27 | January | 2020 | Ship Modeler

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here, but I have been working on things. So, to get things rolling again, I thought I post a little recommendation regarding a workspace upgrade I recently made.

I have a large cutting mat I bought from Ages of Sail last year. It’s A2 size, which means it’s about 18″ x 24″ (16.5″ x 23.4″ actual). It’s nice to have a large surface to work on. It saves the desktop from getting cut or scraped, and from glue and paint spills. For a little over $26, it’s a bargain for what it does.

The mat also has a grid, which can be useful at times, though this one is in centimeters, which I find useful. But, some may prefer one in inches. It’s also marked with a few lines that provide easy visual guides for 30, 45, 60, and 90 degree angles.

Note the worn spot near the bottom edge of the mat toward the left. The mat recently saved the table from some thick CA glue that oozed out of the bottle. I could clean up with some acetone, but it stripped the printing off the mat. A good trade, I think.

However, it dawned on me that there is a larger size cutting mat available. It’s A1 sized, which is about 24″ x 36″ (23.4″ x 33.1″ actual), which makes it pretty much a match for a standard drafting table, which is what I’m working on most of the time.

Ages of Sail did not have the item listed in stock, but it turned out they have several in stock. I was there just recently, so I figured I’d pick one up. I got it home and it covers the surface of the table perfectly. Of course, I don’t want to spill on it, as I don’t really want to have to buy another one. But, thinking about it, that’s exactly what it’s for, and it’s better to have to replace it eventually than having to refinish the wooden table underneath.

And, if it gets too ugly to look at with lots of cuts and stains, I can always flip it over. The other side is the same blue color, just no printing on it.

Ages of Sail just fixed their listings and now you can find them here: https://www.agesofsail.com/ecommerce/extra-large-self-healing-cutting-mat,-24%22-x-36%22,-pkn6001.html

New kit now available at Ages of Sail is a nice looking Spanish galleon, the Santiago de Compostela.

1/72 scale is somewhat unusual for a ship model kit, but several have started to appear in recent years. One nice thing about this scale is that there are a lot of figures available.

I don’t know about this specific kit, but there are some nice looking and usual subjects available from Disar Model. The kits I’ve seen also come with things like pre-sewn sails, laser-cut bulkheads, photo-style instructions, and a re-usable, compartmentalized parts box that actually snaps shut (if you’ve gotten parts boxes in other ship model kits, you know why this is a “thing”).

Looks like it lists for $204, which is a good price point.

Ages of Sail

Santiago de Compostela is a 1/72-scale wooden model kit of a 16th century Spanish galleon. It’s a new kit from Disar Model of Spain. It’s a plank-on-bulkhead kit that features laser-cut structural parts and high quality woods for planking.

The ship is a beautiful four-masted galleon, which is rigged with square sails on the first two masts and lateen sails on the last two.

This new kit from Disar Model of Spain is now in stock in limited supply. As with all Disar Model kits, this kit includes step-by-step photographic instructions, so you can see how to build it. A full set of fittings of metal and wood are included. Colorful flags and a set of pre-sewn sails are included.