Viking ship kit

I’ve never claimed that my kit is an exact replica of the original Oseberg ship. The rigging of this kit most likely mirrors the rigging of a real Viking ship — and by the way, it's completely removable. You can disassemble everything in about 5 minutes and reassemble it in 10. But it's just ropes, and with a rigging scheme, it's not that difficult to implement in a kit.

The hull is a whole different story. Reproducing the original Oseberg hull is possible, but doing so would make the kit far too expensive to be competitive on the market. For example, the new oars for the Oseberg increased production time by 9%, and that’s just the oars. If you compare the production time of version 1 to version 3, it differs by a factor of 9. And if we keep moving toward authenticity, the cost of the kit will also continue to rise.

How many modelers can afford a drakkar kit for, say, $450 — plus shipping, customs, and taxes? The kit has been in development for about a year and a half, and to recoup all the investments made in the project, at least 600 kits need to be sold. At a price of $450, I’m not sure we could sell even 50 kits. So what kind of profitability can we even talk about in that case?

I can confidently say that my “Oseberg” is much closer to the original than any other kit with the same name produced by other companies. I’ve personally disassembled and studied nearly all of them (there are five different kits), so I know exactly how they differ from mine.

Any modeler who wants to bring this kit even closer to the original can do so — I’ve designed the hull specifically to allow for that. That’s why there’s no plywood in it — this is everything I was able to implement in the kit.

Maybe someday a truly authentic Oseberg kit will appear on the market — maybe even one that fully matches the original... At least I hope so...)
 
Pavel Nikitin said:
I’ve never claimed that my kit is an exact replica of the original Oseberg ship. The rigging of this kit most likely mirrors the rigging of a real Viking ship — and by the way, it's completely removable. You can disassemble everything in about 5 minutes and reassemble it in 10. But it's just ropes, and with a rigging scheme, it's not that difficult to implement in a kit.

The hull is a whole different story. Reproducing the original Oseberg hull is possible, but doing so would make the kit far too expensive to be competitive on the market. For example, the new oars for the Oseberg increased production time by 9%, and that’s just the oars. If you compare the production time of version 1 to version 3, it differs by a factor of 9. And if we keep moving toward authenticity, the cost of the kit will also continue to rise.

How many modelers can afford a drakkar kit for, say, $450 — plus shipping, customs, and taxes? The kit has been in development for about a year and a half, and to recoup all the investments made in the project, at least 600 kits need to be sold. At a price of $450, I’m not sure we could sell even 50 kits. So what kind of profitability can we even talk about in that case?

I can confidently say that my “Oseberg” is much closer to the original than any other kit with the same name produced by other companies. I’ve personally disassembled and studied nearly all of them (there are five different kits), so I know exactly how they differ from mine.

Any modeler who wants to bring this kit even closer to the original can do so — I’ve designed the hull specifically to allow for that. That’s why there’s no plywood in it — this is everything I was able to implement in the kit.

Maybe someday a truly authentic Oseberg kit will appear on the market — maybe even one that fully matches the original... At least I hope so...)
Click to expand...
Although I am not building this model, I follow the various build logs of this model with interest. And I can understand your point of view, Pavel! Therefore your 3rd version is a nice example of further development to build a very nice model. To build it according to your instructions (and very good videos) or to build ‘out of the box’ and customize it to ones own liking.
Regards, Peter
 
Pavel Nikitin said:
I’ve never claimed that my kit is an exact replica of the original Oseberg ship. The rigging of this kit most likely mirrors the rigging of a real Viking ship — and by the way, it's completely removable. You can disassemble everything in about 5 minutes and reassemble it in 10. But it's just ropes, and with a rigging scheme, it's not that difficult to implement in a kit.

The hull is a whole different story. Reproducing the original Oseberg hull is possible, but doing so would make the kit far too expensive to be competitive on the market. For example, the new oars for the Oseberg increased production time by 9%, and that’s just the oars. If you compare the production time of version 1 to version 3, it differs by a factor of 9. And if we keep moving toward authenticity, the cost of the kit will also continue to rise.

How many modelers can afford a drakkar kit for, say, $450 — plus shipping, customs, and taxes? The kit has been in development for about a year and a half, and to recoup all the investments made in the project, at least 600 kits need to be sold. At a price of $450, I’m not sure we could sell even 50 kits. So what kind of profitability can we even talk about in that case?

