Ian_Grant

Great work! Good to see another builder incorporating 3D printing. It is changing the modelling world, in the corporate-speak of high tech, a "disruptor".

Have you considered a laser cutter at all? That too is a game-changer.

The tumblehome looks great!  Judging by your bow, they must have a bazillion fancy shapes now.

When I was a kid you built your airplanes with rectangular bricks and pretended they were streamlined. The most we had was bevelled bits intended for sloped roofs, and 90 degree bend pieces fitting onto a 2x2 area, no custom colours. I remember watching my kids with specialized kits for the space shuttle, star wars, harry potter, etc and thinking they (Lego) had taken all the imagination out of it.

1 hour ago, Bill97 said:

snip..snip>

At any rate the only connection point is the base to the deck. The red block in my photo. 

Hard to believe there wouldn't be a brace to the stern plate at the upper end of the "lower flagstaff" (as opposed to the "flag top-staff"???).

Even more basic question; why are there two parts to the flagstaff, with a little "cap", at all?  Seems like another Hellerism to me. Perhaps Marc has some historical prints which shed some light on this.

Hard to see - does the flagstaff have a connection to the taffrail/transom, for support?

Agree with Marc; I've been following you with admiration since your 1765 Heller Victory bash.

I love the look of the wood deck here; and the bulkheads, of course.

There needs to be a new topic "Lego Ships".

This is very cool! I am gobsmacked by those lego ships!  Never heard of Lego creation software either; I now plan to have a play with it.

I am now following to see what you come up with.

Looking very nice!  I believe, though, you have the gun facing backwards on the base; in post #24 the first photo looks correct in that the ropes will restrain the recoil. In the rest of your photos its turned around and the gun crew is at risk of being killed by the recoil. 😏

On 12/11/2023 at 2:14 PM, Tyguy35 said:

I am in Ontario (unfortunately) haha. Most of my family is in Newfoundland though. 
 

 

thank you I’ll definitely check it out. 

 

It definitely does seem like a friendly place. 

Anywhere near me in Ottawa?

Interesting. Prompted me to look up my pictures of SS Klondike.

You can see the black pipe in the insulation gap just above the right hand axe.

Pipe at right has another interruption in insulation; not sure why.

Beautiful work. Err, is the foremast not facing backwards?  .....  probably just dropped in to show the colours?.....

Wonderful work! She looks great, Steven.

No, it hasn't been too bad as yet .... -10C (10F) at night. We actually had a green Christmas 😭after a single mid-December snowstorm granted us three days of glorious Nordic skiing before melting away again 😭.  We only just had more snow; I skied 3 hours today (we have 200km of groomed Nordic trails in wooded hills a half-hour drive away). More cold in the forecast so we're hoping to skate on the canal if the ice thickens up. Last year was the first time in 53 years that the canal ice was never safe for skating.

Looks great, BIll!  Your billowing topsails and topgallants are very nice and I like the being-furled courses too.

Micheal, it looks great!   Touching on a topic that has come up in Soleil Royale logs, are there no access ladders from the main deck to the 1/4 deck?

10 hours ago, Hubac's Historian said:

You might find that the stock lower battery 36-pounders look more to scale on the upper main deck battery, if you wish to take advantage of the nicely detailed Heller barrels.

Eric if you do so, it is recommended (by Dafi et. al.) to cut off the trunnions and drill the barrels for new ones, slightly further back. As built by Heller the barrels sit too far back on the carriage with the breech cantilevered out the back end.

I saw someone else's build with those guns; she looked much more realistically menacing indeed.

Eric, you could try PM'ing "Dafi" about the number of gunport lid ropes; if anyone would know, he might.

Also, did you order the entire set of 108 "SoRo" guns from HISmodel?  They look fantastic in their photos!  I noticed their diagram of assembling the upper deck gun carriages by gluing the side pieces to the side of the bottom piece, rather than along the top edges of the bottom piece, to increase the width of the carriage. Makes sense. Remember to glue the wheels on closer to the front and back of the carriages for a better look. Heller has the axles too close together....👍

You could be right .... I've never seen an ancient galley ... looking at photos of "Olympias" the ram looks like a pretty uniform verdigris green all over. I may add a little more; I don't want to simply "paint" it opaque verdigris.

37 minutes ago, Javelin said:

Looks brilliant and real to me! Wouldn't add any further washes to it.

