Customer Submission

Artesania Latina’s Vasa Build in Progress

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Ship modeler Jon Peterson has been sharing an update on his build of Artesania Latina’s Vasa kit. This 1:65 scale wooden ship model kit is a big one, measuring some 42″ long when complete. Jon has completed the hull planking and is making very good progress.

Swedish Warship Vasa, by Artesania Latina

He comments that he likes the Artesania Latina kit, “because the instructions make it easier to complete certain steps on the construction. Nothing is left to guess work because of the pictures. They have a lot of tools to make your modeling go to the next level, and the design is easy to follow.”

Jon kindly provided us with some photos of his construction process to share with our readers here.

While he acknowledges that he has a long way to go on the model due to limited time available to work on the model, it’s clear he’s making great progress with beautiful results! We’re hoping he continues to share photos of his model progress with us.

Learn more about this kit on our web shop here

Ron Neilson’s Amati Xebec Model

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Our longtime friend Ron Neilson gave us his permission to share his photos of one of his early builds: Amati’s 1/60-scale Xebec kit. This was only Ron’s second wooden ship model that he built back in  2012. The completed model is about 28″ long, and he clearly put a lot of personal touches into this kit, including the red sails, the color scheme, the deck clutter, and more. He also did a beautiful job with the presentation on  its display base with customized nameplate.

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A Local OcCre Endurance Build

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One of our local customers, veteran ship modeler Paul Reck, who heads up the Hyde Street pier Model Shipwrights group in San Francisco, is working on a commissioned build of Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton’s exploration ship Endurance. The model is being built from OcCre’s 1/70-scale wooden kit, and Paul was nice enough to provide some photos of the model, under construction in his workshop.

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A Customer’s Amati Swedish Gunboat

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Customer Kent Dutrieux, a ship modeler from Richmond, California, share some photos of his beautiful build of Amati’s Swedish Gunboat (Cannoniera Svedese), 1775.

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A 1/72-Scale HMS Mercury Card Model

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This past weekend, we had a vendor table at the IPMS show in San Jose, and had a chance to talk to many people, including a number of customers. One of them, Ron Palma, is building a 1/72-scale model of the British sixth-rate frigate HMS Mercury from Shipyards Laser Cardboard Kit series.

Yesterday, he sent along some progress photos and said that we could share them, which we are very excited to do!

Ron has the hull mostly completed and copper sheathed. Keep in mind that while the frieze work is included in the kit, the whole model does not come pre-printed. So, the excellent paint job is Ron’s handiwork. He commented that the cannon barrels have been taped to protect them from the clear-coat overspray he gave the hull.

Ron’s done an outstanding job, but commented on how well this Shipyard kit has been engineered. He’s getting pretty close to starting the rigging on this model. When completed, the 3-masted warship model will measure 34-1/2″ long.

We’ll keep you posted on Ron’s very inspiring card model. In the meantime, if you are interested in this particular kit, you can find it here on Ages of Sail: HMS Mercury Laser Cardboard Kit. These kits include all parts laser-cut, with pre-printed frieze art, cast resin figurehead, pre-cut and printed cloth sails, turned brass cannons and swivel guns, wooden dowels for the masts and yardarms, rigging line, paint and brushes, plus an a nice photographic set of instructions.

We also carry the smaller 1/96-scale Paper Model kit. The Paper Model series kits are more basic, but include all the basic parts pre-printed in color on high quality paper. You are required to laminate paper to create the necessary thickness for the parts. You’ll also have to provide your own dowels and sail material. However, we’ll soon be adding Shipyard’s masting sets and sail sets to our website as we have all those items in stock now. Check out the kit on Ages of Sail: HMS Mercury Paper Model.

Watch for future updates on Ron’s HMS Mercury model.