Airfix Golden Hind

Modeling Subjects Ships
1

I’ve been working on an Airfix Golden Hind along with a Revell Mayflower. Since the latter is waiting for blocks and other parts to arrive, it was good time to get some structural work done on the Hind. It requires a lot of detail work, fixing and so on but represents a beautiful design. Looking at a built Airfix version on the ModelWarship site has been very inspiring.

The Airfix kit represents a small fighting ship with elements taken from larger galleons, and specifically those designed by Hawkins in the 1570s and 80s. Its designed to fight it out to the last with protective bulkheads and loopholes for firing small arms at boarders, interior ladders and other features. It also has an ornate “carved” hind and the shields of Sir Francis Drake and Sir Christopher Hatton, Drake’s patron, on the stern.

I’ve been working on it with the goal of representing Drake’s ship as it may have looked off the coast of California in the early summer of 1579. So far I removed anachronistic details like the the carved hind, and the shields. I’d like to know more about the number of cannon carried on the ship at various times, since the kit has those mentioned by a captured Portugese writer, but the number sounds like it changed during the course of the circumnavigation.

Other structural work included rebuilding the flat of the stern to proportions more like ones shown in Matthew Baker’s drawings, adding strakes (?) to the interior of the hull where there was no detail, and cutting open the stern windows on the upper bulkhead. There are additional windows on the upper sections of the hull sides, but I don’t think that’s documented historically and makes a poor design in heavy seas, so I’m planning to add hinges and make them small doors, similar to those on the replica Batavia. The gunports are shallow so the lids will be closed except for one or two which are partly open to allow light and air into the lower decks. The kit has hatches and so on all molded as sealed up with wooden planks.

The deck and the interior of the ship’s hull have received its first coats of paint, which is pretty exciting. An oil wash will follow, and drying time. When these are completed I can assemble the hull and get to the painting of the exterior. All “tarred wood” surfaces have been grained with flexifiles, so I’m interested in seeing how they will turn out.

Airfix recommends a pretty flashy paint scheme and I’m going to tone it down a bit, mostly blue, ochre, red, and black above a tarred wood hull.

No photos yet, but I’ll post them when I have some progress and the hull exterior completed.

Jim

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A very nice build of a very nice model but…Is the postion of the foremast correct ? It would seem to be a position that offers little support to the mast due to the inability to lower the mast far into the hull. What is John Tilley’s take on this ?

Julian

3

The foremast position is very correct, and shown in the contemporary Matthew Baker drawings. Its a neat detail that Airfix got right. Here is a website that describes it:

http://www.greatgridlock.net/Sqrigg/galleon.html

The gunport lids are now on, with a few partly open to give some three dimensional depth to the hull. The kit has really shallow flat gunports with dummy guns, so this seems the best course.

4

Whoot ! I stand corrected here ! A very informative link, thanks for that Woodburner. I have found a copy of the Airfix Golden Hind on E-bay and have ordered it (haven’t received it yet though) and was wondering about shifting the foremast back. That won’t be neccesary now. Hurry up with some photo’s, I am very curious how you doing.

Julian [tup]

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Glad the link helped, its a good rundown of basic design.

I think you are going to like the Airfix Hind. It has a few problems, but nothing terrible, and it has a lot of advantages, such as a large size, and especially its design. The blank interior hull and no woodgrain is easily fixable. Also, prepare to gently heat and arch the stern gallery before adding the railings, using the camber in the rear railing as a guide, and then file/sand the sides to fit the hull.

One other thing - the foremast fits into a molded peice that represents the forward deck and head grating - it wants to lean backwards so you may have to ensure the mast steps forward in the correct position. Nothing major, just something to look out for.

All in all, its a dandy kit.

6

@Woodburner: May I ask what your source of ‘flexifiles’ is?

Cheers,

vonB.

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The flexifiles come from a regular hobby shop and I think Micro Mark, etc., should carry them.

Jim

8

The hull is now painted and washed with oils, so photos will be eminent. The smooth hull planks make a bit of a challenge to get the same effect as one with woodgrain, but can be done decently. The upperworks are getting their base colors of blue and red, and decals for the geometric patterns are not far off.

9

My Airfix 1/72 Golden Hind arrived from Germany this week (a big [tup] thumbs up to mr. Wolfgang Arendt for prompt service and an immaculate example of the model carefully packed). I think this will be very enjoyable build if only for the fact that the instructions for the rigging are really non-existent ! Also for 1/72 scale the ship is a veritable midget ! The model itself though is very crisply molded, no flash and a couple of test runs show an excellent fit. All in all a nice buy and addition to my collection of vintage model ships (now if I can just get my hands on a Heller 1/50 Chebec or maybe even better an Imai Chebec).

Julian [BG]

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Congratulations, Julian, I think you will enjoy building this kit. She is indeed a very small vessel, sort of an Elizabethan destroyer.

The best advice I can give is to paint details like the decks, bulkheads, etc., beforehand, and to take your time doing it. Masking tape will help a lot. I’m glad your kit has crisp molding, since mine does not - in fact its sort of rubbery and rounded, which has made it challenging to get clean straight lines on the details.

I added strakes to the interior hull from Evergreen styrene strip, rebuilt the flat of the stern, and chose to model it with gunports closed, with two lids on each side are slightly open to ventilate the lower decks (use a styrene strip to prop the door and give it some surface to glue to). Use care in bending the stern gallery to the camber of the gallery sides, using a very low heat to soften the plastic just slightly. Prepare to sand the interior edges of the gallery deck on each side, since they will need adjusting to fit when the camber is set.

The one thing I’ve noticed with the design of the hull is that it looks very tall and almost top-heavy. To make her look more stable, I raised the waterline as far up as possible, above the dip in the lowest wale, and painted the wale just above the gunports black, to visually “lower” her a bit.

The model shows three levels of decorative triangles, which I have never seen in any contemporary image - two seems to be the limit. I opted not to decorate the lowest section at all, and sanded down the raised lines. Some support for this is in the Matthew Baker manuscripts, which show smaller ships as having decorations on the upperworks only. I also painted the stem black, again based on Baker, and did not paint the wales black except for the one above the gunports.

The big thing I’m curious about, is whether the keel is horizontal - it actually looks like it would be more at home with a slight angle down towards the stern. Does this sound like a logical thing to find in a ship of this type and era, or alternately, in the minds of the Airfix designers?

Jim