Wowed by Shipyard’s Laser-Cut Card Models

At this point in my build of Shipyard’s 1/72-scale laser-cut card model of the 10-gun snow-rigged sloop of war HMS Wolf, I’m behind on keeping my build log up to date. But, I can’t let that get in the way here. Here’s the thing, I am so in awe of how incredible this kit is, that I have to state, categorically, that I’m absolutely building not only the Papegojan kit I have, but the HMS Alert kit, and the Le Coureur kit, and that I’m absolutely going to find the money to buy and build the HMS Mercury kit.

Shipyard’s 1/72-scale HMS Mercury, laser-cut kit.

Building The Armed Virginia Sloop Paper Model – Part 7

First off, my apologies for leaving parts of previous posts at the end of my most recent post. Sometimes I get in a rush to get something posted or I get a little tired, as I often write late at night or in the wee hours of the morning. I clean these things up as soon as I see them, but I’ll try to be more careful in the future. Meanwhile, this Seahorse kit is coming along, slowly now, but surely.

Building HMS Wolf – Shipyard’s 1/72 Scale Laser-Cut Card Kit – Part 3

In addition to my work on the paper Armed Virginia Sloop model from Seahorse. The build of Shipyard’s 1/72 HMS Wolf kit continues with the adding of the second hull layer. As a reminder, this kit is almost 100% laser-cut parts. There are some dowels to shape for the masts and yard later on, plus rigging. Also, cannon barrels and belaying pins are turned brass, and there are some other non-paper parts, such as the figurehead, which is cast resin. But, there are no paper parts that aren’t already pre-cut by laser, except for a small sheet of color printed decorative friezes and flags.

In my previous post, I had the hull skeleton covered by the first layer. This primarily stiffens the bulkheads and provides some support to the outer hull layers. This covering is done the same way on all ship model kits from Shipyard, whether they are printed paper models or laser-cut cardboard kits like this one.

Building The Armed Virginia Sloop Paper Model – Part 6

New Parts

A couple days ago, the additional items I ordered from Seahorse arrived. It took just 11 days from the day I ordered them and, as I mentioned previously, the whole order cost me less than $20, including shipping, and was quite a collection of goodies that are specially for this model. Below, you can see a set of 8mm 3D printed belaying pins, a full set of 3D printed cannon and swivel gun barrels for the Armed Virginia Sloop, the dowel set, and the laser-cut cardboard blocks and deadeyes set for this model.

The Guns

For now, my focus is on the ship’s carriage guns. I double-checked Dr. Clayton Feldman’s book Modeling an Armed Virginia Sloop of 1768, and he describes the carriage guns as 3 pounders. That makes sense, given the small size of the gun carriages and barrels for this kit.

Again, the carriages are being made using the optional laser-cut gun carriage set for the Armed Virginia Sloop. One issue I ran into using these parts, is that the carboard is a little on the soft side. So, as soon as all the parts are together, I’m using some CA glue to harden it all up. For now, I’m using Aleene’s Tacky Glue where I can.

These parts are so small that, were I to do this all again, I’d probably get an extra set of the gun carriages. Given that these only cost about $1, and there are no extra carriage parts provided, this seems a reasonable precaution, particularly when working with the gun trucks or wheels.

I considered painting the gun carriages a natural wood color, but the kit’s printed carriage parts are red, and I thought that would look good, so that’s how I painted them.

I can’t recall if I mentioned this before, but for paper models, I’ve mostly been using a paint that is the same that Shipyard includes in their boxed laser-cut kits. At one time, they included the original tubes of paint, straight from the manufacturer, but now provide it in jars. The jars don’t show the manufacturer, but it’s exactly the same stuff. It’s from a Polish art supply company called Renesans. A couple years back, it took me a while, but I was able to find it on a Polish art supply shop that sold internationally. I have a small supply, but in this case, there’s plenty included in a jar that I got in another Shipyard kit. This model is so small, it doesn’t take much paint.

You’ll notice in the above photo that I messed up the front axel on this particular gun carriage. It’s so small that without special visors, I could not see that it wasn’t going on correctly. However, once the wheels are in place, this won’t be noticeable at all.

