Torborg - Billing Boats 1:20

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Jun 4, 2018
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106
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Location
Oulu, Finland
I love Norwegian wooden boats, so it was a clear must have when i found this beauty in a webshop. i shall build her on the side as i work on my nordlandsbåt. Or maybe i will build two, i always scan or draw my parts somewhere before building these small kits, just in case i get the urge to do another one or happen to break a part or two. this kit's parts consist of lasercut plywood. i don't like the looks of plywood on these kits, but i shall still build her from original parts. As i mentioned, i might end up making one from thin pine or spruce planks too. more photos about her later on, when i get back home from work!
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Contents of the box. not much parts, which is nice. i am not 100% sure as to will i use the formers (spanten in norwegian) for the fuselage, or will i carve new ones from better grade wood. maybe i will build this almost out of the box, with minor modifications only abd later on make a better one too. the sail fabric is rather nice, not too coarse for the scale. i shall stain the sail with very light beige later on in the build, and add a red panel for it too as i've seen on some photos and paintings of old norwegian pilot boats. the next week i probablt won't be able to build a lot as i will go to Sweden to work, but at least after that i will go full steam spacemachine on this boat!

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I got the sails traced on the fabric, and i came to a conclusion that they will look more to scale if i won't sew them. instead, i will just very slightly age them, and i will seal the edges of sail before cutting with a 50/50 mix of wood glue and water and then stitch the rope to the edges.
 

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Never underestimate the power of a couple of beers while looking at a new kit. I managed to do the sails almost ready, only things left to do are to hand-sew the edge ropes in and distress the sails a little. I made & stained the main mast, spritsail boom and the last part which i don't know what it is in english. also made the mast stay ropes. I love working on the rigging, it is kind of therapy for me.


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apparently they are doing some sort of cooperation
I'm glad to hear Billings is still around...I want to build the Norske Love (again). I guess I should buy the kit now? Or do you think they may upgrade it?
The OcCre kit I am building now (Cazador Xebec) has ugly castings for the cannons frames, and some sub par castings for the decorations... that are too thick and I will have to sand them down thinner...sigh! When I built the Norske Love, that kit had plastic decorations and cannon frames, however they were far better detail and thickness wise! And it had a lot of nice brass parts! The sails were better on the Norske Love too. The sails on the Cazador look like they belong on a toy! Way out of scale and I won't be using them as is.
Anyway, out of the two ships...the Billings kit was better IMO!
 
The issue with Billings, is they use lots of plastic parts and their rigging thread and tackle blocks are poor quality.
In addition, they use generic cannon barrels on their models that are not accurate.

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Sails done. now i gotta tackle the boat itself. i already glued one of the first planks in, gotta say i hate working with plywood planking... this stuff just doesn't want to bend because of it's construction, it would need to be boiled for a while to make it bend better. well, we'll see how it goes. if it goes belly up, i'll make new parts from better wood.

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Got the first planks on with some brute force. second plank is taking form, and will be glued on later on today. i stained the outside of the rest of the planks, and should have done so with the first ones too - superglue soaked into them, so i will probably have to paint the bottom of the boat red or black by the waterline. rest of the planks will be glued with wood glue.
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gotta say, the quality of the plywood on these billings kits is inadequate. had to re-glue the bow and stern of the third row of planking as the planking (which i heated and pre-bent already) tore off the outern layer of the plywood on both sides. i didn't manage to take a photo of it, as i was slightly irritated by it. i will someday rebuild the torborg with better quality wood, that's for sure. not that i won't build this one too, today i will start applying the fourth row of planks.
 
Fuselage glued, only the interior rim left and ribs after that. mast is being fitted for the first (and last) time - i have to make a new one that is 2,5cm longer. also some painting left to do, stain doesn't cover the superglue residues that seeped into the wood. brown paint will do the trick!

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all parts except the rudder assembled. none of the ribs fit properly, the angles of the ribs were miles off the mark. next updates will come in about a week when i get back home to finland and get the boat painted.
 
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