HSPMS member Paul Reck was commissioned recently to build a model of Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic exploration ship Endurance. Paul chose to build the model based on one of the newest kits produced by the Spanish ship model kit maker OcCre, which he was able to acquire from the online shop of Ages of Sail, where he’s purchased kits and fittings before. Though it’s just across San Francisco Bay, for Paul, paying for shipping seemed to be a far better alternative than the time and hassle of dealing with Bay Area traffic!

Marketing photo from OcCre of their Endurance kit, showing their version of the finished model.

Marketing photo of OcCre’s Endurance kit, showing the kit contents.

Paul only recently got started, commenting that it’s a BIG model, at just under 30″ long. Because the ship has a relatively short bowsprit, that means the hull makes up even more of that total length.

The OcCre kit features a double-planked hull, but since he’s planning on painting the model, Paul is considering just leaving off the second planking layer, which is made up of very nice quality sapelli wood, which closely resembles mahogany.

Paul had lots of good things to say about the kit, including the instructions. While there is a limited amount of text, and what text there is is in multiple languages, he found the photo-based instructions to be clear and easy to follow.

The Endurance is his first OcCre kit, but is sounds like it probably won’t be his last. He mentioned that he was interested in finding a good beginner ship model kit from OcCre, and he thinks he may have found one in OcCre’s Polaris kit, which is a beginner kit based on a Virginia pilot boat design.

But, getting back to the Endurance, Paul mentioned that the kit is well designed, and that the instructions have you planking the decks before attaching them to the hull, making them very easy to plank, since there are no bulwarks or deck structures to get in the way. He also liked the use of sycamore for the provided deck planking, though he did say that there is some color variation between strips of wood.

The instructions make mention of a set of wood dyes that OcCre makes. Since these are water based dyes and not wood stain, he was intrigued and found some for sale on the Internet and ordered them. So, there may be a delay in construction of some components until his dyes arrive.

In the meantime, he submitted these photos of the model under construction, as well as the following photo of one of the laser-cut sheets, showing the parts for the ship’s four boats, which are miniature kits in themselves.

We’ll post more photos from Paul’s project as he progresses.