Hi SOS,
Merry Christmas!
I hope all of you are well and enjoying the Christmas and New Year festivities with your loved ones.
Welcome to my build log for my first ever model boat build: the Billing Boats African Queen 1:12 kit. I aim to document my progress here. As this is my first time dabbling in the world of boats, please excuse my lack of knowledge when it comes to maritime terms.
This will also be a bit ambitious, but I will be powering this boat with a live steam plant from MSM, an Australian company specialising in model steam plants for boats. If anyone's interested, I went with their #4038 plant.
First off, can I just say that the included instructions leave a lot to be desired... At first I thought it was just me being new to this, but after reading about other builds of this kit online, I'm not alone. And that's somewhat comforting!
As with previous projects I've built, like headphone amps, I studied the instructions and labelled each part using a pencil.
The first part I made was the wooden boat holder, where I used a metal ruler to measure the required lengths of wood before cutting it with a rotary tool. I admittedly didn't cut it too straight, and had to sand it flat, but it turned out pretty good! I used Tarzan's Grip super glue to hold the pieces together.
I then turned my attention to the ABS hull, trimming the vertical lip off the top using the rotary tool. I still need to sand this to clean it up, but it's good enough for now.
Next up, I measured where the front-most "wall" (?) is meant to be from the very front of the hull and marked that on the hull. This gave me a reference point for all the wooden "ribs", allowing me to measure and mark them up. To cut out the notches for the ribs, I used a hobby knife which worked a treat.
This is where I left off today, having glued each rib to the length of wood. The next step is to glue the lengths of wood to the hull.
It's slowly coming together!
Merry Christmas!
I hope all of you are well and enjoying the Christmas and New Year festivities with your loved ones.
Welcome to my build log for my first ever model boat build: the Billing Boats African Queen 1:12 kit. I aim to document my progress here. As this is my first time dabbling in the world of boats, please excuse my lack of knowledge when it comes to maritime terms.
This will also be a bit ambitious, but I will be powering this boat with a live steam plant from MSM, an Australian company specialising in model steam plants for boats. If anyone's interested, I went with their #4038 plant.
First off, can I just say that the included instructions leave a lot to be desired... At first I thought it was just me being new to this, but after reading about other builds of this kit online, I'm not alone. And that's somewhat comforting!
As with previous projects I've built, like headphone amps, I studied the instructions and labelled each part using a pencil.
The first part I made was the wooden boat holder, where I used a metal ruler to measure the required lengths of wood before cutting it with a rotary tool. I admittedly didn't cut it too straight, and had to sand it flat, but it turned out pretty good! I used Tarzan's Grip super glue to hold the pieces together.
I then turned my attention to the ABS hull, trimming the vertical lip off the top using the rotary tool. I still need to sand this to clean it up, but it's good enough for now.
Next up, I measured where the front-most "wall" (?) is meant to be from the very front of the hull and marked that on the hull. This gave me a reference point for all the wooden "ribs", allowing me to measure and mark them up. To cut out the notches for the ribs, I used a hobby knife which worked a treat.
This is where I left off today, having glued each rib to the length of wood. The next step is to glue the lengths of wood to the hull.
It's slowly coming together!