I can confidently say that my “Oseberg” is much closer to the original than any other kit with the same name produced by other companies. I’ve personally disassembled and studied nearly all of them (there are five different kits), so I know exactly how they differ from mine.

Any modeler who wants to bring this kit even closer to the original can do so — I’ve designed the hull specifically to allow for that. That’s why there’s no plywood in it — this is everything I was able to implement in the kit.

Maybe someday a truly authentic Oseberg kit will appear on the market — maybe even one that fully matches the original... At least I hope so...)
Click to expand...
Is there any pictorial evidence of any Viking ship having a nailed deck ? If so I would like to see it.
 
Ashley said:
I've read throught the whole thread here with great interest. It has been many, many years since my last model boat build and now that I'm retired, I decided to turn my hand to the hobby again. It took me a long time to decide which kit to go for after so many years and after much thought, decided on the Oseberg as produced by Pavel. I think it is a very beautiful creation. I have read a great deal about the Oseberg in many places and I can see that what has been developed by Pavel is not a totally true copy of the Oseberg. This for me is not an issue because as said by some, alteration of the kit ship is possible. For me, the greatest pleasure is in the building of a most beautiful ship. It will provide me with endless hours of pleasure and great satifaction upon completion. I ordered the Oseberg a few days ago for delivery to Portugal, the county where I decided to retire. I shall now wait for its arrival and soon the build shall begin. My dealings with Pavel's sales member was delightful and even if the build is not as easy as I expect, that matters little. Thank you Pavel for the opertunity to build this ship;
Click to expand...

Welcome to the forums and to the Oseberg club! There are a number of people building it and a couple of build logs besides this one. @Pathfinder65 has one here and mine is listed below in my signature.

'Tis true that the model is not an exact match to the full size ship, and we don't hold that against Pavel. We fully understand the compromises one must make in order to make a kit like this affordable. In fact, there are very few kits, if any, that build to an exact replica of the original. That's where we modelers come in, adjusting, adding, deleting to make our model as close as we want to the original - and also to make it our own.

Good luck on your build - we would love to see another build log here!
 
JBB said:
Is there any pictorial evidence of any Viking ship having a nailed deck ? If so I would like to see it.
Click to expand...

According to Dr. Bischoff, the fact that Oseberg had deck boards that were treenailed down is very unusual. In other found Viking ships, all the deck boards were removable to allow access for ballast, bailing and storage. This fact has lead researchers to believe that Oseberg was not used in the same way as other shipe - for exploration, trade and conquest, but rather as an inland transport vessel for an elite member of Viking society. Photographic evidence of treenail holes in the bitis is visible in the following photograph. There are matching holes in the deck boards as well. As I mentioned in my log, not all "rooms" were fastened down - there were 5 that were not.

1744197967169.png
 
RussF said:
Welcome to the forums and to the Oseberg club! There are a number of people building it and a couple of build logs besides this one. @Pathfinder65 has one here and mine is listed below in my signature.

'Tis true that the model is not an exact match to the full size ship, and we don't hold that against Pavel. We fully understand the compromises one must make in order to make a kit like this affordable. In fact, there are very few kits, if any, that build to an exact replica of the original. That's where we modelers come in, adjusting, adding, deleting to make our model as close as we want to the original - and also to make it our own.

Good luck on your build - we would love to see another build log here!
Click to expand...
Russ I asked Pavel but he hasn't replied , is there any pictorial evidence that the deck was nailed? would like to see. I cannot see any nail holes in the photo that you show. Now I see in the biti was crosseyed looking at the hull planks. but looks like maybe there was 1 nail per plank do you agree??
 
Last edited:
JBB said:
Russ I asked Pavel but he hasn't replied , is there any pictorial evidence that the deck was nailed? would like to see. I cannot see any nail holes in the photo that you show. Now I see in the biti was crosseyed looking at the hull planks. but looks like maybe there was 1 nail per plank do you agree??
Click to expand...

The image I posted was one that I found in Dr. Bischoff's dissertation. It was pointing something else out with the yellow arrows, but the treenail holes were visible on the biti ledges. I have marked up the same image with red arrows that point to the treenail holes.

Biti_Treenails.png

Hope this helps.
 
RussF said:
The image I posted was one that I found in Dr. Bischoff's dissertation. It was pointing something else out with the yellow arrows, but the treenail holes were visible on the biti ledges. I have marked up the same image with red arrows that point to the treenail holes.

