South African Homemade Model Ship building and instructions

Reading a blog entry by Hyperion about his love for the sea and it’s call. Put me in mind to fix up three of the surviving model ships which I build in the late 1990s and one that I build circa 2001.

In south Africa people love model ships, because of sanctions and the Rand to Dollar exchange rate it has never been a hobby that has allowed the masses to import the  kit models from the USA or Britain.

As necessity is the mother of invention South Africans of all social groups have found ways to build their own model’s.

Thus from the artisan in his workshop will spend hours over a lathe turning out the most intricate cannons, cannonballs and other fittings.

While in South Africa’s prisons inmates spend time making match models of how they imagine sailing ships looked.

South African Prison ships are not very realistic for obvious reasons but they are very popular.

I took it into my mind to create my own models using cheap locally sourced materials that cost nothing.

Thus all the models I create are unique a one of the kind edition the models were made with cardboard base, and a lot of match sticks using my knowledge of what 17to 19th century ships looked like.

I build and sold many of these models for a meat fraction of there actual worth   to keep the hyenna from the kraal gate.

This today I have three models left
The first model I made now belongs to my brother Peter do I actually know where four of my models are.

The first image below is of the second and third models the Sarah and Rebecca Royal.
BUILD in 1997.

If your mode is to be a success there  are certain things that you will need to do before you begin to build a model.

1.) Do a lot of research, if you have not already done so.

2.) ASK questions, lots of them,

3.) Your model can be of anything you want it to be a fort, a motor car, a Norman Church or a Anglo Saxon village or Scottish Castle or even the Wright brothers first flying machine (matches are playable so it is possible to build just about anything.

4.) Visualisation of your completed project is very important because it is like a map of where you are going to.

Above are images of the Sarah a 17th century vessel along English lines.

If you keep your eyes open you will find many small things that you can add into your model to make it unique.

However please remember not to make it look like an Arab bazaar i.e. No BARBIE doll on board etc.

The Rebecca Royal build on a smaller scale 1foot long and I used beads, matches, cardboard as a base for the body then added the layer of matches topped with a special preparation of sawdust glue and resin and dried in a kitchen oven.

Then sanded down to smoothness, painted and then the masts made from matches for stands and fruit skewers, rigged with white shoemakers twine and sales from standard calico rigged with shoemakers twine and then painted with fibreglass resin.

Below is the very last model build circa 2001 scale 1 meter,
And called The Jessican with 32 guns on the upper decks and ports for another 32 below decks

Cannons we’re carved from thin doweling wood can carriages  from matches.

Once again the same process used for the earlier models was used and the us  of cardboard of various types used to perfect each model.

You will need:-
1.) Lots of matches
2.) Lots of boiling water and a few pots for the boiling of matches to perfect the bending process.
3.) A box cutter for craving.
4.) Blades for box cutter.
5.) Lots of wood glue.
6.) Real gold paint
7.) FIBERGLASS RESIN & CATALYSTS.
8.) Sawdust
9.) Varnish
10.) Shoemakers Twine.
11.) Various needles.
12.) 1* Meter of Calaco.
13.) various solvents
14.) Various paints for colouring (I used various types of PVA type paints not oil and no enamel paint at all.
15.) Various paint brushes of different sizes (I cannot tell you how many because I don’t know where your imagination will take you).
16.) Various  pieces of sandpaper and flatting paper.
17.) Collection of similar beads and dried none edible seeds.
18.) Candle wax.
19.) A good pair of scissors.
20.) 1 * vivid imagination (essential to all projects)

Finally should  you have any  questions please email me.

The projects I make are from my imagination, researched and built to look  authentic.

HE AUTHOR RECOMMENDS ” THE STERLEY’S OF OAKLAND PARK ( A PARODY OF PRIDE & PREJUDICE) 
FOR MORE INFO VISIT THE FOLLOWING WEB LINK: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/sarejessThe link to the authors lulu.com showroom

TO MAIL THE AUTHOR: sarejessian @ gmail.com
The Author is a Dyslexic support the author by buying one of his books or short stores.

Posted from WordPress for Android