Monika - JSC 1:250 Passenger Ferry

[redhorse]

In between cutting out and putting together track links in my current tank build I've decided to take a break with a simple little ferry. This is the Monika, a ship built in 1965 and based out of Gdansk.

This is my first attempt at re-scaling. The kit is in 1:200 and waterline. But I've decided I want all my waterline ships to be 1:250. I first tried scanning it in and then printing it at reduced scaling. I couldn't get that to work very well and the resulting prints came out quite blurry. Then I tried just using the printer as a simple photo copier and that worked quite well. The colors aren't exact, but they are pretty close so I'm happy.

It's a tiny little kit with four 6" x 8.5" card pages of parts. These fit perfectly on two sheets of 8.5" x 11" when scaled down to 1:250. There is no bottom panel and no laminating. From what I've read, I guess that's pretty much standard for JSC. Makes it nice on the wrists.

Also, there are parts to make this into 4 sister ships of the Monika so you can have a whole fleet. Now if someone made the Star Ferries of Hong Kong like that I would make the whole fleet!

Here are the first pictures, a very nice break from track links!

[redhorse]

Got the fenders on. Only two layers are needed in 1:250 instead the three provided in the kit.

[boosed]

Nice work, Jim! Those fenders look a bit fiddly to cut out but the end result is very good.

Don

[redhorse]

Thanks Don! They were a bit fiddly and next time I think I'll laminate and cut once rather than gluing two tiny strips together.

The cabin's on now...

[barry]

Looks good

[redhorse]

Got the open air seats done last night. Now it's time to laminate the roof and cut out more track links for my tank.

[eibwarrior]

Jim,

That's quite a detailed little boat for an "in between" project. I salute you for the nice work. Very clean job on all those little benches...

Keep us posted!

[Zathros]

This ship looks a lot like Lilla Weneda. Are they sister ships?

[redhorse]

Originally Posted by Zathros

This ship looks a lot like Lilla Weneda. Are they sister ships?

I think they are. I was actually at digitalnavy.com last night looking for Lilla Weneda to see if it would down-scale easily to 1:200 for a full hull ferry and started comparing. They seem pretty much identical down to the masts and nav light locations, but the Digital Navy model is a lot more detailed, and free...

[redhorse]

A bit more progress to post on this. I didn't like the way the front roof looked after notching it for the compound curve. The notches were too big so I filled the gaps with paper clay and painted with gouache. I think next time I have to do that, I'm going to skip the paper purist thing and just use wood or modeling putty or something like that. The paper clay is kind of difficult to work with.