by Francisco P. de Nanclares
1/200 Smit Rotterdam and Smit Nederland (Revell Germany)
As I have seen some renditions of Smit Rotterdam here lately, I decided to shot some pics of my own one. This is the first (well, the two firsts) ship models I have ever built, since I used to build naval helicopters before.
Both are built out of the box except for minor details like rigging, ropes, the rope drum on the forecastle of Rotterdam and the chimneys and zodiac also on Rotterdam. This came embedded on the deck and I took it off, tidied the deck and boat, made the cradle and even rigged the boat some. I remember I was quite proud of my achievement!. However, I was not so proud once I rigged the Rotterdam and notice the mast was bent, though I was a bit over the top by then and left it at that.
They are "floating" on an acrylic pane covered with acrylic blue-tinted sheet. Since this was my first, I grossly overestimated the possibility of the pane flexing once both ships were placed over it and I bought... a 5mm thick pane!. The cutting and sanding was a nightmare as you can imagine.
