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Building the Oktabriskaya Revolutsia

Being a long hulled ship I mounted her on my usual 3mm stainless steel plate to prevent any warpage of the hull in the future. Most photos of Oktabrina show her either at anchor or proceeding slow ahead, I have yet to locate a picture of her at speed--so I chose to portray her trickling ahead at 8 -10 knots or so. I rigged the whole ship using black stretched sprue for the standing rigging and WT antennas, the ten(!) longitudinal items being a particular challenge. So as not to overpower the visual effect ship the signal halyards were made of light brown stretched sprue-the overall effect is quite pleasing.

I also used stretched sprue for making the top funnel grates as well as the handrails on the fwd funnel .Sprue was used for the straps securing the seaboats that are slung in davits. I have found the GMM stainless steel etched pulley sets can be cut into a very useful material for making robust but delicate ensign staffs.

The Anchor cables had checkchains added of Black sprue, the mine cutting gear cables were added of sprue also.



The paint used all-over was Humbrol 28--but washed down in various shades of enamel and watercolour. Lino decks were painted using WEM Colourcoats Corticene washed with light grey to knock down the intensity. Canvas dodgers were painted using Revell white--this is a creamier white than Humbrol and not as glaring on a finished model.

I have to extend my thanks to all my virtual and tangible friends via the interenet-without who I would have had many a headache without answers!

A special thanks must go to Jean Paul Binot who unhesitatingly sent me his precious set of Helmut Schwartzer plans of Oktabrina he aquired from the museum in St Petersburg.--which as it happens were not infallible!


Principal Bibliography:

Russian Battleships, Sevastopol class
Maciej S. Sobanski
Marine Arsenal. special Band 4 Stalins Dickschiffe
Siegfried Breyer
Gangut magazine 33/2003
Soviet Warship Development, Vol 1,
Siegfried Breyer
Russian monographs of Marat and Petropavlosk Dreadnought,
Richard Hough Conways
All the worlds battleships, 1906 to the present
Ian Sturton
and many more!!

In conclusion the HP kit is fundamentally about right- giving a springboard start over scratchbuilding a model of this ship--alas the lack of PE and some simplification is sadly however not reflected in the relatively very high price. Combrig has announced a kit of this esoteric ship for release some in the future...

Should anyone wishing to attempt a model of Oktabrina want make me a sporting offer for some the numerous surplus crane PE frets( due to minimum order at the etchers!) it may help me recover some of my costs and make the commission of a future custom shipfret more tempting--please contact me!!