San Felipe by Salty Dog - Panart - Scale 1: 75, 1690 In Progress

[Salty Dog]

Hello all,

Well, I'm going to try to keep a build log of my current model.  I have not been very productive for a while and after abandoning several projects, I've decided to see if I can pick up where I left off on one of my kits.  I've decided that The San Felipe will be the one I "try" to finish (for now ) since I really like this ship.  I have already done the first planking and am about to start doing the second one.  I will try to maintain this log.  I've never really committed to one so this will be a first IF I can do it.

I have been working on the kit now for 2 days from where I left off and I've run into a problem.  Hopefully someone that has built this kit can comment.  I've included pictures of the problem.

 

As you can see I'm having trouble with those structures.  Don't know what they are (isolation tanks? ).

If they are placed to follow the curvature of the deck, then they are very crooked in relation to the wall that they are on.  If they are placed to be straight with the planking on the wall, then you get these huge gaps between the structures and the deck that overhangs them.  In the kit pictures they're actually crooked!  They look silly.  So what do you do?  Put them on straight and somehow fill in the gaps?

Any ideas would help.

Thanks to all.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Salty Dog

[Keith_W]

Arrr, Salty Dog. Them structures be seats of ease. Toilets. 

 

They should be installed straight. Carve some wood or use some filler and paint to fill in the gaps. 

 

Great subject by the way ... how about more pictures of your build? 

[josh0526]

This particular kit is sitting on my shelf. I'll definitely be following your progress with keen interest. Looking forward to lots of updates!

 

--Josh

[Salty Dog]

Hi Josh,

I hope I don't disappoint you.  I hope I can commit to this log.  It's a beautiful kit, but the instructions are awful.  Several of the pictures in the manual are out of sequence and make things very confusing.  Also, since this is the "updated" version, the plans don't correspond to the changes that they made so you have to decipher what needs to be done.  A lot of people don't like to be handheld, but I do in case I get confused.  I find myself doing an hour's worth of work just to have to do 2 hours worth of research!  Shouldn't be like that.

I'm also going with a color scheme similar to a SF build I saw online.  I really like the gold and black look.

Today I spent more time researching than working.

I wasn't planning on making a build log so I never took pics of the initial construction.

An early shot.

Today I installed the 3rd row of cannon ports.

Edited April 1, 2015 by Salty Dog

[Salty Dog]

Howdy shipmates,

Today I worked on the stern of the ship.  Lots of fiddling around but it's taking shape.  It will be fun to to start putting on all the brass fun stuff.

[Salty Dog]

Hi all,

The day before, yesterday, and I'm sure all day today, I will spend cleaning and polishing all the brass fittings.  What a pain!  The stuff is hard as a rock!  I'm trashing my Dremel.  Just to remove the areas where the parts were cut off unceremoniously is a real job.  The fittings are pretty bad as far as quality goes.  Several had missing parts and many are badly cast.  I wish I could carve my own but that's another hobby.  I'll have to do with what I have.  I will shoot some pics later.

[Salty Dog]

Hello,

So I finished working on the fittings.  My Dremel survived but my fingers are sore.

In this picture, you can see that the fittings in the upper half are original untouched.

The bottom half they are polished.  You can see how yellow and phony the finish looks before polishing.  After polishing they get a more natural mirror shine and become lighter in color.

 

In this picture, they are finished.  I painted them all black and then carefully removed some of the black to give the fittings that "antique" look.  The only other thing I painted was the crest.

 

 

So it goes...

[clearway]

Looking good-i remember reading a build of this ship in model boats magazine about 15 years ago and she is bit of a beast by all accounts!. The guy in the article didn't mast her due to the size she would have ended up!

[Salty Dog]

Thanks Clearway,

Sometimes you don't realize how big a kit is until it's sitting on your table!  This ship is feels like I'm holding a medium sized dog in my arms.  I do want to do the masts and rigging though, but that's a long way away.  Right now I'm contemplating doing the "treenail" thing.  I opted to use the pre-scribed planking parts included in the kit.  I like how clean they look, but without some more detail, they look "too" clean, so adding treenails to it will make it look nice.  Now I just have to decide what approach I'm going to take.  I'm leaning on wire, even though it ends up being copper color vs black.  Does anyone know of any where that is dark at its core?

[Salty Dog]

I ran into a problem today.  In the picture below, I have tried to indicate what the problem was.  I am working on the 2nd version of the San Felipe which includes some prescribed areas.  They are laser etched and look really nice.  You can either use these or you can plank those areas as usual.  I chose the laser etched for a change.

