Hello from Poland :)

Joined
Jun 15, 2021
Messages
14
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58

Location
Warsaw
Hi everyone! My name is Adam and I'm from Warsaw, Poland.
Ship modelling was my big fascination when I was a teenager but I didn't do much with that because there were no hobby shops in my town and I had no internet at that time. Besides, wood modelling is kind of expensive and we didn't have that much money. The biggest thing I did, well at least started to do, was a model of Titanic from Hachette collection. Unfortunately I didn't finish it - when my mom saw that it will have 100 issues she said "honey, nope". Nevertheless I liked the idea of model making. Some time later I saw in one of our press shops an issue of polish modelling magazine which discussed a type of ships that I fell in love with instantly – galleons. Oh Lorde. The thing that brought my attention the most was rigging. I also liked over the top ornamentations, and castle-like structre – a lot of decks that were placed high in the aft. But rigging – how in the hell that worked? What it consisted of? So many questions, no way to answer.
In the meantime we got internet, so I started reading as much as possible. I liked drawing projects of galleon models (and also shipyard cranes, what a weird passion Alien), but that is that, I never got the chance to do a proper model. Time flied by, and I put the whole idea to rest.

Until 2019, when I saw an advert of new DeAgostini collection - Soleil Royal. The passion came alive again, but with new possibilities! Internet, books, money :D Of course, silly me, I wanted to bash the kit and do a lot of enhancements. But the problem was, and still kind of is, that this model has a lot of design flaws, which caused my enthusiasm to die for a while. It got back to life as soon as I had an idea what to do with this model, which was not that long ago, but more on this in a separate topic.

In the meantime I bought and started assembling Montanes by OcCre. Yeah, I know. Big and difficult set for the beginner, a straight route to a disaster. But I guess I did pretty well with what I did. I stopped at hull planking since I felt I needed to gain some experience on something simpler. Montanes has only one layer of planking so there's no room for learning - you have to know what you're doing. I'll get back to it some day, when Soleil is finished.

Rigging is still my biggest fascination. I'm reading about it as much as possible. Anderson, Lees, Pettersson. Also I love book by Wolfram zu Mondfeld. During the time I was reading books, forums and other sources I realized that 16th and 17th century galleons are my main interest and probably I will focus only on them (maybe HMS Victory will be an exception). Some day I want to start scratch building, but until that, I'll gain my experience working with kits. Also, and that may be a little bit controversial - I am not that much focused on, and devoted to, historical accuracy. I mean, I was reading topic on Royal Katherine by Doris, and she didn't do some things in the cabins because English ships didn't have that at that time, but Dutch did. If it was me I would go for the Dutch looks, more than for English historical accuracy. Maybe it's more accurate to say that at the moment I'm building a model that resembles Soleil Royal, more than recreates it in the most accurate way. E.g. I plan on implementing La Couronne rigging to it, even though I know it's an anachronism. But hey, that's my way of doing it, you don't have to like it :)

Besides modelling - I am 30 years old, I have masters in theoretical physics and my interests focus around the geometrical foundations of quantum and classical field theories. I work as a private teacher.
 
Hallo Adam,
first of all I would like to send from my side a warm welcome here on board of our forum.
Very interesting introduction which deserves also a longer post.
I am very happy, that a relative young man of only 31 years is interested in our common hobby - it is great to see, that also younger people are getting or have already interest of working several hundreds of hours on one project..... and I have the feeling, that with the years and your enthusiasm you will get a good or very good modeler - you have a lot of years in front of you where you can collect information, experiences etc.
Also I am very happy, that you realy try to collect information (rigging f.e.) knowing already Petterson, Lees etc. - one more sign, that you are on a very good way.
Galleons:
to raise a little bit the appetite to this kind of models, please take a look at Matis building log of his scratch pinnace - BTW: @mati.n is also coming from Poland


or the international well known @Ab Hoving who is also author and modeler in the area of cardboard models - here two building logs of dutch vessels

and

These are only two examples of very experienced members of our forum

Enjoy our community
 
Thank you for welcoming!

please take a look at Matis building log of his scratch pinnace

Oh yes, his model is beyond wonderful. You know, the idea of building models from scratch was a little bit too much for me for quite a long time, but now I know that this is the direction I want to go in the future. Kits are nice to start with, but when you hava a vision of what you want to do, and there are no kits that allign with that, well - there is no other way. I'm already studying Wolfram zu Mondfleds book and I'll try to get as much as I can from all the kits I have. And also - forums like this one are an invaluable source of knowledge :D
 
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Thank you for welcoming!

Oh yes, his model is beyond wonderful. You know, the idea of building models from scratch was a little bit too much for me for quite a long time, but now I know that this is the direction I want to go in the future. Kits are nice to start with, but when you hava a vision of what you want to do, and there are no kits that allign with that, well - there is no other way. I'm already studying Wolfram zu Mondfleds book and I'll try to get as much as I can from all the kits I have. And also - forums like this one are an invaluable source of knowledge :D
In the meantime - before scratch are possible - there are also interesting kits, which could bring you further on the track

 
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