Emhar Viking ship first look

Is this the kit?

They've got the oarsmen, too.

Yep, that's the kit. For the oarsmen see

http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.asp?manu=EMH&code=7218

They are made from a poseable plastic that is really great to work with - it allows you to create individual poses. As far as I know Emhar are doing some pioneer work here.

A couple of online shops do packages; I paid GBP 15,- for the ship and the oarsmen, but there's surely a better deal to be found out there. 

Jorit 

To me there's one huge, overriding question:  how does this new kit compare to the Revell one?  I ask because I'm more than halfway through with mine, and I really don't want to find out at this point that I picked the wrong kit.

On the basis of Jorit's description the Emhar kit certainly sounds like a good one.  Maybe Revell's 64 separately-molded shields are a plus, but I'd want to see the Emhar ones before passing judgment.  The "gangplank" of the real Gokstad ship was found in the burial mound; I imagine the Emhar designers looked at it.

It's quite a testimony to the state of the plastic sailing ship kit business that (grumble grumble) Emhar, having decided to take the plunge and invest in a new kit, picked a subject that was already covered - and covered very well, in my opinion - by the competition.  But, of course, any genuinely new sailing ship kit is a subject for rejoicing.

John,

I can understand your feelings about having the Revell viking ship half finished; hey, perhaps you should start a plastic scratchbuilding project of a Napoleonic 74 - if then halfway through it someone comes out with a decent kit I'll start collecting for setting up a statue...

I can do this only from memory right now - but if I remember correctly the main differences would be:

- Revell has wood grain detail on the hull, Emhar doesn't

- Revell has optional bow decoration, you have to snip it off in the Emhar kit

- Revell has separate shields, Emhar only "rows" of shields that to me are less convincing than the Revell ones

- Emhar has plugs for the oars so that the ship can be shown as a sailing ship without the shields

- Emhar has the boarding-plank, Revell doesn't

- again from memory: Revell has part of the keelson moulded onto the deck piece; in the Emhar kit all these pieces are separate, which could produce fit issues, but has the potential for much better detail in that area.

- Emhar instructions are much better than Revell ones when it comes to the rigging

- Revell has this nice transfer for the sail, Emhar doesn't... 

Though I will readily agree that the Revell kit is a very good one, the Emhar one seems to have more potential due to its construction. One thing that would be very interesting is the scale of the kits - I've heard that the Revell kit, though marketed as 1/50, is actually closer to 1/60. The Emhar one seems to be very close to 1/72, which potentially is a boon for the figure and wargaming people (though 1/60 is still manageable; that's about the scale of the ex-Zvezda cog).

Jorit

A small postscriptum:

Here is a German review of the kit with pictures. The reviewer is points to two issues that somehow escaped my attention (he also doesn't like the shields, but frankly I don't really care about them):

- on his hull pieces are indentations; I have to do a closer inspection whether I have these as well; that could be a major issue

- the rope in the kit is black which may well be inappropriate for running rigging; the Revell kit if I remember correctly has hemp coloured rope

- he also notes that the deck pieces apparently fit quite well

Jorit

Very interesting indeed!  On the basis of the pictures in that review - which admittedly don't show up as clearly as they might on my little home monitor - I'm inclined to think the two kits are close to equal in quality. 

The Revell one has wood grain (extremely well done) and perhaps somewhat superior exterior hull planking.  Emhar indicates the butt joints between the ends of the hull planks; Revell doesn't. 

I'm a little confused by Jorit's reference to the keelson; maybe there's a nationalistic difference in vocabulary here.  I'm used to thinking of the keelson as a longitudinal structural member that runs parallel to, and above, the keel - usually clamping the ship's frames between it and the keel.  By that definition the Gokstad Ship doesn't have a keelson - and both kits are correct in not having one.  But I'm wondering if Jorit is using the term in a way with which I'm not familiar.  Maybe the part in question is the "crone" - the enormous piece of oak that sits on top of the deck beams amidships, through which the mast is inserted.  (Let's not talk about where the name - which is also sometimes translated "the old woman" - came from.)  In the real ship there are in fact two rather similar pieces, one (through which the mast passes) above the deck beams and one (in which the mast is actually stepped) sitting on the keel.  Revell cast a nice, well-proportioned replica of the upper one integrally with the deck, and omitted the other one.  (There's a simplified mast step molded in with the hull halves.)  The lower one can only be seen if the deck planks are removed.  I personally find Revell's approach to the problem more than acceptable, but it looks like Emhar's may be a bit superior.  I agree with Jorit:  it would be nice to have the option of omitting some or all of the deck planks.  (In reality they're just short pine boards, laid loosely and temporarily in rabbets on the upper edges of the beams.)  It looks like that would be relatively easy in the case of the Emhar kit; doing it to the Revell one would entail adding considerable detail to the inside of the hull halves.

