HMS Mercury’s Cannons
Before I can put too much of the interior detail into place, I really need to add the cannon carriages and probably the gun tackle too. The main reason is that if I am going to add any amount of gun tackle, I need some room to add ringbolts and blocks and such in the tight confines of the model’s interior. This will be more difficult if I try to do this after adding other interior furnishings.
The 1/96-scale HMS Mercury paper model continues. Since my last posting on the subject, I’ve been considering posting a little more regularly to the build logs on this site. I’ve traditionally posted in more regularly on major ship modeling forums and posted larger summaries here. But, for various reasons, I think it makes more sense for me to post more details here.
We’ll see how it goes. It would mean more frequent, probably shorter posts. I just don’t want to overwhelm my blog here with a lot of small posts that aren’t of particular interest to all visitors. I may have to reorganize this site a little, so that build log posts aren’t part of the main stream of posts on this site. Everything is a work in progress…
HMS Mercury’s Stove
Having some interior detail is one of the interesting aspects of these Shipyard brand kits. I don’t know if I’ll be using all of the interior furnishings, but certainly want to include the major ones, even though these will be extremely difficult to ever see inside the completed model.
I built the stove straight from the kit, with a few modifications. I don’t know how the stoves external gear functions, but there is a what looks like a chain driven mechanism, apparently for turning a spit. The chain drive was printed on paper, two gears and the connecting chain, and it was just too hard to cut out as a single piece. So, instead, I cut the gears out and then just added wire to represent the chain. I also used a heavier piece of wire for the external axle.
To begin with, I have to revise something I stated earlier about card modeling being challenging.
The biggest challenge about these Shipyard paper model kits is a mental one. When you get one of these kits, you instantly see a gazillion parts, and you have to cut out each and every one, plus you might decided to cut out windows instead of using printed windows, etc. That’s intimidating.
So, I’m finding that approaching construction of one of these kits is a lot like tying ratlines on a ship model. You can’t think about all those knots you have to tie – you just have to start and do one at a time until you get to the end. Building this model is about baby steps. You can’t count how many baby steps you have to take, you just have to take them one at a time and keep on going.
HMS Mercury Progress
First off, I glued the new pieces into place in the fo’csle and then added the doors back on. If you recall, I’d added the doors earlier and then decided I didn’t like printed windows. So, I removed them and the related partitions and cut out the window panes and used canopy glue to add the “glass”. In addition to the doors, I also finished the inner bulwarks pieces at the bow.
As you can see in the photo below, I still have to “edge” the gun port sills with red paint.
I’m not a paper/card modeler, but after building Shipyard’s paper model of HMS Alert, I enjoyed the project so much that I tinkered with a couple other subjects. I have two of them at the moment, and like with my ship modeling scratch build projects, I start on a few different ones until one of them stands out and calls to me to be taken to completion. That’s actually how HMS Alert came to be. I had no particular plans to complete the model initially – it was just a tinkering project.
Now, one of my current paper model tinkering projects is Shipyard’s 1/96-scale HMS Mercury paper model kit. The ship is a 28-gun Enterprize-class sixth-rate frigate. As I mentioned before, there is a 1/72-scale boxed version where all the parts are laser-cut instead of printed, but that kit is around $500. Mine is about $35 at the North American distributor for Shipyard products, Ages of Sail.
Having completed Shipyard’s HMS Alert kit, it just didn’t feel right to not have a paper model to work on. There’s something about the simplicity of paper that is just too darned cool!
Of course, I have plenty of wooden ship model projects, but it’s nice to have a paper model going in the background. As with other background projects I’ve had in the past, there is no rush to get it done. There’s also nothing that says I have to ever get it done. But, having completed the Alert, I can see taking on another kit and carrying it to completion.
Now, I have Shipyard’s Super Modellar Plans (that’s Shipyard’s spelling, by the way, not mine) for the Santa Leocadia, a Spanish 38-gun frigate in 1/72 scale. The “Super” part of that title means that the plans include the laser-cut frames and some other items to give you a start on the model. However, beyond that, it’s really designed as a scratch build project. That’s something that, as a wooden ship modeler, I can probably do. But, I’m really not looking for something that requires a great deal of thought and planning time. I’d rather just go with a kit that I can just follow along and build.
There are the “Laser Cardboard Series” of ship model kits, which are boxed sets and include cast resin figurehead and scrollwork, turned brass cannons, wooden dowels for masts, pre-cut sail cloth, etc. Those kits are really nice and are in a larger 1/72 scale.
However, I already have a paper model kit on hand that I bought more than a year ago. It is Shipyard’s 1/96 scale HMS Mercury kit.
Ship Modeler 