Heinrich der Seefahrer

Great work you do HsH - and a damned temptation to me! Du to the fact that 35 years ago I built her and when applicating the last fag she fall from the table down on her rig... What I love most is the detail work you do. The decoration is beautyfull and the detail work is pure craftman's workmanship! Thankys a lot for showing to us. But why you don't cut away for example 1/16`` from the underwater ship parts and glue both from both sides on a 1/16`` thick plexiglas so you have got a WL-model and you keep the underwater part, too? So I would like to substitute my long time ago lost model by a better model and I don't thing I'll be so wealthy to both the SR as modelkit and as a reserve part spender. So I'm looking for some alternatives. But I'm still looking through my vdV-drawings colloection to find anything else than Le Reyne to "abuse" the hull - as a Le Reyne is still in build at a French colleague's modelyard. But why not figure out and learn from him? Also Superbe my be an option but the decoration looks lo "dutchy" with out any balkony: The Royal Louis has a plenty of figures in the transom and looks more like "Madame Trousseaus goes naval" ...it doesnÄt look very beliefable: And I so think about taking the hull and building the S.Philippe 1693 from the newest ancre monographie. What do you think is the best way to re-use the hull?

WonWoToderfull start, you ade Phil! To make it more stable, you can fill the spaces with balsa wood blocks, so you get a smouth durface for the planking. Or if you a dogmatic cardener you could lay light paper diagonally over the bulkheads and create the surface for the planking like in this way.

Hello GD I am still struggeling with the French language (,I've got a French textbook). So I do translation work very hard - I am lerninh French from books autodidactically.

Thanks a lot for the explenation.

The formers are 4,5mm thick and the gaps between them 2,4mm. Less impressive is my progress with measurements. At the moment I'm dealing with the formers thickness. So if I make some error in here now nothing will fit at the very end due to the massive number of erroral parts and their addition of oversize to a very big fault. So my question is - is it cleverer to measure on the 1/36 original plans and half the number by my calculator - or to use the downsized copies? This due the the fact of the paper that has been working in the heating and cooling of the copying process and in minimum was enlarged and shrinked. What is your yard workerman's best practice?

Thats geat news to read, Valery! A waving from the other end of the timeskala 1747, towards 1899, Yours Heinrich

Hello Vialery V.! That is a real beauty in metal! The decission to avoid plastic sounds interesting. Because the wheelhouse bares a lot of problematic details as the decoration easy to solve with several layers of evergreen card. What is your reason to vote against plastoc - the reenaction of oldschool modelbuilding would also have avoided the lasercut bulkheads - so what is the reason for you crossing out plastic? Not only to be a critic questioner here a link for some great pictures to seversl detail problems that later will geather on and around the maindeck: http://navsource.narod.ru/photos/02/020/index.html Down under the example of the hullside stairs with gripping holes inside and the torpedonetpole's fastenings. Hopefully this helps a bit.

Back from the copyshop again...

I managed to copy some of thethe decoraton work on transparent paper and to compare it to the Olliviere ink drawings: On the transom I took the windows high for the indicating factor and made all the copies to this scale. I also trief to fix the existing points of the Delacroix drawing onto the Olliviere design inks.

I managed to copy some of thethe decoraton work on transparent paper and to compare it to the Olliviere ink drawings: On the transom I took the windows high for the indicating factor and made all the copies to this scale. I also trief to fix the existing points of the Delacroix drawing onto the Olliviere design inks.

Here short shot from the frame's drawing.

Here some comparements between the Oliveer original ink drawings and the Delacroix drawings from the first decarde of the XXI.century. An interesting job to lay the two drawings side by side and look for the differences. It is not that easy to figure out these little details - and to change them to the historical correct pattern. There is an error in the upper left corner of the side badge - not easy to find as the source but the impact is important. (I arranged the twi drawings side by side for you, too.) The same thing happens with the massive gallion decoration - Delacroix minimized it, so I think about a decoration between the craftsmans sales oriented drawings and the modern minimalism-orientired workout. Mr.Scale is added to show how tiny the L'Amarante was.