None of the photos shows the inside of the hull halves, so I can't comment on how Emhar handled what I consider to be the biggest problem with the Revell kit:  the knees on the ends of the deck beams.  Revell molded them (sort of) split between the (one-piece) deck and the hull halves, with not really satisfactory results.  (The first thing I did to my Revell kit, once I had the deck and the hull halves together, was to make my own "deck beam knees" with Milliput.  So far so good.) 

One of the first things I did upon opening the Revell box was to throw out that hideous decal that was intended to go on the sail. I confess I don't care much about the thread or the rigging instructions either; absolutely nothing is known for certain about the Gokstad Ship's rigging - and I think we can be pretty certain that she didn't have a primitive caricature of a character from a Wagner opera painted on her sail.

The Emhar "sail" itself doesn't look particularly inspiring, but it's hard to judge from the photo.

I rather like the bow ornament on the Emhar kit.  It appears to be based on the carvings found on a folding bed in the Gokstad tomb; thus it's certainly contemporary with the ship, and at least believable as a bow carving.

I'd have to see those Emhar shield rows to form an opinion, but it sounds like it might be an acceptable solution to what many modelers - and wargamers - might find a problem.  I imagine a wargamer would find it easy to knock 64 individual shields off. 

Emhar apparently cast the tiller as a separate piece; Revell rendered it as a plain "stick" cast ingegrally with the rudder.  That's a rather important point, as the tiller of the Gokstad Ship is the most elaborately decorated surviving component of the ship (and the only one with gold leaf on it). [Later edit:  as it happens I was working on the tiller for mine this evening, and took a close look at a color photo of the original.  I think the substance in question is yellow paint - not gold leaf.  But so little is left that it's hard to tell.]  Score several points for Emhar.

On the other hand, it appears in the photo (I can't tell for absolute certain) that all 32 of Emhar's oars are the same length.  The Revell kit correctly provides oars in four different lengths.  (They almost have to be made that way; some of the oar ports are higher above the water than others.)  This would be an easy problem to solve.

The Revell kit scales out (by length) to about 1/63.  (I'm going by memory here; I measured the hull some time ago and the piece of paper I wrote the figures on is in the shop, but if it wasn't 1/63 it was in that neighborhood.)  [Later edit:  I did the arithmetic again.  The scale works out to 1/63.3.]  I did by a set of Emhar "Viking Warriors," who scale out to about 5' 6" tall on the scale of the Revell kit.  That is, as we established in another thread, certainly believable.

If I were starting fresh on a Viking ship model I'm honestly not sure which of these kits I'd pick.  Probably the Emhar, but I'm not sure.  So far I'm not inclined to throw my current Revell project in the trash and rush to order an Emhar kit - but I haven't seen the Emhar one "in the flesh" yet.  I reserve the option of commiting X-acto hari-kiri. 

jtilley wrote:

I'm a little confused by Jorit's reference to the keelson; maybe there's a nationalistic difference in vocabulary here.  I'm used to thinking of the keelson as a longitudinal structural member that runs parallel to, and above, the keel - usually clamping the ship's frames between it and the keel.  By that definition the Gokstad Ship doesn't have a keelson - and both kits are correct in not having one.  But I'm wondering if Jorit is using the term in a way with which I'm not familiar.  Maybe the part in question is the "crone" - the enormous piece of oak that sits on top of the deck beams amidships, through which the mast is inserted.

Oops - the origin of that mistake was me using the correct English translation for the wrong German word (Kielschwein, which is a keelson); actually I meant the crone, which unless my terminology is totally out of sync now (could well be; there are days when term papers turn my brain into porridge...) is Mastschuh.

