Viking Longboat Build

[Thumb Dog]

Hi All,

And hi, paperairforce, Siwi and VK,

Some time ago, I lost track of my magazine subscription to The Nordic Saga News when I moved from one longhouse to another. Sadly, I missed the issue that would have set me straight on the history of wooden dragon’s heads mounted on the prows of the ships of my ancestors. I should have known better than to offer my previous ill-informed comments and I can only advance my sincerest lamentations as a response.

However, in an earlier article in TNSN, I do remember reading an examination of a particular Icelandic Law. The central point of the piece concerned the protocol of properly displaying a pagan figurehead during your voyage, and removing the charmed fetish before sighting your homeland. I took this to heart, and as a young musician in the 1970s, my crew and I raided uncounted colleges and numberless taverns under the eye of our bewitched talisman, only to remove it from the stem of our vessel as we approached our fatherland. It should also be said that as we neared our settlement, it was our custom to remove the Thor’s Hammers from around our necks and replace them with our gifted, golden crosses to appease our loved ones who kept the home fires burning.

Ah, if only could I speak of my many voyages…sagas all their own.

Score and fold,

Thumb Dog

[paperairforce]

Thanks all for your input, interesting to read. The book that comes with the kit does address the dragon heads – in fact, this kit comes with a removable dragon head! As Thumb Dog stated, the book also states that the dragon head was removable and was meant to intimidate the evil sea spirits when at sea, but when coming to land it was removed so as not to upset the benign land spirits. Sounds sensible! Maybe that explains a lack of heads in the burials, they had been removed for the same reason – or maybe continued service on another boat, or kept as trophies.

Thumb Dog – in all the book, there was no information about how to stash the oars, so thanks again for that. Please feel free to relay any of your sagas fit to print here.

Finally I read the kit included book “The Vikings, Masters of the Sea” by Captain Meghan Harvey. It’s printed on beautiful thick satin paper in full color and includes many good photos of several museum examples and some nice illustrations. The book includes information about the finding of the museum ship examples, life of a Viking, warfare and expansion, and all about the Longships. I’d say the book alone is worth $20 – the original kit price.

Some takeaways that surprised me from the book - It says that the Viking era really only lasted about 300 years between about 800 and 1066 (yes, ended by William the Conqueror!). So that surprised me (not being a great historian), as the common image seems to be of timeless Norse mythology going back millennia with everyone at Valhalla being generally Vikings (and a magical ancient Viking King sword potentially under every mound.) Apparently not so. The author differentiates Scandinavians in general from Vikings, and says that Scandinavians could pop in and out of Viking life during that period, going for a raid sometimes, and returning to farming or crafting at other times in supposedly non Viking, regular Scandinavian culture. Also, Viking expansion was due in some , or most part. driven by escape from a tyrannical King where they had to swear fealty or leave, so many left finding their ways south, east, and west – so not driven exactly by purely conquest and adventurism.

Anyone out there know differently of any of this, please feel free to chime in!

The book also enlightened me that there were actually two Haralds in 1066 (or rather a Harold, and Harald). One Harald, the last Scandinavian King also set out almost simultaneously to attack the new English King Harold and conquer England – supposedly unknown to William although I have to wonder. Harald took Harold by surprise, first landing in the north where Harold went up to meet him, but was then himself taken by surprise when the English arrived so quickly, catching the Vikings unprepared, literally “napping on the beach” as the book states. The Vikings put up a massive fight and almost won until their king was killed by an arrow. Harold returned victorious only to return and get attacked by William and then defeated. I didn’t know Harold’s army had first been extremely weakened by the Vikings. And I wonder if that could have been part of Williams plan all along. History might have been very different!

A lot of good information about the various ships. Starting with the smaller boats, dating back to a certain “Hjortspring” boat from 350 BC which was actually “plank built” (but caulked together with pitch as I understand), then a “Nydam” ship that was “clinker built” with overlapping planks and iron rivets, then a ship in AD 700 the first with a keel and allowing a mast with sail for the first time but still smaller – to then all purpose ships for war or cargo, known as “karvi”, which I believe are the Oseburg and Gokstad ships – and probably include the type that my model build is. After that even larger ships were built having higher sides and decking for real Ocean going travel, known as “knarr” – which it says here Erik the Red used in a fleet 25 strong to get to Greenland (and which half of which didn’t make it) – and which could not be beached as the others, but carried smaller boats to go to shore.

Finally there were ships made later just for war, smaller known as “snekkja” and larger known as “skei”. I’m guessing the skei were what is really known as “longship”, as it says here they had a length to width ratio of 7:1 and were really long and slender built for speed – whereas the Gokstad ship is 4.5 to 1 . My model appears to be about 5:1, which is why I conclude it is a “karvi”. If there had been a model of a “skei” I could have used, I could have made one quite a bit bigger to fit my 8.5 inch shelf, and probably would have gone with that! But this one is nice, so I will continue with it!

[paperairforce]

Failed to take pictures of all the sheets before removing the pieces, but there were 10 sheets total, 2 of them folded over (containing decks and planks), and I used about 13 sheets to mount them on. The sheets were double sided printing on beautiful glossy card, probably about 80 to 100 pound cover.

I had to chop some of the plank and keel pieces, and deck, in half in order to fit on my 11 x 17 sheets, which will need to be rejoined later. I’ve finally completed the work in the computer, enlarging the pieces about 1.84 of their original size, resulting in a craft about 44 inches long. Finally, I arranged the pieces onto 11 x 17 sheets in the computer, about 55 sheets in all! Good bit of work there, but satisfying.

