Thank you Grant! Yes indeed, these amazing logs will be most useful to me! And thank you for the support!
Nisse
VASA 1:75 - BILLING BOATS
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Nisse
Hello and welcome PeterG!
It is only natural that some things in one’s personal life will take over some of one’s model building time and I expect it will be the same for me eventually. I mean, in the end there are some things in life that are more important than modelling (believe it or not).
The logs that all of you have provided will most likely prove to be invaluable to me on this journey to a completed ship! And your help and experience is going to be most helpful and appreciated. And if you have any ideas or improvements or even faults that I have made, do not hesitate to point them out and I will try to sort them out!
Again thanks a lot for the support and encouragment!
Nisse
So due to the difficulty in having a full time job is not having enough time to build models. Unfortunately I am not a full time model ship builder (yet). So this will most likely progress slow but I like to take my time and do ut carefully!
I have painted the coamings darker and started to lay the deck. I have read that the butt joints were in no particular pattern or was not symmetrical at all so I just lay the down ramndomly. I am not sure if i have enough joints on each row or if I should add more, let me know what you think! I am also not too sure about the colour on the coamings. Are they too dark? Should I lighten them up? I am really not sure how they looked on the real Vasa but you are most welcome to say what you think!
I have also made my first door! This is one of the doors in the stern. I am actually quite happy with how it turned out, but then again is it too dark? I am not sure and your opinion is most welcome. And if course if you found anything else that seems a bit off do not hesitate to comment!
I will continue to build and will update you guys when I have something new!
All the best!
Nisse
I have painted the coamings darker and started to lay the deck. I have read that the butt joints were in no particular pattern or was not symmetrical at all so I just lay the down ramndomly. I am not sure if i have enough joints on each row or if I should add more, let me know what you think! I am also not too sure about the colour on the coamings. Are they too dark? Should I lighten them up? I am really not sure how they looked on the real Vasa but you are most welcome to say what you think!
I have also made my first door! This is one of the doors in the stern. I am actually quite happy with how it turned out, but then again is it too dark? I am not sure and your opinion is most welcome. And if course if you found anything else that seems a bit off do not hesitate to comment!
I will continue to build and will update you guys when I have something new!
All the best!
Nisse
Hello Nisse,
You asked a couple of times about color (too dark?). I think this is more about your personal taste than anything else. On the original ship these elements were all made from oak and were probably the same color. But that might not look good to you. Indeed, that might not look good on a scale model where contrasts make things more visible/noticeable.
But if I could offer some advice here…pick a color palate and run with it. That is, use the same colors throughout the model. If you want to frame things in a dark color then do that everywhere. Don’t end up with ten different wood tones. It will look too chaotic and random. Of course these are just my thoughts and you’re the captain. When your model is finished you are the one who will be walking by it every day. All of us on the forum will never see it again.
Oh, and you also need to decide how pristine or how ‘ridden hard and put away wet’ you want your model to be. Some prefer ‘like new’ and others prefer ‘used’. Again, there is no right or wrong. Just pick a theme and then stick with it throughout.
You asked a couple of times about color (too dark?). I think this is more about your personal taste than anything else. On the original ship these elements were all made from oak and were probably the same color. But that might not look good to you. Indeed, that might not look good on a scale model where contrasts make things more visible/noticeable.
But if I could offer some advice here…pick a color palate and run with it. That is, use the same colors throughout the model. If you want to frame things in a dark color then do that everywhere. Don’t end up with ten different wood tones. It will look too chaotic and random. Of course these are just my thoughts and you’re the captain. When your model is finished you are the one who will be walking by it every day. All of us on the forum will never see it again.
Oh, and you also need to decide how pristine or how ‘ridden hard and put away wet’ you want your model to be. Some prefer ‘like new’ and others prefer ‘used’. Again, there is no right or wrong. Just pick a theme and then stick with it throughout.
Hello Paul!
Firstly, I want to thank you for this wonderful feedback! It is very encouraging for me as a beginner in the large world of wooden ship models.
You are absolutely right, in the end it is going to be me that has to see it over and over again when it is finished. With only oak colours it might look bland and leave the details hard to see. So with these darker features you will be able to see contrast. I think I will make them a little bit lighter tough. But as you said I will try to not have 10 different wood tones.
My goal is to make the ship look ”new”. Since it did not see any action at all, I would look to present it as a clean ship.
Thanks again Paul! I always love to hear your thoughts!
Nisse
Hello HHIG!
Welcome to the log and I hope this will help you and that you enjoy what you have seen so far!
Nisse
Hello everyone!
The making of the deck is taking some time so I have thought of a couple of questions.