None of the photos shows the inside of the hull halves, so I can't comment on how Emhar handled what I consider to be the biggest problem with the Revell kit:  the knees on the ends of the deck beams.  Revell molded them (sort of) split between the (one-piece) deck and the hull halves, with not really satisfactory results.  (The first thing I did to my Revell kit, once I had the deck and the hull halves together, was to make my own "deck beam knees" with Milliput.  So far so good.)

The Emhar kit looks a little bit better here; I'll post pictures tomorrow.

One of the first things I did upon opening the Revell box was to throw out that hideous decal that was intended to go on the sail.

Which, if I may say so, is a pity as it would perfectly fit the old truly Wagnerian Aurora model...

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Jorit, having just finished wrestling with a stack of undergraduate essay exam papers I know exactly what you're talking about.  After 25 years of reading those infernal things I'm sometimes amazed that I can still spell anything. 

Sounds like, as usual, the German language has a more precise term for the "crone" than English does - and in this particular case a more civilized term as well.

The biggest weakness of that Revell kit certainly is the inside of the hull halves.  It looks like Emhar did do a better job in that area.

I'm not sure I'd dignify that old Aurora "Viking ship" with the label "Wagnerian."  So far as I can tell, not a single feature of it really bears any resemblance to anything Norse (or Germanic); the style of decoration strikes me as pure, 1950s-vintage Illinois.  (I wonder if anybody bothered to think about what that "dragon head" on the bow would have looked like if rendered full-size in wood - or how much it would weigh.)  On the other hand, that old kit certainly had a good deal to do with getting huge numbers of American kids (including this one) interested in ship modeling.  I have to confess that my feelings of nostalgia about it really outweigh my recognition of the fact that as a scale model, it's a sorry joke.  (It still seems to be on the market in at least one Eastern European box, by the way.)

I have, on the other hand, toyed (briefly) with the idea of building the Zvezda cog to represent the ship in Tristan und Isolde.  I figured I could build a little speaker into the hull and plug it into the stereo system.  (Hey, I read once about a large-scale, radio-controlled battleship that played the score from Victory at Sea.  Why not a cog that plays opera?)

The Emhar Gokstad Ship clearly deserves a warm welcome.  But why, oh WHY did the company have to pick a subject that was already available - in the form of one of the best plastic sailing ship kits on the market?

It was perfectly logical they would do the Gokstad.  They are simply trying to provide the FIRST accurate Viking Ship in true 1/72 scale to complement their figure range and satisfy the vast number of wargamers and dioramists who use that scale.  And let's face it, this is the best ship to use.

While the Revell Gokstad is nice, it is a bit too chunky and out of scale for the 1/72 purist.  But for the 28-30mm gamer/collector, it is nearly the perfect scale.

Having purchased the Emhar Gokstad (and it's accompanying crew) and done a little preparatory work, may I add the following observations?

Having assembled the hull halves and dry fitted the decking I can report that the parts fit is excellent.  The hull parts snapped firmly and positively together with only the faintest sliver of light showing through the keel and it's hardly necessary to cement them.  A far cry from the Heller Oseberg (now I think sold as William the Conqueror's ship) which required cementing and clamping of the keel one inch at a time to make the two parts marry. 

The decking is in about twelve sections which clip neatly into place in such a way that you can turn the boat upside down and they remain fixed.

On the downside the lack of woodgrain on the shiny plastic is also, in my view, a loss, but I found that running a piece of coarse sandpaper along the timbers made a huge difference.  Woodgrain at this scale would be almost invisible anyway I reckon.  It's more difficult to do the same to the deck panels but it's even more necessary there I think.

The biggest drawback, at least on my example, is the sinkage on the outer hull opposite many of the ribs.  It's also apparent on several other parts, not the end of the world but uncommon in new kits in this day and age.

There are indeed two lengths of oars and the mast can be dismounted and laid over the racks provided, presumably when under oars in rivers or inlets.  The rows of shields are disappointing but, as the instructions suggest, were only hung over the sides for ceremonial purposes - I plan to try and cut them up and create piles on the deck.

The rigging thread is indeed black but that's the easiest part to replace. 

I must admit I am concerned about the anchor which looks too modern to my eye.  It's been suggested to me that they'd more likely use a large rock!  Can anyone advise?

