As the current Euro/£ exchange rate has sunk to virtual parity, so the Mantua Model Group have increased the U.K. prices of their products. This kit cost me serious money, approx. £600, so it ought to be very good indeed. Panart are part of the Mantua Model Group.
Because this is the Panart flagship, it is also their most expensive, and they offer an alternative to the full kit, namely a sequence of eight mini-kits to spread the cost over the build time. There is a ninth kit which is an extra for both options, and that is a suit of sails. The eight kits are about £50 dearer than the complete 1/84 scale kit, presumably because of the cost of the packaging and an extra pick and pack line at Roverbella where Panart are based.
There are 11 large laser-cut boards, all of 5-ply softwood and of very high quality. There was no sign of warp, so I assume that there is good control over moisture content.
Decks, structures and wooden fittings
A range of medium to small laser-cut boards of varying timbers and thicknesses are included. There are 38 of these, some of them thin flexible Finnish ply with a satin surface, and these replace many of the photo etched brass items which Panart previously used. The laser cutting is superb.
Here I was not satisfied. Panart are very keen on balsa as the primary (and indeed only) hull planking and supply this with a roll of Modelspan paper tissue to affix over the balsa surface with dope. They do also supply 1 x 6mm lime strip for second planking if you prefer, but this is too thin to use as a single skin alone. The balsa in the kit was varied; several grades of hardness (and indeed softness) and colour, although that itself is not important, as the hull will be painted.
The planking strips supplied for the decks should, I thought, at least equate with those shown on the box artwork and the large poster supplied, i.e. light in colour. Instead, the deck planking (0.5 x 3mm) was a very dark walnut which when varnished would be almost black. This was unacceptable, and I asked Mantua Model Group UK to exchange it, which they did without fuss. They could offer only white maple, which I accepted, and supplied very good quality timber, straight and clean. The full-size vessel has teak-laid decks, for which Tanganyika (the trade name for Aningeria pseudo-racemosa) would be the nearest colour equivalent. Teak veneer, 0.6mm thick, is available for cutting into 3mm strips, but the grain is non-scale, and it doesn’t take glue very well.
Planking for the 11 ships boats is with 0.5 x 3mm and 1 x 1mm mahogany. The larger size was very rough and needed to be sanded on both sides with 400 grit abrasive.
Fittings
These are contained in 82 plastic bags. Some of these contain similar parts to other bags, as Panart have lumped them together from the eight ‘part’ kits. The quality is extremely high.
Straight away, I put all the small laser-cut wood sheets into an A4 rigid transparent plastic box for safety and I did the same for all the little bags of fittings, so these remained safe and accessible during the build.
Instructions
There are eight instruction books (again from the part-kits), each with a materials list to check. This takes a lot longer than usual, but I forgave them as the books are so much easier to handle than the previous 15 very large plan sheets. The texts are in six languages, and the first thing I did was to use a yellow highlighter just on the English text, which is a reasonable translation from the Italian, though sometimes strange nouns and syntax appear, but never causing misunderstanding.
The eight books total 224 pages, with good drawings and colour photos. Two extra, large, sheets give plan, elevation and rigging. However, these were not full-size, so no measurements could be taken directly from them. Their scale, by my calculation, is 74%.
For the build, I will follow, within reason, the sequences shown in the instruction books. You may notice, as the review proceeds, that I have made a few minor changes as a matter of practicality. Purists should ignore any variations from true scale. However, the manufacturers have created quite a few variations themselves, as comparisons between details in the instruction books and the box photography will show.
Basic hull construction
This is quite standard for a wooden plank-on-frame hull. A keel with 15 transverse bulkheads, which are locked at 90 degrees by two longitudinal pieces. Laser cutting was accurate, so that all bulkheads slotted into place easily and to the correct depth. No cutting was required except when dry-assembled. There was bevelling of the forward three and stern three bulkheads, the bevel angles of which were established using a single plank across them. I used an Amati Keel-Klamper at this stage of the construction, though it soon became overloaded. Fore and aft there are a number of ply pieces to bevel before gluing to the keel. These are to anchor the ends of the planking and a disc sander will speed their bevelling. However, I chose to fill forward of the first and aft of the last bulkheads with block balsa wood, which I find provides a better anchor.
I used white PVA glue, with an overnight curing period for safety. Don’t leave the model in a cold environment ( like my workshop!), as some white glues tend to go chalky and lack adhesion when it is frosty.
There are three sub-deck pieces, in 1mm ply. They bend easily longitudinally (though they don’t need to), but strongly resist the port to starboard camber. What a pity that these sheets were not cut at 90 degrees to the direction of top and bottom grain. There would have then been an easy camber, without a deck rise between bulkheads. As the photo shows, I cut some balsa strips of quadrant to glue under each bulkhead and deck joint, using small clamps to hold the main deck in place whilst the glue dried. I had to adjust a few slots in the sub-deck ply, but nothing much.
Hull planking – two attempts
In this, as in the other Panart kits I have built, the designers have laid considerable stress on the use of balsa as a good timber for planking. Here, they supply 2 x 6mm balsa, to be covered with a layer of doped tissue paper.