In the picture, I have indicated the laser etched areas as tinted red, and the regular planks tinted green.  You are instructed to separate the laser etched areas with a regular walnut plank.  The brown stripes are where the rubbing strakes are positioned.  The regular planks are 1mm thick.  The laser etched parts are 1.5mm thick, so you end up with a .5mm raised bump where they meet.  The way I understand it, the rubbing strakes go where the 2 intersect as indicated.  If they are placed within the green area, they will be too close.  If placed on the red area, then they get too close to the canon ports.  So in order for them to be put right where they intersect, you have to take down the laser etched part by .5mm so that it's even with the regular wood.  The problem is, that if you do that, you will lose the laser etched effect since the grooves aren't that deep. 

So I figured that the best way to do this was to remove the laser etched parts and sand them down "from behind".  I removed .5mm and reglued the parts.  Now they are nice and even.  It was a royal pain in the butt and would have been MUCH easier if the laser etched parts were sanded BEFORE gluing them in place.  Just a heads up to any other SF builders.

[Иван ов]

Hello Salty Dog interesting build process San Philip. Why do You have is not a standard color boards for ships of the continental type 1700. You will be issued the openings of the ports. Offer to look at my build order http://serikoffshipmodels.com/forum/6-172-1

[Salty Dog]

Hello Salty Dog interesting build process San Philip. Why do You have is not a standard color boards for ships of the continental type 1700. You will be issued the openings of the ports. Offer to look at my build order http://serikoffshipmodels.com/forum/6-172-1

Haha fooled you friend.

Those are not the actual colors of the model.  That is an illustration only on Photoshop to indicate the subject matter.  Even so, I am not going to paint it as instructed.  I am going to paint it gold and black.  I'm not too interested in authenticity.  I am just having fun and making something I like.

Hope you enjoy it too.

Take care.

PS

The opening of the ports are not done yet.  Thanks for the link to your build.  I will look at it.

Edited April 17, 2015 by Salty Dog

[Иван ов]

Hello colleague! Thank you for having responded to my offer in collaboration.
Very interested to get acquainted with Your model. If possible more in detail photos of Your model - the details of the build.
Regards Gregory

[Salty Dog]

Thanks Gregory.

Nothing's more frustrating than having to rework stuff especially when its due to the kit's lousy instructions!  Really bugs me when no progress is made.  But finally today I moved past that and started the dreaded second planking.  Planking the Cutty Sark was a dream in comparison to this.  With such a bulbous hull, the strips have to be adjusted often, which makes for more chance to screw things up.

To top it off, as another builder of this kit noted, the kit does not include enough of the called for walnut strips to complete the hull.  And for the cherry on the cake, the walnut included in this kit is the palest walnut I have ever seen.  It is so tan that it's hard to tell the difference between the light wood included.  So when I went to my wood stash, non of the walnut matched or even came close to the color of the kit wood.  So I'm going to have to mix 2 sizes, only 1mm difference, to complete the hull. 

So much fun!

 

[Иван ов]

Good day!
You are in a hurry to glue finishing trim, need to lay out ports cannons taking into account the thickness of the border ports, then they should be inserted into the housing and to paste them, and then gluing finishing the trim, covering glued frame ports. Then frame it is necessary to glue another frame simulating the porch covers the port. Look like me the procedure for installing ports.
Regards Gregory

[Salty Dog]

Hi Gregory,

I realize I'm not going in the exact order of the instructions.  I would rather finish the hull before I get started on the details.  I feel that since there is so much handling of the ship when planking the hull, it's likely that some of the of the previous work might get damaged.  Also, by not cutting the ports yet, it keeps the structure more solid while doing the planking.  I don't think cutting the holes out of order will do any harm.

Once the hull is completely planked, then I can do the fun stuff

[Salty Dog]

 A minor update on my build.  As Bender encountered during his build of the SF, I too was short in the amount of planks to finish the hull.  I have contacted Mantua and "supposedly", they are going to send me some more wood.  I say "supposedly" because their attitude was not very nice when I informed them of the problem.  Their response was "you did something wrong".

So in the mean time, I am working on little stuff.  I built all the cannon carriages and am sealing the wood on some items for painting and for gluing.  As this is the second edition of the SF, it is a hybrid of stuff.  You're basically given the option the build the ship as the original or as the updated version.  I think this is why the material count is off.  They assume some times that you are going to build the updated version, and won't need as much wood as you would if you build it as the original version, so sometimes you get lots of extra wood, and for other assemblies, not enough.

I am going to make the mast tops combining both versions.  I really like the laser effect for planking, but I don't like the plywood edges showing.  So I will line the edges with wood strips.  Plywood edges really bug me.  Looks very phony and if it's not going to be painted, at least veneer them.

Edited April 28, 2015 by Salty Dog