This is a beta build of a Swedish coastal defense monitor, 1865…. A 1:250 scale Paper Shipwright/David Hathaway kit (www.papershipwright.freeserve.co.uk)…

Historical information…

The John Ericsson was the first coastal defense monitor built by Sweden and launched in 1865. She was named after the great Swedish engineer who designed the USS Monitor and invented the monitor concept. She was on active service until 1919 and survived both wars. The John Ericsson was converted into a cement barge in 1945 and was sold for scrapping at some date after this

The Build…(finishing up)

Well now I start to do all the little things that for me makes the model come to life… Decided to make up my railings using the template provided… Glued it to some thicker card material.. Wrapped my lines around the template.. Several coats of Future to tack them together, and them painted with a gloss enamel.. The gloss enamel is sticky enough, so that it also helps as a glue in holding the lines together..

Next up is adding the awning supports to the turret… I dipped the supports in Future, then blotted them to get rid of the excess.. Set aside to dry.. When dry I cut them out and ended up with nice stiff clean looking pieces that I glued in place on the turret…

From here I went on to building the ships boats…. Typical straight forward construction.. As I like my boats to look like they’re not going to go floating off the deck with the first wave, I added lines so it looks as if they are secured to the deck or davits….

Next step was adding the railings to the Flying Deck… I cut the appropriate ones from my template and just took my time as I worked my way around.. These are the thinnest railings I’ve done to date, and I think that they look more in scale them what I have done in the past…

Next picture shows the boat davits rigged and placed on the deck…

At this point, it was just a matter of starting from the bow and working my way towards the stern adding all the small pieces that are needed too finish… After I was done, the completed model was given several light coats of “Future” for a sealer…

I took the model into the monthly IPMS meeting, where it won best of show for all models…
Here are pictures of the finished model..

Many thanks for David Hathaway for sending me the beta version, and for allowing me to post my ongoing build here..

  Return to the Main Page