I only recently discovered SOS and so wasn't entering a build log as I went for the last few months of a build of the Swedish Vasa from the Billing Boat kit. My name is Peter, and I live in the snow country of south-east Australia. About 12 months ago, following a cruise in the Baltic Sea my wife and I visited the amazing Vasamuseet in Stockholm, I commenced building the Vasa. This is the second large Billing Boat I have constructed, the first being the Cutty Sark, almost 40 years ago. This model is proudly displayed in a glass case in our home and has been a talking point and feature most of my life. Hopefully, while I now have more time, the Vasa will be the same.
I have read many of the build logs regarding the Vasa and of these, there are builds from kits of Corel, Sergal/Mantua, Billing and more recently the De Agostini release from Italy. Prior the DeAgostini model (by ModelSpace), a number of writers commented that they felt the Billing Boat's Vasa was the most accurate. It was available before the DeAgostini model release, and so my choice was the Billing Boats kit when I made the purchase. Having now progressed through this build, overall I am very happy with the content of materials (although I have substituted some timbers), and scratched a number of items (eg below decks cannon mounts etc). The instructions are limited and short on detail, but the build logs have subsequently helped and filled in some of the 'gaps'.
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The kit packaging and delivered product was complete with no obvious broken parts or missing items. One thing that I did notice was that hull planking used timber referred to as 'Obechi'. While this was included, I did not like its scaled width or thickness, and so I did some maths to scale the planking of the actual ship pictures I had, and then purchased some 5 x 1 mm mahogany in precut strips. This to me, was a much better planking material, and better for the scaling appearance of the ship. A similar argument held for the deck planking and so I milled some of the mahogany to use for this as well. Different stain/treatments were also used to maintain reasonable appearance and weathering effects.
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Bulkhead layout was straightforward but the bulkhead extensions above deck (which were instructed to be 'thinned') were weak and fragile. Some of these broke in the process of the build, especially with the deck plywood fitting and so I trimmed these and added extensions later when the planking was built up above the deck level. The decking base needed some trimming but this was minimal and fitted satisfactorily.
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Before any comments are made about the Smirnoff bottles in the background, these are holding raw alcohol which I intend to use in assisting the bending of planks. This is to be an experiment, but I have read where it is more effective than water and/or steam bending. More on this later!!
Thanks - more soon
Peter G.
