Hi at all,

i´m searching for any kind of river boats used by VC, NVA . I have the old small one from Kirin which is very nice. I know the Verlinden Sampan (that´´s the one i will get next) and the two litte boats with the vietnamese on it. There is one very small from Costum Dioramics i think with a metal shelter above like the Verlinden one. Do you know any other boats, crafts, sampans etc.? Any kind of blueprint would also be great. So i could scratchbuild one by myself. Only the way how to start and the hull of the boat is a little problem for me. For any help or Ideas i´m very happy and greatfull

Hi Stefan
You can have a look at this website dealing with traditional Vietnamese wooden boat building http://www.vietnamboats.org/index.htm for reference pics. You'll even find pics of a sewn plank boat building project.

HTH
Frenchy

Hi Frenchy,

many, many thanks to you. It´s a fantastic site. Exactly what i need for scratchbuilding. Yeees, so i can make my first attempt to scratchbuild a boat like this. I would fell on my knees but you won´t see it so i let it be . Have a nice day an thanks again.

Hi, I have the verlinden sampan, which is a great kit, but I think it's too small for the traditional craft on the Mekong... the small boats too are nicely done (one even has an AK47 part hidden under a sheet on the floor) but again could be an inch longer. All three are waterline.
I think it would be really easy to copy the style of the sampan mentioned above and enlarge it, using sheet styrene. It can be scratched to look like wood (there was a tutorial on here somewhere about making plastic strip look like wooden fences).
There is an excellent dio in Verlinden's Showcase (number 3, I think) with a scratchbuilt US Navy Monitor and sampan, which looks a better size, and this looks like it was scratch built from plastic sheet...
My sampan is only just big enough to get one of Dragon's Vietcong squatting underneath the canopy, with no room for any supplies...

hope this helps

Rich