For reasons best known to themselves, AER Model Studio chose to embed the kit stern railing parts in heavy backing which makes them noticeably too thick and completely obscures the openings between the rails. Perhaps they were trying to make the delicate resin parts stronger?
Anyway, sanding them down to open things up was no problem. The rails have to be treated with great care, though, as the brittle resin parts become even more fragile as they thin down. I broke them in a couple of places before the task was accomplished.
Still, the opened up rails do look better! Unfortunately they fit rather poorly, and while trying to coax them into place I completely destroyed one of the stanchions (repaired with plastic strip).
After a bit of further cutting and adjusting they were eventually persuaded to fit.
Preiser makes Z scale figures and animals. Z scale is actually a little bigger than your 1/288 scale, but in that size it would not be too noticeable. You could crew your boat and have them transporting livestock, or even doing repairs on those deck break throughs!
Interesting idea! I did a quick online search for Z scale figures, but none of the rail workers, passengers, passers-by and such I found looked terribly Roman! Some good animals, though⌠Iâll have to keep looking.
Next comes my favorite part of these ships, the goose!
Odd as it seems, this unusual decorative element is actually quite well attested in surviving depictions of Roman corbitas. They commemorated a significant moment in Roman history when in 390 B.C. the Gauls attacked Rome. After losing a series of battles, the last of the defeated Roman troops had retreated to the steep Capitoline Hill and there were able to hold out against the invaders. One night elite Gaul troops crept up the hill and were able to slip past the guards and their dogs, but not the geese! The sacred geese of Juno heard them and raised such a ruckus with their honking that they woke the garrison who successfully defended the hill and were eventually able to drive the invaders out of Rome.
After installing the goose and coating it with Mr. Surfacer, I added tie posts to the stern rails and to the bulwarks forward. As with the shroud boards, I tossed the crude kit parts and replaced them with plastic, in this case Evergreen .030 X .030 inch strips with notches cut around the tops. These simple posts are not only sharper than the kit parts but will be much less likely to break under the strain of rigging to be tied to them later.
Your progress is looking very good and that explanation of the Goose âfigure headâ was very interesting. When I was teaching I always tried to get my students interested in modeling and that story just illustrates how this hobby involves history and research. Good luck with this amazing build.
Tom S.
Baccus has 6mm Romans, and although most of their listings are for military units for miniature gaming, I drilled down on the âRepublican Romansâ image, and the EQU14 set on the subsequent page is âGreek/Roman Civiliansâ.
This looks a real fun kit to build. Great work dealing with all the repairs, and looking really good. It does remind me of a ship model they used to have in the now long gone Town museum in Dover, Kent, I grew up down there, and a model of the old Roman port of Dover they had as well with similar ships.
This looks a real fun kit to build. Great work dealing with all the repairs, and looking really good. It does remind me of a ship model they used to have in the now long gone Town museum in Dover, Kent, I grew up down there, and a model of the old Roman port of Dover they had as well with similar ships.
Cheers, Si
Thanks Si. That museum sounds like it was cool, too bad it is no more!
The masts and yards come as single pieces embedded in an large resin membrane, but fortunately it is very thin and easily removed.
AER Model Studio depicted the masts as fairly heavy and crude, so I cleaned the mold lines off of them up but still left things fairly rough to better show off the âwoodâ effect I will apply later on.
With the masts test fitted on the ship, assembly of the little corbita is already essentially complete. Time for paint!
6mm is alternatively known as 1:300th scale so I doubt you will get any closer to 1:288th, although I do know for modern armour there is 1:285th which I understand is popular in the U.S.
I should mention there are wargames rules for gang warfare in ancient Rome, as unless you wish to represent the equivalent of a third-world ferry disaster you will have several dozen figures left over (or a quayside crowd waving off the âTitanicusââŚ).
Now all you ned is a 1:300th galley as an anti-pirate escortâŚ
Yes, thatâs the set. For a 6â figure, 1:288 is 6.34mm, so I figured that 6mm would make a reasonable match for a slightly shorter person, and itâs one of the standard wargaming scales, so youâd be able to find a fairly wide selection of figures from various periods.
Many modern artistic renderings and models of these ships show them painted, and this is certainly a possibility, but the few surviving ancient depictions tend to show them as simple bare wood.
Accordingly, I painted the hull, masts, and yards Tamiya Desert Yellow (XF-59) acrylic as the basis for a natural wood portrayal.
To make things a little more interesting I painted the cabin roof and strengthening strakes on the hull sides brown. The deck received a coat of lightened Tamiya Buff (XF-57) acrylic.
No, as a matter of fact I didnât. There has been nothing in my Kitmaker inbox, and I check my e-mail on a daily basis. Thanks for the offer, but I have since ordered (and received) a Heller Santa Maria from a hobby shop in a distant part of Canada. Decent price in $CAN, and regular domestic postage rates.
As a matter of curiosity, where in the wide world are you located?
Sometimes âeyesâ were painted either side of the bows so the ship could âseeâ and not run onto rocks, etc.
Hi Leo, that is a cool idea; I added eyes on my Chinese fishing junk a few years backâŚ
Even though the ancient Greeks, and probably the Romans too, also sometimes used these painted eyes, I couldnât find evidence in my references of any Roman corbitas having this feature, so I just pressed on as is.
Anyway, with the basic painting done, it is on to the fun part.
It always feels weird (and a little stressful) to do this, but I slathered artistâs oil paint, in this case Grumbacher Raw Umber right out of the tube, all over that neat acrylic paint job. It looks like Iâm ruining it with a coating of Hersheyâs chocolate syrup!
Wiped off with a paint thinner-dampened cloth, though, the remaining artistâs oil leaves a glaze over the acrylic paint that imparts a nice âwoodenâ feel to the little ship.
Tim, I think that itâs looking great! I tried your oil paint method on the Revell Pinta that Iâm currently building and the hull turned out fantastic. Best method for getting an authentic wooden finish.
Tom S.
