Tallshiptragic

Hi everyone, thanks for all the likes. I haven't disappeared just busy with some big decisions hahaha 

Yes Messis the two upper gunport lids are painted with the St George cross (the flag of England) the lower port lids which are all red will have carved lion heads similar to that of the vasa once I get round to producing them. The st George cross on the upper lids are depicted in Van der Velde's and eppings sketches of her. The lion heads are a bit of artistic license however are shown on the painting presented to King Charles.

Thanks for all the comments guys  I was quite chuffed with how it turned out. I promise I'll finally finish my large Leeuwin was I've got a little further with my SOTS

I added basic running rigging in the form of yard braces and halyards for the gaffs and she was complete  together with a half hull model carved again out of jelutong the project was complete. I wouldn't say it's perfect but she came out great I think representing the ship I worked on and was a lot of fun to build also

Once the sails were completed, I made up the flags on printed paper also. Then came the ships boats. These I made up quite simply with thin plastic card to represent the two ships dorys on the waist and the rescue boat hung astern.

The water was painted with a mixture of blues to represent the colour typical off the coast here in Fremantle. To show as much of the fine rigging, she was modeled at anchor so the sails would be furled. For these I used tissue paper soaked in watered down PVA glue.

Standing rigging added, it was time to place the model on her base. For this I used an mdf plaque board from an arts supply store. Forgot to mention this was always going to be a waterline model. For the water I used bathroom sikaflex with the help of a spatula to form the waves.

Deck furniture and housings were made up with various plastic strip pieces and sanded down to shape. Rails on the bow and stern added with plastic melted sprue. The rigging was started with the standing rigging also. For this I used fine wire from insulated electrical wires. These are hair thin and using three strands wound with a hand drill to make up lengths of rope. The standing rigging on the real ship is all steal cable so this model is actually more accurate than my larger build in this respect. 

Hull and deck painted and all three masts added. The yellow frieze at the bows stern and yellow stripe along the rubbing strake added.

The entire hull was then coated in tamiya putty and sanded smooth. More plastic half round strip used for the rubbing strake and wood and plastic dowel for the bowsprit and masts.

Using the ships plans I have scaled down, I started by carving out the hull using Jelutong. Once I had the hull carved to shape I used plastruc wood simulated sheet for her decks - the simulated planks at 1mm - scale wise too large however for its purpose I think it was perfect. Again using plastic strip I built up the hulls gunwale and stem.

For 5 years I worked and sailed on the STS Leeuwin II as a permanent ships officer and during this time I began building a 1/56 scale scratch built model. This model is about 90% complete though lost momentum with work load and personal life. The crew I worked with knew and have seen the model I was building so when the then CEO of the Leeuwin foundation announced she was moving on, they all thought what a great leaving gift to have but a model. So with limited amount of time 1month I agreed and thought a small miniature would be ideal as a desktop display and easy enough to build in the time. The STS Leeuwin II is a purpose built barquentine launched in 1986 with sole funding by private West Australians as Western Australians first and only sail training vessel for our youth. Last year marked her 30th anniversary and she is still sailing strong. 

This model Del is long finished and while my first small scale miniature I was reasonably happy. Needless to say the CEO and crew were overly happy  

Wow! She's looking superb Ken and finally starting to fill that huge gap

Thanks guys haha yeah us aussies!

Back to the model, been working on the next ships boat. You've already seen the smaller 21 ft (7.2m) launch/yawl now I've made up the 28 ft launch (9m). I'll be building a third boat and much larger than the rest more of the style of a shallop or very large pinnace as from paintings of the time there always appears to be quite a large boat sometimes only the one larger boat which would be closer to 14-16 m or 35-40 ft sloop rigged boat.

Sanding sealer or even a light primer will work also Nigel. Anything that has light colour as a topcoat, I'll usually prime first which helps the colour as in your case, yellow and blue stand out.

Thanks guys. It's reasonably simple to do Nigel just need to plan every step ahead. You can also carve out a solid hull for the former which I've done in the past. This took a bit more time as you have to carve the shape perfectly to get the correct hull shape before planking. 

