Viking Longboat Build

[paperairforce]

Thanks all for your encouraging and helpful replies. Got all the planks on and it looks OK, so at least I know that I will have a ship now without too much more trouble. There are imperfections, but in all, it looks ok to me so I feel relieved and can feel encouraged continuing with the details.

Michael – thank you for your encouraging words – and yes – I hope to make it look as much as wood as possible – at least from 10 ft away, where it will mostly sit! To that end it’s a tough call for me to cover it with gloss coat, or leave it as matte. Still thinking about that. Sometimes I like the matte sheen, but it also looks too smooth and therefore not realistic. I noticed when I covered the keel with epoxy it looked more convincing as a real piece of wood that had been sealed and varnished since the grains don't show so much. Hmmm…

Phillip, thank you for the confidence. It does look better from the outside with less “rot”. The inside where the drill did the most damage, raising the sides and requiring more to scrape away and use brown marker in its place – it may resemble “eye shadow” more than wood rot? I hope not!

Siwi – I had also thought to consider printing an extra plank. In the end I decided if the existing planks could do it, that would be best. I noticed the box picture had the planks going quite a bit higher than the ribs! At least in the middle. But the instructions had them connecting perfectly evenly. Mine would fall 1 – 2 mm short in a place or two, but another strake would also mean a much higher line at the bow and stern which I thought might not look right. So, I stuck with the proscribed number, though I may need to trim a rib or two at the tops. The shields will also cover that somewhat.

Thumb Dog – wish you had been able to give advice a little earlier! The oar – hole nitpick strikes me as the kind of thing that would be easily noticed from the outside by any potential house guest who knew a thing or two about Viking ships and would know the “round” oar hole wasn’t right. I definitely want to try to change it, though I wish I’d noticed that before mounting that strake. I’ll try it on one or two and if that goes alright, I’ll do the rest. Thanks again for your input, much appreciated!

Some pics of the finished hull, and I’m fairly pleased enough, though I noticed something about the way the strakes attached to the keel (after examining the real examples ) that i'm not sure are period correct and thinking about a possible remedy there.

[Bob Penikas]

WELL DONE!

I wonder how many potential paper modelers we lost due to the frustration of this "kit".

BP

[Michael Mash]

It looks good in your photos.

[rmks2000]

Very nice. I can't get over how large this model is.

[paperairforce]

Thank you all for your encouraging replies! - Bob, your boat looks great too for all the kits faults, but I have also wondered what would have happened with paper models here in the U.S. if this high profile kit, sold at a major bookseller, had been an absolute success. - Michael, thank you, the advantages of using a terrible cell phone camera! I'd call it the "ten ft. away effect", but at least that is where it will sit. - rmks, thanks, so far it weighs in at 2lb 10 oz, or about 1200 grams. It's about 44 inches long.

From the last picture above, you can see the ribs don’t quite meet the strakes around midship (at the ends some do) . My choices – leave it as is, bend them in to the ribs and clamp, or add another addition to the inside rail, a duplicate piece. After studying a few real ships, it seems that the top piece was indeed thicker actually both inside and out. So to that end I have printed some more railings and will glue them on top on the inside. I probably won’t do the outside as the shields will go there – not sure about that yet! May give it an additional authentic look. Perhaps Thumb Dog knows what those little rectangular slots are for – perhaps used to strap the shields in place somehow? I’m considering cutting and popping out each one for added realism, telling myself c’mon, it will only take about 15 minutes!

[paperairforce]

Didn’t take too long! Not a perfect job, but fairly pleased that it’s done. Unfortunately, since I mixed up reassembly of those strakes, I checked the first two oar holes vs. the hole covers and indeed they where in 10 o’clock position, so I got started and when on down the line. Then I noticed that first 1/3 of strake had been mixed, such that the rest should have been at 2 o’clock in order to match their inside covers - which should have been on the other side of the ship. I did not repeat the mistake on the other side. I'm considering also cutting out actual slot covers and gluing them in place for added effect.

Thanks Thumb Dog for pointing all this out. Also from the picture you posted showing actual oars, and the slots, it’s interesting that Viking oar blades were not very wide, or at least it appears that way compared to the length of the oar.

