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.

Building HMS Wolf – Shipyard’s 1/72 Scale Laser-Cut Card Kit – Part 7

As I mentioned before, apparent progress on the HMS Wolf model has slowed significantly, due to the fact that everything I’m doing now is essentially off the model. I’m now working on various sub-assemblies, and some of these I’m starting to do out of order.

The next parts that actually need to go on the ship are the sweep port covers and the four deck hatches. I painted and then assembled the sweep port cover, which simply requires adding some very thin black paper parts for the hinges. This was rather slow going, as the hinges are very tiny and very delicate. One has to be extremely careful not to lose parts, as there are no spares provided in the kit. I apply Aleene’s Tacky Glue to the sweep port cover with a thin brush, then use the tip of the brush to grab the hinge and to set it in place on the  it on the port cover.

Building HMS Wolf – Shipyard’s 1/72 Scale Laser-Cut Card Kit – Part 6

Shipyard’s HMS Wolf laser-cut card kit is moving along, but progress seems slower. The details take time to add and they’re not as obvious from photo to photo. However, I’ve completed the rudder and just need to add it to the model. Also, if you look closely at the photo here, you can see the most obvious addition are all the timberheads at the forecastle rail as well as the posts for the swivel guns. Lastly, did you spot the channels at the sides of the hulls?

Building HMS Wolf – Shipyard’s 1/72 Scale Laser-Cut Card Kit – Part 5

The Shipyard 1/72-scale laser-cut card HMS Wolf build continues with details and lots and lots of little parts and a couple issues trying to follow instructions. Apparent progress has slowed somewhat, since hull construction is complete and I entered a phase of hull detailing. Still things are really flying along in comparison to wooden model ship building, and I managed to add the stern gallery with it’s decorative columns and windows.

Building HMS Wolf – Shipyard’s 1/72 Scale Laser-Cut Card Kit – Part 4

This HMS Wolf kit is moving along so quickly that I’ve hardly had a chance to stop and get caught up with the build log. I’m so far beyond what you’re seeing here, so I’m going to minimize my writing and try to close the gap between build log and current model a bit.

The third layer of the hull is pretty much actual, individual hull planks. There are two sheets of thin, laser-cut card stock, one for each side of the hull.

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

While I don’t need to start any new projects, as I’ve got a enough irons in the fire, as it were, I started feeling that I need to generate some personal ship modeling momentum. I have had Shipyard’s laser-cut Papegojan kit that I was given about a year ago, but another model in one of my ship model clubs is currently building one, and I don’t want to complete with his.

What I’ve really been interested in trying out is Shipyard’s laser-cut HMS Wolf kit, a 1/72-scale model of an 18th century snow-rigged brig of war. But there are really 3 different kits that I’d like to kind of “test out”. But, one of these is a bit involved to merely test out, and that’s Shipyard’s 1/72 scale HMS Wolf kit.

Marketing photo of HMS Wolf from Shipyard’s website.

New Shipyard Kit – HMS Wolf Laser Cardboard Series

I haven’t seen this kit in person yet, but I’ve been interested enough in this ship to have acquired Shipyard’s Modellar Plans for this ship, so I’m familiar with it. Shipyard already produces a 1:96-scale Paper Model series kit of HMS Wolf. The existing Paper Model kit (MK:018) includes laser cut frame parts, but as with all the models of this series doesn’t include sails or masting and rigging materials. The new Laser Cardboard Series kit (ZL:029), like all in the series, has it all.

Now, one of the things which is potentially a real winner is the decorations. But, I can’t really say much about those in the HMS Wolf kit as I haven’t seen the decorations myself. On some models, I believe Shipyard has included resin castings. Without actually seeing them, I can’t say for sure. Certainly Shipyards biggest weakness is that the photos they use to illustrate their kits are NOT necessarily models built from the kit. I’m pretty sure that many of the 1:96-scale kits are illustrated with photos of the 1:72-scale models. In particular if you look at the decorations on the illustrations, you’ll see that they ALL show full 3D figureheads and such, but those in the kits are very much 2-dimensional and really look it. The same with the stern gallery windows, which look great in photos, because they are clearly laser cut window frames with clear windows and the kit is the very basic printed widows.

But this kit looks very promising and I’m excited to see its release. I’m really a wood ship modeler, but these Shipyard kits are truly awesome. I’m really very taken by them. I’d set aside my own 1:96-scale HMS Alert project for a while, but now that I’ve put a little more work into it recently, I’m really loving it again.

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HMS Wolf was a 10-gun sloop launch in 1754. I don’t know all that much about the ship, but the kit shows her as a brig, or more accurately a snow-rigged brig, which means she carried a trysail mast just behind the mainmast. This model itself is about 21″ long, so still small model, but she was a small ship. For 18th century ship enthusiasts, this seems to fill a nice gap between the smaller models of HMS Alert, Le Coureur, Berbice with the very high end, large, and somewhat pricer HMS Mercury.

As with all kits of the Laser Cardboard Series, this one comes with all small parts pre-cut, a BIG time saver, particularly for those who have a hard time cutting those very small parts. It includes all the masting and rigging materials as well as sails. It also includes laser-cut blocks that you just have to assemble and paint. And, speaking of paint, it includes all that, plus brushes. One of the best features of these kits is that they include turned brass cannons and swivel guns. These are things that are very hard to find for the smaller kits.

The new HMS Wolf kit sells for about $160 at the current exchange rates and close to $200 shipped. It’s nice to have a strong dollar for those of us who are hooked on buying from foreign dealers. As far as value, when you compare it to the smaller Paper Model series kit, to come close to this kit, you need to add the sails kit, the masting kit, paints, blocks and deadeyes. I’ve priced these out, and it would cost you just under $120 for everything including shipping. But, what you won’t get are the brass cannons, swivel guns, brushes and decorations. Also, you end up with the smaller scale, less detailing and having to cut all the parts. So, the extra $80 seems like it’s probably a pretty good deal for all that and it makes the new kit seem like a pretty good value.