The crew figures are great but there are no benches on which to seat them.  Instead each one comes with a "sea-chest" on which he sits while rowing - not very secure - surely they'd would slide around or even fall over during hard rowing?!?!

The "captain" however is a little comical with his wide pantaloons that look more 16th century pirate. 

The vac-formed sail isn't too convincing but if she's under oars it wouldn't be rigged anyway so I'll probably discard it.  I'm not an expert and I just bought this kit because it appeals to me so any advise would be welcome, such as what sort of colour would be appropriate to a well used craft?

Michael 

It sounds like a good, well-designed kit.  It also sounds like, in some respects, the Revell one may be a little better.

Revell's rendition of wood grain is, in my opinion, superb - about the best I've seen in a plastic kit.

There are no sink marks on the Revell kit (at least the one I bought).

The Revell kit correctly provides oars in four different lengths.

All 64 of the Revell shields are cast individually.  (They don't quite match the originals, though - the narrow rims around them, which the instructions suggest painting to look like they're made of iron - are spurious.)

The remains of the Gokstad Ship contained what was left of a forged iron anchor, though its wooden stock had rotted.  The Revell kit includes a good replica of it; I can't comment on Emhar's interpretation of it.

The real ship has no permanently-mounted benches or other seats for the rowers; scholars seem to be pretty much in agreement that they did sit on seachests or something similar.  I've wondered the same thing MJH mentions:  just what kept said chests from sliding around?  In the various full-size replicas that have been built, that doesn't seem to have been a problem.

Only two areas of the real ship show evidence of having been painted.  The tiller, which is shaped like a highly-stylized dragon, has some traces of gold (some books say yellow; I can't tell from the color photos I've seen) paint on it.  (The tiller of the Revell kit is one of its weakest features.  I recommend replacing it.  Can't comment on the Emhar one.)  And the shields were painted alternately black and yellow.  The rest of the ship seems to have been unpainted.  It's likely that the exterior hull planking - and maybe some other parts as well - got coated with some sort of tar.  That word covers quite a range of colors, from pure black to medium brown.

Looks like, for once, sailing ship modelers have two good kits to choose from!

This scan gives an impression of the anchor and tiller.  How was the tiller actually attached to the hull?

I should imagine it's quite feasible to cut some of the longer oars down to get varying lengths.

Michael 

MJH wrote:

The crew figures are great but there are no benches on which to seat them.  Instead each one comes with a "sea-chest" on which he sits while rowing - not very secure - surely they'd would slide around or even fall over during hard rowing?!?! The "captain" however is a little comical with his wide pantaloons that look more 16th century pirate.

Might sea chests have been held in place by friction, owing to the weight of their contents and the rower? Could the deck beams into which the deck pieces were rabbeted also have served to keep the chests from sliding, if only in one direction?

Actually, some Vikings are thought to have worn such baggy pants.

P.S.:  I believe that the rudder was attached to the hull, and the tiller to the rudder. The rudder would have been retained with cordage or roots at its pivot point.

Well, the captain still looks a bit unlikely to me, a little too much Victorian romanticism.

The sea-chests as depicted in this kit are little larger than footstools and have four small 'feet'.  I can't believe that the weight of the rower would be sufficient to prevent them sliding and as he would be exerting pressure forward and back in a steady rythm I'm sure they'd be inclined to rock.  Nor is there any evidence of how he'd brace his feet to pull back on the oar.  Surely the deck beams would have to protrude to give him purchase.

These things are not important to building the kit but it's interesting to speculate.

Michael 

MJH wrote:

Well, the captain still looks a bit unlikely to me, a little too much Victorian romanticism.

Check out Tre Tryckare's books on the Vikings, which were written in consultation with various Scandinavian and other archaeologists in the late 1960s, long after Queen Victoria had died. They include illustrations of Vikings in very similar dress which, IIRC, was based on archaeological finds. Note, too, that the Vikings traded and served very widely, as far as the Black Sea and Constantinople, respectively.

Well, the anchor (as drawn on the instruction sheet) looks reasonable.  Revell made the "wood" stock a good bet longer - longer than the shank in fact.  That's the way the one found with the Oseberg Ship (whose stock does survive, if I remember correctly) is built.

Emhar clearly did a better job with the tiller than Revell did.  In the Revell rendition it's just a little bump cast integrally with the rudder.

