Golden Hind, Textured Like Sun

 

I finished this Zvezda model recently, although it sat in my cupboard for a while. It usually takes more time to finish one of these 1/350 scale models, because each step in the build requires a different kind of focus.

Carp to Gold Ep.7.: Mast Deck It Out

The bad puns are never-ending with this one. The hull varnished and (mostly) cured, it was high time to apply the main wooden deck pieces.

For this, first I made a cradle from leftover EPS foam so I wouldn't rub off anything or get nasty fingerprint marks.

Then I sliced up the deck into smaller sections, followed by a lot of dry fitting and trimming before finally placing them. The self-adhesive material was reinforced with some PVA glue at places.

INWarD 2026 after action report

We managed to play - with two years of delay, due to me not finishing the models - my Denmark Strait scenario, and the results are in. My wife commanded the RN and I the dastardly Germans.

Above, Prince of Wales starting the day with a fire on board, which was quickly put out (still better than four of ten guns not working properly).

Carp to Gold Ep.6.: Washed and Weathered

First, PSA: I made a separate label just for this project for easier searching.

Second, lately it has become a trait of local politicians to voice that 'we are responsible politicians, we believe in transparency, admit our mistakes and stand up to correct them.' As if that's something to be praised and not just plain normal.

So it is with a heavy heart that I must announce that when I removed the masking tape from the upper hull, it tore off a bit of paint at the waterline. But as a responsible modeller, I believe in transparency and while documenting this project, I admit my mistakes. (Here's where the audience should clap.)

Anyway, nothing a quick primer and a lick of paint don't fix.

Allies and Enemies of Zinqagur

Finished a few more 1/2000 scale scratchbuilt ships - most of these are ReReRe, which means repaired, repainted and rebased older ones.

First, the remainder of the Asansmati sea-going force, the ships which survived the defeat by the Klagimir fleet at the Battle of Tunova Atoll. Three USN pre-dreadnought battleships, one armored cruiser and a large-ish TBD force. These are all old models.

Asansmat is going the way of least resistance and would try to overcome the Zinqaguri squadron on the eastern seaboard of the Cape.

Aoshima 1/700 IJN Nagato 1927, a.k.a. Ole Grimey

I got this model kit for last Christmas from my wife. As usual, I built it with some gaps in between certain tasks. First I assembled the hull and turrrets, and then continued with other projects. Some time later I did the rest of the subassemblies, then it again took a while to paint them. 

The Nagato-class is perhaps the most powerful of all pre-treaty battleships, and their heptapodal main mast is a trademark feature - also more ergonomical in design than the restructured Fuso-class for example. In the far future I plan to build a Tosa using pieces from a Nagato and a Kaga kit, but that prospect is yet very distant.

The weird slanted funnel was also a focus point when choosing this version instead of the WW2 era rig.

All in all, the build was enjoyable, apart from the casual matter of things getting lost or broken off. I lost an AA gun on the aft platform, and all of the boat davits forward. I replicated these from scratch or turned to my spares box for solutions. 

Carp to Gold Ep. 5. - Young and Boatiful

The Aurora has four pairs of boats according to my plans, including two steam launches. These are the boats that came with my kit. As you can see there's only seven of them. I washed them and scraped off the sticky glue residue, also trimming away some of the injection mould marks.

Pride of a Nation, A Beast Made of Steel etc. etc.

 

I can't recall a more overdone topic in naval history circles than the Bismarck, both the ship and its operational history, even though I could recount, just on a whim, about ten different battleships that had a more interesting or successful career (including the Tirpitz and the Scharnhorst class [no, those were not battlecruisers]).

 

But there's no stopping the Bismarck fanboyism, and that may perhaps be one of the main reasons building her (yes it's a her) for my Battle of the Denmark Strait project took about two years. That's a lot of time for a 1/2000 model, even in scratchbuilding terms. 

Alas, taking some time off from the Aurora and managing a complete paintjob on a 1/700 interwar fit waterline Nagato, I took out the hulls of the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen (no, they are not DKM Bismarck and DKM Prinz Eugen), and built the superstructures.

When building such models, one must cut a lot of corners. Some of the details you simply won't see. Some have to look just about right from a distance. The main visual cues for the ships must be there, but otherwise it's more or less free reign. That's why I like WW1 era German battleships for instance: very little deck clutter, very effective, streamlined designs. I procrastinated with this project because I was overwhelmed with all the bits and bobs on a WW2 battleship's superstructure, so in the end I just went at it and made things on the go.