View attachment 512454

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

Yea I kind of gathered that but still looks like 1 (one) nail per board.
 
JBB said:
Russ I asked Pavel but he hasn't replied , is there any pictorial evidence that the deck was nailed? would like to see. I cannot see any nail holes in the photo that you show. Now I see in the biti was crosseyed looking at the hull planks. but looks like maybe there was 1 nail per plank do you agree??
Click to expand...
JBB said:
Russ I asked Pavel but he hasn't replied , is there any pictorial evidence that the deck was nailed? would like to see. I cannot see any nail holes in the photo that you show. Now I see in the biti was crosseyed looking at the hull planks. but looks like maybe there was 1 nail per plank do you agree??
Click to expand...
In my opinion respected RussF has very accurately expressed the thought: the modeller who wants to achieve more authenticity when building his ship himself decides how far he is ready to go in this direction. Looking for materials on the original Oseberg is not really my job, believe me I have a lot of tasks on other projects, and I just do not have time to search for answers to your questions).
 
Pavel Nikitin said:
In my opinion respected RussF has very accurately expressed the thought: the modeller who wants to achieve more authenticity when building his ship himself decides how far he is ready to go in this direction. Looking for materials on the original Oseberg is not really my job, believe me I have a lot of tasks on other projects, and I just do not have time to search for answers to your questions).
Click to expand...
Thanks a lot
 
RussF said:
Welcome to the forums and to the Oseberg club! There are a number of people building it and a couple of build logs besides this one. @Pathfinder65 has one here and mine is listed below in my signature.

'Tis true that the model is not an exact match to the full size ship, and we don't hold that against Pavel. We fully understand the compromises one must make in order to make a kit like this affordable. In fact, there are very few kits, if any, that build to an exact replica of the original. That's where we modelers come in, adjusting, adding, deleting to make our model as close as we want to the original - and also to make it our own.

Good luck on your build - we would love to see another build log here!
Click to expand...
Thank you Russ for the welcome message. The last ship I built was many years ago and since then, due to little spare time and space problems it was only a dream to build another. In those past days, there was no internet to follow the works of others. Now I retired and at last, have both the time and space for the hobby again. I have read through your build log and am also reading that of Pathfinder. I must say, each provides a great insight into the task ahead of me. It does appear somewhat more of a challenge that as seen in the videos of Pavel. No matter, I'm looking forward to the challenge and shall learn also from yourselves. In relation to adding a build log here, I may just do that.
 
Ashley said:
Thank you Russ for the welcome message. The last ship I built was many years ago and since then, due to little spare time and space problems it was only a dream to build another. In those past days, there was no internet to follow the works of others. Now I retired and at last, have both the time and space for the hobby again. I have read through your build log and am also reading that of Pathfinder. I must say, each provides a great insight into the task ahead of me. It does appear somewhat more of a challenge that as seen in the videos of Pavel. No matter, I'm looking forward to the challenge and shall learn also from yourselves. In relation to adding a build log here, I may just do that.
Click to expand...
You are right I certainly build easier than any modeller, so the reason is very simple, I know this kit and all its nuances as the author of this project much deeper than the modeller who opened the box and saw this kit for the first time. And besides, for many years I've been doing nothing but designing and building ships).
And in the video I try to show how this or that operation is done by me, another modeller may have his own view and experience in work....)
 
I ordered the Oseberg from Pavel perhaps 10 days ago. Upon completion of my order I received a communication that payment had been received.

This evening I contacted Volodymyr to enquire when my model may be despatched. I was delighted that Volodymyr replied to my email late this evening.

I post this message to inform others that anyone that may wish to deal with this company, will probably be delighted with the level of customer service. I have been so far.

These days, it is seldom that customer service is consider important and especially so following payment.

Well done to thisbusiness and its staff.

Ashley
 
Ashley said:
I ordered the Oseberg from Pavel perhaps 10 days ago. Upon completion of my order I received a communication that payment had been received.

This evening I contacted Volodymyr to enquire when my model may be despatched. I was delighted that Volodymyr replied to my email late this evening.

I post this message to inform others that anyone that may wish to deal with this company, will probably be delighted with the level of customer service. I have been so far.

These days, it is seldom that customer service is consider important and especially so following payment.

Well done to thisbusiness and its staff.

Ashley
Click to expand...
Hear Hear :)
 
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