Hubac's Historian
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All looks great, Eric. As for tracing that curved line in the bulwark extensions, I would simply fair my headrail template to exactly where I want it to be, and then just hold that template close to the extension and trace a clean line. What I like to do with these thin cardboard templates is saturate the cut edges with thin CA. Once that dries, you can wrap a piece of 150 grit paper around a dowel and sand the stiffened edges until they are perfectly fair. The human eye is remarkably sensitive to small bumps, dips and flats. It is well-worth the small investment in time to perfect your patterns. -
Hi Aleksandr, I am perfectly okay. For a variety of reasons, it was a challenging end to 2024, but most of those issues have been resolved. I’m just hoping for a less hectic 2025. Thank you for your concern. All the best, Marc
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Your rigging work, Bill, has taken quantum leaps of improvement. All very neat and orderly. Looks fantastic! HAPPY NEW YEAR to you and your family!
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I’m sorry to hear about the shoulder, Frank, but I’m excited to see you build the Confederacy! I’ll keep an eye peeled for your build log.
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I think it all looks amazing!
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Your instinct is right, though, IMO. Pulling works better than pushing, in order to control direction of cut.
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Okay, I will elaborate more tomorrow, but you really need far less than you might think, and could probably pull this off with a standard EXACTO #11 blade.
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I like your approach with this figure, Eric. Personally, I would spend some time engraving some “movement,” or striation into her hair. The kit figures are a good guide for this.
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You may have to re-locate the gammoning blocks on the sprit-mast so that they align vertically with the gammoning slots on the cutwater.
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When I’m trying to take accurate inside measurements, as when you are trying to determine what the new bottom and top spans of your beakhead bulkhead need to be, I like to use two lengths of styrene scrap plank that are each shorter than the shortest span. I taper the ends to a blunt “point”. Then I hold the strips between my fingers, one over the other, and slide them outward until my “points” make contact with the hull interior. I have a sharp (wicked sharp!) pencil, at the ready, to mark the overlap line of the styrene strips. I can then transfer that span to a good steel ruler (with up to 1/64” increments) for a reliably accurate measurement.
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Fait accompli!
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Okay, so the former battens are only temporary. They are merely there to lend shape to the planking continuation. Once that has set, though, the formers are ground away with the Dremel drum sanding attachment. The reason you glue the plank to the formers is to ensure that you get a nice, fair bend around the formers. I realize your card profile pattern is approximate, but keep in-mind that this should be a nice fair curve, like what Marc Yeu did here: The run of your pattern looks a little stiff. Ultimately, this curve mirrors the sweeping curve of the top-most headrail. And, yes, the wales should continue forward into the plank extension. This is easy to patch-in, after the rest has been established. Now, as for the DR and the RL, I mention that more for the sake of visitors to your log who might be inspired to take the kit in another direction. What you have established so far, is the correct wale, plank and top sheer for the epoch. The timber railings are correct and the arrangement of the batteries is far more correct for the time. With this as a basis, one could scratch build the stern, quarters and bow for any of those ships, and you would end up with a pretty solid facsimile of what those ships actually looked like. That the dimensional parameters of the hull don’t exactly match the particular dimensions of those individual ships hardly matters for an impressionistic model.
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At gym with my son, so will respond in detail a little later. You are misunderstanding my intent a little bit.
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The other thought I have is that, at this stage of modification that you have established, one could build SR 1671 (of course), but you could also do representations of the Royal Louis of 1668, or the Dauphin Royal of 1668. You could probably also do the Dauphin Royal of 1680, if you eliminate tue poop royal deck and reduce the overall height of the stern a little.
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My idea is really pretty simple: I’d begin by sanding the interior surface of the hull smooth, beneath where the short beakhead deck will be. Heller has moulded raised ridges in here that serve no functional or aesthetic purpose. Then, I’d take a few lengths of .100 square styrene rod - at least three, and maybe four - and I’d glue them to this now-smooth surface with styrene cement. These are your formers. Let that set-up strong. Now, you can plank around these in two layers of .032 styrene strip. you’ll want to make sure that their is a really good mating connection between the first styrene strip and the upper main wale; bevel the bottom strip edge, accordingly. Be sure to use two different widths of strip so that the seams overlap each other. Also be sure to edge glue the strips to each other. You can induce a curve to styrene strip simply by pulling it between the spine of a knife and a hard surface. Repeated passes introduces incrementally more curve. This will reduce or eliminate the need for clamping beyond finger pressure for 20-30 seconds, until the bond sets. IMPORTANT: you will also be gluing the first-layer planks to the formers. Once all of that is set, you can establish the descending arc of the new planking, and trace that profile onto the outsides. I like to use a 1/2” coarse sanding drum in my Dremel to blast away waste. The #2 setting will cut without excessive melting, if you just pull away every few seconds. Get close to your line, but give yourself a little room for hand-fairing. Lastly, use that drum sanding attachment to blast away the formers on the back. With a little fore-thought, one can make it so that the second plank layer matches the width of the scribed planking on the hull. I would just sand a micro-bevel onto the plank edges so that those lines show. Or you could simply scribe-in the lines afterwards.
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One other thought to keep-in-mind is to leave space along the channel wale for the channels, themselves. Since your listons d’or are copper wire, it will be much easier to determine the channel locations, in advance, and fit the listons in-between.
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Tomorrow, I’ll do a quick napkin sketch to show you what I have in-mind.
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If so, I have a suggestion for doing this with strip styrene and temporary backing formers that will make this fairly easy and produce a nice, perfectly fair result. I wish I had thought of this, back in the time that I was modifying the hull.
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Okay, so one detail did just catch my attention. Are you still planning to wrap the exterior planking past the beakhead bulkhead, in a descending arc toward the stem?
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I just did a little photo manipulation to get a better sense of her on her waterline: I do think you can go to about mid-lower wale with the white stuff, in the waist. This all looks very good to my eyes!
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As I zoom-in, here, and really look - two things: First, you have done a really excellent job of fine-tuning the wales. Their run is impeccably consistent. All of your effort to fill and re-scribe plank lines has been well worth it! It is interesting to note the difference in sheer, between the kit and what you are representing; 1693 vs 1671.
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She looks fantastic, Eric! As for cleanup, exactly what you are doing has always been my go to. Just a little dish detergent in water and an old toothbrush to get into all the tight spots. This is really the best method for degreasing the hull, without using anything harmful to the plastic.
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Perhaps the nuts have a high oil concentration? I am certain you will find an alternative. I think the patination you have chosen is just enough to lend depth to the details. As always, the work is a joy to behold!
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