The ships' hulls and other larger pieces are made from 3mm and 2mm balsa (1mm on the top layers of the Prinz Eugen), and they are built using the layer or sandwich method, where I construct things from the waterline up. The balsa is stiffened and filled with liquid CA glue and acrylic paste. The turret rings on the Bismarck are small rubber rings bought at a craft store (apparently for making children's necklaces). The rest is placticard (0.5mm and 2mm), plastic bits from leftovers (such as a 28mm Mongol spear), paperclips, the cranes on the Bismarck are Perry sword sheaths and on the Prinz Eugen they are stolen from a 1/700 Derfflinger, and her floatplane is from an old plastic anchor.

Since taking the above photo I made the Bismarck's prow a bit more pointy (she resembled the Iowa class' crocodile prow a bit too much) and added the visually important large flying bridge. You will be able to see those when the models are painted and based.

The deadline for this project is InWarD 2026, as I missed the anniversary of the battle (again). Until then, it's peacetime readiness for the completed PoW and Hood.

Carp to Gold, Ep. 4., Smug Assemblies

The time of painting has come on the Aurora!

I primed the hull white with MIG One Shot primer, then coated the entire thing with two layers of VMC White Grey, following up with VMC Yellow Ochre on the deck and upper works.

The upper mast trunks are left bare because they are going to require further attachments once the main bridge structure is placed.

Carp to Gold, Ep.3., The Sand(ing)s of Time

I thought I could gain no more by keeping the deck and hull halves separate, so I assembled them. Hair bands and rubber are always useful for keeping pressure at the right places.

Carp to Gold: Ep. 2., Hullduggery

Before any doubt arises, yes, I will add more bad puns to the title of this series.

Anyway, I made some progress on the Aurora, which at first seems a backwards step, but alas! not so!

I managed to separate the deck and the hull halves. For the 1903 fit these require major surgery, and it is actually better to have access to the edges of the deck and the inside of the hull halves.

So I sanded most of the tacky glue off the deck, and then removed the two midships sponsons and the rearmost one with a scalpel, we won't need those. Also the rearmost deck house and the 6" gun have to be switched up, so I chopped the deck house off and will rebuild it later.

Carp to Gold: Restoring an old Heller/Ogonek 1/400 Cruiser Aurora

My wife convinced me to create an account on the second hand marketplace app Vinted. It's mainly for clothes but there's also hobby stuff. 

Whilst browsing I found this 1/400 scale model of the cruiser Aurora. I made a bargain bid and the seller agreed, so for very little money I now have the model.

As it turns out (based on the info available on Scalemates) this is originally a Heller mould, made in the sixties and resold by various companies over the years, primarily a Russian brand named Ogonek, in multiple iterations. It's rather crude, and it was obviously built by an enthusiastic kid or someone alike. It has thick red paint on the underside of the hull which is still not completely dry, while the upper works are bare grey plastic. The parts were attached with lots and lots of superglue.

The first thing to do was separating and stowing away the parts that I could, which was a surprisingly large amount, the glue having dried and failing to adhere anymore. So I could just remove most things with my fingers. I'll sand the deck and hull anyway, so I did not really care about glue marks.

Now on to my plans with the model. I'm going to strip the paint off the bottom, sand it smooth, repair the glue marks where I can, and then... I'm going to convert the ship back to its original 1903 state and paint it in the white and ochre livery of the day.

This includes building back the bulwarks on the main deck with plasticard, filing away some of the center sponsons, and adding lots and lots of aftermarket parts. The reasoning behind this is because the model itself was very cheap, I can invest more in these.

I have already made the first purchase which includes a wooden deck, resin gun mounts for the 6" guns, and turned brass barrels. The guns are 1/350 scale, which is about 14% larger than the original scale of the model, but the original gun mounts did also look kind of out of place and lacked any detail, so I'm not very worried about that.

The next purchase will include 3" gun carriages, and photoetched ladders, rails and stairs. It's going to take a while to finish the model, but I'm looking forward to working on it.

The Royal Zinqaguri Navy in 1/2000

I might have mentioned earlier that I switched over from 1000 to 1/2000 scale for my 'Trashy Fleets' project. The decision was based on space and time constraints, in order to get a few games played over a short period.

By this time I managed to complete my imaginary Zinqaguri navy's two battle squadrons, one for the country's east and one for the west coast. They have different paint jobs because why not? 

Also each squadron has a TBD detachment, but being deployed on separate stations and not very likely to operate together, I only completed one base of TBDs in total.

Would you Duke it out with someone made of Iron?

(For the title I apologize to fans of the real Iron Duke.)

