Four-oared yawl of XIX century, 1/24, Falkonet

Another wooden model. The more I build them, the more I love doing it.

The manufacturer is a Russian company called Falkonet, they specialize in extremely detailed kits.

Four-oared yawl of XIX century

Not much to say about the subject, it’s a fairly typical yawl from that age. The box says it’s based on real historical plans from 19th century, by English shipwright Benjamin Stuckey.

Model quality

It’s absolutely excellent, level of details is insane and superior to what I’ve seen in other manufacturer’s kits. Lots of photo-etch, teeny-tiny laser-cut wooden details. The only thing I didn’t like was inclusion of some resin details. I prefer cast metal details, and resin pegs (while being to-scale) are super flimsy, I would rather have brass ones like in Master Korabel kits.

Build notes

Like with other Falkonet’s boat I’ve built, you are supposed to build the hull on a special supporting structure. Even in 1/24 scale the planks are very thin, so it makes total sense.

Here is this structure built, with the keel installed without glue: wip_01

Ribs added and planking started. Each of the ribs is made of two plies, and I didn’t like this approach one bit. It was a huge pain in the ass to make them, because if you first glue them together, then try to bend, they can easily break. If you first glue one ply in place, then try to add second one - it’s very hard to make the second one stick properly. I tried PVA, CA glue, various approaches.

In the end the one approach I used was applying thick layer of PVA on one ply, adding another one, and then dry-fitting them in place (you can kinda fix them via supporting structure slots) while the glue is still wet and the plies can slide against each other. wip_02

Once the planking is done, internal supports are removed and it’s amazing how light and thin the hull is. wip_03

wip_04

I had almost perfect fit, which is a miracle for wooden models. The only minor adjustment I had to do was adding this small wedge to compensate for the burn marks that I removed from each plank. wip_05

With the hull planking done, adding all the details was a pleasure. All the parts are laser-cut, fit was perfect, and lots of photo-etch details. wip_06

Finally, what’s left was rigging and making of oars.

As it usually is with Russian kit manufacturers, they don’t provide dowels. You have to round provided pre-cut square pieces, and I’m not a big fan of this approach. It’s just boring! I don’t get why in cheap OcCre kit I have tons of dowels for every need, but here in top-tier kit with fantastic level of details there are none. It’s like no one can make a dowel in Russia.

Making the other nice things like a water barrel, lantern and compass was much more fun, and I think those small touches add a lot to the final look of the model.