I have made the prints (which as Thumb Dog suspected would not be easy to nail the original color) mounted many on 1mm card, and cut out the keel parts which was a real labor and not very satisfying.

Finally the fun begins in assembling the keel! I hope it goes well. I'll get some pics up later of points in between that I took.

[paperairforce]

pics of the enlarged keel pieces mounted on 1mm card. Then, cut out and in a pile ready to start. They are the same pieces that come with the kit, which has a an eight ply keel, except some of these have been cut in half to be rejoined as shown.

[paperairforce]

The original kit has 4 layers per side – 8 total – one printed outer layer and 3 additional port and starboard. The joints overlap for strength. I started by assembling the printed outer piece in order to make sure all the other pieces will fit to that one. The first ones did, then the backing layers – both port and starboard! - seemed to grow mysteriously longer as the layers went as the pieces came up 2-3 mm short here or there and I had to fill the gaps with scrap. When I built the second side, I just kept checking it against the 1st, starting with the printed outer layer, to make sure both sides were the same. In the end, I had to add a little 4mm or so plug you can see to cover a gap, and I’m still not sure why or how that happened. The good news, both sides still lined up to each other fairly perfectly. I hope the decks and planks fit correctly.

Some pics, I had to move the keel to a larger coffee table to support both ends for the build, and a finished pic of both halves with ruler to show the larger scale better, as well as a pic of the 32 frames.

[paperairforce]

As the kit calls them - frames - or formers.

Cut out all the frames from 1mm card, not too much fun. Took about 1.5 hours and chose to use good scissors, though did try and switch to dull knife for a time, and while trying to distract myself with something else while cutting. Still, I can only imagine trying to make them all out of wood would take a great deal longer, and would be much more expensive. Next up I cut out reverse pieces from thin unmounted card and glued them to the reverse side, sealed the edges with white glue, flattened them under wax paper and books to harden up and dry flat.

Next step is to attach the port frames to the port side keel, then add the deck with the frame tips fitting up through slots in the deck. Since I know my frames *may* not line up exactly with the slots in the deck, or fit the edges exactly, I’m thinkin I might put the frames in the slots first, and see where it all lines up, before just going ahead with attaching them.

[paperairforce]

A pic of several attempts at color matching. Fortunately, I have access to a laser printer that I could do infinite attempts with, and the combinations do seem nearly infinite! What with adjust red, green, yellow, etc., adjust your own, color by word description or plus - minus - let printer decide, you decide, background correction or not, CMYK or original RGB - there seem to be thousands of potential combo tries when the thing doesn’t just scan and produce (and then yes there are the scan settings) perfectly the first time. Thumb Dog knows, it was difficult to match the original color. I nailed all around it, but it was always little too yellow or little too red, and no amount of tinkering could seem to really nail it. Add to that, the glossy card effect which a laser print can’t really do. As you could see, I got pretty close, and also found some really nice alternatives I had to seriously consider. They would look different depending on the light too.

As the color (with the stated project display goals) had best be approved by the house administrative authority before proceeding, she perceptively noted that none of them were a perfect match, however, she and I both took a liking to some of the alternatives, especially a beautiful honey-amber-gold tint – one of my favorite wood stain colors in general – and while it is normally associated with pine or maybe cedar, and the Vikings were using oak on the longships, a lighter color, who knows? Maybe they had a home – depot honey amber sap as well they preferred for the new ships. Far as I know, it’s just the dark brown ceremonial peat bog color we know for sure – something I also considered! Anyways, happy house admin, happy environment right?

Next up, the decks rejoined and fitted to the keel, one at a one port and starboard.

[paperairforce]

With the first pic above, several of the available options, with the original shown right, third from bottom I believe - the full looking piece. Top and bottom of that piece came pretty close. Then, on the right, the piece in the middle oversized with the ropes on it is the color I chose, and to the right are the actual fully sized and printed, mounted on card, and prepared decks, bow and stern, starboard and port.

[Thumb Dog]

Hi All,

And hi, paperairforce. It seems I made a mistake when I didn’t buy the Viking Ship model when I had the chance. The book sounds like it is worth having on its own.

It’s true that the most tedious work on a project often comes at the beginning before the various parts start to come together to create the whole. Sadly, I’ve given up on a few things before I saw them through to the end, and it still stings when they come to mind. A model this complex needs dedication, experimentation and imagination to see it to a satisfactory conclusion, and you seem to have all the tools you’ll need to bring it home.

Don’t worry too much about color matching. Even the guys at the paint store, with all their codes and color cards, can’t mix a fresh gallon to exactly match an existing gallon. The human eye can always detect the slight difference. As far as matching colors to a scan, as seen through a monitor, as tweaked in a computer, as printed out on a printer…you can lose your mind. Get close, and move on.

It sounds like you have a good working relationship with your supervisory personnel. I was concerned when you mentioned commandeering a larger coffee table, but it seems everything is copasetic chez paperairforce. I have a similar relationship with my benevolent overseer. Lucky us.

Score and fold,

Thumb Dog

[Siwi]

I would consider the discreet use of paint washes to unify the colour, and satin or matt varnish on this. Wood is something digital texturing and printers seem to fall short on, perhaps because the grain lines converge to alter the colour at horizontal angles. I tend to paint wood texture over textures by wet blending raw umber, ochre, burnt sienna and variously white and grey. I have even added subtle light grey wash to the real wood deck of Pogoria as it looked too artificial.