DARIVS ARCHITECTVS

VERY close: It's a 1944 SKW NZ-350/1, the Wehrmacht variant, 61,000 made, which is more scarce than the NZ-350. Key changes are the military front fender and the cyclone separator (Wirbelluftfilter) which "spins" the sand out of the air at the carburetor intake. The rear seat is also a rare feature. There are only five of these in the USA. Very reliable, two-stroke, 348cc engine. Top speed 88 kph.

Ahh.. you have a practiced eye for vehicles! I salute you. Now name this one, which is my personal vehicle:

The 251 is my favorite vehicle to ride in for WWII reenactments.

Hey.. I'm in Ramsey, Minnesota. Are you nearby? Nice to see others from MN here! My specialty has become 17th century men of war.

Welcome fellow Minnesotan!

Auf Deutsch, Musketenflicken für Kugeln (3):

Hello Joseph! I built the Revell USS Constitution when I was 16, which was in 1980. That model is very nice, but cries out for cloth sails. Welcome to the forum! I'm sort of down under relative to Toronto, being in Minnesota. However, I don't have that awesome accent that the Aussies sport, being a simple mid-westerner. 😁

I am at your disposal and to any who have questions on building La Couronne. PM me for my email address, which gets my attention sooner than a PM on this forum. Best wishes! Oh, and go back to my first response above because some changes were made. As for the bowsprit, I should have moved the base of it to the starboard side of the stem, not placed it on centerline. I also learned as I went since La Couronne was my first ship, and some of the things I wanted to change in mid-stream could not be done because the build progressed too far. In the build log somewhere is a list of mistakes and features that should be changed based on later information, but on the whole, the model turned out far better than my expectations. The precise construction of La Couronne is a mystery, with no first hand drawings or paintings of the ship except one, shown below. It is a sketch from an overlooking mountain of the harbor below, with La Couronne moored behind the similar but smaller ship Saint Louis (circled in blue). Not much can be learned, EXCEPT that if you look closely, you can count the gun ports, and see that the channels (chain wales) are located above the lower gun deck and the upper gun deck. Note also that the topgallant and topmasts are taken down in this sketch. Also, the main and mizzen masts are raked rearward, with the foremast vertical, a common practice for the time. This is why I redesigned the channels and shrouds, moving them lower on the hull, as was often featured on early 17th century ships. That's about all we know. Later plans, pictures, and designs are interpretations. A smaller ship appears in the foreground alongside La Couronne. A pinnace (lighter support ship) perhaps? For me, La Couronne was more research than model building. Don't hesitate to ask me the source of any particular feature, but understand that a lot is based on general 17th century ship knowledge, not information specific to the construction of La Couronne.

My build log of La Couronne may be of some use to you: La Couronne. It is also built from the Corel model, because it seemed that the Vincenzo Lusci design was too tall and the decks too steep in the stern to be practical as a working ship, probably taking ship paintings from the 17th century a bit too literally. The rigging plan was taken from Lusci with a few exceptions. Because sails were added to the Corel plans, many more lines had to be added. It was very difficult to interpret the Lusci rigging plans and text from Italian, which is foreign to me. Mahogany is rather brittle with its coarse grain, although I did use it as the structural wood for the gallery towers. It's best used as a final finish layer on the hull like in the pictures above, supported by wood underneath. Because thin mahogany breaks if you try to cut it with a dull blade, you can either use a sharp blade or a rotary diamond bit in a Dremel took to grind and shape parts quickly without splitting it. American walnut is stronger, but still a coarse grained wood, and prone to occasional splitting, and it does not bend very far without breaking unless soaked with water and steamed by applying heat with a hot iron while forming. Ladders on 1:100 scale are best done with a fine grain wood like boxwood and stain it dark. This is how I made the ladders, using boxwood with mahogany or sapelle wood on the outsides for contrast and to hide the ends of the steps.

Having done milling on a drill press, I suggest you use a mallet and tap the chuck up into the spindle to set that taper firmly in position because vibration will usually cause the chuck and tool to fall out. Stopping periodically and tapping the chuck to set it firmly in BEFORE it falls out is a workaround but reduces the risk a bit. I never tried adding Locktite to the taper because of lack of time, but it's an idea. Of course, you'll have to tap out the chuck from the spindle with a mallet when you're done if the job was successful. It's a hack operation but still cheaper than buying a mill.