[paperairforce]

For the most part they went on well enough, that is, if they were glued in the middle, level, then the ends would extend to properly cover the dashed lines (found at the ends and middle of each strake) on the ends. In a few cases they fought back and needed pushing down to sit outside all along the previous strake – and not revert to climbing up and sitting on top instead. They also needed strong clamping at the ends, and they wanted to come up. I used epoxy wherever a good grip was needed, but the resistance was so strong in some places I’m a little surprised it is still holding! In particular pushing the strakes in at the bow and stern to conform to those frames required serious clamping and strong glue – not sure that would have been necessary if I had done it one by one as the kit indicates. Also, there probably would be much less resistance if the strakes were thinner, perhaps by half, but since I used 1mm card they were very stiff.

Epoxy – I learned something about epoxy that surprised me! After using it for various purposes for many many years, my impression has been that 5 minute epoxy will set up in about 10 mins, and even with a bad mix, is gripping like a bulldog after about 20. At that point, you can generally let it go! Nevermind the “reaches full strength in one hour” in the directions for use. I’ve never had to wait an hour. But, so stubborn were the strakes, even after one hour if I removed the clamps I would come back the next day to find they had slowly escaped their bonds and still connected by little hardened towers of epoxy, now finally brittle. I learned that it can take many more than one hour for that stuff to really harden to full strength! This happened with many perfect looking mixes and brand new epoxy, as well as older stuff of different brand, so I don’t think it was that. I guess I’ve just never needed to use it under such pressure as these strakes offered. Huh. It’s a good thing I plan to cover the whole bottom with a slower cure epoxy to water proof it, as that should also help lock it all in place in case it ever wants to come back up!

It’s hard to tell if some of this is the result of the kit design, or my enlargements amplifying any original problems (that otherwise wouldn’t have been problems), or especially my chopping into 3 pieces and reconnecting the strakes back into a whole potentially causing slightly wrong curvatures. I did notice that comparing some port and starboard strakes back to back, many didn’t exactly match – indicating I probably did something not quite right. Some of those I actually fitted to “wrong sides” if they had a better fit that way. Some though were actually wider (top to bottom) than others by 1 or 2 mm – and I don’t think that was me - I think more an amplification of mistakes in the die cut process. Same with the “dash” lines – some were higher or lower than their counterparts, and that didn’t help. But overall the job was able to get done. I’m really very pleased that the strakes got on there and that the kit produced that sleek Viking hull that transitions from a narrow wave cutting shape at bow and stern, to a wider “canoe” shape in the middle.

One complaint – I noticed after examining some of the Oseberg or Gokstad ships, and other images – the strakes appear to be folded inside the keel at fore and aft – which this model’s is not. On this one, it is just attached to the outside of the keel. I did find one or two examples of reproductions or later day boats that were done this way – so perhaps it is not incorrect. But it seems obvious that the epitome of Viking design is that they should be inside the keel. It makes sense too – I can only imagine each ocean wave the ship would encounter pounding into the holes in the front between the strakes – no amount of tar and animal hair would withstand that for long! So inside the keel is where I guess they should be. It seems an easy fix taking a knife and just going straight down the keel edge to chop them all off, then epoxying them inside the keel. But, I risk that not working quite right plus I can’t be certain the leftover will successfully come off their joints without leaving a mess behind. So I guess I will leave it for now and assume some were built this way!


Many strakes wanted to go their own way, possibly due to being wrong angle from my up-sizing process – and had to be clamped overnight with epoxy to keep them in place. In this case, a chip clip to keep them together and a can of Don Pepino’s pizza sauce (it’s the best ready made NY style pizza sauce, imo!) to keep some down pressure on the strake while it sets.

[paperairforce]

After the trim is added I decided to go ahead with the stand so the finished hull has a nice place to sit. The kit comes with a beautifully styled stand that I will slightly augment. After studying the construction, it appears to be two legs front and back, with a channel for the keel, and connected by some faux planks consisting of a single sheet which is simply folded into a channel at the bottom, and glued to each leg top in a sort of “wing” shape around the leg tops. After some thought I decided I would use the piece to create actual planks instead and glue them in using the same pattern. Some pics of the pieces. The planks are uncut as the original kit comes, except front and back to be glued back together.