Ever Expanding Fleet

Having some ships on my desk has been great. I managed to paint up one of the dinghy's and my tripoli gunboat. I am tempted to add the lanteen sail to the Tripoli gunboat. I think that might look pretty good. And it would still be removable with the main mast.

I am really happy with the deck of the tripoli gunboat. I used a buff paint and washed it with a Vallejo wash. Granted, it looks good to my color blind eyes and may be hideous to everyone else. I think the benches on the dinghy are too light. They received the same wash and still stand out too much, I think. But they are ready for some crew.

Interestingly, the dinghy from Sea Dog Miniatures is the PERFECt size for a ships boat for the Buccaneer Sloop! It fits perfectly behind the mast.

I have an armed pinnace on the desk as well as two Old Glory sailed rowboats. I am really appreciating the Sea Dog Miniatures ships. They are a joy to paint. They are simple to build and the guns for the armed pinnace and the tripoli gunboat are interchangeable! They look more robust than the Old Glory stuff I have to compare them with. Now if I only had time to paint my sailors rowing from Peter Pig, I could really get moving. But there are not enough hours in the day.

Just finished a couple more small boats.

Buccaneer Sloop - Sea Dog Game Studios

I finally got around to work on my Buccaneer Sloop. The ship is beautiful. It is however bigger, scale wise, to my 26 gun frigate. This is not that big of a deal at the moment. I intend to get a few more 15mm ships from Sea Dog to round out my 15mm fleet. Probably the 12 gun Brig.

I just finished with the masts. The instructions were printed on a sheet of paper that was folded. So 1/4th of the page was the mast assembly. I hate to admit it, but I had to put on readers in order to make out what the measurements were. The next problem was finding a rules with measurements in metric. Every tape measure and ruler I could find in the house was in inches. I finally found a paper cutter with centimeters on it and used it.

What I like about this kit is that it comes with a special bracket to assemble the booms. It makes the attachment to the main mast so much simpler and sturdier than just super gluing them together. I wish they had something similar for the two spars. Those are just raw super glue joins. Speaking of the spars, I seem to have run out of dowel to complete the build. My largest leftover piece only measured 40mm and I need 70mm for the uppermost yard. I will work on that later tonight.

The hull itself was very clean. There were a few lines that needed to be trimmed around the gun ports. All in all, I am very impressed with the ship so far. The lack of spar is most likely poor planning on my part. That is all now sorted and the ship is ready for painting.

Which, I went ahead and did. Sorry for the poor picture of my messy desk. I painted the deck a beige Brown and the hull a chocolate Brown. The gunport area is a blue. I went with a lighter color for the gun carriages and ships wheel. The masts are a yellow ochre. The hull received a black wash to dirty it up. For a quick and dirty paint job, its not too bad. Also felt great to get something done.

I hope to work on the Tripoli gunship and some of the row boats next. The row boats are on my desk as I type. Maybe sometime this year, it will see the table in a game.

Bloody Bucket and Pirate Ships

Just picked up the new Ardennes supplement from TooFatlardies. It looks great from the initial glance. Rich really makes nice supplements.

Also received my 15mm and 6mm Buccaneer sloop from Sea Dog Studios. It looks fantastic. I need to do a tiny bit of cleanup in the gun ports but other than that, it is perfect. I can't wait till I can start work on it.

An Early Christmas: Expansion of the Italian Navy

Well I just received a beautiful new ship model in the mail from master sculptor Chas Emerson. It is a model of the gunship Porto Corsini. It is a beautiful model that came prepainted! YEA!

The Porto Corsini was one of several small vessels that were part of the Italian fleet in East Africa during WWII. It began its life as a Japanese fishing vessel, the Fumi Maru. Having some 280 tons displacement, it was launched in 1912. The Italians purchased her in 1917. The Porto Corsini had a top speed of 9 knots, carried a complement of 24 and was armed with two 3-inch anti-aircraft guns (76/40) and a pair of machine guns. Initially taken on as a minelayer, by 1921 she was converted to a gunboat.

Following the Italian collapse in East Africa, the Porto Corsini was captured intact in 1941 and taken into British service as the HMS General Platt. In the post war it became a lighthouse tender.

Looking around the internet, there are plenty of ships in 1:1250 scale. The WWII Italian navy is well represented in terms of coastal vessels. Lots of MAS boats and other torpedo boats were available and some destroyers and larger ships. What I was looking for are some of the other ships that were commonly used. After working on an IABSM supplement for East Africa, I had a complete naval order of battle for the Regia Marina in East Africa. Looking through it several ships stood out as interesting vessels. The first was the Eritrea, a colonial ship. Models exist of this ship but are rather expensive. Next were the Torpedo boats Giovanni Acerbi and Vincenzo Giordano Orsini. I found these ships as well. Again they are available but expensive as well. The Porto Corsini stood out as something that I would like to have.

Searching the internet did not show anything even close. What I did find was Chas. After an email exchange, he agreed to make a model of the ship for me. Through the process he sent me pictures of the ship as he was creating it.

The picture above is what Chas sent as he was creating it. Well the final product arrived today and it looks fantastic.

Chas has a company KS models. product designer for Airfx and then moved into architectural and engineering modelmaking. I am now semi-retired in my 60s and I have started producing these 1250 scale models partly as hobby and partly income. At the time he began to create the Porto Corsini he had five ships: Skandi Falcon UT 705 (red), North Vanguard UT 705 (blue), Bourbon Liberty 200 (green).

To contact Chas, send him an e-mail at kimberleystudio@btinternet.com.