Hi, I just joined the forum recently, and posted a photo of this recent build in my “Welcome/hello” first posting, but I also thought I’d post it here in the ships section. It’s the Revell kit of the Soviet Spy Trawler, which I think is 1/142. There’s a very very similar Revell North Sea Trawler which is in that scale, but the Spy Trawler kit box doesn’t give a scale.
I’ve set my trawler into a watery diorama, my first attempt at creating a wake.
I like the way Revell give you two little spies… (er, I mean fishermen) to put somewhere.
As I am a complete newbie to building ships (this is my second one) I felt a bit nervous about adding any ageing or grunge to it, as I don’t know how to do that. But I think I might come back to this model one of these days, once I’ve learned something about weathering, and transform it from the neatest little spy ship in the North Atlantic into a suitably weathered, beaten up old dog of the seas.
And here I thought you knew nuttin aboot ships . Nice wake, nice ship and stop keeping secrets from this old man. Great stuff ! T.B. P.S. If you can do wood-grain on a deck you can do weathering. . Try it ! it’s fun ! By the way, did I mention that your builds are very clean and well executed ?
That kit always worked better as a spy ship–just not enough nets and tires to do a working trawler justice. Though, the spy version is missing a few antenna & the like.
If you wanted to try an upgrade, the venerable Lindberg/Pyro North Atlantic Fishing Trawler is a larger (17") and more detailed trawler that would readily lend itself to spy or regular fishing duty. It has good rigging instructions, blocks on the gallows and little eyelet holes on the masts, etc., for rigging thread and also suitable for RC conversion on account of its sizable hull.
That Lindberg/Pyro kit is a grand old one from the early fifties. It was copied from the Model Shipways solid-hull wood kit, which represented a trawler named Hildina. The two gents who founded Model Shipways referred to Pyro as “Pirate Plastics.” The Pyro Roger B. Taney, Harriet Lane, tuna fisherman, and “brig of war” were also based on Model Shipways kits. The Pyro Gertrude L. Thebaud was pirated from a Marine Models wood kit.
Both methods were so easy they worked just fine first time. The water for this Spy Trawler diorama was my second go at making water, while the wake was my first attempt, so these methods should work pretty well for anyone who, like me, is completely new to water and wakes.
You’re right about the lack of weathering; I mentioned that in my original post. As a newbie to modelling learning how to weather models is on my ‘to do’ list and I think the Russian Spy Trawler will probably be the first to receive it’s well deserved bucket of grunge!