Oh and no not convict stock myself. This is actually a proud ancestry in Australia if you come from the original convicts that were sent here. 

I'm Dutch Indonesian, my Dutch father coming from the Dutch East Indies before returning to the Netherlands in 1949 and my mother, Indonesian from Bandung in Java. 

Thanks guys, an enjoyable side project of their own  

Added in seat slats, interior gunwale and floor boards and gratings. Still a bit to go but started to paint it also now. The only painting which shows the sovereign with any boats is a modern painting of a model built in the 30's with a large longboat that has a black hull and golden filigree work. The filigree on the boats upper strake is scribed into the plank itself. I've taken my colour pallet from the early 18th century with reds and blues leaving the hull wood and White below the waterline as I think the black hull would be too much.  I've again used my oak wash over the hull planks which give it the darker wood colour of typical ships boats of the 17th century while still having decorations being from a royal warship. The final pic shows Van de Velde sitting comfortably forward making his sketch of the Sovereign:)

The hull can now be turned over and the hull former gently pulled out. Being careful with the placement of the CA glue this came out without any hitch. The strips are now cut down to the height of the upper strake and the final strips added for the remainding frames. Still more to go, but this is how it looks so far.

Been a little quite on updates this week though haven't been too idle. My kit doesn't come with any ships boats and there aren't any plans etc of what she had onboard. I'll assume she would have had at least a large long boat, and possibly a cutter and a yawl. The English pinnace not to be confused with the Dutch pinnace of the 17th century (more like a small frigate) had yet to come into being. 

So ive been left to my own devices with these. I decided to start with the smallest first. Two reasons mainly, if I could build the smaller one easily enough the two larger boats shouldn't prove to be an issue and, my miniature van de Velde needs a place. So I thought a prefect boat for Van de Velde to be sitting in sketching the sovereign. 

First of all a keel is put together with a stem and transom piece. This is then placed over frame formers - these are frames to guide the planks of the hull though arent actually fixed to the keel. Slots are in place in the keel to take thin strips of wood which will replicate the frames and on which the planks are actually glued too. The gunwale strake is a single piece also with slots on the inside where the frame strips will run through to continue the shape of the hull. The frame strips at this point are only placed where the formers are. The remainder will be placed once the hull is planked. The gunwale is slotted into the stem and against the transom with help of slots on the hull former but again only glued to the keel and not the hull formers. Working from just below the gunwale, the hull is planked towards the keel. As these are very thin and small planks, I use CA glue to fix the planks. With the former still in place the hull can be sanded. Being so small this is a very delicate model on its own and if you were to sand later, there could be disastrous effects.

Ah fantastic! She looks a treat

20 hours ago, md1400cs said:

Anton,

 

Been following - need to say that your gilded detail work is very creative - and works very well visually on your build - Nice work indeed.

 

Cheers,

Thank you very much  

4 hours ago, *Hans* said:

Try to find it myself as well last few days. But the only globe I found was this one:

 

Isn't quite the same on the mantelpiece...

Haha no not quite the same!

Great to see you back at it. She's looking great

Haha thanks Hans. Well the globe was purchased from the Sacré-Cœur in Paris about... 15 years ago my friend. It is however a French miniature globe from 1740 if that helps  

A great and thorough narrative Piet. We've spoken previously in the past while you were building your large sub about my uncle Carel Van well Groeneveld. If you remember he was a Lt. Cdr in the RNN and in command of KXVIII and briefly KXIV before returning to KXVIII between the years 1939 and 1942 finally being killed in action in Surabaya while sabotaging the ammunitions depot so as to not allow them to fall into the hands of the Japanese.  Keep up the great work!

Very correct on those points. Sailing in Duyfken we had the same thoughts. When rigged the guns on the waist could be loaded inboard, however the guns under the poop deck and especially under the f'cstle could only come back just over a metre  leaving their muzzles well outside the port opening. We only had two firing guns onboard Duyfken the rest were mock ups - and we moved them around the different ports to see how they would be loaded and fired... and th only solution was to load from the channels on the hull. Which is fine on a replica in modern day but I would not have wanted to be the gunner back then, though as previously said it's what they had to do, so it was done.