Clark

I am going to join the club of modelers constructing or having constructed the ship. Frankly speaking, their construction and kit reports (gimo, Bender, fmodair, schiffebastler) urged me to order the kit. Mainly the very sophisticated report of Frank (fmodair) increased my wish to build the ship. I do not have the skills of the others mentioned. Thus this blog is mainly to those who rely on the material provided by Corel. Content of the kit is well described in construction reports of the club members. Most of the material seems to be of good quality but I am already wondering how to amend the plywood pieces. As mentioned I will probably manly rely on the material provided by Corel. However I like to see the wood structure of the models implying that I will use color paint very rarely. We will see. It seems to me that although Corel put some efforts in the written instruction manual, there is still enough space for improving. False keel is a triple one and made of six pieces which have to be glued overlapping to produce a keel three layers thick. To keep the keel straight I fixed and clipped the parts of the keel flatly on a shell with a metal rail below the keel pieces. Since the lower line of the keel is deflecting, small wood wedges were put under the bow and stern side of the keel to get the distance from the metal rail (arrow). The get the three overlaying pieces in the correct position, small wood stripes 4x4 mm were put into the spaces for the frames/bulkheads. After gluing the keel, frames were dry (!) fitted by filing the slots of the keel and filing the slots of the frames. Bottom side and deck side of the keel was treated with wood filler and sanded. Frames, false deck, the pieces of the true keel and other supports were dry fitted. Some minor sanding had to be done for this. Next step will be tapering the keel and adusting the frames.

Hi Frank, I have inserted part of text I found above. Vitz refers to Belin and Goussier as the artists behind the painting/drawing. Any idea? Clark

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Frank, via Google I found an article of "Florian Vitz" describing a picture/painting of La Reale (in German) with a lot of details but not the cannons. Do you know what/where the picture/painting can be found? It might help with the cannon question. Clark

Frank, it looks perfect. But I am still wondering if the carriages have to be secured differently (as in other ships) depending on the status of the ship: in fight or on trip. (Do not know if thats the correct english expression, hope you know what I mean.) Thus you may have to decide how you want to present your ship later on. Clark

There is still the question where the cannon balls and the gun powder were stored when loaded from the front deck. I am also wondering how the carriages and canons were handled when they were such tight to each other. Clark

I am not sure but just for logic: Is there also a rig needed to pull the canon back? Enjoying your report. Clark

Within all the discussions about CAD and precision modelling, I felt a bit old fashioned when trusting the eyes. Clark

Thanks a lot for the excellent and detailed description. Also thanks for ensuring that eyeballing is a proper method. Clark

I bought a similar one (model craft) and did some tests on 1.5 - 2mm planks. It works, but you have to soak the planks intensively before. Clark

Thanks for all the replies. Regarding the voltage problem, we have 230 V in Germany. The one shown is 33 Euro. I ordered it. However, I am already facing the problem that the planks I am working with have to be bended in two directions. I will problably start with a longer test perid when the bender has been arrived. Thanks again

Thanks all for the hints and the tips. You convinced me to buy a plank bender. The one of Aeropicola is not available at least in Germany. Does anybody has ever tested the one shown in the picture? Clark

Dear Kriss, thanks for the tip. Maybe it may also depend on the wood type. Clark

Dear all, does anybody have experience with soaking the strips for some minutes in hot water (~80°C) and bending them directly therafter by fixing on right plyce of the hull? I read it somewhere in the forum. One simple problem for me: One end (stern) maybe easily soaked, but whats about soaking and heating the other end (bow) when the strip is fixed on the hull. It may be a silly question but I did not got a solution so far. Clark

