This tiny kit was purchased to compliment HMS Terror.
OcCre provided cast metal boats with Terror kit, however I lack artistic talent to make them presentable enough to pass for wood.
For this reason I took measures of biggest boat that was intended to be put on ship’s deck, and ordered similarly sized boat kit from Vanguard Models.
Model quality
It is made by Vanguard Models, by legendary Chris Watton, so I had no doubts the kit will be great.
And indeed it was very well-designed, I had pretty much no issues and the result is quite impressive for such small scale.
All the wood is high quality pear, everything is laser cut, including hull planks.
Sadly in my model there were some unfortunate laser cut scorching marks, but nothing that wasn’t possible to fix by sanding/properly orienting the parts.
Instructions are step-by-step, with clear photos and easy to follow. To my delight, there is even a full boat plan that helped to clear some minor questions I had.
Build notes
It was a quick and very enjoyable build. Whole thing took only two weeks of light work for an hour or so in the evening.
Hull is built over a temporary jig, consisting of MDF ribs/bulkheads.
Planks are laser-cut, but not pre-spiled. Some cleaning of char is required, but nothing excessive.
I was a bit concerned about the proposed build method, but all my concerns were dispelled as I worked on the model.
Here you can see planking mostly done. Each plank was spiled to achieve realistic planking look, which is by no means necessary as the hull will be painted anyway. But I wanted to challenge myself and do it the right way.
This photo was taken right after I sanded the hull on the outside, and removed the jig from the inside. You can see that glue marks are not yet cleaned. It was surprisingly easy to clean them (I used both CA gel and PVA), and the inside of the hull turned out perfectly presentable.
Ribs took quite some time to add, I didn’t expect this job to be this time-consuming. But nothing very hard about it.
Floor boards come as a pre-cut and etched thin MDF board, which I painted to highlight some planks. It will be barely visible on the finished model anyway. Rest of the parts are made from very high quality pear.
From here, it was only a matter of adding benches, knees and painting the hull. As usual, I used Danish oil on the unpainted wood.
Here you can see finished boat next to the one that came in HMS Terror kit. To me, the difference is dramatic, and I’m very happy with my decision to replace the ship boat.
Conclusion
Great little kit, fantastic addition to any big ship model.
Not over-engineered like similar kits I’ve built before, but detailed enough to look great as a ship boat.
Gallery
