CSN Commerce Raider (Generic, based on the CSS Sumter)

[mikoyan99]

Aside from starship modelling and the occasional aeroplane, I spend most of my model making time building model ships. I'm a graduate naval architect, and the period of ship building that interests me most is the end of the golden age of sail, and the transition from sail to steam power.

I'm planning on building a full wooden model of the Alabama at some point in the near future, but for now, i'm converting an old airfix model of Scot's RSS Discovery to a CSN commerce raider, heavily based on the Sumter. The ships are both similar, carrying Barque rigs, screw propulsion, and having a similar length and beam. Primarily, i'll need to modify the rig, move the smokestack, change the rudder, and repaint.

So far, I have the hull built, but it still needs repainting.

-Matt

 

[Albertese]

Lovely work. I've built a couple tall ships as a kid, but none as good as yours! Makes me want to try my hand at one again...


--Alex

 

[mikoyan99]

Lovely work. I've built a couple tall ships as a kid, but none as good as yours! Makes me want to try my hand at one again...


--Alex

Thanks! You should go for it; you can buy the wooden kits for around £50 (~$80) as a base price, so it's not too expensive to get into. I'd start with something fairly small with a fore-and-aft rig, like a sloop, cutter or schooner, as they have simpler rigging than the big square riggers. For plastic kits like this one, I use simplified rigging, but anything I make out of wood tends to get the whole hog. This is a topsail schooner (HMS Musquidobit) I built a few years ago; you can see that although there's quite a lot of rigging, it is manageable:

Going back to the sloop of war, i've built a new funnel, fitted the brudge, and started work on a pivot gun. The colours are currently "blocked out", ready for weathering. Many of the confederate ships were painted with a mix of soot and whitewash in order to camouflage them at sea, and could be at sea for long periods without proper dry dock or repair facilities, so i'll be aiming for a quite a battered, grey looking vessel with a lot of weathering.

-Matt

 

[Albertese]

OOoooo, I'm looking forward to see the weathering. Good weathering really makes a model look real.

--Alex

 

[mikoyan99]

Here you go, this is the hull weathered, almost ready for rigginh:

It was done using an airbursh to "dust" the upperworks and below the waterline, followed by a brown wash on the deck, then a black wash all over.
-Matt

 

[mikoyan99]

Standing rigging nearly complete:

-Matt

 

[mikoyan99]

Finished the model:

It turned out as well as the plastic ships tend to - I find them too small to get the rigging really satisfactory, and the yards too flexible to get everything nice and taught. For all that, it's a nice model, and good practice for my next ship project, which will be a wooden model along similar lines.
Feedback always appreciated,
-Matt

Edit: i'll try and get some better pictures later if anyone wants them.

 

[Strode]

That has turned out really really well! yes better pictures are always appreciated. Sorry no feedback on my end. I love it