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Scratch building a 17th century merchant ship pt. 1

scratch built ship

Click here for part two

Click here for part three

During the Christmas break the wife and I rewatched Muppets Treasure Island (Muppets Christmas Carol would have been more fitting). Bitten by the pirate bug I quickly ploughed through Robert Louis Stevenson’s book the movie is based on, followed by Rafael Sabatini’s Captain Blood. If anyone knows of any other swashbuckling classics, I’m open for suggestions!

Anyway, as usual my craze of the moment also crept into my hobbying, as I found myself surfing the web for a 28mm scale ship and a swashbuckling crew to man it. Not surprisingly, 28mm scale ships tend to be rather expensive, so I decided to scratch build my own. And lucky for me, a chap called Gary Chalk has published a set of building plans for doing just that. The plans can be found in various places on the web and all you need are some sheets of (balsa) wood, wooden dowels and cardboard. 

I really like that Gary’s plans guide you through building a basic vessel, but let you do your own detailing so the end result still feels like your own creation. I made one small structural change by lengthening the main deck by 4 cm. I think the added length makes the vessel look just a bit more elegant and a little less squished. The extra 4 cm also let me add another gun port. For some reason an uneven number of gun ports looks nicer to me, but to each their own. I also substituted the suggested balsa wood for plywood, as this was easier to come by. This will in no way change the look of the ship, but will perhaps make it a bit more robust. 

So far, I have finished constructing the hull and lower masts. Just so you know, this will not be a very precise build. There’s not a straight line or corner to be found and I’m definitely aiming for more of a cartoony look. But I think that as long as I add enough details, my ship will end up looking alright. Apologies for taking so few pictures during construction, though. I had way too much fun to stop and get my camera!

scratch built ship

Here is the basic frame assembled. As you can see, I didn’t do a particularly clean job of cutting the plywood. But don’t worry, virtually none of the wood will be visible in the end. I also scribed the main and rear decks to look like wooding planking. I didn’t really like the look of that, though, so later added a new deck made from wooden coffee stirrers.

scratch built ship

Cardboard sides have been added, as well as various details. Coffee stirrers have been glued to the main deck and holes for the masts have been drilled. 


And this is as she looks now. The lower masts have been added and all detailing of the hull is done. Next up is painting the hull, followed by finishing the masts and adding sails and rigging.

scratch built ship
And a shot of the detailing on the rear.

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