For anyone who didn’t see my previous post on the subject, this is a recent re-issue by SMER of the ancient Aurora “Black Falcon Pirate Ship” brig. The scale is about 1/120.
Whilst I learnt a lot about rigging, painting and assembly techniques for sailing ship models from building this kit, it now looks embarrassingly poor by my present standards. Apart from the lack of shrouds and ratlines, this is partly because I rigged the model with the wrong type of thread - it’s far too “stiff” and doesn’t hang properly, not to mention being very difficult to tie. It doesn’t help that I also glued the yards on upside-down [D)]
Hence I decided to take off all the rigging, fix the upside-down yards, and re-rig the model properly!
The ship is now properly rigged, including shrouds, and I added a flag (18th-century style RN white ensign).
If I were to build this kit now I’d make a few other changes and improvements, including adding transom windows and replacing the gun port hatches, fife rails and ladders, but it still looks fairly good IMHO!
Note that the model still has anchor chains rather than ropes (incorrect for an 18th or early 19th century warship); the chains had been Superglued to the hull along their entire length, as well as painted and weathered, so I didn’t want to risk damaging the hull or the anchors by attempting to cut them off.