There are many truly magnificent examples of swan-class builds on this forum and others. My attempt will be based on a kit (now discontinued) developed and sold by Bob Hunt out of Lauck Street Shipyard (as hinted at above).
Here is the prototype model created by Bob Hunt:
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Attribution: this image was clipped from the documentation provided with the kit and is the property of Robert Hunt (shared here without his expressed permission – though this image can be readily found on the internet).
After the completion of my first model ship (the Vasa: a POB kit-based build in 1:64) and a small scratch build of an esping (a Swedish longboat now displayed in the case alongside my Vasa) I had it in my heart to attempt a POF build. I had previously purchased another POF kit but when this Kingfisher kit came available on the secondary market, I made an impulse buy.
I have since learned that for its time this was one of the finest kits available. Mine is kit # 078 and it seems only 100 or so were made. I’m not sure why Mr. Hunt discontinued offering kits for sale – but I suspect that market pressures from new mass-produced (but still high-end) kits now available in the marketplace made his handmade/craftsman approach economically untenable.
What attracted me to this kit was the fact that 98% of the wood supplied is boxwood (certainly not European boxwood – it is probably Castello boxwood or another variety). What I can attest to is the boxwood supplied with the kit is truly beautiful. There are more than 40 panels of CNC cut pieces of varying thicknesses (reportedly 2000 individual pieces though I didn’t count).
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It took me about a week just to clean the panels of sawdust in the cut lines. I’m not complaining – cleaning and squaring laser cut boards would have taken far longer and been far messier.
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There are also wood strips packaged according to the stage of construction (rather than by size) along with a small bag of photo-etch sheets, styrene bits and baubles, and other sundry parts. The carvings and cannon are provided as cast/molded resin pieces and time has not treated them well. I’ll need to find replacements.
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The kit is designed to build an admiralty model (a term that seems to have a fairly fluid definition in actual usage), but for me it means that nothing is provided in terms of rigging (masts, yards, ropes, blocks are all absent) and very little of the hull and decking would have been planked (only above the lowest wale on one side of the ship, and only under gun carriages on one side of the ship) so ALL of the stripwood provided with the kit is seen in the picture above.
I have not yet determined how earnestly I will embrace the admiralty approach – but given the price of boxwood I may build close to the kit. Still, I have seen swan-class ships with completed hulls and the lines are truly beautiful. This might mean I will end up doing half and half (leaving the framing fully visible on one side of the ship and fully sheathing the other side). I am even less certain about how much, if any, rigging there will be on my model. Right now the leading contender is: not much.
. Cheers Grant
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