Starting the Hull and Main Deck

The hull is one molded piece and is pretty clean except for a seam along the center line which was easily cleaned up with some 320 sandpaper followed by 600 sandpaper. Small sinkholes at each side of the bow were easily filled and sanded smooth. I plan to mount this model on a wood base when complete. So I drilled a hole in the bottom, large enough for a 10-32 screw and cemented a nut in place with 5 min. epoxy. I cemented all the main deck sections in place with liquid cement. All three sections fit great. A small gap at the bow was filled with white glue applied with a toothpick. This is a difficult area to fill with putty and sand, so some white glue applied sparingly does the trick.

Starting the Kit

This is a kit of a RO-RO type of freighter. RO-RO is short for roll-on roll-off. Semi tractor trailers can be driven on and off from the ramp at the stern. Containerized cargo can also be loaded onto the deck. As you can see, the kit is molded in white styrene and includes a white metal screw (prop) and shaft. A decal sheet with green stripes for the sides and the ships name is also part of the kit. The hull is one piece.

Completed Model

When possible, I like to photograph my models in sunlight. The natural light gives a more realistic look to the whole thing.

Finnishing Touches

The pennant ,which flies from the lateen yard, posed a problem. How to get it to fly as if in the wind? Instead of using thread to suspend it from the yard, I used thin wire, twisted into a loop. The loop was slipped over the top of the yard and cemented with super glue. After all the rigging was done( and the possibility of breaking of small parts), the stern lantern and swivel guns were cemented in place. I found some N gauge figures and placed them around the ship to give a sense of scale to the model. Since the model is presented as underway, the figures prevent it from looking like a "ghost ship".

Mounting the Model

I mounted the model onto a base that simulates water. Under the label Modeling Tips I have all the instructions to make this kind of a base and attach the model. The instruction sheet has the anchors just hanging from ropes down the sides of the ship. Again this looks incorrect to me so I mounted the anchors on the fore channels and used thick (.025") thread for anchor cables. Since the model is now presented as a ship underway, the sails and flags should all be reacting to the wind in the same direction.

Running Rigging

Light tan thread, pulled over a cake of bees wax, was used for the running rigging. As much as possible, I stuck to the instruction sheet. I used stretched tan spru for the tack lines at the front corners of the sails. This enabled me to put a realistic sag in these lines since they are slack when the sails are filled from astern.

Installing the Forestays, Flags and Sails

I used some heavy black thread for the lower forestays and thin black thread for the upper forestays and installed them per the instructions, no problems. The next few steps I deviated from the instruction sheet. After installing the shrouds and forestays to the masts, there was not enough room at the tops of the masts for the flags. To remedy this, I glued the flags for the fore and mainmasts around short pieces of plastic rod and cemented them to the tops of the fore and mainmasts. I replaced the furled foresail from the kit with a spread sail from another kit in my spares box. I just did not like the way the furled sail looked. The upper layteen yard on the mizzen mast just looked wrong. After looking through a great deal of reference material I could not find any ships of any period with upper and lower layteen yards on the mizzen mast. I decided the best way to go was to leave it off the model altogether and just install the lower layteen yard and sail. Since I intended the yards to be braced around, as they would be with the ship under way, I tied them to the masts instead of cementing them. The sails were carefully cut from the sheet and cemented to the yards with super glue.

Painting and Weathering the Sails

I painted the sails Testors Model Master Camouflage Gray. This very light gray color gives a canvas look to the sails and provides a good surface for the pastel weathering. Dark Umber pastel was used to darken the center of the sail where they would have rubbed on the forestays during furling. A little dark gray pastel was applied to the top of the sails and the corners.