Nearly finished the build. I dumped the “Walt Disney” shield decals end trashed the vacuum formed sail. The shields would never have been stowed in this fashion as they make it impossible to be able to reach down far enough to put the oars through the holes in the hull. They do look very nice for a static model though [:)]
I even found some “munchkin” sized vikings to put on board.
Last photo rather out of focus I’m afraid. Down to finals now.
Thanks for taking a peek…cheers,
Julian
Don’t know about Grem, Julian, I think your tag should be Rem (brandt)[;)]
A wonderful rendition of wood finish and a fine looking model, from the photos I would have put money on it that it was timber throughout.
Well done
Thank you very much GeorgeW [:I]
Julian
Hi Grem56,
A beautiful build, and thanks for sharing. Will you be sharing some aspects of the build with us? The wood finish is fantastic, and would love to know more about your technique. Also, the figurehead/prow looks like metal - is it, or more fantastic finish technique?
Thanks - the build is an inspiration!
Cheers, Rick
Hi Rick, actually the wood finish was easier than I expected it to be and I have learnt a lot that will be of use on further ship builds.The model had very nice wood grain engraved on it to start off so that also made life a bit easier.[:)]
I started off with a sprayed coat of Tamiya deck tan acryic paint. Then i dotted raw and burnt umber and sienna oil paints over the surface which I then washed out and blended with white spirits. Did this a part at a time to get different shadings. Less is more in this case and it was easy to go back in again if parts needed to be darker or lighter in shade.
The dragon head and stern ornament where first painted with Citadel/Games workshop “Chaos Black”, then dry brushed with Citadel/Games workshop “Tin Bitz” and finally dry brushed with Humbrol gold enamel one more time.
The rigging is a bit heavy now that I take a closer look at the photos, should have used a thinner thread.
Cheers,
Julian
The most striking feature of your model,and the most important in the overall look, is the excellent wood finish. It really sets the tone for the realistic appearance of the build. Thanks for sharing your painting technique.
One thing I had a question about.
What would rope be made from by these people during the " Viking Era" ?
I thought they could have used rawhide or perhaps some type of animal hair , wool, or hemp.
rg
I can only echo the comments above about the quality of the model. It’s really spectacular - and brings out all the positive comments I’ve made about the kit. It really is one of the best plastic sailing ship kits on the market.
If hanging the shields according to the instructions blocks the oar ports, Revell has made a mistake. Various drawings in books show how the shields were actually hung on the gunwales of the Gokstad Ship (on which the model is based). Inside each gunwale, Revell correctly shows a plank with a series of narrow, horizontal holes in it. In reality, there’s a gap of a few inches between that plank and the plank that forms the skin of the ship. The leather strap of the shield passes through the hole and under the edge of the plank, to be tied back on itself. (It’s perfectly simple in three-dimensions, but a little hard to follow verbally.)
The surviving shields of the Gokstad Ship are painted overall black and overall yellow, alternately. It’s pretty clear that, in this way as in so many others, what we’re looking at here is the setup of a funeral ship; there’s plenty of room for argument about what the shields of a genuine, honest-to-goodness, operational Viking longship would look like. To my eye the designs of the Revell decals are believably Norse-looking (which is more than can be said for the decal intended for the sail - which, if I remember right, was not included in the original release of the kit). What I find hard to swallow, though, is the idea that the shields on the port and starboard sides would have identical designs painted (or otherwise marked) on them. (If we assume that each Viking picked the color scheme of his own shield, it seems unlikely that each guy would have two shields - one for each side of the ship.) To my notion, employing grem’s superb wood-grain technique on the shields as well as the rest of the ship makes as much sense as any other possible approach.
Grem has really whetted my appetite to try this kit for myself. Over the weekend I looked for it in several places in the great metropolis of Raleigh; no luck. Looks like I’ll have to order it over the web.
@Grem56: That is beautiful, inspiring work!
By the way, and for any more crew, the closest wargame figure ‘scale’ would probably be something like ‘28mm’ or ‘25mm’, if you can stand the slightly exaggerated proportions, e.g.:
http://www.grippingbeast.com/shop.php?CatID=36
http://www.wargamesfoundry.com/collections/VIK/index.asp
@jtilley: This is offered by an eBay seller from whom I had already bought a few Revell viking ship kits:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=150182267676
Julian-
That is really a beautiful model. I can only echo everyones comments. The wood finish is perfect, if you posted this as a wooden model I’d believe it, but it actually is the best of both worlds, because she’s a small ship and left unpainted, real wood just wouldn’t scale quite as well in places like where the strakes gather at the stem. One interesting feature of these ships was the extremely thin section of the wood used: the strakes are as thin as 7mm and include very complex shaped profiles. So bravo for styrene.