Firstly, I have planned to make nails in the deck. Is toothpicks a good options for this? I have seen people drill holes the inserted the tip of the toothpick in the hole the cut the rest of. And I think it will work out fine and I do not think that 1:75 is too small for this, but perhaps some of you have an alternative option?
Secondly, I can not wrap my head around the planking of the hull. How do you know that you put the first plank right, with the right bend and angle? Do you have an approach that can help me figure this out? Or perhaps it is just trial and error until it looks good? Either way I will try to do my best, but I am a bit nervous with the planking to be honest (a true beginner here).
All the best!
Nisse
The making of the deck is taking some time so I have thought of a couple of questions.
Firstly, I have planned to make nails in the deck. Is toothpicks a good options for this? I have seen people drill holes the inserted the tip of the toothpick in the hole the cut the rest of. And I think it will work out fine and I do not think that 1:75 is too small for this, but perhaps some of you have an alternative option?
Secondly, I can not wrap my head around the planking of the hull. How do you know that you put the first plank right, with the right bend and angle? Do you have an approach that can help me figure this out? Or perhaps it is just trial and error until it looks good? Either way I will try to do my best, but I am a bit nervous with the planking to be honest (a true beginner here).
All the best!
Nisse
I hope you don’t mind if I jump in again. Treenails or not is a serious decision. Once you start down that path you are committed. Will you put them only at the ends of the planks or everywhere a plank would cross a beam? Will you include them on the hull as well? At every frame? Can you make them small enough that they don’t blow up your scale at 1/75? How will birch or bamboo toothpicks look against what looks like walnut planking?
And yes you should be super concerned about getting the first hull plank in the exact right place. I strongly encourage you to see Daniel‘s build report as I recall him using great care here with a successful outcome. Build logs aren’t just for ideas. Many problems will be avoided by observing how experienced modelers address the shortcomings of the instructions. Frankly I would commit Daniel and Peter’s build logs to memory.
Sorry to just be asking questions rather than providing answers but these are major issues worthy of much thought and research. The Vasa was my first ship as well (and a different kit to boot) so I’m not really qualified to speak to some of these important questions for your Billings kit. But you’re asking the right questions!
And yes you should be super concerned about getting the first hull plank in the exact right place. I strongly encourage you to see Daniel‘s build report as I recall him using great care here with a successful outcome. Build logs aren’t just for ideas. Many problems will be avoided by observing how experienced modelers address the shortcomings of the instructions. Frankly I would commit Daniel and Peter’s build logs to memory.
Sorry to just be asking questions rather than providing answers but these are major issues worthy of much thought and research. The Vasa was my first ship as well (and a different kit to boot) so I’m not really qualified to speak to some of these important questions for your Billings kit. But you’re asking the right questions!
Good morning Nisse. I’m with Paul re the treenails. At 1:75 scale the toothpick method is difficult and the toothpicks will have to be reduced in thickness to get close to scale. I used this method on my Xebec at a 1:60 scale and reduced them to 0.4mm. These still came out too big. There are guys who use other methods of “fake” nails which may be easier to get the scale correct. In addition the bamboo colour did not work so well with the Lime wood on my deck. My Bamboo toothpick also did not finish finish off clean, a little spotty. I got scrappy treenails.( My first treenail attempt so I’m sure my rookie skill level contributed). Just my experience.Cheers Grant
Hello Nisse, may I offer an observation and opinion when it comes to decking and hull planking. I highly recommend you make up two, maybe three sample sections consisting of 3 or 4 short pieces of planking and finish them as you would on your deck or hull. Here is an example.
On my Vasa I chose as the first side plank to be the one that frames the bottom of each bottom row of gun ports See my post #2. I used a rather complicated method of mapping the locations of each port onto the hull side by offsetting each one onto the bottom setup board. In addition to this your Billings kit was designed as a single planked hull. I modified this by over planking the Obechee wood with a veneer of walnut which for me is a beautiful wood for hull planking.
Personally, I'm not a big fan of tree nails however they are most attractive when done properly. I used a few nails on the whalers for cosmetic effect only but did use an ink pen to simulate nails at the butt joints on the deck planking. I hope this helps.
On my Vasa I chose as the first side plank to be the one that frames the bottom of each bottom row of gun ports See my post #2. I used a rather complicated method of mapping the locations of each port onto the hull side by offsetting each one onto the bottom setup board. In addition to this your Billings kit was designed as a single planked hull. I modified this by over planking the Obechee wood with a veneer of walnut which for me is a beautiful wood for hull planking.
Personally, I'm not a big fan of tree nails however they are most attractive when done properly. I used a few nails on the whalers for cosmetic effect only but did use an ink pen to simulate nails at the butt joints on the deck planking. I hope this helps.