I kept the wheels on the laser-cut sheet until I was able to add the axel ends to them. These are REALLY TINY round pieces of card stock that often started to break up. And, if you look closely, you can see that they aren’t of uniform sizes. But, this was as good as I could do. When the glue dried, I brushed on some paint using a very dry brush. It was dry, so that the paint would seep into the cardboard and “glue” the parts to the sheet.

Afterwards, I glued all the wheels into place, again, using Aleene’s. After that dried, I use some thicker CA glue to lock things all together, then I gave them another coat of paint.

I test fit the 3D printed barrels I got and the following is the result.

The barrels seem black enough to use as-is. But the swivel guns look a little transparent. If I paint the swivel guns, I feel I really should paint these cannon barrels so they all match, but I’m hesitant, as these look pretty darned good the way they are.

In the above photo, you can also see that I’m test fitting the main deck hatch and the companion way hatch behind that. I’m not quite sure in what order I need to fit out the deck, as the model is so small. I’m concerned that putting some parts in place with get in the way of working with other parts. There are, after all, lots of eyebolts, ringbolts, and cleats to install.

I’ve been dragging my feet on this, but it looks like I’ll need to get to work on making some tiny wire eyebolts. Plenty of other things I need to work on, so maybe I’ll keep dragging my feet on that eyebolt production…

Building The Armed Virginia Sloop Paper Model – Part 5

Little Steps

It’s been almost exactly one month since I received the 1/100 scale Armed Virginia Sloop from Seahorse, with construction just a few days short of that. Progress has been really good, and now I’m plodding along with the little steps. As I mentioned before, I ordered the remaining optional accessory sets for this kit, plus I ordered the belaying pins set as well. Hoping to get these soon.

In the meantime, I added the swivel gun posts, using parts from the optional laser-cut details set, and I also used one of the paper pieces that cover up the face of the posts, so you don’t see the multiple layers of paper.

Building The Armed Virginia Sloop Paper Model – Part 4

Construction of the 1/100 scale Armed Virginia Sloop paper model from the Polish model publisher Seahorse continues, but progress has slowed greatly now that the main work on the hull is done. Now it’s a matter of making all the tiny details, and for this, I started working on the gun carriages. Seahorse sells an option set of laser-cut parts for these, which I ordered when I bought the kit. Having tried to make small scale gun carriages when I built my Shipyard HMS Alert model, I know I’ll be much happier with laser cut parts like these.

Building HMS Wolf – Shipyard’s 1/72 Scale Laser-Cut Card Kit – Part 2

Building the hull of this Shipyard kit is really a lot like building the hull of any of their kits in that the skeletal structure of the model is very well engineered. As with just about all Shipyard ship model kits, there is a main keel piece and a series of bulkheads, much like with any wooden ship model kit. But, Shipyard kits often then have a longitudinal piece that crossed the frames, horizontally, and often another piece that crosses most of the frames vertically as well. This kit is no different.

Building The Armed Virginia Sloop Paper Model – Part 3

Construction of the 1/100 scale Armed Virginia Sloop paper model from the Polish model publisher Seahorse has been moving along surprisingly quickly. It’s been rather hard to stop and document the build, as things have been progressing so well. But, I finally reached a point where I feel comfortable taking a small progress break.

My last post was only few days ago, at which time, I was working on the final layer of the hull planking. Below, you can see the second planking layer in place, for which I used the laser-cut accessory set, but the keel and the lower hull are actually covered by the third and final layer of planks.

Building The Armed Virginia Sloop Paper Model – Part 2

About two weeks ago, I began work on this small paper model kit from the relatively new publisher, Seahorse, and I have to say that the build has been going quite well. I was going to say extremely well, but I don’t want to jinx myself and this build. This is the first Seahorse kit I’ve ever tried, though I completed the HMS Alert paper model kit from Shipyard, as well as one of their small lighthouse kits, and, most recently, the laser-cut Hanse Kogge von Bremen kit.

Last time I posted, I had completed the second hull layer, and added pieces to build up the thickness of the bulwarks. This model has three hull layers, and on my build, the second layer is made up of laser-cut pieces that were part of an add-on package of laser-cut parts. The basic kit requires the paper parts be laminated to a 0.5mm thick piece of cardboard, then cut out. Clearly, the laser-cut parts set is a big time saver. But, I think it also will end up making for a better looking model in the end.