Is a scale listed ? The box calls her 14 1/2", and the Gokstad ship is 76.5 feet, but she’s 16 rooms, and Revell’s is 15, so call her 73.25 feet subtracting what seemed to be a meter for a room, which works out to about 1/60 scale. I think it’s a nice thing that Revell shortened her by a room, which is the space between a deck beam, and allows a pair of rowers, one each side usually, as it cuts us loose to call this ship our own, since she matches no surviving examples.
To respond to your thought about rigging:
As for the rigging, no examples exist. Hemp would be a good choice, but it could have been linen or leather. Landstroms illustrations show thin rope, his word, so your thread looks thick. Cotton khaki thread, maybe.
It’s great that Revell included those wonderful blocks.
It seems to me, that if the ship were rigged following the more recorded examples, the kvars and knorrs, the forestay might have been spliced around a cross member in the base of the stem, on a level with the deck, and have been a set length. And the rear stay was wrapped around a windlass like affair, on the deck just forward of where the rudderman stood on his little platform. The side stays, which look to be two per side, had the block arrangement that you used on the forestay.
Imagine a ship made out of 7mm planks, standing rigging would be a pretty adjustable affair, kind of like laces on a boot.
Here are some thoughts about how this ship might appear in a more pedestrian and less interesting version.
For the stem decorations, no actual figureheads exist, so it’s all fancy. Revell looks to have copied, in a flat style the Scheldt figure found in 1934 and now in the British Museum. Unfortunately, it’s 4-6th century. Actual Viking figureheads are all legend, as Jarlaskald relates in the eulogy of Magnus the Good - the ships were decorated with gilt heads, “the gold shone like fire in the sun”. But thats it. The only existing stem decorations are on the Oseberg find, which are fine carvings as scrolls on the stem itself.
The one Revell copied:
And the bedpost many people interpret as a Viking figurehead!
Oseberg:
My own theory is that the figureheads were either held outright by warriors in the prow, or were bound with rope to the stem as needed.
As for the shields,the ones from Gokstad are really minimal.
They were 5-10 mm thick at the hand and 2-3 mm thick at the edge, barely enough to deflect an arrow, certainly not comparable to Roman or Gaulic or Anglo Saxon or Norman sword fighting shields. The center boss was also the handhold.
There were up to three iron bands on the back to hold the pieces together. The edge is missing of course, but the Gokstad shields have rows of closely spaced little holes that might be stitching for a leather edge, but not a big heavy rim. Here I think Revell fails, even to the extent that the interpretations of the Gokstad ship promolugated the whole myth of shields at the ready. I’m certain that the shields on that ship were mere decoration. And specifically created for that occasion.
The Bayeaux tapestry shows ships lined with shields, but inboard. As though stowed next to the soldier with his other arms.
While the Gokstad ship has a very elaborate and well made system for displaying shields, there is no other ship find that includes that detail. I think it’s likely it was added for the funeral.
I do not think Viking ships ever sailed or fought with shields over the thwart.
There’s a lot of debate about how the rudder could have worked. I’d guess it pivoted, like on a cog.
That is a really fine ship model Julian. I’d like to own one, but my craftsmanship wouldn’t be nearly as nice as you’ve done.
Sincerely, Bill
According to Dr. Graham’s book, the Revell kit is actually based on the replica of the Gokstad Ship that crossed the Atlantic in 1893 and was, at the time the kit was designed, on public exhibition in Chicago. I’m wondering whether that replica has fifteen or sixteen oars per side.
I found some rather interesting material about the “Chicago replica” on the web - most notably this site: http://www.vikingship.us/about.htm
There are quite a few pictures, but none in which I can count the oar ports. Bottom line: the kit is one of the best renditions ever of a sailing vessel in styrene, a fine scale model, and an excellent way to introduce plastic modelers to sailing ships. And if the Revell people have indeed deleted it from the catalog after such a brief reappearance, they ought to be shot.
Thanks for all the kind remarks [:I] Also thank you for the information and pointers to further items to pretty up the build. I loved the message from bondoman which was very informative and also confirmed my feeling that the rigging thread I used was way to thick for this build.
For John Tilley: the shields don’t cover the oar holes but they raise the height of the gunwales so much that it would have been impossible to reach down far enough to push the oar in through the hole from the outside of the ship. Even without the shields it must have taken some strength to hold the entire length of the oar outboard and not lose it…[2c]
I’ll post some last photos when I finish: at the moment just finishing my mini-vikings and a final whip around with paint.As I said above I have learnt a lot from this build as small as it is and I think I would like to try this wood effect on the Heller 1/50th Chebeck I have in my stash…
I’ll keep you informed on that choice[:D]
cheers,
Julian
The oars were installed from the inside. You will notice that the hole has a slot on one side. The oar blade was supposed to fit into the hole using that slot.