I painted these back in October 2025 but then just shelved the project, and only got to base them this weekend. They are 1/2000 scale scratchbuilt ships of the WW1 vintage Iron Duke class superdreadnoughts.

Construction, as per usual, was done with various thicknesses of balsa wood, plasticard, bamboo kebab sticks and toothpicks, and steel wire for the masts.

I don't know how long the revival of the project will last, but I aim to complete a few more hulls and play some games.

Toy Boat Conversions

I was in a mind to run age of sail era naval games, perhaps a mini-campaign involving pirates. One way or another (either on the Naval Wargaming or Super Cheap Wargaming FB group, I forgot which) I found this big load of Risk replacement toy ships just suitable for the task.

The package arrived from Amazon US in a good time and I started sorting the contents out. The ships have two tiers of gunports, so are suitable for third and fourth rates, but what I needed for specific scenarios were first/second rates, frigates, indiamen, and ships laid up in ordinary. 

Thus I took out my rotary tool, some glue and plasticard and started on some conversions. 

For the 1st rate ship, I put a 2mm plasticard spacer at the bottom and smoothed the gaps out with some epoxy resin. At this scale I did not care much about the lowest tier of gunports, I just painted on a third bright brown stripe.

The frigate had the bottom of the hull sanded up to the top of the second tier of gunports. I also added a spritsail to the mizzen.

For the indiaman I filled the bottom gunports and sanded the hull to shape.

The vessel in ordinary retained the original hull, but the masts were chopped off and replaced with a toothpick.

Each ship besides the last one received a plastic hairbrush bristle to place ensigns on.

Further down the line I'm thinking of adding clear plasticard bases, but for now they are good 'as is'. I'll paint some third rates in brighter colours next.

1/1200 Naval Additions

Continuing on the naval front, here's a sampler of 1/1200 scale vessels completed recently. The sailing ships in the background are Ark Royal casts, except for the 2nd rate to the front, which is a resin recast, made by yours truly, of the Ark Royal 80-gun Indiaman. It's not very pretty but suffices to balance my two fledgling fleets.

The larger galleys are of my earlier stash, the small ones are the refined thing which look more to scale. I upgraded the earlier two-mast large galleys to be capitanas or squadron flagships, and these new ones are considered to be galee sottili, that is, standard size galleys.

With this many ships completed, perhaps some gaming is also due. I am keen to try out some house modifications for Galleys & Galleons.

The 'Black Ship'

Recently I completed the Zvezda 1/350 scale version of the Spanish Armada flagship San Martín. I used scratchbuilt masts, sails and flags instead of the ones in the kit, and painted the hull using arcylics and an oil wash. The tones are deliberately muted to have that 'long service' look.

I'm not sure I'll ever play any games involving the actual first Spanish Armada, but this vessel would come in handy in other theaters, as she's big enough to represent any of the late 16th - early 17th century treasure fleet ships.

Airfix HMS Prince WIP

Wow, an actual hobby post you say? With pictures?

Let me start by saying I'm not a sucker for vintage plastic model kits. I know some people like to torment themselves specialize in such things, but I'm not one of them.

However, Baroque warship kits in general have always been very appealing to me. I like their looks - and history - better than the later periods. So once I learned of this Airfix produce, I was constantly on the lookout for it.

If you are familiar with the Airfix HMS Prince kit (said variously to be 1/138, 1/150 and 1/180 scale), you might know that the secondary market price for it is, as can be deducted from the name, princely. So I was rather surprised one day when I found it on a local Facebook buy&sell group for about the tenth of the price it goes on ebay. Needless to say, I struck like a hawk and grabbed it. 

The Battle of Kostas Channel

This was my way of celebrating International Naval Wargaming Day 2025 - a little late as I played the game on Sunday. Rules used were my own 'Block Galleys' set, available from the Rules page of the blog.

A small Holy Leauge squadron approaches the narrows between Postavtomatikos and Saronikos Isles on the Aegean Sea. They are past a great battle and low on ammunition. Their main goal is to allow the large lanterna to reach the safety of the opposite table corner.

At this moment everything seems calm around the islands...

Ottoman Galiots (and Islands)

Originally I wanted to play the Battle of Denmark Strait on this year's International Naval Wargaming Day, but as usual, I got sidetracked and finished other ships instead. Bismarck and Prinz Eugen shall wait.

Instead, I've completed a pair of corsair galiots and four island sections, so the Mediterranean it shall be. I wrote a scenario to playtest my Block Galleys rules live for the first time. I'll play the game on the coming weekend and submit the AAR on the blog.