Sunday 20 March 2011

The Magnificent 7 aka 'Pook's Turtles'


Things have been a little quiet on the modelling front this week - mainly because of a number of distractions of a WW2, Ancient and Napoleonic kind! - but I was able to finish the final three city class gunboats for the Union. I now have models of the seven that were built and plan to follow this post up with some details about these vessels. They certainly had an active war and were often used 'mob-handed' so having models of each of them available will be handy. They have been built using my tried and tested casemate ironclad technique and to be honest, the only fiddly part of the procedure is the gunports - 13 on each model making 91 pieces of 5mm by 4mm plastic card for the class.
Following on from finishing these vessels I have changed my order of construction slightly in that the next three models will be the remaining three Confederate cotton clad gunboats rather than the Union timberclads. I am doing this purely for the numbers as I have already built three of these and so the technique is a known one. That will leave the final models for the river phase - the aforementioned Union timberclads - Lexington, Tyler and Conestoga - and then the Walking Beam ships.
I must confess that whilst I have really enjoyed the model building for this project I am now really looking forward to the painting (I never thought I would say that!) as I am desperate to finally get these on the table and in action.
I just need one final heave to cross the finishing line but my construction 'tank' feels like it is running on vapour!

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