Amati Bismarck, Now Shipping!

Amati finally released their long-awaited kit of the Battleship Bismarck. This looks to be an incredibly well detailed kit, and a serious challenge for the wooden ship model builder. If you have any interest at all in ships of WWII, and like wooden ship model kits, this on is seriously worth looking into.

Ages of Sail

Amati’s new wooden model kit of the German Battleship Bismark arrived just today as part of a shipment of 6 big pallets of kits, fittings, tools, wood supplies, and more! But, we were prepared and got our online shop setup with the new kits listing. They are now online and ready for you to buy.

Available Now!

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Ages of Sail

Click Here to Shop

This is a very big kit at 1:200 scale, weighing in at around 20 pounds. This is a single planked plank-on-bulkhead wooden ship model kit, with LOTS of fittings, including more than 2200 photo-etched parts, plus two full-color instruction books, and 7 large plans sheets.This is a master model for those who want to build the ultimate challenge. But, make sure you have room for it. This amazing kit finishes up at over 4 feet long.

Be among the first to build this challenging kit!

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Normal Shipping from Japan is Available Again

Some great news for those of us who like to buy products from Japan, like Woody Joe kits and things: This Summer, after nearly a year of Covid lock-down,  Japan Post has begun allowing shipping to the United States again. In celebration, I bought a bunch of stuff from Zootoyz.jp that I don’t really need just yet! After a couple weeks, I received my first package from Japan in about a year.

No, there was no ship modeling stuff here in this order. Well, not exactly anyway. I did get a new Hishika Industries Super Fine Cut Saw to replace the one I’ve worn out. That’s something I do use with ship modeling. The rest is mostly to work on some very small scale (1/150) diorama ideas.

But, you’ll also notice two kits in the photo. These I got mostly to make and share with my 96 year old mother, who is now in a nursing facility. She doesn’t have much room for personal stuff, but she likes to look at these things, particularly if there are people in the model display. And, I’m hoping it jogs her memories a little. She probably doesn’t remember anymore that I’ve visited the Kaminari-mon (the small model) or Matsumoto Castle (the larger model).

So, yes, shipping from Japan is available again, however it is more expensive than it used to be, and it was already pretty pricey. But, in reality, shipping from Japan to the U.S. was still available, even during the lockdown, via a Japanese shipping company called Yamato Transport. In fact, I used the service last year to ship a small model to Japan last year. Shipping to Japan using Yamato is a little bit of work, as you have to find a convenient drop-off location. However, getting stuff from Japan is pretty easy, as their stuff apparently gets passed along to UPS to do the actual delivery.

And, actually, this is how the above items were shipped to me, as it was a little bit cheaper than EMS service via Japan Post, which is how I’d always gotten deliveries in the past. Still pricey, but nice to be able to do business again direct from Japan. Ω

Building Shipyard’s Dutch Fluit Schwarzer Rabe, 1627 – Part 5

For me, it seems that there is a danger in working on paper models. I find these things to be so engrossing that I have a hard time taking a break to do other things. I’ve been working on the Schwarzer Rabe pretty steadily for a couple weeks now. Almost a week ago, I had made a comment on Papermodelers.com that I was probably posting my last update for a while, as I get back to working on some other projects. But, I never stopped this one. Here it is, a week later, and I’m still trying to make myself shift gears and get some other needed work done. We’ll see if that happens after this post.

Building OcCre’s Spanish 74-gun Ship Montañes from Part Kits – Part 3

Having still not come to my senses, I continue to plan modifications to my Montañes model. More and more, I am considering modifying the cannons and gun ports. As none of the cannon parts are included in the initial parts pack (remember, I only have Pack 1 of the six available for this kit), I contacted OcCre about ordering some of the cannon barrels and parts.

I have to say that OcCre’s customer service seems to be top notch. I communicated by messaging them through their Facebook page, which is easy to do and replies are usually within 24 hours. I provided the part numbers from the kit and the quantities. Basically, I just wanted 4 of each of the cannons and carriages, which would be enough for me work with, and allow me to at least expand the number of full cannons on the upper gun deck. Anyway, the parts aren’t very expensive, but right now in particular, with Covid limitations, the shipping is the expensive part. I think it ended up costing me around $26 for these few parts. But, since I’m experimenting and writing about my build, I decided to go ahead.

It didn’t take me long to get the parts I’d ordered, giving me some idea of how I might proceed with the build. First off, I had a hunch from looking at the photos of the part packs that OcCre had changed their kit from the original design, to use cheaper materials. So, while disappointing, it came as no surprise that the cannon barrels were all cast metal parts, not the beautiful looking brass gun barrels that you see on all the model photos.

For me, it probably doesn’t make a lot of difference, as I usually prefer my cannon barrels blackened to appear more like the real ones. And, as castings go, they aren’t bad. On the larger dummy barrels, you can hardly see any mold seams.

But, as with so many kit manufacturers, the cannon barrels don’t look a whole lot like real cannon barrels. I don’t know who designed these cannon barrels, but clearly they either have no idea what a cannon barrel looks like, or they just don’t care.

Building A Master Korabel Ship’s Boat Kit – Part 2

Here’s the latest update on building Master Korable’s 95mm ship’s boat kit, and it looks like this build log is going to be a three-parter. Last time I left off, I had finished the framing and was about to start the hull planking. I’m happy to announce that I have completed the hull planking and about ready to finish the interior of the boat.

