Shipbuilding: a small knarr for 6 to 8 figures

 Here is my first attempt at scratchbuilding a waterline model of a ship's boat. It's a little on the small side to call it a "knarr", and far too small to call if a "longboat", so I guess I'm going to call it a "keelboat".

I have to say for starters that I was really intimidated by the idea of doing a ship model, especially after visiting modelshipworld.com and seeing all the cool stuff the real shipbuilder hobbyists put together. I knew I would never be up to their standards, but I kept thinking that whatever I made would surely be good enough for the gaming tabletop. So I sucked it up and gave it a shot.

Photos by Phil Benz

Here is my starting point: the tiny boat that came with the Warhammer/Citadel Laketown house, which you can see at the top. But it was too small; I could barely fit two figures on it. So I vowed to make something big enough for 6 or so figures, just the right size for my current adventuring party. I started with some dense foam, sketched out the hull profile, cut it out, cut the foam in half because it was too thick, and eventually decided to make the central deck area lower, like in the Laketown house boat. After carving and shaving off bits for a while, I decided that was as close as I was going to get, so I prepared some  1mm thick balsa and scribed planks and nailholes, then cut to fit the three parts of the deck.

I first tried this with thicker balsa, but even after soaking it for a few hours, it broke when I tried to bend it. So it was back to the 1mm thick balsa sheet. I sketched out a profile, based on the foam core I was going to use, soaked the sides for a few hours, then clamped it in place for another hour to start giving it the right shape.

But it was still a real dog to get to adhere to the shape of the foam core. I had to stick dozens of pins to get it to conform to the right shape, then left the PVA glue to dry overnight.

To my surprise the next morning, it had mostly worked! There were only a few small unsightly gaps, and I counted on the decking to cover my sins.

I also cobbled together a steering oar, and glued on the fore and aft keels. They really didn't want to stick, so I had to use sewing pins stuck deep into the foam core to get them to stay in place. It was only later that I realized my mistake in fixing the steering oar to the left side. All the examples of knar and longships I could find had the steering oar on the right side. Next project will have to do better.

And after a quick very dilute coat of brown craft paint mixed with black ink, this is what I got. Not bad, eh? But far too dark, all things considered. I decided to drybrush some light grey over the whole thing, to lighten and weather it. I also decided to glue some very small and subtle braces along the interior side of the gunwales, as can be seen in the Laketown house boat, but after it was completed, I think I should’ve put more work into them, since they are very visible. They need to be more 3D, with a carved profile instead of just a flat piece stuck on the ship’s sides.

It worked out fairly well. A quick project for a gaming session, with only two four-hour crafting sessions (not counting drying time). The "knarr" or "keelboat" or "ship's boat" (still not sure just what to call it) was ready for gaming.