Mar 22, 2016

WIP - 1/72 scratchbuilt corvette


One of my latest purchases was a small drill and a jigsaw, and with all the very dry wooden parts lying in the back yard, I decided to build a few more ships to compliment the cutter and the ketch I had. The new ones, of course, would be something bigger, with a wooden core hull and mostly paper structures.
The first in the line, because I messed up when I cut out the shapes for an Indiaman, is this corvette. She's still part of the learning curve and I'm sure many mistakes will not be committed on the next one. I used mostly cardboard and decor card. I'm not entirely content with the bowsprit, and the bow in general is the trickiest part of the hull. 
Yesterday I glued on the paper parts, the bowsprit and the plasticard sheet at the stern. Today I filled in some more details and she's beginning to look decent now. The small thread above the gunports was just glued on with PVA right before making the photo.
I've long given up on proper modelling, at least in regards to wargames-usable ships: if I want to represent everything found on a real sailing ship and want it to look accurate, the details will always get in the way of the figures. 
For easier storage, the corvette's masts will be removable and thus only connected to the hull with a pair of ropes for each mast. The drill will be most useful for punching plasticard pieces to attach the ropes to with a peg.
I've also made the necessary amount of cannon barrels, but the carriages are, again, more complicated, and then there are nineteen Strelets figures (two can be spotted on the photo) to be varnished. I think the ship itself will serve in the Royal Navy as a captured and refurbished French vessel.

3 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thank you, I think I will have to post more WIP photos because the building is very slow :)

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  2. Beautiful modeling, Modeler!

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