Hull and Deck

 The decks have engraved plank detail.   Real wooden decks don’t stay “wood tan” color for long—they weather fairly quickly.  I wanted to give them the slightly worn look that wood that is starting to weather has.    I airbrushed the decks with Model Master Acrylic “wood”, to get a base coat.   I let it dry for a couple of days, and then I applied an oil wash made using artist’s burnt sienna paint.   The first, heavier, wash was concentrated in the planking details.  After it had dried for a day or two, a second lighter was applied to the entire deck.  This took the “new wood” look away, and gave the entire deck a worn, used look.

 I painted as many of the deck details as I could before the deck was installed in the hull.   All of the detail painting was done using a fine brush, and access was easier with the deck out of the model.  The gratings, hatches, etc. were painted a medium brown, and than a dark wash was applied to highlight the engraved detail. 

 The decks have the slightly annoying molded- in pulley blocks and coils of line.  No clipper skipper worth his salt would have allowed these lubberly messes to be strewn about the decks of his vessel!  I decided to leave them in place, as I didn’t want to have to deal with all the missing planking detail that would result if I tried to remove them.  I did, however, remove the coils from smooth surfaces such as the roofs of the deckhouses.  To paint the ones that remained, I used a color that most closely matched the tan of my rigging line.  The rope detail was highlighted by the same dark wash used on the rest of the deck fittings.

 The main deck house was assembled off of the model, and airbrushed white. The window frames, door frames, and corner boards were then painted a medium brown.  The main cabins on the clipper ships were considered to be luxury accommodations, and the fit and finish of the woodwork was of high quality.  I used a semi-gloss brown here to give the wood accents a nice varnished look.   All of the kit’s cabin windows are just holes—I used Testors canopy glue to make window glass.

 The hull halves fit together well, and were glued together without the deck.  At this point, the focus was on getting a good join from stem to stern- fit of the deck would be addressed later.   The hull has a mixture of raised and engraved plank detailing, and raised detailing for the copper bottom.   The rudder is molded as a part of the hull, and does not have any copper plate detail. 

 The hull bottom was painted copper using the paint from the new Model Master acrylic Marine Paints line.  This paint was brushed on, and went on smoothly, and covered well.  The upper hull was painted semi-gloss black.  

 The hull was mounted on an oak base, using oak coat pegs as pedestals.  The hull is mounted to the pegs using short lengths of brass rod.  The hull is a tight press fit on the brass rods, so it could be removed for painting.   It is much easier to get the mounting worked out before you glue the deck in place! 

The hull and decks fit surprisingly well. The foc’sle deck was a little too wide, and needed a little sanding to fit.  Gaps were minimal, and easily filled with super glue.

 Masts and spars

 Each mast is made up from 6 parts, plus 5 more for the yardarms.  Fit of the masts was generally good.  I recommend assembling one mast at a time—that way there’s no chance of getting the yards mixed up.  I built and painted all three masts, but didn’t add the yards until the mast was on the model.  I kept the yards on the sprues until I needed them.  I then cleaned up and painted each mast’s set as a group.

 The masts and spars required a fair amount of work to get them ready.  The masts had visible mold seam lines on each side, which required a fair amount of time with the knife and sanding stick to clean up.  The portions of the lower masts were especially tedious, as they have molded in mast hoops every quarter inch or so.  This meant that each “valley” between the raised hoops had to be cleaned up individually, taking care not to sand off the adjacent raised detail. 

 The yards required the most work to get them ready.  The molds were mis-aligned, which meant that all 17 spars were out of round.  Each piece had a ledge running the length of the spar that needed to be cleaned up.  After cleanup, you’ll be left with spars that have a definite oval cross section, but there’s not much you can do about it, short of making replacements form wood. 

My kit had the preformed ratlines that are nowadays only found in the large sailing ship kits.  These ratlines are formed form some sort of plastic-like thread, and seem to be bonded together in some sort of heating process.  I think that these ratlines look better on the small scale models than regular molded plastic pieces, which I think are way too heavy a molding to look right.  (But they are easier to install!)  I think Revell switched over to the hard plastic ratlines for the small sailing ship kits around 1980.

 Rigging

 My kit came with only one spool of line, tan in color.  Usually, these kits come with two colors of thread, black and tan.  Black thread is used for the standing rigging, and was regular rope painted with tar to make it weatherproof.  (Standing rigging refers to those lines used to hold the masts, etc. in place.  Running rigging refers to the lines that were used to adjust and control the sails, the lines that were in constant use.)   The thread provided with the kit was too thick, so I replaced it with a smaller diameter thread.

 The kit’s instructions provided two different rigging plans, a simplified one and a more involved “scale” plan. The simplified plan is very simple, and is too little rigging for a model of this size.

  A few words about rigging the model: When working in this scale, it is not practical to represent every line.  My goal was to create the illusion of complex rigging, while keeping within the limits of the scale.  I used the kit’s rigging plan as a starting point, but added some additional lines to improve the look.   For example, on a square-rigger, there are a lot of lines running up the mast from the fife rails.  I added 5 lines per side here, and ran them up the mast, one to each yard.  I think it really improves the look of the model. Though of less than sterling quality, the image shows how this is done.

 Sails 

The kit comes with the standard vacuum molded thin plastic billowing sails.  I personally don’t like them, so I elected to build my model without them, in the fashion of many museum models.  When you build a square-rigger with out sails, you need to address two issues:  the position of the yards, and what to do with the running rigging. 

 The upper yards on a square-rigger were moveable.  When the sail was set, the yard was hoisted higher up the mast.  Thus the yards could be in one of two positions- sail set, or sail furled.  Many of the larger scale models account for this, and show two positions for moveable yards.  (The big Revell Constitution and Cutty Sark do, for example.)

 Smaller sailing ship models are often designed to be built only one way.  (This kit is one of those.)  The kit provided mounting points for the yards in their raised locations, because the kit assumes you’ll be adding the supplied sails.   On my model, I opted to go for the museum look, where the yards are set as if the sails are set, and then the sails themselves are omitted for clarity.   

If the sails are gone, what do you do with the lines that are supposed to be attached to them?  Most ship modelers will install them if possible, tying them off at the yard. (Lines that go from the sail directly to the deck are often omitted, such as staysail sheets.)  On my model, I deleted all the sheet lines, and added those lines mentioned earlier from the fife rails to the yards to simulate the buntlines and clewlines that would normally be there.   

Rigging Tips and Tricks

 -         The bowsprit is brittle—I left mine off as long as possible, so I wouldn’t break it.  Once I installed it, I immediately rigged it—it adds a lot of support to the piece.