Hi Gang,
Been awhile since I had anything to post. I decided to dig out the Revell Viking Longboat and attempt to build and detail the kit using the best-known rigging details and other items that have been attributed to the discovered vessels. It has been at least 25 years since I’ve built this kit (lost it to Hurricane Katrina, I dug this one out of the muck and cleaned it for building. Revell did an excellent job in designing the mold and added a lot of detail, including a very little seen detail under the top rail which the Osberg ship has. I also wanted to really add to and improve the rigging on this one based on the best-known research as well as some artifacts found at the various sites discovered.
While folks tend to focus on the ‘shields’ being colorful, based on recovered shields, many were very plain in markings and most were the same color. Revell provided a set of colorful decals, which saves the modeler time from hand painting different patterns on the shield, but not much is correct unfortunately.
Another thing that Revell missed as some of the details on the benches, deck cargo, (buckets and other stuff found in the burial mounds) and rigging such as the stay horns, these were used to strike the mast quickly, if bad weather popped up or if they were sailing into a tight space. A friend of mine in Norway who is an expert on the real boats did some 3D printing for me and printed out a set of benches/boxes as well as the horns and buckets and barrels. I included a pic of the real parts for reference. He also printed a more correct set of prow figureheads.
I treated the deck to a base coat of Testors flat black followed by a coat of Testors Armor Sand I still have some bottles. The hull is Testors Rubber Brown as black would have been too dark, this also gave me a good contrast to drybrush highlights in a light shade of tan.
I am discarding the sail and having one sewed to replicate the crosshatch pattern of the vacuum form one that comes with the kit. I may paint it or not, I have not decided, I’m trying to locate a few figures in 1/50th scale to give a sense of reference for scale. I’ll have one side with oars out and one without
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Sounds like a nice project! I’ll look forward to seeing your pics.
Sounds fun! I have one of these half-finished — got bogged down in research. 
I’ll be watching!
How do we post pictures or do I need to host them another link?
Random pics from the build progress
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The real ship had these under top rail marks, Revell put them in the mold, nut unless you look for them, you’d never notice.
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The men’s chests, serves as their rowing benches as well
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The white horn shaped rigging stay-horns needed a bulb at the end to look like the real ones, I gave it some thought, I felt the end would let the rigging slip off, so I gave it some thought and figure if I use glass beads which are near perfect in size, using acc glue to the end of the bottom, this would form the ‘bulb’ as the real one have. After they dried a few minutes, I took my pin tip and touched the ‘hole’ with the glue forming a perfect ball at the end, much of this really won’t be seen, but I wanted to make sure the rigging stayed in place while the lines are pulled taught. The last picture is the real part on a Viking longboat; you can see the bulb at the end. Crazy modelers UNITE!
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The plastic tent poles were shot, so I had to make new ones.
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I had a seamstress sew a copy of the sail from the kit provided vacuum sail, she did exactly what I asked made a copy, I didn’t realize at the time the sail was mail as if it was under stress and the lines are bowed, I’m going to have to make another set with the cross hatch pattern and the straight lines (vertical), I think both were used on the boats.
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I had the sail remade using only one layer of cloth, the sail looks a lot better. I pre-drew the lines with a pencil go give the seamstress a better guide to follow. I was told that the looms of the time could generally only produce section of cloth about 3ft. wide, so I measured as best I could, based on scale lines at approx. 3 ft. I’ll need to starch and iron them before mounting.
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This is really impressive work! I’m taking notes for when I get around to finishing mine.
Your rigging work and that sail are going to stand out, but the attention to detail elsewhere is awesome. The replacement dragon’s figurehead for one. One of those was the first 3D printed part I ever bought, from some guy on Reddit way back when. Needless to say it’s not as nice as the one you’ve got there.
Dare I ask what your plans are for the shields?
Thanks for the kind comments, I’m still trying to decide on the colors, while most were plain, some did have colors and some patterns, I hope to have it figured out this week.
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I rigged up the sail just temporarily to see how she’ll hang. I’ll need to iron it a bit and do some more research in how the control lines were rigged. My grandson
Noah wanted to help…you have to involve them and trust them..
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