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I can’t really help it - wooden models attract me more and more. This one is yet another tiny boat kit that I bought for like 10 Euros on my trip to Russia. The manufacturer is Falkonet, apparently they focus on smaller stuff like boats and yachts, no tall ships in the catalog so far. Wooden boat from year 1763 Some luxurious wooden boat from Catherine The Great era. Well, basically a typical 6-oar boat with ornaments on the side.

For some reason wooden kits keep attracting me more and more. This one is the third I’m building, all from the same Russian company called Master Korabel (Мастер Корабел). St Gabriel deck-boat This was the main ship of the First Kamchatka Expedition lead by Danish explorer Vitus Bering for Russian Tsar Peter The Great in 1724-1730. Model quality Just as with previous kits from this company I had no major issues with the model, wooden parts are awesome and very well engineered.

Boat It’s essentially the same boat type as the one I’ve built from wood, and in same scale. This made it particularly fun to build as I was able to directly compare both builds. Model quality It’s very good, the wooden texture is beautifully executed, and the were no flash at all. My only tiny complaint is about seam lines, but as there were so few details it wasn’t a problem.

As I had great fun building my first wooden kit, on my next trip to Russia I bought a bunch of other kits from local manufacturers. This modern kit is again from Russian company called Master Korabel (Мастер Корабел), is fully laser-cut and costs less than 10 Euros. Launch This is just a general purpose boat used on sail ships in 17th century. Nothing really special about it. Model quality Just as with previous kit from this company I had no issues, fit was almost perfect.

My first ever wooden kit, yay! I was always intimidated by wooden ship kits, assuming huge amount of scratch-building and crafting. Also I knew from my childhood plastic kit experience that rigging is quite challenging on Tall Ships. Luckily nowadays thanks to modern technologies like laser cutters and CAD software wooden kits are enhanced with pre-shaped laser cut hull planks and details. Considering this I decided to give it a try and build something relatively simple, relatively cheap and without complex rigging.

Another blast from the past. Bought this model in 2010, just because I wanted to build some WW1 biplane. So it waited 6 years for me do find time and space to build it. Lucky for me, I didn’t even start it in 2010 except for gluing two engine halves together, so it wasn’t ruined and I had no problems with old paint. Model quality I’ve built it right after BA-10, and the quality difference was drastic.