Wick
I have shamelessly stolen a photo from this website:
http://www.vikingeskibsmuseet.dk/page.asp?objectid=409&zcs=402
Is this the slot you mean Big Wick? Doesn’t really look big enough to shove the blade of the oar through so I assumed they were fitted from outside.
cheers,
Julian
That’s the one. I thought the same thing until I read somewhere about the covers keeping out the sea water and the reason for the little slot. The oar blades were narrower and longer then present day oars, so I am assuming they would fit.
Wick
Yeah, the oars are supposed to be shipped from inboard. If Revell’s made the blades too wide to fit through the odd-shaped holes, that’s a most unfortunate flaw in the kit.
If you get hold of that old movie “The Vikings,” you can watch the “crews” of the Gokstad ship replicas that were made for the movie shipping oars. They stand in two rows with the oars pointed straight up, then sit down on their seachests and shove the oars outboard through the ports. You can also watch one of the oars breaking - completely by accident - under the weight of Kirk Douglas. (He insisted that he could “run the oars” as well as the stuntmen could. He was right - and the spectacle of him falling into the fjord gave the director an unexpected bonus.)
The DVD version that I’ve got contains a “bonus feature” in the form of a commentary by the director, Richard Fleischer. He explains that the moviemakers did indeed built three full-size Viking ships. (The two biggest ones obviously are Gokstad Ship replicas; the third is somewhat smaller, but seems to have the same, or very similar, hull lines.) The builders were careful to reproduce the proportions accurately - including the spaces between the oar ports. When the oarsmen hired for the movie took their places and tried to row the ships, though, they ran into an unexpected problem: they were sitting so close together that they couldn’t take a full stroke without banging their fists into each other’s backs. Mr. Fleischer concluded that real Vikings must have been smaller, and had shorter arms, than modern rowers. (That’s certainly possible; I do wonder, though, whether the oar spacing of the Gokstad Ship was typical of “operational” longships.) So they reduced the number of oars by half, plugging up every other port. (In one or two shots you can just about make out the plugs.)
Lots of people are surprised at how narrow the blades on good-sized oars - of virtually any period and nationality - are. I found that out when I was working in a maritime museum. My immediate superior was a rowing enthusiast who had made a couple of wood oars for himself; he was quite emphatic about the point that a narrow-bladed oar is much more efficient that a broad-bladed, paddle-like one. If you think about that a minute, it makes sense. An oar of the length we’re talking about here, even if it’s relatively skinny, meets a tremendous amount of resistance as it’s pulled through the water. If the blade were significantly wider, each stroke would be an exhausting experience for the person working the oar.
Grem - I can’t get the link in your last post to work. It looks like it must be an interesting site; I gather those people are either building or repairing yet another replica Viking ship.
[bow] not much of a ship modeler, but I love the sailing types I think I had one of these {or something similar} as a kidlet, this is a beautiful job
pardon me as I escape back to the dark side[swg]
Awesome build, I had the viking ship that came out in the mid 1960 complete with a crew I think it was Revell, it was a cream color plastic and when I painted it with a dark enamel paint from Testors the hull looked great almost like wood, but being 10 yrs old it looked great to me when I found it several years ago …just the hull, it was bad heh, heh,
that wood effect you achieved is just great, thanks for the update and photos. Karl
I think Starduster’s remembering the old Aurora “Viking Ship.” (I put the term in quotes because, as we’ve discussed in several other Forum threads, it bore virtually no resemblance to any real Norse vessel. But I have similar fond memories of it; it was one of the first - and most fun - ship models I built.) The Revell kit wasn’t released till 1977. So far as I can tell, after that original release (which, according to Dr. Graham’s book, stayed in the catalog till 1979) it wasn’t reissued until a few months ago. (It didn’t have crew figures in the original box - and certainly doesn’t in the new one.) And now Revell seems to have discontinued it; it doesn’t appear in the online catalog of either Revell-Monogram or Revell Europe[sigh].
Having given up on finding one in eastern North Carolina, I clicked on the ad at the top of the FSM homepage last night and ordered one from Internet Hobbies. This morning I got an e-mail telling me it will ship within two days, so I gather the company has it in stock. How long it will take me to get around to building it is anybody’s guess (I know I can’t beat, or match, grem’s version), but it’s a kit I feel like I need to grab before it disappears - this time maybe for good.
jtilley
While working on my Revell Gokstad, I have taken a break and am also building a 14’ wooden rowboat (1/12). I need information on modern 50’s -60’s oars. Do you the length and width of the blade of a 7’ oar. This info would be greatly appreciated. My rowboat build can be found on Model Ship world (Small Boats). I don’t know now to add photos to this forum.
Wick
Wow! About all I know is that oar-making is an art unto itself, and there’s certainly more than one “right” set of dimensions. About all I can suggest is to try a Google search. I seem to recall that there’s at least one book on the subject; that’s the sort of thing Wooden Boat magazine’s book department covers.
I’ll do a little digging and do another post if I find anything that looks really good, but I really feel out of my depth here.