughts or advice????

 

[johnlattanzio]

2. The Gun Deck.
I have already moaned about the difference in the location of the gun deck on the Airfix kit compared to others. But I have an Airfix kit and definitive knowledge is not available so I am going with that. But there are still concerns
Airfix provide four guns for the open deck.

But I noticed that some models (eg this one) have ten guns on the open decks, arranged like this:


I am happy to go with this. I bought ten cannons from HiSmodel to do this.

But...what about the actual gun deck on the Airfix model? It has 6 gun ports on either side and 2 stern guns.
These ports can be open or closed, and if open then Airfix have kindly (?) filled in most of the port with plastic leaving only a hole for the gun barrel to poke through:



So the final result looks like this in this model (from here):



I am thinking that it would be better to remove that plastic so we can then see in to the entire cannon, and its carriage. True, it wil be dark so little will be visible. And I need to add 14 guns and carriages and install new decks for the guns to sit on...but I think this will look better.

Again, I welcome thoughts and opinions!

 

[johnlattanzio]

#3 Rear windows.
These are filled in, except for one which leads onto an open deck.

I am thinking that I will add shutters (closed!) to the rear 4 windows. No need for a shutter on the foremost window as it is open to the weather on both sides

 

[johnlattanzio]

#4 The foremast
I was very surprised to see that Airfix have the foremast in FRONT of the forecastle!




This does not match any other model I have seen...or the replica in the UK. they all have the mast going through the deck of the forecastle:


I bought a wooden veneer deck from HiSmodel and they include the deck for the Airfix version *and* a deck for the corrected version!



So I will be shifting the foremast to the correct position. I an not sure how much this will affect the shrouds...

 

[dafi]

Even if surprising the position of the foremast it is not so wrong ;-)

Have a look for the contemporary Mathew Baker´s books/drawings and you will find the mast´s position as in the Airfix kit. All models of Golden Hind or Revenge base originally on that MB drawings, having the flaws added later. And as you look to seek for the best interpratation, also do not look at replicas or modern models, they are just as good as the knowledge of the builder was. Same goes for me to the Victory, one of the worst documented ships concerning the mostly build 1805 variation, and it was hard for me not to look at the modern museums ship any more ...

XXXDAn