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Hi folks,
So I put together the hull of this Chinese Junk model from Amati about a year ago, and really was so exhausted with figuring out how to shape the ship by fixing the wood with glue and leather straps (pictured), I just took a break and didn't work on it.
Until I started looking again this winter at what people have done with this Amati kit, and thinking more about the types of dark/light wood that the kit comes with and how nice detailing can happen with it -- then I was back into it! You can see here me working with trimming, with how to make the capstans, and how to fix the anchors with chainplates.
-M
So at this point I decided that if I was going to live with this model, that I could give myself permission to go off-model a bit and do some embellishments.
I got a bunch of details from ebay/etsy, like stanchions, some brass stampings, gunports, falconets and some other details like that.
Went back and forth about the number of stanchions, because this is rather a lot and does stand out at this stage, but balanced with more details it started to come together.
About a week ago I built up enough confidence to finally say the hull is more or less figured out, and it was time to figure out the sails.
I saw some variants on how these junk sails can be raised, and there's a (I think?) Vietnamese variant that ties down the rear sail like so. And the main sails are pulled up with a kind of diagonal rope with a vertical attachment at each pole.
This took a weekend to figure out -- and then I discovered I put the wrong sail on the rear!
Fortunately I hadn't glued the sail, so it was removable and I was able to salvage this. And it inspired me to keep it this way, to have the sails be fully extendable/collapsible and just tied down with ropes.
--M
The correct sails in the correct position, and a bit more of the (messy!) deck details. I am going to clean off all the smutz from glue and sanding dust etc with rubbing alcohol once this is finished.
The rudder actually works, the capstans rotate and pull up and down the anchor shains, and the sails are retractable.