30 minutes ago, Glen McGuire said:

Agree with Javelin.

Thanks guys, I will just clear-coat it and consider it finished.

Got the ventilation strakes glued onto their black backgrounds today. She's coming together!  I'm happy.

When I went to the hobby shop to get some paint the other day, I happened to notice Vallejo Model Colours "Verdigris Glaze" and thought, "Aha! Just what I need for the ram!".

Over the last two days I have applied three washes of this verdigris, after painting the ram a bronze-like brown (the "bronze" paint was out of stock). Picture below. By the way, I really like these Vallejo paints better than the Humbrol tins which seemingly can't be found over here now.

What think you? Do I need to apply a wash of white at some of the projections? A little black? To me it looks pretty good but .....

Eric, IMHO those are too large.  I recommend Caldercraft #83505 brass etch eyes seen below. I used many on my 1/100 Victory; two on the outside and two on the inside of each gunport lid (and various other locations).

https://www.cornwallmodelboats.co.uk/acatalog/caldercraft83505.html#SID=3190

While I'm on this topic, you can also replace the Heller plastic eyes with copper equivalents if you so choose. They give you confidence that no eye will break as you rig it.

https://www.cornwallmodelboats.co.uk/acatalog/caldercraft83500.html

Here are the #83505 eyes on the lids.

5 hours ago, yancovitch said:

aha.....that's a bit of a relief.....hmmmm....i'm likely wrong, but the walls of the tower seem a bit thin, as ''they'' didn't have plywood in those days 😁...but maybe they are to scale........hmmmm.....

Good eye. I wasn't sure of true scale either. I know after the corvus became obsolete (partly due to its weight's adverse effect on seaworthiness) they used relatively light-weight "boarding bridges"; Pitassi also mentions that the "towers" became light, collapsible affairs which allowed them to be lowered and stowed when not used. They weren't meant to actually be like protective castles for the archers apparently. My 1/16" ply is a scale 2" which is my interpretation for "collapsibility";  according to Steven ("Louie Da Fly") these ships' actual hull "ribs" were only 2" x 2" members to keep the structure light and nimble for human power.

47 minutes ago, EricWiberg said:

I occasionally wonder if I am overthinking things, but I am trying to stay true to scale and also do what makes the most sense (meaning what would they have done 300+ years ago, which is often the simplest solution, no different than today).

That's what we do here at Model Ship World !!  😁

Eric, you can get free Heller replacement parts! The Heller parts replacement source is Glow2Be in Germany. Go to the "glow2be.de" website, click on "Service" then "Spare Part Form" , print the pdf file and fill it out. I tried scanning and emailing to the address given on the form but it would not go through as the "glow2be" server would not accept messages from my "domain", be that Canada, North America, or whatever. I then FAXed the form to the number given and was rewarded after two days with news that a free part had been shipped! Customer service!   Good luck, Mr. Phelps....

25 minutes ago, yancovitch said:

so wonderful to watch this build....gads...i could remove those blocks on the tower one by one, they're so clean.....such patience and attention to detail i never had.....amazing i still have my own teeth 😁

HaHa!  Vic, no patience was involved; I just drew some lines in the Inkscape program and the laser cutter machine etched the "blocks" into the surface for me. 

(and then cut out the full walls too).

OK so I got the bulwarks glued down to the main deck section, and varnished all decks/outrigger tops/steering platform decks with Minwax exterior diamond finish. It gave a very nice finish, but it's more like a regularly polished dance floor than a ship's deck. Also, the grain of the ply surface became more visible so you can see it continuing across planks. I'll need to experiment with some washes to disguise and age it a little. Not too much because I don't want to have to age all the paintwork too.

I spent some time today 3D printing at the library. Here is a ladder for under the archery tower hatchway, leaning on the outside for now. Pretty simple to draw and less than one hour to print, with a final cost to me of 64 cents. Tower exterior is white primer. Marcus enjoys the view.

I also did a trial print of the eagle for the bow. This was a bit tricky as I had to edit the bird in TinkerCAD to spread its wings more out to the side to match the angles at the bow. TinkerCAD is a bit limited, but so too is my CAD knowledge. I managed to break off all its talons trying to cut off all the printer supports, plus the beak is a bit lumpy due to the PLA printing process and resolution. Should I decide to go ahead with this it will need to be resin printed to give clean details.