The hull planking went pretty well, but required some pretty careful work. The planks are very nicely pre-shaped, but they still have to be bent to fit the curve of the hull. It also takes a bit of care to glue the planks only to the ribs, and not to the framework of the temporary former.

Paper Ship Model Kits from Seahorse

Most of you who have been following my blog know that I’ve been experimenting with making paper ship models. Shipyard’s 1/96-scale HMS Alert was the first kit I attempted and completed. That was several years ago now. Earlier this year I completed Shipyard’s laser-cut model kit of a Hanseatic cog (Hansa Kogge). After completing the Alert, I started playing around with a larger subject, Shipyard’s 1/96-scale HMS Mercury kit. But, that was pretty involved with a full gun deck, lots of canons, plus a relatively long hull. Last year, I started working on a something a little more reasonable to tackle, again a Shipyard paper model kit, the fluit Schwarzer Rabe.

But, though they are quite detailed and well made, Shipyard is not the only source of paper ship model kits.  There are other makers of kits such as WAK, Oriel, and others. But one in particular has recently caught my attention, as the designer is has posted some of his scratch builds on the ship model forum ModelShipWorld.com. His screen name and his company name is Seahorse, and while I’ve seen some of these kits and scratch work before, I hadn’t really stopped to take a look at them because I wasn’t paying that much attention to paper models. But, now that I’ve taken a deeper interest in them, I’ve started noticing his kits, and look very interesting.

New Kit Sneak Peek: French Frigate Hermione by Disar Model

I had a chance to view this kit recently. So, first off, it WILL be available shortly at Ages of Sail. It looks like a pretty good kit to me. I love that you get a full gun deck and that the cannons look like real cannons and not like some hastily turned metal rods, as in some kits.

This will make for a pretty large model for a frigate, and it seems to look great with sails. The only downsides I see are that the quality of the pre-sewn sails are very so-so. If you build without sails, it won’t matter. But, more discriminating modelers will probably want to make their own.

One other thing to note is that the wood is a light colored wood, like Ramin, or something. I would think most builders will want to stain, dye, or paint the hull. It’s probably suggested in the instructions somewhere. Others may considering adding a layer of nice veneer planking as finish planking.

I expect this kit will sell for less than $350. I think it will prove to be a good value, and will build into a nice model.

Building Shipyard’s Dutch Fluit Schwarzer Rabe, 1627 – Part 4

Planking of the Schwarzer Rabe is coming along well. I’ve now gotten well into the planking below the waterline. Planking the lower hull seems much easier than the upper hull. With the upper hull, the treenails show, and they need to line up along the imagined frames. Also, the gun ports and other similar features have to line up properly, so a lot of attention goes into these planks.

In above photos was taken just as I was about the reach the waterline. So far, things seem to be looking okay. All planking strips are edged with brown paint to hide the edges. The individual lines of planks have been scored as well. This serves to make the planking look a little more realistic, but it also allows the planking strip to curve more easily, adapting to the shape of the hull.

I still have a little issue with the hull flattening out a little between the frames, but I did my best to minimize this by inserting a blade under the flat areas of the plank strips and pushing them back out a little. I then fill the resulting gap between the hull and the planking strip with a little extra glue for support.

At this stage, there’s really not much to say. Below the waterline, my biggest concern is keeping the hull more or less rounded. Also, I have no way to really gauge how well I’m covering the hull.  Am I going to have any gaps or any overlap at the end. Past experience has taught me that I’m certainly going to end up with one or the other.

Since I’m cutting the planking strips along the black lines with those lines mostly showing up on the edge of my planking strips, I’m guessing that I’m going to end up with a little overlap at the end. Whatever plank I end up trimming in the end may look a little odd, but it will probably look a lot better than having gaps.

But, I am thinking that once the lower hull is planked, I’ll be treating with thin CA to stiffen the planking, then sanding the hull down a little, to reduce any burrs or ridges formed from the cutting process. I expect I’ll paint the lower hull too, or at least give it a wash of paint. That should subdue those black plank lines. The printed paper is a bit pure white, so I may tone it down a little bit.

In any case, planking the hull is somewhat self motivating. I’ve gotten so much of the hull done now, I’m looking forward to finishing it up before I take any kind of break and work on something else – Remember, this is a model I started as a filler project to work on when I’m tired of working on other things. That said, it’s feeling a lot less like a filler project right now, and I’ve started prepping the parts for the stem/beakhead and the sternpost/skeg.

As a parting pic of today’s post, the above are two of the 6 pieces that will make up the beakhead. There is a kind of scrollwork that shows through here. On the top piece, I’ve carefully cut away all the black printed areas. You can see the black printed areas in the bottom piece, which I’ll “carve” next. After I finished cutting, I treated the scrollwork with some thin CA to harden it, and keep it from getting damaged later.

As soon as I can get the beakhead and the keel all done, I’ll be able to work the mounting. On my first paper model, HMS Alert, I used simple brass rods. This has a very clean and minimalist  look, which I like. But, I’ll see how things go when I come to that.

It’s a bit out of sequence, but I’m kind of itching to work on the deck area a little. Not sure what I’ll do, but you might see some details get added – at least ones that I don’t think will get in the way or get damaged while I’m working on the outer hull.