Thanks for the many replies and comments. Just to add my experience with the saw since I bought it several weeks ago: I did a lot of cuts with various types of wood. I mainly used it for making wood filler between frames and for constructing supports in a slipway. Thus no work with the need to be very precise. There were no problems to do straight cuts with a precision of about 0.5 mm in wood pieces up to 20 mm thickness. The only problem I had was doing angular cuts with small wood pieces. I glued the pieces on longer sticks and fixed the miter gauge accordingly. It worked. I would strongly agree that a saw is dangerous. The protection system of the NovelLife is not the best one. Moreover, it sometimes interferes with handling because you cannot hold the wood sufficiently when the protection system is mounted. The speed of the saw can be varied by adjusting the power supply which is comfortable when handling different types of wood. But it probably makes no ´difference when cutting your finger with 12V or with 24V. I did not try it. I would not use the saw for cutting strips for deck planking or hull planking. Clark

Hi Wefalck, thanks for the tip. I will try the Zaponlack next time.

Would totally agree that CA is mostly a no go in rigging. However, I used it once on knots when giving a final fixation with 0.25 mm black rigging lines. The knots were then covered with black ink. Applying the CA was a bit tricky. I made the experience that watered PVA also leads to changes in the colour of rigging lines (depending on the type of lines). Clark

Bob Cleek, you are expressing what I feel. Adjusting height and correcing postion can often better be done by eye than by caliper. As a control I sometimes asked my my wife to have a sharp look on the ship. But her willingness is declining. Thanks all for joining the discussion Clark

Thanks for the rapid reply. I will keep it in mind when starting the planking. I am already enjoying the dry fitting. Clark

"In previous posts I mentioned that I had to lower the height of the stern yoke. Well, I lowered it too far! I had to put a temporary shim of about 1MM under the beam in order to properly finish installing the supports and have the correct curve of the beam." Dear Frank, mainly your report induced me to order the reale kit 4 weeks ago. Thanks for the excellent description and the pictures illustrating the progress in a very impressive way. Your efforts and success to work such accurately is an ever lasting motivation. Since I am just beginning to dry fit the frames and the keels, I have a question regarding the corretion of the height of the stern yoke: Was it necessary since it was placed on the deck planking and the thickness of the planking is not incorporated in the Corel-plans? During dry fitting of parts 1-38 (Corel) I could not detect such a problem. Thanks a lot for your valuable report. Clark

Bruce, thanks for the hints. For the dust extraction I have positioned the tube of a vaccum cleaner near the blade. Not the best solution but it works. Please keep us up to date with your proxxon fet. Clark

Dear Bob Cleek, you are right, it is not a Byrnes saw and most of the points you are mentioning are really the weaknesses of the saw. I thought of buying the Byrnes but I was repelled by the price and the additional shipping costs. One comment: I was also a little been puzzled by the uncommon blade type. But there are some providers - at least in Germany - who are selling a lot of blade subtypes which are also suitable for the NovelLife saw: https://www.saegeblatt-shop.de/produkte_kreissaegeblaetter-5-metallkreissaegeblaetter-din1837&din1838-86-BAY14006306100-24848.html May be I am dissapointed at the end, I will put some further reports when I start the real use. So far I have only tested it. Thank you for your comment. Clark

Heigth of the blade cannot be changed and it cannot be tilted. So far, I only missed one for rectangular cuts. Any angle I acchieved with sanding, since mostly only thin strips had to treated. Are you working with the bigger proxxon? Clark

Since I felt the need to buy a table saw, I browsed through the blogs and finally detected the “NovelLife Mini Hobby Table Saw”. I did not want to buy a proxxon one since I am rather disappointed by the plastic material proxxon is using in other tools. As shown in the pictures the saw was shipped well padded. It was easy to install when imaging how it would work. The first test on 10mmx10mm beech wood showed that the cut is smooth with no remaining and is quite accurate. Setting 50 mm produced a 50.1 mm (caliper) piece. Miter gauge seems to work accurately, it can be fixed well. It slides tightly but easily through the slot. I cannot tell anything about the long time stability. Thus it may be recommended to all which want to get a table saw with a reasonable price and those who want to saw wood (maximum 20 mm thick) with an accuracy of ~0.5 mm. I would be interested if there are any other modelers using this table saw.

Attached picture might help (Mondfeld book) Clark Rigging guns.tif