I found this to be unsatisfactory as it was very fragile and indeed it is easy to put a thumb right through it! A balsa strip bends along a gentle curve, but snaps at a sharper angle. It will not twist to any extent and you cannot use a plank bending tool, as this merely compresses little trenches on the underside, fracturing the longitudinal fibres.
I eventually got irritated with it all and stripped it off as I was supposed to enjoy this build, not fight it!
So, I bought 1.5 x 5mm lime strips for the first planking. If you do this, you will need up to 82 strips of one metre length (I managed with 79). This is about another £32 at Mantua prices, but cheaper elsewhere. Also, there are no brass nails in the kit to attach these strips to the bulkheads. Panart suggest that the planking be pinned, whilst the glue dries, using steel plastic headed pins, but they do not supply these either. I did buy some, but they were unsatisfactory for lime and ply, but I was lucky enough to have some 12mm brass nails left over from a previous kit. A packet of 200 will cost another £4 or so. Anyway, that’s enough of the complaints and I will continue with the build.
The first planking turned out to require four master planks each side to the top of the central bulkhead ears followed by eight un-tapered planks.
All planking was now straightforward with no soaking or steaming of the planks needed, the plank nippers creating the relatively gentle curves easily. Quite a few planks needed to be tapered, and sometimes I found it convenient to cut a full length in half. In these cases I used scarph joints, centred on a bulkhead, of course. I was very satisfied with the hull at this stage. The single planking, being 1.5mm thick and of a timber much stronger than balsa, felt solid. It was also rigid, partly because I glued each plank to its neighbour as well as to each bulkhead.
I sanded the whole skin (always wear a mask) with a mouse palm electric sander with 120 grit sandpaper, followed by a light sanding with 240 grit. A few spots needed filler, before two coats of Windsor & Newton’s acrylic artists’ gesso was applied as a primer. This fills any hairline cracks, dries in 20 minutes and easily accepts the acrylic topcoat. There was no need for a second planking, nor a covering of Modelspan tissue. With the hull painted white at this stage, I could move on to Instruction Book Two. Incidentally, the real ship has an all-black hull, but I chose to follow the box art.
Deck Planking
A simple decision here: Either Walnut, Maple or Tanganyika. I had already rejected the walnut as a black deck is redolent of a death ship, but maple might be too light. I decided, again after experimentation, to stripe the deck a bit like a Riva speedboat which incidentally are also Italian. The Panart white maple strips responded well to stain. Wearing rubber gloves, I painted some on both sides with Colron Antique Pine spirit stain, and suspended them to dry using clothes pegs or clips. Once dry, they remained straight and had a light golden colour and sanding either face did not change the colour as being 0.5mm thick, the stain had gone right through.
So, I covered all three decks with alternate white and golden tan planks, starting with a white plank laid alongside a central pencilled line on the sub-deck. Before reaching the bulwarks, I removed the top ears of the central bulkheads. This was simplified by using a flush-cut saw (with no set to the teeth). After that a gentle twist sideways with small pliers eased the waste off the inner face of the bulwark planking.
The instructions indicated that 80mm lengths be used throughout, but then the deck planking looked messy, so I did not cut the strips except when I reached the square and round openings in the sub-deck. The effect was pleasing to me and anyway, most of it will be hidden by deck assemblies, fittings and the eleven ship’s boats. I lined the central bulwarks with 1.5 x 5mm lime and left them alone at this stage.
Deck bulkheads and cabin walls
It was now time to construct these, fore and aft of the main deck. The instruction book devotes four pages to these, so I assumed that they might be difficult. As it so happened, they were not, but the drawings and photos were most helpful. The rear assembly needed to maintain the same athwartships camber of the decks between which it was to be glued. The designers had thought of that, and top and bottom strips kept the whole assembly to the correct curve until their last minute removal. Cabin doors were added after painting the walls. I scored the wood, and used superglue for these and other fittings.
Décor strips
These strips on the hull, carry the portholes. The strips were of 0.4mm satin-finished ply which was flexible and a lot more pleasant to work with than the more usual photo etched brass. The sheet for the upper strips was painted gold (two coats of Vallejo 172), and the sheets containing the mid and lower levels were painted white. I did not as suggested, paint the complete hull black, but laid and glued the gold section tops flush with the deck onto the dry gesso primer with Zap-a-Gap medium viscosity superglue. Only one piece needed a light trim and I wore rubber gloves, having once glued myself to a model!
After trying each piece in place, I applied superglue to the section of hull, moistened the back of the piece of ply and applied it carefully. The almost instant adhesion which the moisture causes is fine for these applications, particularly with curved sections of the hull.
I then cut the gangways in the bulwarks with a razor saw and applied the laser-cut edging to the decks. With walnut strip added to the lower edge of the gold pieces, I used a 16mm card strip to mark the upper edge of the top white décor strip, and a 12mm card strip to pencil the lower edge and repeated these lines below for the second white strip.
Painting between the marked lines with black matt acrylic, slightly overlapping where the white strips would go, I could then fix them in place with superglue (where would we be now without it?). The shapes had been very well designed, though I did cut the rear parts under the counter to ease application to the complex curves of the stern.
