You should MAKE this as your first wood ship model, Billing Boats FD-10 Yawl 1:50 Scale

In today's video, I am building this Faroe Islands fishing yawl model from Billing Boats. Let's quickly reveal the model kit. This BB-7001 model kit is considered for beginners who had some experience either for the plastic or wood modeling. Same as other advanced beginner kits from Billings, it comes with wood materials, plastic parts, and very nice CNC brass pieces. It is 1 to 50 scale, which will be over 70 centimeter long and almost 60 centimeter tall after finished. If you are from plastic modeling and want to try something different, I think this will make a great wood kit for you to start. I started by using a flat surface to put the boat keel together. This fishing yawl was built during the late 1930s in the Faroe Islands. Personally, I do not think it is a fishing yawl, I think it is a catch. Well, I will get to that in a moment. Here, I used a building stand to make sure all the bulkheads were perfectly aligned and perpendicular to the keel. Then, I carefully inserted the bulwark caps and glued them down. I usually only use wood glue for the ship frame, planking, and decking. Actually, the boat is not a typical Faroes vessel, but it was very popular in that area. In fact, it was developed from a deep sea fishing trawler, first built in Brixham, Devon, England. The design of Brixham trawler was copied by boat builders around Britain and other countries on the North Sea. Before planking, the bulkheads need to be shaped, especially the bow and stern area. Here, I used a file to kind of trial fit for the planks. I think it is ready for planking. I usually soak the wood strips in hot water for about five minutes before planking. I found out the heat helps bending the plank, and the moisture prevents wood splintering. Over five minutes, the wood may expand too much, so I think five minutes is good. The planking of this boat was relatively easy. The bulwark cap provided a great guideline for my first plank. Most of the planks do not need to be tapered, except only couple ones at the bottom when you closing the hull. After planking, it was time for decking. I cut the decking wood strips into six centimeter long pieces. I used a pencil to darken the sides and mark the nails on each piece. This is one of my easy ways to have the caulking and wood nail effects for the ship decking. Well then, just like doing wood flooring, I installed the decks piece by piece. By the later years of the 19th century, only in the UK waters, there were more than 3,000 Brixham trawlers in commission. So, what makes this Brixham trawler so popular back then? After closing the boat stern, the hull planking is basically finished. It's time to inhale some dust. I usually use the 100 grit sandpaper for the rough sanding. It is common to have some gaps after the first sanding. To close the gaps, I usually cheat by using the wood filler. After it dried, I used finer sand block like a 400 grit to apply a second sanding. I like applying wood stain to all my model boats decking. It really brings out the wood grain and gives a great looking. By the early 19th century, due to overfishing near South Devon waters, the fishermen at Brixham desperately needed to expand their fishing area further. Before the engines, the design of Brixham trawler was their best option. It was a high speed and heavy displacement boat of some 60 to 80 feet length on the deck with a long straight keel, a straight vertical stem, usually a fantail stern. The boat was big and strong enough to tow large trawl in deep water. The sails and rigging was relatively easy to handle so that only six or seven crew were required to cut down the cost. If you ask me what my favorite process of making a ship model is, I will always say painting the boat. I found out it really calms me down. Even though I had never done a perfect paint job, but I could always fix it with some small touch painting. I like using boiled linseed oil to protect my model boats. It's extremely easy to apply and dries very fast and I like the smell of it too. After installing the rudder, it is time to make the sail masts and spars. I sand and cut the dowels to the right shape and right length according to the drawings. Then simply follow the instructions to assemble the parts to the masts and spars. The only tricky part of this step is to insert the hoops before putting on other parts onto the I know some people do not like the plastic parts on the wooden ship models, but to me I like them because I came from plastic modeling. I enjoy putting them together and painting them. Here I used white glue to bond the plastic parts to the boat. Yes, the white glue will take some time to dry completely, but I found out it is very easy to clean in case I made a mistake. Remember I said I think this is a catch not a yawl. The rudder post of this boat is close to the stern and behind the second mast. A yawl has the rudder post between the first mast and second mast. But why do people call this boat a fishing yawl? I guess catch and yawl look very similar from far away while sailing. People could not tell the difference until they get extremely close to I used a jig basically made by twisting two pieces of brass wires while tying the dead eyes and lanyards. This jig helps me to have same spacing between all the paired dead eyes. Compared to other kits I think the riggings of this ship is relatively simpler. It does not come with too many lines that make you want to pull your hair off. And also thanks to its big scale I can easily access to most of the tight corners. After tying all the standing riggings I moved on to the sails. I used a sharp pencil to transfer all the sail patterns to the sail cloth. The stitches provide additional details on the sails. I never made a ship model with dark brown sails. I think the results are not too bad. For the telltales I tie a basic knot at one end of a thread and cut the thread to 1.5 centimeters long. Then I used white glue to bond the telltales on both sides of the sails. Now the sails are ready it's time to put the sails up. The needle threader is extremely handy in this process. You should be able to get them from Walmart or any crafting store. Most of this process is very straightforward. It just takes some time. After the few final touches I call it finished. Well hope you enjoy this video. If you are looking for more wood ship model making tips and techniques please check out my other build videos.