Friday 1 December 2017

Sudan Project part 8 - Dhows

Hi Folks

Just a short post today but if you missed the last one in this series head here

One of things that drew me to the Sudan Colonial period was the opportunity to introduce river craft - specifically river gunboats and the more native sailing dhows.

As always google was my best friend here when I started to search for dhows - plenty of pictures out there but nobody to my knowledge was selling 28mm craft in resin. I did however find a russian company that produces cardboard boats and sitting within their range are Arabian dhows.

The link to the company can be found here: -

http://russia-best.com/

The website sells a variety of boats from biremes to carracks and cogs. Their Dhow was described as the following - apologies for screen grab image quality






So I decided to take a risk - with each model costiong $8 and the postage $12 I decided to buy two for a combined cost of $28

I placed the order about four weeks ago and completely forgot about it until yesterday when a parcel was waiting for me when I returned home from work.

Two flat boxes looking like this





Inside are a number of preprinted sheets of card - heavy card and very clear building instructions

Assembly of the first (excluding mast and sails took about 15 minutes with no glue needed ( Ihave since added glue to strengthen the bonds on the tabs)

As you can see from the picture below it is a waterline model - hooray


From a scale size point of view I compared one of the card figures with a 28mm mini - an almost perfect size in height


Here is the sailor on board the boat



The model does come with masts (card) and sails (paper) along with a complete rigging plan. I am going to replace the card with doweling rods (pun not intended)



So the next step is to decide whether these are going to get a repaint (they are a bit shiny) but as a cheap option for river boats for the arabian area and more importantly for all periods I think they will do just fine

more soon

20 comments:

  1. Good find there and cheap as chips, so what’s not to like. Mine is resin, but I can’t remember where from now...

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  2. Not as cheap as mine... :o)

    http://steve-the-wargamer.blogspot.sk/2017/03/arab-dhow-complete.html

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  3. Great looking dhow! Have you seen these made by my buddy Last Stand Dan?
    http://laststanddan.blogspot.com
    http://sgtguinness.blogspot.com/search/label/Dhow?m=0
    I love your blog, truly inspirational!
    Cheers,
    JB

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    Replies
    1. Seen Dans blog - it is very good and a great source for my own project

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    2. thanks for your insiprational comment - I am now blushing

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  4. What a great find, they will look good on your game table.

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  5. That looks realy smart. Good modelling.

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  6. Cool. I don't know how you keep pounding out all these periods in grand scale! It's amazing what you can do with cardboard and paper these days!

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    Replies
    1. I think you beat me hands down on the number of projects in grand scale - in fact your projects are what inspire me to keep pushing the envelope

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  7. A nice looking piece of kit. Good find.

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  8. I have a Redoubt miniatures paddle steamer - painted with sailors, guns and sandbags crates etc. for protection - that I was going to put on ebay. I'm in the process of getting rid of all my Sudan stuff. I you are interested I can send pics?

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    Replies
    1. Hi Houdin

      I am interested

      Can you reach out to me via the LAF or TMP? I don't really want to post my email on the blog

      cheers

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    2. I'll contact you via your post on TMP

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  9. Thank you. I need more dhows for actions off Borneo. How gameable do you think that the afterdeck is though? Perhaps the superstructure can be kept removable? I look forward to seeing your painting as I agree that that in their current state the dhows are a bit shiny. All the best!
    Lon (Marianas Gamer)

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  10. Sounds great, beautiful ship!

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  11. It looks very nice. I got somewhere few old cardboard models of ships. Maybe it is time to finally finish them...

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