Let me introduce myself to the forum. I am a recently retired professor of chemistry in the US. I have built a wide variety of kits. I owe my success to builders who photographically document their efforts. Though I am not one of them, I can offer tips and hints on the following builds.- Model Shipways Niagra and Confederacy, BlueJacket Notman, Amati Victory Vanguard and Corel Wappen. currently trying to lay the groundwork of the ShiCheng Requin while moving my completed projects 400 miles to Maine and retirement.
Welcome aboard!
Welcome aboard SOS
Welcome, and I see you have built some big complicated kits in the past.
Wow. Good luck with move. Risky thing to do with models. Welcome to the forum! Personal request: Please post pictures of your Wappen von Hamburg when you get a chance.
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- Jan 21, 2022
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welcome you will enjoy this place !! also hope you make a log on your SHICheng Requin build. I have looked at that POF kit for some time will be interested in following your build
Welcome aboard
also from my side a warm welcome here on board of our forum
Kurt, when I get back over to my retirement home I will take some shots of the Wappen. I got through the lower level of standing rigging and decided to move it while it was more manageable. I scratched (albeit imperfectly) the head rails and bow grating as I thought the metal parts in kit were not very nice. The other problem I think with the kit is that the planking instructions have you place the wales over a layer of planking and they then turn out to be too high in my opinion.
Larry
Anything you add to a kit using scratch building is an improvement. As you did, I prefer to lay the wales on the hull and plank around them. Placing wales on top of finish planking is a shortcut that make it easier for beginners, but then the wales may not follow the lines of the planks, which is not the look you want for accuracy. If the wales are too prominent with wood provided by the kit, you can always thin them by sanding. On my models, much of the kit is discarded, usually because it is inferior in detail, or is made of plywood that doesn't look as good stained because the edges show all the laminations. Such wood is use as a pattern and replaced with hardwood. The more experience I get building, the more scratch building is used and less parts of the kit are used. The Wappen von Hamburg is the flagship of the Corel models. My first shot was La Couronne, also Corel, and it was heavily modified. I like the Corel kits for the types of ships they offer, but since they usually are smaller models at 1:100 scale, the challenge to incorporate the level of detail I like to work at is extreme.
