HMS Wolf, 10-gun brig - 1/72 - Shipyard Laser Cut Kit

[catopower]

My last post here was just about a month ago. I had to take a bit of a break to wrap up another project and make some progress on some Japanese watercraft models I'm working on, all in wood. But, this week, I finally got back to working on HMS Wolf again.

I got a little bit behind on the build log, so I'll post some past work first.

Here, you can see that I finished up the headrails, which took some work just trying to figure out what I was doing, and there are some mistakes that you can't really see. But, I'm well aware of them.

I added the stern gallery, which closes up the aft end of the model now, and gives a pretty good idea of how the ship is going to look.

Finally, I added some details to the hull, including the ladder rungs, some of the posts for the mounting of swivel guns, and some of the railing at the quarter deck and forecastle.

[Michael Mash]

Looks wonderful, particularly that stern view.

[catopower]

Thank you, Michael. Just wait, it gets better...

[catopower]

The next phase of construction turned out to be fun – well, at least PART of it!

I finished adding the timberheads, those posts that stick up from the rails, usually at the bow, which is the case with HMS Wolf.

Turned out that the bottom edge of the timberheads were perfectly square, and they really should have a slight angle to them. I glued them into place somewhat blindly, as the parts are small and I wasn't wearing my magnifying visor.

As a result, the timberheads are square to the rail, but the rail is at a slight angle. So, the timberheads looked crooked. I had to fix them as best I could, but some had to be completely removed in order for me to fix them.

But once I did that, I think they looked okay. And, I got to add the channels or chain wales, which are the hull extentions that push the rigging out to give more lateral support to the masts. There's nothing much that support these from underneath. Experience with wooden ship models tells me that I should go with a more secure mounting for the deadeyes than what the instructions provide. But, I'll deal with that later.

Next up was the fun part, because I got to add the cast resin decorative parts – the figurehead and the "carved" decorations. These came pre-painted, but I found they looked better if I touched them up with the gold paint that's provided in the kit. Later, I also used a thin black wash to bring out the details.

Only thing – at this stage, it kind of feels like this ship is some kind of royal yacht. But, it's not. It's just very ornate. On the actual ship, perhaps the carvings were painted yellow or varnished, so they might have had more of a orangish color. Also, maybe some of the painted decorations were painted over, or possibly not even present on the actual ship. Will we ever know?

Clare

[Michael Mash]

I'm a big fan of gold decorations.
This is looking very very good. Nice work Clare.

[sander1942]

Clare,
Excellent work. This is a wonderful build.

[catopower]

Thank you Michael and Mike.

This is a pretty amazing kit.

The only problems I usually have with these is that the thicker cardboard parts can delaminate pretty easily. But, I learned quite some time ago to use thin CA on them – it wicks into the cardboard very easily and makes the parts like plastic.

The only weirdness about doing this is that the glue seems to react with something in the cardboard, sometimes creating heat and very small whiff of smoke!

[birder]

Isn't that pretty!

[catopower]

Thanks Glen. I'm going to keep this post short since I've been having problems uploading images.

I'll try adding some images of the latest assemblies I've been working on.

Here's a 26-piece capstain and some gun carriages. Each gun carriage is made up of about 16 parts, not including the metal work.

[catopower]

Here are more sub-assemblies...