Hello friends of the smaller ships out of the line of sight of the three-decker-enthusiastic public! An additive foreword: Due to my working situation I am parttime in the NL in a small hotel without any possibilities to model anything. And the problem is for me being so tired that I'm not able to concenreate to do anything more than monkey work or pure reading. But in the other hand there is nothing to do elsewhere in town - so I'm forced to stay in my hotelroom filling my time. (I do not use the TV due to semireligious matters.) By reading Ian McLaughlan's fantasic book „The Sloop of War 1650-1763“ - I came across the chapter about the French Corvette and Privateer Construction. In here I saw her the first time and fall in love to „La Amarante“ a little masterpice of Blaise Ollivier. Built at Brest in 1747 she shows all the decorational pomp of the late baroque/early rokkoko in a limited area on a ship able to fit a flat's livingroom even in 1:36. But for my travels dutys I halfed the size. The ship is drawn by the fanstastic Delacroix and publiced in a Ancre style monography for around £90. The drawings are amaizing and due to my future regular business travels to NL I can't work on a model in hotel. (Okay I could, but than I would need a new hotel to stay.) I am too tired not to harm even a card model. So I'll spend my free hours far away from family by recherche work on L'Amarante. This due to the factum that Delacroix's drawings and the contemporary drawings of the transom differ. Also I like to figure out more of the details. This work will be the fundament for the scratchbuilding and for several month hardly anything will happen on the shipyard. The fact is I can only work with the very „omni-glot“ part of the book - the drawings; as I never had had got more than a couple of French lessons at school at all. In the 80th Delacroix book was still unwritten and my person didn't know about him - but if, I would have been more enthusiastic about French lessons if I would know about L'Amarante! Inbetween I was able to scale the drawings down to 1/72 to start a mobile try-it-out project. You find the photos arround here. As I do not own a mill a PoF-model is impossible - so I do plan a vaneer covered plywood pile hull. My idea is to use the drawings of the frames to cut out as filled - so as bulkheads. The bulkheads pileon bukkheads with fillers between them to a hull - a PoB-model with the number of bulkheads as frames would be on a PoB&F-model. I have th number fo the 52 frames but I'm building 52 bulkhads plus filling pices. So the surface is very large to glue 1 to 1,5mm vaneer on it. But I never tryed! So I have got the one and only question: Is my way a silly thing to do to a 550mm hull? So I'm singing „Richmond is a hard road to travel“ and do start with some pictures from my collection for you. Best wishes to all of you.

Wonderfull work you doI sized my plans down to 1/72 - without a mill it is complex to stand such a great scale challance!

Hello Alatum, this is a really complex issiue to change something on one modelkit's backbone. So the easyest way is to cut the mainboard twice (in save distance from slot N° 7) and to add a bit of plywood between the original parts. BUT this will change to hole game!!! Suddenly nothing will work - the decks basic plywood parts are too short. Also the gunports are not were they are planed to be. Nothing will be the same as before - adding the length of the backbone to the part of the given 124 1/2 feet is a gamechanger! As far as I see the kit's parts in here I think this kit is not worth it's price - the tinparts look clubsy. Also the best parts I discovered were the gun barrels - not knowing if the can match the original French barrel types. Typicaly they are taken from some other kit - but keep in mind: French barrels are "very much longer than RN barrels" - so be aware of a sudden awaking from your dreams to reorganilizie your Renommeé into a hole mass. The figure head is a proven example as a recycled kit part from the Swedish fregatt Jupiter (from the Chapman plate All together J.P. invests a huge ammount of time, ideas, patriente, creativity and money to get a Renommeé out of his kit. And he is doing a good - no a phantasic - job! Stay on your coure, J.P.! But from my point of view this kit is a wrong directed investment. I am unwilling spending $800 for this kit. By this money I can buy the Renommeé - book from Ancre, a Proxxon drilling maschine with a coordinate table below, a little lathe, a dish grinding mashine, a pile of plywood for the backbone and bulkheads and all the Fimo I'll need for the decoration. And I'm free to choose my own scale. I've to admit being still far away from starting to build her in scartch (due to my abilitys), but I was fed up with the kit when I opened the first building report somewhere and all the others I could find. The Renommeé is a beauty of 124 1/2 feet - the more models I see the more I like her. There are PoF- and PoB-models of Renommeé all over the world, worth looking at her. As I love late baroque/roccoco decoration most - I certainly fall in love to the Delacroix and Bodriout plans from the first moment I got in contact to. In some months I do eat cheaper and buy more expensive books. This is the way I'll do it - always singing "Richmond is a hard road to travel". Here nice scratch example: http://maquettes-marine.pagesperso-orange.fr/renommee/RENO01.html I don't trust myself to build a PoF model with masts and rigging. Also any pure wood model is out of my possibilitys. But a PoB model coloured with paint will be within reach - later.

