Kit manufacturer: Heller

Vehicle type: Civic

Engine type: Sailing and rowing

Country of origin: United Kingdom

Model scale: 1:144

 

English galleon “Mayflower”. The vessel, on which the first English colonists arrived in America, who became legendary “Founding Fathers”. Given that in America there is “aristocracy by birth”, true American aristocrat is the one who is descended from an ancestor who arrived exactly on “Mayflower”.

In general, Heller’s kit made a good impression on me concerning the quality of plastic. Junctions and connectivity are worth a solid four.
The main “motivation” of constructing the model was my desire to put on my shelf a SAILBOAT with full armament, leaving the “out of kit” housing and masts. Therefore, no special “finishing” (hence the absence of tack pin straps for attaching rigging at the sides) for the masts and the housing has been done.

Things I got rid of or changed in the model of ship Mayflower

Immediately the following things were throw out “overboard”:

• plastic sails (on the model there are the sails sewn from cloth),
• plastic shrouds (but there left “native” dead-eyes to which the shrouds made out of a thread were fixed),
• paper flags (new ones are made of cloth impregnated with PVA and colored).

I finished (except sails, shrouds and flags) rigging blocks (wood), stern shot, on which tackles of spanker boom sheet are mounted (the native one was so fragile that I haven’t risked to install it), beam with ring of one of the anchors (manufacturer’s foozle – one of the anchors was absent in the kit), cross-bars of anchor stocks. Well, and actually rigging (it’s shameful to call the rigging scheme provided by the manufacturer in the manual even “primitive”).

One single detail from the kit has “beaten” me. Tack pin strap that had to be located under the bowsprit between the walls of the latrine hasn’t fit in place. There were options – to refusebowsprit gammoning, to put the bowsprit higher, to abandon the detail. I chose the last variant (I immediately recommend my colleagues who will work on Mayflower ship model to pay attention to this detail).

Painting the galleon ship model

Painting the housing (except the bottom) – nitropaint Revell (the rest from the Beagle) and Mr.Hobby. I used a set of brushes bought in the nearest office supply store. For the bottom I used a spray can of white matte acrylic paint from an unknown manufacturer (bought on the market of building materials).

Dimensions of the model – 47 cm (length) and 49 cm (height).

In general, as they say on this site, “wearing a helmet, waiting for stools”…