Once I built up some confidence with wooden kits, especially after St. Gabriel I felt confident enough to start the ‘proper’ wooden ship. Like you know, one which you have to plank manually and scratch-build most of stuff. As you probably know, picking the right subject you are really interested in is the key to success. Especially when built is expected to take many months. After careful considerations and reading Model Ship World a lot, I picked this kit from OcCre.

I chose it for several reasons:

  • First and foremost, I really like the look of the ship
  • I was already in the Arctic expedition’s theme, thanks to Bering’s ship St. Gabriel
  • OcCre as a company had relatively good reviews and feedback on modelling forums
  • OcCre did a whole series of 111 YouTube videos showing the construction of this model
  • And finally, the kit was relatively cheap (compared to other wooden kits that normally start from 200 Euros and can easily go up to 800 Euros)

HMS Terror

HMS Terror was a specialized warship and a newly developed bomb vessel constructed for the Royal Navy in 1813. She participated in several battles of the War of 1812, including the Battle of Baltimore with the bombardment of Fort McHenry. She was converted into a polar exploration ship two decades later, and participated in George Back’s Arctic expedition of 1836–1837, the Ross expedition of 1839 to 1843, and Sir John Franklin’s ill-fated attempt to force the Northwest Passage in 1845, during which she was lost with all hands along with HMS Erebus. (from Wikipedia)

I bet now most of the people are familiar with the story of the ship from ‘The Terror’ TV Series, which I didn’t watch. But I read and enjoyed the book by Dan Simmons back in 2014, so one more reason to pick this subject.

Model quality

Previously I only had experience with Russian manufacturers and Mantua. I was quite disappointed with Mantua and impressed by both Master Korabel and Falkonet. This time I’m happy to admit that OcCre didn’t disappoint me one bit. All the wood is high quality, and it’s given in abundance (I can plank another ship with leftovers). All cast details are also nice quality, and nails are just perfect (especially compared to terrible ones from Master Korabel).

Build notes

First I’d like to notice that whole approach to model’s engineering is pretty different from my previous experience with Master Korabel kits. Here, it’s expected for modeller to practically scratch-build most of the parts. I mean, some parts are laser-cut, but even those you’ll have to plank. For most things you just have dimensions and maybe a plan. And I actually do like it this way! It scratches the itch for woodworking just about right. When in Master Korabel it felt like building a wooden model from kit, here it feels like building a model using plans and wood supply. Don’t get me wrong, building wooden models from kits is already challenging enough, so I’m happy I prepared myself by building those.

But this feels like next level.

And now to the build itself!

Of course, doing planking for the first time was challenging.

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I even had to buy a big hand file to work on the bow of the ship which you have to shape from 4 layers of wood. Obviously I’ve made plenty of mistakes, but as for the end result - I’m quite happy with it! Given it’s my first time, it turned to be quite nice, I even almost completely avoided use of wood filler.

Next I worked on a second layer of planking and placed rubbing strakes. Before doing the second layer, I read plenty of articles and posts on how to do it properly. TLDR - it’s a huge pain in the ass if one really wants to replicate the look of real hull. Especially a complicated one like this. I decided to do it the easy way, like in the instructions. Why? Because I wanted to paint the hull anyway, and the bow will be covered with metal plates.

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Here you can see planking complete with strakes and false keel. Looks lovely, I appreciate the choice of materials, would totally look amazing if left unpainted.

I loved the look of it so much that I decided to step away from the instructions and plank the inner side of the gunwale.

Instructions say to stain it, and it looks like this:

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Not too bad, but still kinda cheap when compared to outer planks.

Thanks to abundance of material, I planked it, and couldn’t be happier with new look:

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Once it was done I thought the most laborious part was over… I couldn’t be more wrong!

Plating the bow with metal - that was the difficult part. I spent two weeks working on it almost every evening! Be the end it felt like a chore, so I even had to take a couple of weeks brake from the model.

But the end result looks nice indeed, I almost reconsidered my decision to paint the hull.

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Next I worked on transom decoration and rudder, which you can see on next photo.

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I’m glad OcCre supplies pre-formed hinges for the rudder, somehow Master Korabel does not, and making those from metal strips is not super fun.

Anyway, next I painted the hull and rubbing strakes, added the catheads, discovered that I placed the transom windows in the wrong place, and had to re-do the whole thing.

Many more hours were then spent on the deck furniture.

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And finally I was ready to work on the masts and spars. Turns out, dressing the yards takes a lot of time, who could have though!

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But at last the bowsprit is installed.

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To be continued..