Hy Chris, LaRenommeé is a permanent temptation on my bookshelf. I know her massivly overstretching my technical and craftman's abilitys - but she calls me to be build. So I'll have an interested look in here hoping you find a way to complete her. I'm far far away from your point in the project but started to struggle with the original J. J. Caffieri vs. J. Bodriout redesigned decoration. Thanks for sharing your progress, Heinrich

HallovRichmond, I'll also grap a chair and place myself in the geathering surround your paper shipyard. The HMS WOLF is a fine sloop and I like her very much. Are you going to historisize her? I worked on her plans several years ago and was astonished due to the differences to the other plans of her class. There is the questionable steering wheel I do remember and the oversized binnacle in the paper plan. Moderation is the order of the sloop - as I do read McLaughlan (Sloop Of War 1650-1763). There are some faults compared to the other Cruiser class sloops. Some of our spezialists from the Swan-Class-POF-Gang may have some interesting advises and helpful hints to you. Looking foreward to your build.

Hello Larry, please don't forget to turn the showing case from time to time around. This due to the fading of the colours by the sunlight. I know white and black are no colours but beige and anthrazit will be then.

Larry, she is an astonishing beauty. Like most of the unseen beautys she is a workhorse not a warship. Lokal history offers often amaizing storys about interesting ships far away from the „big history“ we all think we know about. Thanks a lot for this interesting lesson about a part of history. Dealing with books about british steam colliers - I have to get some practice o start a big scratch project at all - I understand your project very well. Theres still a plenty of models to be build. Aren't there thousands of wrecks all around the coastline - fourmasted saltpeter fullships, brigs and brigantines to sunken ketches or market schooners? The New Bedford Whalebote is a honorable following project - when ready we are aware of your adding the 1:16 fitting threemasted whaling ship WANDERER* of New Bedford to the whalingboat... 😉 *there are ready drawn and printed plans avaible on the internet - you would just have to enlarge them a bit.

Not very much happend this weekend - I tried twice to make a paperdeck looking wooden. And decided to use a cremecoloured paper as basis of the work. Due to the lucky fact I'm owner of the Shipyard plans of ENTERPRIZE scaled in 1/72 I can copy the gretings out of it adding them to the deck in 1/72 plans of STERLYAD to avoid the air intakes. This because I didn't find airintakes on steamships before the mid 70th. So I followed the designs I could find in Paddlewheeler's plans. So I'll change some of the deck's details. After this I can scale it down to 1/144 easily. I also tried the launches - and hoew to place them on tje deck or beside. Hope you like it, Heinrich

Hello Gaetan, thanks for sharing the dame of your workshop... Due to your scale you are very close to the real thing and damned to show every wredge in a deck's plank's rawlplug... So the light of the detailling and easier work finds it's shadow in the damnation without relief onto detailling. So my question is - Aren't you affraid of forgetting something in the the unreachable deep of these astonishing big hull?

Dear friends of the light balsawood, As I have found plans for the small Imperial Russian Navy's gunboat and the need of a chrismas present I decided to start the 1/144 bread & butter project of STERLYAD launched in 1854. I scaled down the Russian plans - and saved a 1/72 version as well - to built a little non-prominent-ship model. Both scales layed side by side to compare. And as my brother served on a minelayer I decided to try a ship as a present. The „Big Vicky of Portmouth“ isn't non-prominent... and too timeconsuming - so I looked for something smaller and ended at a Russian cruiser's launch (too small) and this gun boat that fits my limitations (depends on the display case). I decided to reuse a quickbuilding scale and method I used years ago for my Battlefleet 1900 wargaming ships (in the more workflowbreaking and fuzzy 1/780). Here all what is in use of the twosided planset: So I scaled down the plan from Sukolov - I additivly ordered the planset for the 30 amnd 64 pounder ordonances. But I have to admit the ordonance plans are - politly spoken - semi-scale. The gunboat's plans are rude in sence of detailing (there are missing any cuts or details without of anchors and some rigging detail) i have to admit. The copies I cut off and glued on the 6mm balsa wood. Taking as much model hull from a single plank as possible. Then I extracted the „superstructure“ and that's all what happend till today. Here comparing of the hights of the superstructure to the drawing: Besides a testfit on a 10mm balsa plank in between the two Ikea frames nothing important happens: Hope you don't dislike my patientfree hurrying little gunboat project too much within your detail crowned 74 and 100 gun ships, HMYs and other slowgrowing projects I like to read in so much and with gerat respect.

I put a bit of filling plywood in the hull but nothing else happend.

...so I'm going to my copyshop to minimize my plans again from 1/48 down to 1/96 - as I was only able to find my 1/64 copies for a canceled scratch project.

Hello friends - everything stood still due to the illness of my wife. So I restart the Coureur first - than in some far away time the HMS Triton will reapear from the shelf to the yard. All the documents are stored in a separarted box.