Peter Crow

Monitor “John Ericsson”
Sweden, 1865

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 Kit…

The kit itself, when released will have about 3 sheets of parts, and probably the same number of pages with diagrams and step by step instructions… historical information.. One has the parts to build two different versions.. 1865 (as launched), or the 1868 version with the flying deck added. (which will be the one I’m doing)
I’ll be doing this build review in two installments… The first part will be assembling all the major components, and the second part will deal with all the small details that make up the finished model.

The Build…

I start out by getting my base for the model ready.. Which is a piece of dark green mat board mounted on a piece of ¼ “ particle board cut to the size of my mat board… Once this is ready, I glue on my hull base… spine & formers.

Next the deck and hull sides were added, and the fit was right on the money.. I usually always have to trim or add a bit to the sides, because of some error of cutting or something on my part. Once this was dry, I gave the whole model a light coat of “Future”, shot with my airbrush, and then set aside to dry..

From here I started in building the deck fixtures, with the turret being first.. Wanted to try something different on mounting the turret so it would turn, plus be removable for rigging and such later on. I mounted a small piece of wooden dowel to the bottom of the turret base, and cut a hole in the deck to fit… Works and looks better then I though it would…’ patent pending..;-)”

Next came the bottom part of the funnel assembly that will fit under the flying deck..

Then on to finishing up the rest of the turret.. Really liked the way everything fit together to form this unusual shape.. Used plastic stock for my cannons drilled out to size… painted black, and when dry rubbed/buffed with graphite dust for a gunmetal look. You can see from the picture, how well the turret fits into the deck, nice and snug…

Now it’s on to the flying deck… Top and bottom are glued up and set aside to dry while I cut out the deck supports.. On these, I cut out the centers of the supports, and then run a bead of Future around the inside of the pieces letting it soak in a bit before blotting, and then putting under a couple of pieces if marble to dry flat.. The Future when dry gives me a nice stiff almost plastic like piece.. I then cut out my openings in the deck, and them added the supports, and then set aside to dry..

Now I added the cabins and vent trucking to the main deck, as they will be under and supporting part of the flying deck.. The flying deck is now carefully slipped over the funnel and vent.. Glued on top of the cabins, and then when dry I lined up my supports and tacked them down to the deck… Fit was excellent, and I was happy with the appearance..

Well, this ends the first part of my review… For this only being a beta build, there were no fit or building problems.. A couple of parts were numbered differently then the instructions, but this is minor, and will be fixed when the kit is released..

So stay tuned to next months thrilling conclusion, when ships boats.. railings.. and other odds and ends are added..

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

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