Dutchman

Perfect combination, whisky and modelling! Islay single malt, no less! Personally I prefer the Irish single malts (Bushmill 16y or Redbreast 12y). Must be because I also love irish folkmusic (play it even)!

Hi all, welcome back to my build log,

It’s been more than a week since the last update, but I made some progression.

I made a jig to drill holes for the eye bolts that will be used for rigging the guns at the cannon deck.

Although from above there won't be much to see how the guns are rigged, I think the rigging according to Artesania's instructions is just a bit too simple. On the internet I found a picture of how the guns of the Hermione are rigged. For me the choice was quickly made, now I had to find the right materials to make the rigging from waste.

To bend eyebolts and hooks I used the core of a signal cable (0.8 mm). After bending the eye bolts and the hooks, I checked whether the proportions corresponded to the size of the guns. to my horror, I saw that I could start bending again. with a smaller inner diameter the hooks and eye bolt's looked a little better but still not in proportion.   


Meanwhile I have been bending for about 1.5 days for nothing. So I ordered eye bolts of 0.5 mm thick and 3 mm rigging block via the internet. Which will be delivered next Thursday.


I glued wooden strips to the inner side of the gun ports and prepared the hull for the final layer of paint.




I glued the aft main deck in place.


Near the bow and mid-ship I raised the railing


Planked the bulwark and cut out the gun ports.


The blue strake just needs to be coated with a final layer.






The bulwark is painted red.


On the second deck the deck hatches are glued in place.


At main deck the inner sides of the gun ports are painted red.


Cheers,
 
Peter

Hello everyone.
 
The planking of my Le Renard build is now finished!
The gap for the last plank on one side ended up at 6mm and the planks beeing only 5mm this presented a small challenge.
 
I ended up gluing two planks together and that way I could make the plank to fit nicely.
 



 
That's it!
The whiskyplank is in! 🤪😝👍
 
Now time to sand when the glue (and whiskey) dries..
 
Work on the dinghy continues, and it seems like I will end up with the same amount of planks from stem to stern.
 


Here I have sanded lightly to see how it will look when finished, and so far I'm pleased with the result!
 
That's it for now.
 
Gaffrig.

Finished putting together this grating/hatch/deckhouse thing.  I'm sure it has a proper name

Hello all,
 
This kit was made two years ago.
First, the image

 

 

 

I love French freegate ships such as La Flore and La Renome beautifully.
This kit is modified according to my taste.
I think there are some mistakes.
 
I will also write a record of the production.
 

The strangest thing has happened... We've had several days of clear blue sky and warm weather! 😎
How enjoyable as this may be, it does cut into the time spent at the building table...
 
The good thing is that the time not spent at the buildtable is spent aboard the 1:1 scale pilotcutter!
Nice to get some work done there too.
 
Some progress has been made though, the planking continues and is close to finished.
The planking has started on the dinghy.
 

 
A few more planks, and I'm ready to start sanding. There is a few dumps and humps, but hopefully it will sand out smooth. If not, then I have a can of woodfiller!
 
The dinghy was (According to the instructions) to be planked with the same 4mm x 0,6mm material as the deck.
I found this to be a little wide for such a small boat, so i decided to use the 0,7mm x 3mm mahogany that I'm not using for the bluenose.
 
I tapered the planks "by eye" and felt my way as I went. The planks were then soaked and dried to shape on the jig.
 

 
Once the planks had dried, I glued them on with CA glue.
 

 
It shall be interesting to see how I end up with my "tapering by the eye" approach!
 
That's it for now!
 
Gaffrig.
 

You may not know of the "Treskibssammensluttningen" which is a organisation for traditional vessels in denmark. A lot of info at their site, (Mostly in danish, unfortunately) but also among their members. You might try them for specific questions you may have. www.ts-skib.dk
 
 
I looked a little at the site, (thank you for pointing it out to me) but my french is not very good. I could not find a language setting.
I think you are quite right that the Artesania Latina kit is a model of the replica, rather than the original.
The item that may or may not be the binnacle is very close to both the main companionway and the tiller. I think it may be a housing for modern navigation electronics. There is also what appears to be ventilation "pillars" four places around the deck.
As for the windlass situation, it may be that the replica has a modern electric or hydraulic windlass mounted below deck, and the anchor rode coming out of the hull.
 
I got the kit at a discount, as something to build while waiting for materials for the Bluenose.
I'll probably build the kit more or less as is, rather than going for historical accuracy.
 
About building the kit.. Here's a little update.
 
The planking continues, slowly but steadily.
 

Got a few more "laps" done during the weekend.
I have a little clinker effect going on in the bow, but I think it will smooth out with sanding.
 

While waiting for the glue to dry, I got bored and started another kit... 😎
 

It was in the same box though!
And if I do it right it should be the dinghy.
 

Got the parts out of their sheet, these are small, brittle parts.
 

-And started building the jig.
 

I just had to make some small adjustments... I gave the transom an angle and I cut away from the frames to give it more sheer.
We'll see how this turns out.
 

That's it for now.
 
Gaffrig.

A little bit of progress ...
I decided to replace kit provided planks at the stern, just below the black painted area, with a home made from the spare pieces.. This is an idea from the instructional video...

I have to reshape the rudder hole as well since i have replaced this part... and opening was not there...

Hull has been scraped and lightly sanded..
 

Few more parts glued and secured...

Happy modelling.
 
 
 
 

Hi all,
 
Made some progression with the second deck.
 
I made a jig for gluing all the hanging knees at the same height and glued them to the inner hull. After this the hull could be painted red. Also the skirting boards are now in place.
Tuesday I received the chemicals for the blackening the iron and brass parts by mail.  I removed the casting seams from the guns with a file, degreased and blackened the cannons and brass parts and fitted them finally together on the gun carriage. Also the deck hatches are fitted with blackened brass rings and temporary dry-fit on the second deck.

Despite some small mistakes, I am very satisfied with the result. Fortunately, the mistakes are easy to correct.
Regards,
 
Peter
 

Maybe I should’ve painted the dark wood white to start with...

One coat of paint done.  Think its going to take a few

Some of these deck items are more complicated than I thought they were going to be.  Didnt realise I had to so the shaping on the pin rail bits(not sure if correct term) or the little square parts on the railing

A couple of updated photos

The planking continues..
 

Got four more planks on both sides. Eight in total.
It's going slow but steady!
 

Not the prettiest planking, but I think it will smooth out when sanded. The camera seems to highlight all the bumps and edges...
 
In between waiting for the planks and the glue to dry I've continued on the cannons. Or carronades?
There is some photoetched brackets that I cut loose from the sheet and "folded" and blackened.
 


 

The little crosses are the back supports/adjusters to hold the backend of the barrel to the carriage.
I'm not too sure I like those..
 
When mounting the gun barrel to the bracket I got a problem with the gunbarrel tab being too wide to fit..
 

So I have to file down the sides of the tab on my newly painted barrels.. 😟
Oh well. It's one of those little setbacks that's a part of the hobby I guess!
 
That sounds like an interresting scratch build project! It will be a big model!
 
Between planking and guns I also started at the deckhouses/skylights. These are pretty simple affairs of lasercut plywood that fits together pretty well.
I'm jumping a little back and forth in the manual, but it's all gonna be done at one time or another.
 

The main deckhouse is all that got captured on "film" 😆

 
That's it for now.
Next update coming soon!
 
Gaffrig.
 
 

Hi all, Time for an update on my progress,
 
Spend a lot of time to paint the hull

 


 
Painting remains tricky but fun to do
 
Regards Peter
 
 

Thank you all who have been reading the log and giving it a thumbs up!
 
On with the planking.
The kit supplied materials are 2 x 5 mm battens of what I think is limewood. They are a lot stiffer than the ones supplied in my Bluenose kit, and since this boat has a bow that's a lot more blunt than the Bluenose I think I will need to soak and heat the planks for this build. This was not necessary on the Bluenose.
 
Le Renard has a single planked hull, as did the Bluenose.
 
So I measured the bulkheads, and divided so I ended up with 16 planks. This gave me a taper from 5 down to 3,2 mm in the bow, and nothing in the stern.
I tapered the first two, soaked them for about 15 to 30 minutes and bent them roughly in shape with the electric plank bender from amati.
Then I clamped them on the hull and left them to dry.
Once dry I took them off and gave them some fine adjustments and glued them on with the same gorilla wood I used before.
 

 

 
I keep forgetting to take pictures once I get going, but here I have two planks on both sides glued on.
 
 

 
I've sanded the keel to imitate a rabbet and have glued on the garboard strakes. There will be cut a grove in the garboards later to accommodate the keel.
 
 

 
Now it's "taper, soak, heat, shape, dry, glue and repeat" for a few days, and hopefully I'll end up with a planked hull!
 
Take care!
 
Gaffrig.
 
 
 
 

Planking keeps coming along just fine.... with not quite matching planking lines on both side of the ship, which i really do not like..



One of the very nice small details on this kit is a simulated steeler..

During this process i also discovered that i did not put planks properly at the bow. Maybe not reading thru instruction manual thoroughly but all planks have to go slightly over keel. There is very tiny amount of planks that is left on both ends once that plank is installed.
Anyhow, this is what i have to deal with..



So i might ended up adding a piece of veneer that will cover this part and ended up on a false keel.... something like this..

Happy modelling..
 
 
 
 

So off they came, and back on again with glue.. 🙂
 


Making sure it's nice and snug along the deck and the bulkheads.
 

One side first, then the other.
 

There we are!
 
Starting to take on the shape of a boat!
 
Now to wait for the glue to dry!
 
Gaffrig.

Onwards with planking.
 
In preparation for planking I faired/beveled all the bulkheads using one of the hull planks as I went to see that it would lie nice and snug on every bulkhead.
I marked the bulkheads with a permanent marker first, to ensure that I didn't take off too much.
I used a scalpel to take the most of it and then sanded.
 
I decided to use filler blocks in the bow between the stem and the first bulkhead. I didn't have any balsa, so I used a piece of cedar for this.
 
Both the trick with permanent marker and filler blocks is something I have picked up here at this wonderful forum! 👍
 

 

 

 
Before I start the planking the instructions say to mount the plywood bulwarks. This because the bulwarks go past the deck and down on the bulkheads by 4-5 mm.
Then the planking starts from the bulwarks.
 
Dryfitting of the bulwarks.
These are made from 2 mm plywood and was surprisingly easy to bend. No soaking needed, just bend around the hull and clamp.
 
There is a second inner bulwark of the same 2 mm plywood that is glued to the inside later. This is first clamped to the outer one with the top flush, and a line is drawn on the outer one so you have a line to follow along the deck when mounting it to the boat to get the correct height. (hope this makes sense)
 


I'm using push pins to hold it in place.
Once I'm satisfied with the placement I'll remove them and glue them on with wood glue.
 

 

Looks pretty nice and straight, I was a little worried about this step as there are no tabs sticking up from the bulwarks to help me keep them in the right place.
 
Time for glue!
 
Gaffrig.

Thought I'd add a couple of photos of what I added today, the break water and the fore hatch coamings.  Disappointed in how they both came out.

Time for the deck.
 
When the glue for the plywood subdeck had dried, I started laying the deck planks that I had prepared.
I started with one plank along the centerline as the kit suggests, and worked from this and outwards on both sides.
 

I decided to make "frames" around the hatches/skylights as I think this will look good.
I had a little problem as the instructions didn't give a exact measurement of where the forward companionway hatch should be.
But looking at pictures throughout the manual I could guesstimate by measuring from other things. This is where I would really like to have a fullsize plan...
I cut the deck planks at a length of 120mm as this would be 6 m in fullsize at 1:50 scale.
 

 
I am using zap a gap ca glue to glue to the subdeck.
I don't know if this is the best glue for this, but it seems to work ok.
 

 
I am putting the butt joints at places where there would be deck beams on the real boat. Like fore and aft of hatches, the mast and so on.
 

 
Done planking!
The charcoal dust gets everywhere, next time I'll probably use a regular pencil instead for the caulking.
Hopefully it will clean up in the sanding..
 

Edges trimmed away and ready for sanding.
 

After sanding, and it looks a lot better!
Got rid of most of the charcoal dust!


After sanding I gave it a thin coat of linseed oil. Haven't decided yet if this will be the final finish, or if I should go for a flat varnish of some sort.
 

 
Not perfect by a long stretch, but acceptable for my first try!
 
Next step, planking... 😎
 
Gaffrig.
 
 
 
 
 

The build continues..
 
I've glued on all the bulkheads, one at a time using a square and clamps while the grue sets.
I'm using gorilla woodglue for this.
Everything seems square and true so far!
 


 
While waiting for the glue to dry, I've started to prepare the deck materials as the deck is the next step in the build.
These materials are 0,5 x 4 mm and I clamped 8-10 pieces together, gave them a light sanding and marked the edges with a charcoal pencil to simulate caulking.
 

I also started to prepare the gun carriages. These are to plywood pieces glued together without wheels.
Then I prepared the guns, which are metal castings that needed some filing of burrs and marks from the casting. I also gave them a little bigger bore as I think the original bore seemed a little small. So they are all ready for painting. Le Renard has ten guns.
 

 

 
When all the bulkheads had been glued, I sanded the top of the bulkheads along the sheerline of the boat to get a good surface for the plywood subdeck.
Especially the transom needed a lot of sanding to take the plywood deck.
 
 


 
Then I hit my first snag. The plywood subdeck has a notch that fits over a tab in the keelpiece in the stern. All well in that end...
The keelpiece also have a tab in the bow end, but the deck has no notch. In the instructions there is no tab on the bow... 🤔
 
 


So what to do?
First I thought I'll just remove the tab, but when my little brain had started working (this took awhile.. 😵) I decided to cut a new notch in the deck, as this would help me keep the deck in position while gluing and clamping. (for some reason I don't have a picture of this)
 
This worked fine and I glued the deck in place with the gorilla woodglue and kept it in place with rubberbands. and a couple of pins, making sure that the deck was pressed down on the bulkheads all the way.
 

 

 
So when the glue dries I'm ready for laying the deck.
 
Hope you all get a nice modeling weekend!
 
Gaffrig.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hello to all.
 
This is my first attempt at a build log for my current project.
This will be my third build, the first is the Bluenose by Billing Boats which is currently waiting for deck materials.
My second build was the Hannah ship in a bottle which is finished.
So while waiting for the Bluenose deck, I have started on Le Renard.
 
So, here we go!
 
First a picture of the box.
 

And it's contents..

 

Everything looks very good, no warped or cracked parts, and everything was well packaged.
The instructions looks great, one for the hull and one for the rig. There is no fullsize plan though.
 
 
So I started at page one, and that is with the basic hull skeleton assembly.
First I removed all the bulkheads and keel from their cutouts(?) and sanded off the little points that hold them.
 

 
One of the bulkheads had a little fault from the production of the plywood sheet itself.
I'll fill this with a thin piece of wood and glue..
 

 
Then dryfitting of all the parts, all the slots were a little loose, so the bulkheads will need clamping with a square while the glue dries.
 
 

 
As seen here the bulkheads lean left and right due to the loose fit.
At least the loose fit will give room for glue.
 

 
 

 
Everything seems to fit together, and it looks kinda like in the instructions, so time to open the glue bottle.
 
Don't you just love that new glue bottle all clean and shiny, and say to yourself, "this time I'm gonna keep it clean and the tip nice and open"
Yeah, at least I know how long that's gonna last..😁
 

 
First bulkhead glued in, all square and true!
 
Not a whole lot done, but I think it's a good start!
 
Stay safe out there and enjoy your models!
 
Gaffrig
 

Hi all,
A small update
At second deck, the inside of the hull is planked now. The hull is coated with one layer of white paint, another layer of white paint and then I can apply the other colours. While drying I had the time to make and paint the guns and hatches for the second deck.
The liquid for blackening the guns and copper parts on the hatches has been ordered but not yet delivered. Though patience is not my strongest point, for the time being I can still manage.
 

The 3 mm. plywood crumbles during the assembly of the wheels on the axels of the guns. After treatment of the plywood with a filling liquid the problem was solved.


That’s all for now!
Regards from a sunny Netherlands,
Peter

@ Tom E, thanks for your compliment.
 
@Dutchman, also thanks for your compliment.
 
But to be honest, I must confess that the planking of the hull wasn't without a struggle. (indeed single planking) If you follow Artesania Latina's instruction, which I did, you'll soon get into trouble. To be able to follow the strokes that already glued on the hull you have to bend the wood on a certain point into an unnatural shape. The amount of planking (134 pcs. 2x5x300 mm) for the hull is minimal and leaves no room for error. It is almost impossible to plank the entire hull with 2 planks in one stroke. (600 mm) To plank the hull in an acceptable way I threw away the Artesania instructions and continued according to the tutorials I found here on MSW.
I would like to thank the authors of these tutorials for the work they have put into this. 😀
 
Through the use of drop planks, stealers and a lot of tapering I managed to finish the hull. The fillers, sanding and paint will cover the rest of the mistakes i made as beginner.
 
Guess that i still have to learn a lot.  🙂
 
Peter