Revell Viking Ship WIP- FINISHED!!

I spent a good solid hour getting the airbrush out and cleaning it. Ahem, whoever put it away last didn't exactly clean it.

Yeah, you.

Dug around the paints and brought in the usual subjects.

And a couple of fine old vintages. I use these for dry brushing.

Three more images, in no small part so that I don't lose them.

The shroud assembly on a replica. Maybe way too much lanyards, or at least ones set up for more modern sailing trim.

The fore stay attachment to the stem.

The tiller assembly.

There is something about the sight of paint bottles that brings out the kid in me.  Time to go and play. 

Good luck with this next step. Can't wait to see it! 

Really liking this thread...very informative, very fun.  And a quality kit.

Cheers!

Dave

http://www.reikfelag.ca/files/Viking_woolen_sails.pdf

worth a read.

Yep, working on the sail.

Great article Bill, thanks for posting it. I really love the first photograph, the color of the closest ship's sail is just beautiful.

Steve

Sure, you all seem to be interested.

I worked up the sail this evening. Mine will be the vertical stripes. Woolen pieces each about 1 meter wide. Sewn together on the backside with a big round running stitch.

Starting with a piece of paper with a weave that I set on horizontal, I used 0.1 mm thread for the stitches and 0.5 mm for the leech and bunt lines.

The red color most often used for dyeing wool in the Viking Middle Ages was madder root.

 And the boat herself. I have tried to make the pine deck boards look a little different than the oak hull.

Lookung good!The planks look like thay have been exposed to the weather.

Most interesting information on the sail.

One of the many things I like about that kit is the amount of individual interpretation and individuality that can legitimately be applied to it. GM's model is going to look a lot different from mine - and I think that's great! The more careful interpretations the better!

This is where sailing ship modelers can have more fun than...well, never mind.

A good read on the sails and the use of beef tallow to improve impermeability.

Which got me to thinking along another line and that is that you didn't need a sail and a tent cloth on the ship.  All you had to do was use the sail as a tent draped over the yard.  Wonder if that would work?

Gary

Base coat for the red color.

The wash with black oil paint dissolved in Turpeoid.

very nice clean work , getting more into this build

Excellent build, Bill! I'm going to use this thread as a reference for building mine. Thanks!

I'm currently about halfway through Brøgger and Shetelig's The Viking Ships, published in 1951.

Several items of interest, according to the book. The Gokstad ships oars were varied in length, and that's well captured by Revell.

This is not the result of any sort of Medeival casualness. Of course not; these ships are pretty much perfect in detail.

The reason given is that the oar holes at bow and stern rise slightly higher than those in the middle, and the oar length was very carefully calculated to have them all meet the water in a straight line fore/ aft.

Whether or not Revell called that to the modelers attention I don't recall, but if you are adding the oars, pay attention!

Another is that the authors seem to feel that the Gokstad ship did not have shrouds, as no evidence exists of where they would have been secured to the hull. That the mast was such a fine specimen, a 40 foot long pine pole, and that a flexible ship is a better sailer; it would have been faster and more maneuverable without them.

I don't know. Many rock carvings and drawings seem to show them, the replicas have them.

And the halyard is claimed to have run back to the stern and formed a back stay. That I could see. I had added a cleat at the base of the mast for the halyard, but I'm going to remove it, or at least not use it and decide later.

Yeah, that's another one Revell got right. The instructions do specify which oars (by part number) go where. I remember now that by the time I got to that point on mine, I'd lost the instructions. Fortunately they're available on the Revell Germany website.

i gave my model shrouds, secured to the shield rails as I described earlier. There's room for argument there, but I don't think many of the sailing replicas had been built when that book was published. Every sailing replica Viking ship I've heard of has had shrouds. 

It is all looking good GM. This is an interesting build for sure.  

This has been one of the best threads I have ever read on here. Although I don't know squaw-doo about sailing ship terminology, I have really enjoyed reading through this. Fascinating stuff. Thanks gents. I look forward to seeing this completed. Sail on!

Thank you, and it's mostly due to the others who have contributed.

I finished the major assembly for the month, the sail

Sources would agree that the Medieval Vikings most probably made their sails from woolen homespun, on a loom about a meter wide. The sagas suggest vertically striped sails. No sails survive intact so it's conjecture between woolen fabric found at Gokstad, early 20th C boat sails still in use in Norway, and archeological details.

In that vein, pieces of woolen fabric were found in the kirke (church) at Trondenes on the Norwegian coast in 1994 during a restoration. They were repurposed fabrics used as insulation. On the evidence of sewn in eyelets, first the repurpose and then the fact that they were from a wind structure indicated that these were probably sail fragments.

The red/ white is mentioned in the Saga of the Vestfold Kings, enough to be taken as fact.

My sail is a big one, about 10 meters each way. Tallowed wool , sewn together with big round stitches on the back side, and controlled by sheets on the leeches and bottom.

The forward side.

The back side:

Here's the yard and parrel:

The Vikings were adept at splicing eyes into their ropes. Evidence from Oseberg shows such:

Therefore I've tried to replicate that as well as I can by serving the ends of the lines. Here are the pendants for the braces. I've done the same for the pendants for the sheets.

Outstanding work GM!  

Jim  

Mighty fine work GM. That is an outstanding sail and did you use styrene or wood for the parrel and blocks?

Steve

The weekend was spent in part setting up the standing rigging. It's a bit of a guess on a ship that converts from oars to sail. Everything is of the knock down variety. Fun!

The forestay, which would be the main mechanism to raise the mast. The double blocks were called "virgins" and were truly set up to haul up the mast from horizontal to vertical.

Set up of the lanyards for the shrouds. I've decided to set mine up on the point where the deck beams meet the ribs. There's no clear evidence of how shrouds were existant, or set up on the ships found, but they certainly appear in the rock carvings and the Bayeux Tapestry. (More on that later).

The backstay is a guess. I sort of compromised between knowing it has little function on account of the shrouds, but would on the tack. I gave it a lot more line than it probably deserves.

I finished the ship up this weekend. It was fun to look back three weeks to how she was.

Holy Viking Ship GM! That is gorgeous! It should be under glass for posterity.

Hey! I read in another thread that you throw your builds out when you are done building them. Save the space in the landfill and ship that sucker to me.  I'd proudly display that work of art until my last breath. 

She is a beauty...

That is one beautiful Viking ship! You have definitely raised the bar on this kit. Hopefully, anyone who is considering building this model will study this thread. Well done.

Steve

Beautiful build! Everything you did worked and the end result is just gorgeous. Just a superlative job GM.

Mike

A response in kind to all and each is forthcoming, and I'll take better photos tomorrow.

First I would say that I built this kit on the advice of Dr. Tilley. He advocates the idea of building ship models at scales where the details matter, and of course anything in the Revell catalogue of worth.

John, I made this model while thinking of the good advice you have given us all over the years, both in the research and in the techniques.

On to the America next.

Yes!!! I've really been looking forward to this. Most excellent work GM! 

Very nice GM! I am sorry I have not been following this thread all along. The "finished" in the title caught my eye. We see so little of that! 

Fred

Hey " G "

    When are you gonna build mine ? That , My Friend is a beautimus job of shipbuilding . Bravo !  Tanker - Builder

Outstanding build GM!   

Jim