My Workbench

Monday, December 25, 2017

Another War Artisan Card Ship

Here is another excellent card ship from War Artisan Jeff Knudsen. This time a 1/300 scale 10 gun sloop schooner of the Revolutionary War. This build went easier than the last one, being a larger scale than the 1/1200 scale I built the 64 gun to. Everything went as the instructions directed, except for the channels. I couldn't figure them out so I made two out of bits from an old credit card. I also did not wrap the main sail around the mast like the instructions suggest as I think it looks more accurate unattached. I really think this little schooner looks good. Kudos to Jeff for another great design.









 

Sunday, December 24, 2017

Thursday, December 7, 2017

My first War Artisan Card Ship

Here is my review of War Artisan's card model of a 64 gun ship of the line. This model is a freebie on the website, http://warartisan.com/. The owner and designer, Jeff Knudsen, provides a few of his excellent models for free so folks can try them out before purchasing. I downloaded this one quite a while back meaning to try it right away, but I then learned to scratch build and had so many Langton, GHQ and Navwar hulls to build (still do!), so it has taken me a long time to get around to trying this card model.

I must say, this model went together very well and very quick. I added a balsa base to strengthen the hull and that's all really. The instructions already include balsa support for the raised quarter deck, forecastle and poop deck. The most time was taken to build the masts. I chose to add my stepped masts rather than the suggested single shaft masts in the instructions. There are two sail choices, the Simple sail set and the Advanced sail set. I chose the advanced sails as they allow for more detail to be added. Just a few other added embellishments were made to the sails. The standard and running rigging are done like my other 1/1200 ships. Overall I am really impressed. This would be a really fast way to put a battle fleet together. No painting at all, just some touch up with colored highlighters. Very cool! My hat is off to Jeff!













With Navwar 74 and Davco 64

Saturday, December 2, 2017

1960's 1/250 scale Pyro Brig

It has been quite a while since my last post, last June in fact. The summer was not that busy and I had plenty of time to spend in the shipyard, but to tell the truth the creative juices just dried up. I sat down in the dungeon a lot and thought of doing something, anything! It just wasn't there. I watched a lot of movies, got caught up on everything Netflix and Amazon Prime had to offer. Without gamers to play with, I just lost the incentive to build anything for gaming.

Now it is winter and too wet to play outdoors. My UK friend Rory recently finished a beautiful 1/500 scale Airfix Victory. It turned out so nice I was inspired to build an old 1960's 1/250 scale Pyro Brig of War I picked up on eBay a while back. It was a partial build so I had to take it apart first and clean it up. It was two cannon short, had a broken mast, and was missing the flags and stern decal. I chose not to make ratlines for it, so just rigged the shrouds. There is no ship's boat, which I have always thought odd with these models, and I just didn't feel like taking the time to make one (I am just barely out of my creative block after all). So here she is: