Hubac's Historian

A little chocka-block.  We were delayed getting out to Hampton Bays by a day, and I was only there for a day and a half.  Today, my sister and I will take our Dad out for his 89th birthday with friends.  I’ll work a couple of days and then head back out to the Hamptons for a couple more days.

Ironically, and in spite of the heatwave, I love the sauna and hot-tub, so I make full use of them while I’m there.  Also, my son has been bit by the basketball bug, so we spend a fair amount of time at the courts together.  Shooting a basketball has always been one of the single-most relaxing pass-times for me.

Tonight, when I get home, I’ll spend some time on the ship.  Maybe get my backboard glued in, and other parts prepped and painted.

I’ll have some more consistent time off, the second week of August, so that will be nice.  Thanks for asking!

You and Mike do some of the cleanest plank work on the net.

She’s a big girl!

Exposed framing is just one of the things you do that I love so much!  The effect is dynamite on Constitution, and equally impressive here.

To answer that question, Bill, I would reference builds by some of the more experienced builders to see how they sequence the rigging.  Because it is of the period and very present in my mind, here is an extraordinary model of the HMS Sussex:

Of course, there is also Marsalv’s Gros Ventre and Archjofo’s La Creole - two of the most exactingly rigged models on the forum, IMO.

That is an approach that I may be able to adapt Bill.  Because it is difficult to find cloth that looks good at this scale, I was planning to make my sails from Modelspan tissue - the stuff airplane modelers cover their fuselages with.  In that scenario, you allow the sail area to hang down through a cut opening, and then you wet the material with your thinned glue medium.  It produces nicely billowing sails.

What I want is a little more extreme, though, so maybe I can adapt your technique and carve the billowing shape out of something soft, like a block of balsa, and then glass the surface of my form with something that the glue medium won’t stick to - maybe epoxy?  Back in the pattern shop of Steinway, we used to use this phenolic resin-coated plywood for jig and fixture forms because glue didn’t stick to it.  Maybe that kind if resin can be purchased in liquid form somewhere.

I would also glue-in thin-gauge wire around the perimeter, to be concealed by the bolt ropes.  Thanks for the suggestion Bill, I’ve been grappling with how to approach that problem for some time.  If I can pull it off, it will look amazing!

Thank you all for the vacation well-wishes.  I am looking forward to some time away from NYC.

Fully rigged and following the example of unfurling sails shown below:

It is tempting to stop at the lower mast sections, and show the ship as laid-up in ordinary, but the overall impression of a fully masted ship, underway, is too irresistible for laziness to intervene.  I’m not quite sure how I will achieve such dramatically billowing topsails, but that should be a fun stage of the build.

It will all be done at some point before I retire!

I really like your hatch modifications, Maurice.  A very nice improvement!

Thanks, Dan!  You know me - fortification is never too far from my fingertips 😀

I decided to play around with thin metallic wash coats of gold and silver for the continental figure of Europe.  As the wealthiest region of the world, I wanted her to have a shimmery, almost etherial quality.

The basecoats for the lower garb of both Europe and Asia are the same ModelMaster Random Tan.  For Asia, I went over this color with a brown enamel wash.  For Europe, I used a thinned application of Citadel red wash, followed by several applications of a very thin wash of bright gold.  The gold collects in the recesses in a very satisfying way.

Initially, I wasn’t happy that the folds of Europe’s blouse did not really show through the Ultra Marine.  That was why I decided to try a silver wash.  The pictures don’t really do these girls justice.

For the backsides, I was kind of forced to end the naturalistic painting of the figures along the original part line, where I filled-in with new styrene.  I wanted to follow the cyma-curves of the tafferal, but that just wasn’t feasible:

The black will fade into the black of the tafferal.

Well, that’s it for now.  I’ll be on and off vacation for the next several weeks.  I’m touch-up painting, and getting all of these elements ready for assembly.

I’ll post glamour shots of the whole ship, in a few weeks, when it’s all together.

This build is not unfolding in real time, correct?  This is a progression of photos of a model you have already completed, yes?

I’m already uber impressed, but if you are actually building at this pace, I will be at a complete loss for words.

Of course, it is a matter of opinion, but no other nation tops the French for the beauty of their lines.   A very shapely hull, Oliver.

In the end - very satisfying and worth the effort.  As for the tweezers, reflex just got the better of me.  Soreness is abating.

The head grating was remarkably tedious to make, and I can honestly say that I did not enjoy any aspect of this process.

I began by making a series of styrene strips for the slat stock that followed the curvature of the headrails.  Each segment had to be cut to fit and placed by hand:

I used a drafting compass to get approximate measurements at each location, and then it was a lot of filing and test-fitting until each slat bridged the span perfectly.

After all slats were initially cemented with styrene glue, I brushed the whole assembly with thin CA - the Crazy Glue variety.  I like this stuff for certain applications.  It dries with some body to it, so it is good for something like this where it “keys” into the spaces between slats, and locks them firmly in-place.  This is important for the sanding/leveling process.

I made a semi-soft sanding block from sanding foam, and double-stuck a piece of 100 grit paper to its face:

Then I’d manipulate this sanding block with a pair of tweezers and a finger from my off-hand.  It took a bit of effort, but I faired out the surface without dislodging any slats:

In the white, the following angles show the ‘thwartship camber of the grating pretty well:

Finally, I could fix the new seats of ease in-place:

In an episode of “you couldn’t do it again if you tried,” I impaled my left hand with a pair of pointy tweezers that I dropped and tried to catch, as I was attempting to place these seats.  One tine went pretty deep!  Fortunately, my tetanus booster is up to date.

Now all I have to do is prime and re-paint.

Thank you all for stopping by!  More to follow..

That lower hull looks incredible!

This continues to be a rare gem of a project.

Painting the shards of sunlight, emanating from behind the Apollo carving, is tricky because the field is so small; the available space doesn’t really allow for masking both sides of the line.

My solution was to first draw pencil guidelines for each sun ray.  Port to starboard symmetry should be avoided for a detail like this.  I wanted lines of varying length and tapering thickness to extend beyond the horse and chariot carvings, from a variety of angles.

The idea was to lay a strip of tape as an additional guide to the pencil line; this way, I could run my brush over the tape side of the sun ray and nudge the wet edge carefully to the pencil side of the ray.  It was important to remove the tape while the paint was still soft, otherwise the tape would likely lift the finer sections of the painted ray.

As I have throughout the ship, I wanted to incorporate silver gilt with the gold.  As Eberhardt (if I remember correctly) once pointed out, this would have been unlikely on the real ship, but as an artistic choice it adds to the visual impact of the thing.  In the photo sequence below, I am adding a thin gold line to the previously painted silver line of a single ray:

On the starboard side, you can still see my faint pencil (6H) layout for the remaining rays to be painted.

It was occasionally necessary to go over sections of these ray lines with a wet brush, when the tape did lift small flakes of paint.  As fine as these lines are, these repairs are manageable over short sections because most of the line remains as a visual guide.

After painting the clouds and applying a grey wash, I placed the carvings to get a sense for the whole composition:

In my estimation, this is just enough radiant sun to convey the idea.  After gilding the carvings off the model, and carefully scraping paint away to fix them in-place, here is a preliminary view of what the backboard looks like on the model (not glued yet):

There are still a few mouldings to be fixed in-place, and I have not yet painted the side lantern brackets.  From the side view, this impression of depth is what I was hoping for:

You can see the tiny Zodiac symbols that I painted into the cornice top.  The acrylic paint pen wasn’t quite fine enough to do this, practically, so I simply sketched a basic approximation of each symbol in its opening with a hard pencil.  I then carefully painted over the pencil lines with my finest sable brush.  Considering the scale, they are little changed from the moulded versions on the stock stern plate.

At the present moment, I am considering how I will paint the two Continental figures of Europe and Asia that sit atop the cornice.  Their clothing will definitely be painted in a more naturalistic fashion, like the Four Seasons figures.  I think I have the colors figured out.  Gold will be used sparingly.  The main thing is that their faces and any other exposed skin will be painted grey-washed white.  I’ve done this for the quarter pieces, the cathead supports and most notably the figurehead; there is something about this approach that is reminiscent of classical statuary, which were the original inspiration for these carved works in the first place.  In any case, this approach avoids the thorny issue of representing different regions of the world in different skin tones.

More to follow - thanks for stopping by!

Beautifully meticulous plate work!

Beautiful plank job, B.E.!

Just spectacular.

On 6/27/2023 at 1:32 PM, KarenM said:

I'm thinking of opening a new topic and posting photos of the construction of this ship. I don't know if anyone will be interested.

This would be a tremendous resource and I hope that you will do so.  Perhaps it isn't necessary to open a new topic, but just to continue following the final shots of the finished model?  Whatever you choose to do, you will have an attentive audience.  This is just awesome work!

I do.  In fact, you have persuaded me to do the same on mine.

I think this came out great Bill!  The CA should be more than adequate to close those links.  My solution to this problem was to make my channels so that the deadeye strop slots are open.  I’ll make the chain assemblies in their entirety, tack them onto the model with CA and small pins, as you have done, and then I’ll glue a small cover strip over the deadeye slots.

Thank you, Gentlemen, for the kind words and the likes.  I hope I will not alienate too many of you with my next foray into the unconventional.

I have always liked the painting of the backboards on the Dutch ships.  A few stellar examples of Herbert Thomesan’s work:

I pulled these images from my Pinterest board Navies of Other Euro Nations.  Herbert is a master of color, texture and shade.  I take much inspiration from his use of vivid, complementary colors, and naturalistic painting of ornaments and the backboard paintings that illuminate the ship’s namesake.

I have started painting my backboard.  I want Apollo and his four horses to appear as though they are coasting just on the periphery of our atmospheric realm.   Key to this effect is a softly diffuse transition from our earthly cerulean sky to the deep blue of the cosmos.

It occurred to me, though, that the plank seams that I scribed into the backboard would make this effect near-impossible to achieve because the successively thin layers of ultra-marine would want to bleed along the seams.  My solution was to putty-in transitional arcs to both sides:

The horse carvings will distract the eye from these small areas where it is visible that the plank seams disappear.

A base coat of cerulean blue went down first, over the entire field.  I then applied successively thinner coats of ultra-marine from the top center, feathering out to the sides.  This was just a patient process of application (maybe 10-12 thin coats) and adjustment with a wet brush.  I got the diffuse effect I was after:

Now, to tone-down the brightness - a thorough slathering in walnut ink:

Once this dries, I take a wet brush and begin pulling away most of the color until I’m left with just enough patina to make it interesting:

There is still adjustment to be made with the weathering, but that will be a blending process after the backboard is attached to the model.

Next, I can sketch-in the Zodiac symbols.  I bought a fine-line acrylic paint pen to make that easier.  The clouds will be painted white and washed with grey.  The ornament will get the usual two-tone gold, except for the three fleurs on the coat of arms, which will be bright gold.

My plan is to also mask for fine shards of sun light, in gold and silver gilt, to be emanating from behind Apollo and his horses.  This will be difficult to achieve without overdoing it, or otherwise ruining the blue backdrop.

Thank you for your continued interest.  More to follow..

This is all uniformly excellent.  I will follow with great interest!

Thanks for the link, Michael!