In the real ship the end of the tiller is tenoned into a mortise in the rudder stock - just as Emhar shows it.  It looks like Emhar molded a peg on the inner surface of the rudder; I assume that peg plugs into a hole in the "wart," which is a big, rounded chunk of wood protruding from the starboard ("steerboard") side of the hull.  In reality a piece of heavy rope has a big knot worked into its end and is passed through a hole in the rudder and another hold bored through the wart and the hull planking, to be secured to one of the frames inside the hull.  It's easily represented by a piece of heavy thread with a knot tied in the end.  The upper end of the rudder stock is held in position against the gunwale by a leather strap, whose ends pass through a pair of slots in one of the hull planks and are tied together inboard.  Swinging the tiller makes the rudder pivot in the strap; the rope holding the rudder to the wart has enough slack in it to let the rudder swing adequately.  When the ship gets hauled onto a beach (apparently pretty common practice), the ends of the leather strap are untied and the rudder is swung up out of the way.

It seems like a rather crude mechanism, but it works.  The captain of the full-size Gokstad Ship replica that crossed the Atlantic in 1892 (and wound up in Lincoln Park, to have its measurements taken off by the Revell designers) commented that he was surprised and delighted at how well the steering system functioned.

It's clear that the Emhar kit has some major features to recommend it over the Revell one.  I like the fact that the entire interior of the hull is thoroughly detailed.  (The insides of the Revell hull halves are barren below the deck; the "old crone" (the enormous piece of oak through which the mast passes at deck level) is molded integrally with the deck, and the step for the mast isn't represented at all.  (There's just a simple socket molded in with the hull halves.)  And Emhar, I gather, provides individual parts for the swinging covers that seal the oar ports on the inside of the hull.  It would indeed be quite simple to trim down a few of the oars so you'd have the authentic four different lengths - but I'm not at all sure it would be worth the trouble in terms of how the finished model would look.

I started my Revell kit (which is now almost done) long before the Emhar one appeared.  If I were to do another Gokstad Ship I'm not at all sure which one I'd buy.  Like I said earlier, it seems that the Viking ship modeler is now in the rare position (for a sailing ship enthusiast) of having two really nice, accurate kits to choose from.

I hope this kit is a big success for Emhar.  It would be wonderful if the company would tackle some more subjects of a similar nature in the same way (i.e., styrene ship models accompanied by sets of appropriate figures).  How about a Greek galley, based on the modern Olympias reconstruction?  It would be quite a bit bigger, but what an impressive model it could be - complete with sets of oarsmen and Greek soldiers.  Or, on a more modest level, a medieval European warship, with men-at-arms and archers?  Well, we can hope.  Long live Emhar.

Praise indeed for Emhar, with which I must concur.  Perhaps not the new Imai but we can hope....

Thank you for the description of the manner in which the rudder was pinioned.  I knew it had to be fastened by rope in some manner but couldn't quite visualise how to arrange it, that makes it relatively simple.

The biggest problem with the Emhar kit is deciding how to display it; under sail or oars (or neither with mast, sail, shields and oars stored on deck) on it's rather basic stand; in a diorama setting, perhaps moored to a riverbank with the boarding plank deployed; even under construction with no decking so as to display the ribbing - the possibilities are legion.

If the decking were left off one would have to tackle the ejection pin marks, two between each rib, though they're partly disguised by the planking and shouldn't take too much effort.

Below is a shot of the 'captain'.  I acknowledge the comments made above but I still don't like him.  On the other hand the figure on the right (whom I've decided to promote to captain) looks very Scandinavian and almost real.  In fact all the figures faces look quite realistic - painting them will be a challenge.

Here's an oarsman seated on his chest with arms and legs bent appropriately, and below that is another still on the sprue.  The 'crab claws' put me off at first but as you can see don't look too bad when deployed on the oar. 

Since it's your build, which figure to use for a captain is obviously your choice. However, for my eventual build, I would use the original, because he looks as if he has been places, can afford more clothing, and can both dress and bear a sword as if he does not need to do much manual labour in shiphandling.

One possibility for dealing with the "crab claws" might be to try forming the hands around a heated, but not overly hot, metal rod of the same diameter as the oar shafts.

Thanks for posting the mini-review, look forward to the build!