Ron Neilson’s Amati Xebec Model

Ron’s a friend and great ship modeler and now is one of the directors of the Nautical Research Guild. I’ve always loved the work he did on the construction of this Xebec model, which he named “The Sword of God”. He has the name written in Arabic on the nameplate – a really nice touch.

This is a great looking kit, and I’ve always wanted to make a Xebec (yes, among so many other things that need to get finished).

The photos were originally posted on The NRG’s Model Ship World.

Ages of Sail

Our longtime friend Ron Neilson gave us his permission to share his photos of one of his early builds: Amati’s 1/60-scale Xebec kit. This was only Ron’s second wooden ship model that he built back in  2012. The completed model is about 28″ long, and he clearly put a lot of personal touches into this kit, including the red sails, the color scheme, the deck clutter, and more. He also did a beautiful job with the presentation on  its display base with customized nameplate.

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Shackleton’s Antarctic Exploration Ship Endurance by Paul Reck – Completed Model

It was only about two months ago that we posted about Paul starting this kit, and here it is, already completed. Meanwhile, I’m staring at projects that have been sitting on my bench for a year or more, trying to get back to them at some point…

Hyde Street Pier Model Shipwrights

Just about two months ago, we posted an article about HSPMS member Paul Reck’s work on a model of Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic exploration ship Endurance, based on  kit produced by the Spanish ship model kit maker OcCre.

Paul is building this on commission. And, while he wasn’t in any hurry to get it done, he’s already wrapped up this project in record time.

Paul chose not to build the model with sails, leaving the model with a classic “bare poled” look. He also made some small modifications to the model, based on photos he found on the Internet of the actual ship.

 

As Paul noted early on, this is a big model. We’re not sure where the final home is for this model, but we’re guessing that Paul’s next project is crating the model up to ship across the country.

Only time will tell what Paul’s next ship model…

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Lower Amati Kit Prices and Free Shipping Option

Speaking of Amati, the new lower Amati prices should provide some relief for us diehard ship modelers that have to keep buying kits, even during this period of economic inflation! And, free shipping on domestic orders of $150 or more, to boot!

Ages of Sail

2022 was a rough year. We were all hit by inflation and Covid related issues and global disruptions due to the ongoing war in Ukraine. One of the results was an extraordinarily large spike in overseas freight charges.

 

But, now that we’re starting off 2023, freight costs have eased up a bit, and our owner has been in negotiations with Amati on pricing. The result is that we’re able to bring you a 10% reduction of all Amati kit and tool prices. This is not sale pricing, it’s a price change.

In addition, to help sales along, we’ve decided to take our holiday special domestic shipping pricing and make it permanent. So, now, all domestic orders of $150 or more, qualify for free shipping. This is an option you can choose at checkout, if you qualify. But, to get free domestic shipping, you have to specifically choose it.

By…

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Coming Soon – Amati Gondola

It’s nice to see Amati releasing a new, updated version of their old Venetian Gondola model kit, but to see that it’s supposedly going to be available as early as this month, according to Ages of Sale, the importer/distributor for Amati products for the Americas.

Ages of Sail

If you saw our last post about Amati price drops and free domestic shipping offer, then you probably noticed a new kit photo. This is a new Venetian Gondola kit that is coming very soon from Amati, and we’re very excited about it.

As you may recall, Amati used to produce a Venetian Gondola kit that disappeared from production for several years. This new, revised kit, looks very promising, and we will hopefully have these in stock within a couple weeks.

Unfortunately, we have very little detailed information about this new kit. So, we’ll let these beautiful marketing photos do the talking for now.

Stay tuned for price and availability announcements any time now. Ω

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Amati Gunboat “Arrow” Build – Final

With the completion of the rigging, followed by the creation of a new flag (see Making an American Flag Using Adobe Illustrator), I went on to add the finishing touch to my American galley gunboat model, which are the oars. It is a “galley” gunboat after all. The model is now complete, and I’m quite happy with the way it turned out, especially given that it took me years to finally get around to completing the model.

As a reminder, this was built from the American Gunboat Arrow kit produced by Amati Model of Italy. It is a roughly 1/55-scale wooden ship model measuring just under 19″ long. I bought the kit from Ages of Sail many years ago (2014!), partially built the hull, worked on it off and on, then set it aside until early 2021. Even with all my other projects in the works, I decided to make an effort to finish up this model before the end of this year, 2022.

Building HMS Wolf – Shipyard’s 1/72 Scale Laser-Cut Card Kit – Part 8

After taking something of a pause on this project while deciding on the color scheme on deck, I did manage to do a bit of work on some various sub-assemblies. But, as far as the color scheme goes, I’ve decided on red gun carriages and wheels, as well as red hatch coamings. The kit instructions call for just about everything else on deck to be painted red, including the ship’s wheel, but I’ll make a final decision on that and on the binnacle when I get to their construction.

Riding bitts and hatches temporarily fit into place, but showing my final paint scheme.

A Local OcCre Endurance Build

I talked to Paul Reck about his build of OcCre’s Endurance kit that he’s building. He had good things to say about the kit It got him to looking at the full range of OcCre kits and he was surprised to see how many different kits they have. I think he may be looking at building another OcCre kit at some point.

Ages of Sail

One of our local customers, veteran ship modeler Paul Reck, who heads up the Hyde Street pier Model Shipwrights group in San Francisco, is working on a commissioned build of Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton’s exploration ship Endurance. The model is being built from OcCre’s 1/70-scale wooden kit, and Paul was nice enough to provide some photos of the model, under construction in his workshop.

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Making an American Flag using Adobe Illustrator

I’ve been taking a little time off of work since I’ve been actually pretty productive with ship modeling and other personal tasks. So, today, I finally decided to tackle the issue to making a flag for the American Gunboat model that I’ve been working on.

My Amati American gunboat model, nearly finished, but in need of a flag

New Book on HMS Terror by Matthew Betts

I was quite surprised yesterday when I saw that there was a new book available on the Arctic (and Antarctic) exploration ship HMS Terror of the ill-fated Franklin Expedition. What’s more this is a book by Matthew Betts whose research, posted in his blog, buildingterror.blogspot.com, has been used in the development of OcCre Model’s wooden ship model kit, in the development of the AMC miniseries The Terror, and more.

New In Stock – Barking Fish Carrier, Ranger 1864 – Vanguard Models

While this is about the fifth fishing boat kit from Vanguard Models, and they are all kind of similar looking, this is one I really like. As a novice level kit, it looks like it will also make a very good kit for someone who is good with small tools and is interested in trying out a plank-on-bulkhead model kit.

The big plus, to me, is that the 58-pages of instructions are clear and in english, AND you can download them before you even spend any money on the kit. Ages of Sail is in the process of putting all the Vanguard Models kit instructions on their product pages, which is a great way to find out just what you’re getting before you make the purchase.

Ages of Sail

Just in stock is the latest ship model kit from Chris Watton’s Vanguard Models, the Ranger, a Barking Fish Carrier. Replacing the earlier well smacks, the fish carriers transported fish just caught from the fishing fleets and raced them back to the markets, requiring the best speed to assure fresh catch. So, boats like the Ranger were fast and had very fine lines.

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