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GrandpaPhil
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Everything posted by GrandpaPhil
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First port gun: Using normal paper for the banding worked wonders!
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Plastic or Wood models? Your Favorite?
GrandpaPhil replied to Bill97's topic in Modeling tools and Workshop Equipment
For myself, I prefer wood or card for wooden ships. For steel vessels, I personally generally prefer plastic or card. Although, I have some interesting books that discuss scratch building steel ships from wood. -
This is the Orel kit of the Battleship Orel of 1904. Orel is alternately spelled Oryol and literally translates to Eagle. Having built an Orel kit before, I can attest that their kits are excellent. I bought mine off Amazon. This kit has optional laser cut and photo-etch sets available. Like the Solferino, the instructions come in Russian (I think), Polish, German and English. There are construction diagrams at the beginning of the book this time. Construction is a modified Plank On Bulkhead. The quality of the parts sheets are excellent and printed on A3 paper or card. Most parts are printed on paper for laminating onto card. Some are printed on card and ready to use. If you are interested in card models, Orel, a Ukrainian company, makes excellent ship models, in addition to a full range of other card models. They have a pretty decent selection of ironclads and pre-Dreadnoughts from around the world in 1/200 scale. Most have optional laser cut and photo-etch sets available. I liked the first model that I got from them well enough that I ordered three more. When I get the other two I’ll review them too. The price for this particular model was $46.99 with free shipping.
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All cannons that are getting seals have them: The last step prior to painting will be installing banding on the breech loaders.
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Everything that is getting seals, has them, except for the sakers. I’ll get the seals on the sakers the next time I work on my model. I am thoroughly enjoying this build. Chris did a fantastic job of drawing the plans and making the assembly booklet. Taking the plans from the Victory Models kit and expanding upon it is working out great. Plus, they are adapting to card quite nicely. I know that I didn’t really need to make the guns yet, I only needed a few carriages, but the guns are a major part of any warship. At least now I have them and I now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I could do a full set of guns for a much larger warship (like maybe a 2 or 3 decker in the future?). Carving them is not overly difficult. It only takes about 40 minutes each starting out. Once you get the hang of it, carving the cannons goes pretty smoothly and swiftly.
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I am going to try normal paper, cut from scrap, sealed on both sides, wrapped a few times for the breech loaders.
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Prototype seals: They look good so far. The detail is partially cut and partially indented into the seals. After I make these, I need to figure out the mechanics of banding the breech loaders. They are so small the card is separating when I try to wrap them.
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Here are the seals:
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All 40 cannon barrels are carved: The port guns and fowlers (the breech loaders on the lower right) still need banding. The rest of the guns, except the falcons, need the royal seal on them. That will be a task for the near future. My thanks again to @allanyed for providing the seal. I will copy the seal into Word, replicate it 32 times, sized for each of the various calibers/types of cannon, and print everything out on cardstock which will be sealed and possibly CA’d to allow for minor carving. Then, I will glue the seals to the cannon.
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1 saker and a few breech loaders left, however both falcons are made: The last saker split out on me while carving so I CA’d it. I decided to get prepped for the falcons and discovered that there was very little carving to them. So, I decided to carve them really quickly while waiting for the last saker to dry. They took about 15 minutes apiece. The breech loaders should be quick, too. Now, for that last saker.
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Is it the 1:78 or 1:98 version?
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In other news, I just ordered the Orel kits of the pre-Dreadnought battleships Mikasa and Orel, and the Ironclad Battleship La Redoutable! All 3 will most likely be rescaled to 1/100 scale
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13 cannon remaining: 5 more sakers, 2 falcons, 2 port pieces and 4 fowlers are all that’s left. The sakers are going well. The falcons are small organ pipe style cannons. The port pieces and the fowlers are the Henry VIII style block mounted breech loaders.
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First two prototype sakers are done: I am going to have to figure out gun placement and carriage construction once I finish all of the guns. The rest of the sakers will have a wood breach reinforcing band. These sakers did not because I ran out of the heavier dowel rods and have not dropped in on a hardware store yet.
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Demi-Culverins are done: Next up: 10 sakers Speaking of which, some shaping and assembly required:
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Congratulations! Very well done!
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19 cannon so far:
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I am currently reading The Adventures of Captain Hatteras by Jules Verne right now. It is interesting reading about the Franklin Expedition in 1845 from the perspective of a contemporary. The premise of the novel is an Englishman, Captain Hatteras, who wanted to reach the North Pole in 1860 aboard the steam brig Forward. Verne relates back to the previous Polar expeditions quite a lot, and the Terror and Erebus of the Franklin Expedition in particular. I haven’t finished the book yet. I’m about two thirds done with it and it is very good so far.
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- 6
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6 demi-culverins, some shaping and assembly required: I am using the same drawing for the culverins, but further reduced.
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Culverins are done: Next up: 6 demi-culverins!
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My cannon collection is growing:
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I like scalpels personally. I have an Excel brand razor saw that is on its 2nd blade in 20 years. I have a couple of coping saws for heavier work. I just replaced the blades in both of them. It should be noted that I added the saw set, that Bob mentioned, to my cart. Many people like scroll saws for cutting out small parts. Jigsaws are good for cutting out larger parts.
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11 guns: Halfway done with the culverins!
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Allen, The canon periers were put on the Elizabethan Navy vessels by Sir Francis Drake, according to “The Galleon” by Peter Kirsch. I have conflicting reports about whether they were iron or bronze. Mine will be iron. I thought about 3D printing the cannons, or just turning them. I have access to both a 3D printer and a CNC lathe. However, I enjoy the process of making everything very much. The actual fabrication process of the parts is how I relax. Thank you very much for sending me the .pdf file! It filled in some gaps I had, particularly with the royal seal (and the location) on the guns. It looks like the Tudor rose with the crown above it, superimposed on an anchor. Very similar to the one on the English culverin in the Museu de Angra do Heroísmo, Terceira Island, Azores, recovered from one of Henry VIII’s warships. And given that Elizabeth probably had her own practices in her foundries, I think that I will use the one from your drawings on my guns.
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