Hi Paul!
You are always welcome to comment!
It sure is a serious decision. I have had this vision of making it perfect and so incredibly detailed, but that is a dangerous road to go down. In my experience perfect does not exist and can not be achieved. So to make kt perfect is not a good goal to have.
That being said I like to try at least. But I realize that I will have to really plan and experiment a lot. For example how wide is the head of a nail in scale 1:75? And is that even possible?
I will try to do a bit more research and see what I get out of it.
If anyone has book recommendations or good websites or pictures or anything really I would be very interested!
About the hull, I will look up how others did it (and most likely follow Daniel’s log). And experiment and see how it goes!
I appreciate that you took your time Paul it is very helpful!
All the best!
Nisse
Hi Grant!
Firstly I like to say that this deck looks amazing! This is very inspiring to me and something to hopefully achieve!
0.4 mm is incredibly small indeed. I am starting to doubt wether or not this will be possible for me to do. But I will do some research first.
It sure seems like it is difficult!
Again very impressive model!
All the best!
Nisse
Hi Daniel!
I will definitely do some samples beforehand. That will surely help my decision. (Your work is amazing)
Is there any disadvantages to having a single planked hull?
I will for sure go through your build log and follow what you did with the planking, because it sure seem like an advanced method.
Yes tree nails looks very good when done correctly and if I decide to to them I hope I can achieve that!
Thanks a lot for the help Daniel!
All the best!
Nisse
So, if we are talking treenails (wooden pegs), I would use 1.25" as their size. Convert that to mm and we have 31.75 mm. Now divide by 75 and you get 0.42 mm. On my current project the smallest I could use a drawplate to make a treenail was 0.54-0.56 mm (boxwood) but I am working at 1:48 so that's a 'go' for me.
There will be violations of scale on your model so maybe this variance won't bother you. Keep looking at build reports on the forum and see what you like - just remember to not fall in love with what someone can do at 1:32 or 1:48 and then try to replicate that at 1:75.
One way to make faux treenails might interest you. You drill a hole at your preferred size and then rather than filling that hole with a piece of wood you fill it with wood filler (be sure to use one that hardens) and then when the filler is dry you sand (better, scrape) the decking and you have a visual treenail. DO NOT ATTEMPT ANY OF THIS FOR THE FIRST TIME ON YOUR MODEL. Follow Daniel's advice and do some mock-up boards and see what works in your hands.
Here are two links that you might enjoy.
The first is to a picture gallery of photos taken by some guy at the Vasa Museum in 2018. You might have to 'join' the forum to see the images but joining is free (use Google translate to read the German application form).
www.segelschiffsmodellbau.com
This next link is to some high-definition photos of the 1:10 model at the museum. If you click on each image it will open in a new window - click on it a second time and it will pop to full size.
www.modelships.de
The first is to a picture gallery of photos taken by some guy at the Vasa Museum in 2018. You might have to 'join' the forum to see the images but joining is free (use Google translate to read the German application form).
Forum für historischen Schiffsmodellbau und Geschichte
Projektorientierte Quellensammlung und Datenbank für historischen Schiffsmodellbau und Geschichte
www.segelschiffsmodellbau.com
This next link is to some high-definition photos of the 1:10 model at the museum. If you click on each image it will open in a new window - click on it a second time and it will pop to full size.
Photos of Vasa 1 : 10 scale model in the Vasa museum Stockholm
Photos of Vasa 1 : 10 scale model in the Vasa museum Stockholm. The model is 7 m long and a major attraction for visitors.
www.modelships.de
Thats a great question Nisse. For me personally, considering my skill level at the time (Vasa was my second ship with double planked hull), a double planked hull is more forgiving in that you don't need to be super accurate laying down the first layer. You can apply wood filler to correct any hull shape irregularities and fill gaps (gaps that you will most certainly have to deal with) on your first try and sand it all out leaving a much better surface for a second layer. I did however encounter some unintended consequences of double planking which were a pain to overcome.
Having said that with practice you can become more confident and try a single planked hull. Well, the Vasa is a single planked hull by design. A hulls shape and the type of wood are all factors. Do you intend to have a natural wood or painted wood hull, again factors to consider. You really are going to have to jump in this full immersion style to really understand the challenges you are going to face with the Vasa's hull because she has a difficult hull IMHO. The decking was much easier for me.
Fortunately, Obeeche wood is very easy to work with. you will have to soak it and heat it to make some of the bends you will need. Good luck my friend.
Hey Nisse, check the internet you tube for some really good pointers on Model Ship Wood Hull Planking. That was a great help for me.
This is a true story.