It has been 10 years now since the first Digital Navy card model was designed and I have decided to celebrate this by posting a somewhat unusual model as a free download. Lilla Veneda - a small coastal ferry from the Polish Baltic fleet in the 1960s - is the subject of our new offer. Why this ship? Well, as a 6 year old boy I sailed aboard the sister ship Balladyna on a short coastal trip with my parents and it was a memorable experience for me. There was a Maly Modelarz model of the Lilla Weneda published in 1966 which I always wanted to build but couldn't find a copy of. Some time ago I finally got my hands on an original Maly print, but it would be blasphemy to cut up such a rarity so I decided to design and build my own. And this is the result of my little trip down memory lane. I hope you will find this build enjoyable, just like I did.

Below are  pictures of the ready model and a short relation from the building process. The test model was constructed in ``standard" mode - there is no gap filling, putting or painting other than touching up edges of the parts. The ready model was coated with clear varnish.

Click each thumbnail image to view a high resolution version.

The model is designed in 1:100 scale and when completed is 14" ( 36cm) long, 2.5" ( 6.3cm) wide and 5" (13 cm) high. The files are in pdf format and have 600 dpi resolution (you need a printer with min. 600 dpi capability to print them correctly).

The entire sheet 1 and parts W1, W2, 53b, 64c, 71a and 77c from sheet 2 should be laminated on 1 mm cardstock. Also the main deck - parts D2 and D1, cabin roof - part 38 and deckhouse floor - part 53a should be laminated to 1 mm thickness. Also laminated  should be all ``bumpers" running along the hull sides - parts 26, 27, 28 and 29. The hull plating was designed with a ``butt joint" between hull sides - parts 17 and 18 and bottom plating - parts 0-1 to 14-15. Thus, the hull sides should be glued to the frame first and then the bottom parts should be fitted so there is no gap between hull sides and bottom plating. I had no problem with doing this on the test model (see pictures above and below) but if problems are encountered the bottom plating elements can be split along the keel line into left and right plating and glued separately. This way any misalignment between the bottom hull plating can be ``forced" to be at the keel line.
The ship can be built in several versions - with interior of the cabin and deckhouse or without, full hull or waterline, etc.

The hull.

The cabin.

The rest.