Instruction Book 3 suggests that the portholes be drilled with a 4.5mm bit, and then each hole opened up with a rat-tail file. This might have damaged my single-skin planking, so after the 4.5mm drill, I used a mini router bit, pointed and with a maximum 6mm diameter, mounted in my Proxxon mini-drill, to open up each hole. Each was then finished to the required diameter of 6.3mm with a 6mm cylindrical router cutter, guided by the rims of the laser-cut holes in the strip, but watch out for the occasional underlying bulkhead, if you are doing this at home as they say!
There are 78 round portholes each side, plus another 16 in each gold strip, so 188 in all. I glued the brass portholes with epoxy, and found it neater to apply this with a cocktail stick around the hole rim, then push the brass porthole gently into the hole. In addition to these round ports, there are 34 square ones, and these have brass covers. I carefully painted the square apertures black and then drilled the holes for the eyelets which act as hinge pin carriers. The pin holes are clearly laser etched. I used my own eyelets, as all those in the kit were black, and drilled 0.6mm holes. The eyelets were glued with epoxy and 8mm brass pins inserted vertically. A snag arose here, as the porthole covers would not fit between the eyelets, and wider spacing would not have allowed the use of 8mm pins. The solution was simple enough though. Thin the brass hinges top and bottom with a mini abrasive wheel, reducing the width of each hinge pair by about 0.3mm. However, I wish I had left these square covers until much later in the build as several of them were knocked off during other work.
I did not want the complete hull black, so as in the box illustration, I marked the waterline (19mm below the lowest white stripe amidships) and carried the pencil line all round with the hull level. I used an engineer’s marker, but a pencil pushed through a vertical strip of wood will do as well. Tamiya masking tape on this pencil line gave a perfect edge to the black acrylic paint.
Deck and detail work
I was now ready to start this. The model looks good already and I couldn’t resist the occasional peek at it through the workshop window. I had spent so far, 12 weeks on the hull averaging about 2 1/4 hours a day, so this was about 190 hours work thus far.
Instruction Books 3, 4 and 5 cover the various deck fittings and assemblies. Each is accompanied by an A3 perspective drawing which details the pages on which each assembly is covered. In addition to the porthole strips, Instruction Book 3 covers many small fittings, even to a box jig with its components laser-cut solely to ensure correct drilling of the funnel tube. All of these items are straightforward and the drawings and photos are easy to follow.
I do not intend to detail the minor items. There are many of these and some are fiddly to make, but then you wouldn’t contemplate building this vessel if you weren’t keen on detail. A quick check down the contents lists shows a total of about 2975 fittings (mostly in metal, and many in lathe-turned brass), and over 1600 laser-cut wooden components; enough detail for anyone I should imagine!
It is I think however, important to speak about the major assemblies.
Forward wheelhouse
I moved on to Instruction Book 4 and started to build the main forward wheelhouse. One of the many good things about these books is that they contain drawings of the various laser-cut boards used in that section of the build, together with the relevant part numbers. However, for this item the photos do not show the specific part numbers of all the components. The first seven photos of the wheelhouse have a transposition of part numbers. The confusion between Part 373A and 373H could make you build the unit upside down, which I did (!), so you must be more careful, but this was quite easily rectified as both parts have the same external shape. When assembled, this piece has to be clad in pre-painted thin ply veneer, which did not quite fit. I decided that the essential thing was to align the window openings in both the ply shell with this cladding. As a result, I had to separate the sections of cladding, leaving some gaps, which were filled with modeller’s putty filler.
The wheelhouse is actually one of the most complex of the assemblies and the instructions devote seven pages, including 46 photos, to it. Bearing in mind, the finished item is only 43 x 80mm (about 2 x 3ins) in size, there is much to fit into such a small volume.
Two useful points arose here: First, the book advocates the separation of the etched brass parts with a fretsaw. This is unsatisfactory, especially as the brass is quite thick. Neither a hand or electric fretsaw was effective. I separated the parts with a stabbing knife (originally for chip carving) on a self-healing mat, and removed any remaining sprue with a mini-grinding wheel in a Proxxon drill. Second, I used an Amati Gripper to hold the cupola whilst the epoxy set whilst held level.
The rest of the wheelhouse was straightforward, but remember to fit the rear ladder only after the assembly has been secured to the deck.
Winch
Next, I tackled the winch which is just forward of the funnel. This again is quite small being only 60 x 35mm (2.5 x 1.5 ins), but with a lot of brass pieces to fit. I started at the rear and worked forward. The instruction book includes some useful drawings, but you do need to push each shaft back to the previously installed one as you proceed, so as to mesh the cogwheels and to save space. I found it essential to do a dry make-up of each shaft with its cogs, drum and support columns and try it in place before fixing. It is very easy to place the support columns wrongly. The only change I made was to use thin card for the shaft end covers, instead of the brass strip provided.
I found it time-consuming to locate the small fittings in the storage box, as no packet had any part number and no part was actually named. The information is all there somewhere in the instructions and the contents lists do give the dimensions of the components.
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About the Author
Main interest is scale scratchbuilding but I build kits as well! I live in South West Surrey near the Sussex border
