Hello ship modellers. I am going to do a very simple sort of retro log of the Wappen Von Hamburg that I built about 12 years ago, let me explain how my introduction to this hobby came about and how I ended up building this model.
I started the hobby about fifteen years ago after a hand issue which had developed. After several ops I lost part of each hand as well as fingers and because of the intrusive surgery I was left with limited movement and little sense of feeling. I was advised to take up a hobby that involved touching and manipulating different textures as a way of therapy, the physio even suggested knitting, as a woman she would, but an ex paratrooper does not do knitting so I tried my hand at building model boats, I haven’t looked back since.
I started building small kits and found that not only did they help but I thoroughly enjoyed making them and happily progressed to slightly larger but not overly difficult ones as my skills improved. I don’t think there were any forums then so I slowly learned from monthly magazines with articles from the likes of Keith Julier.
Now to the Wappen. I was browsing a local charity shop when I came across this kit, checking the box contents I saw that most of the fittings and castings appeared to be there as well as the plans which looked very good but no instructions and no hull or wooden parts. I think that the hull must have been built up and lost or abandoned; it looked to be a very old tatty kit. Talking to the staff they thought that it couldn’t be built and was only fit for spares, I explained my interest in models and said that I thought it was possible to rescue, so I was given it at a very low price. Because of the interest that our discussion had caused I was asked if I would occasionally give them updates on any build progress, this is how I came to have pictures of various stages of the build. This was never intended to be a build log and no notes were taken, at this stage it was never going to be an accurate, detailed model but just an insight into my progression through the hobby. I have only just found these pictures on an old memory stick and thought that members may be a little interested.
My first task was to determine what wood and parts were needed. I intended to re make the kit to as near as original, all strip wood for planking, keel and bulkheads cut to shape, everything tidied into bags so that when I opened the box it would have the appearance of a new kit ready to be started, this way it would encourage me more to proceed with the build. I bought in everything that I needed from Cornwall Modelboats and treated myself from Ebay to a scroll saw, the build began.
The first pictures show the strip wood, ply and mahogany sheet acquired and the parts of the kit that I re made. I’ll follow these up next with the actual build. Please be patient as I’m also doing a full log of my current build, HMS Blandford.
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