shipmodel

Hi Nils - Really nice work on those spindles. The framework is coming together well. I can almost see her scudding across the waves. The gratings are nice and clean. The deck planking is coming along too, but I have a small issue with the three butt joints in the short planks between the gratings. Although they fit in with your planking pattern for the deck, I don't think a ship builder would add in an extra joint unless he was really short of wood. It's a really small point, and this deck will rarely be seen, but it's something to keep in mind for the upper decks. Dan

Patrick - Thank you so much for posting your build of Renommee. You are doing excellent work and I look forward to following and learning from your experience. The scale figure is wonderful. Is it carved from wood, or other material. Dan

Bob - I have some thin white striping tape coming, which I was going to paint green and try to apply. After your suggestions, i will add some coats of clear on top for strength. Marc - I have some Tamiya masking tape for curves coming, and will try to do the masking that you suggest. Or I will gladly ply you with Maker's Mark after you have done the masking for me. Druxey - Failing everything else, I will cut a nice horizontal line across my forehead and slip in a layer of green jello as a boot topping. By then my brains will have turned to goo anyway. Later Dan

Hi Bob - I have some decal film, but did not think that it was strong enough to make a striping tape out of. Another thing to try. Thanks. Marc - I am bad . . . make that HORRIBLE . . . at masking and painting. No matter what I do I always get some bleeding under the mask. Then I have to clean that up, then I have to clean up the cleanup, etc. etc. I am also not confident that I can mask both edges of the green so it is a consistent width. If I had done some prior planning I could have done a reverse mask of the green lines, but now that the hull is painted, that option is gone. Maybe next time. Dan

Hi Druxey - Good suggestion. I will add it to my experiments. How do you get the paper to achieve a smooth horizontal line across surfaces that curve in three dimensions? Do you cut the curve beforehand? Thanks Dan

Hi Clare - Just caught up with your fascinating build. Great work. I especially like how clean your woodworking is, one misplaced mortice notwithstanding. Everything fits together perfectly, like a Japanese puzzle box. I found a folding chair and will join the appreciative audience. Dan

Hi all – Thanks for the likes and compliments, and for following along. Now that the QAR 2 is done and delivered I can get back to this project, and to posting progress reports. Sorry for the long delay. Here is where I had reached last time, the hull shaped and painted, with the Promenade deck done except for some small details. The Boat deck has been shaped, both the deckhouse and its ‘roof’ which becomes the surface of the next deck up, the Superior deck. The Boat deckhouse, including several inset doorways, has been mostly sheathed. Decking sheet has been applied to the Superior deck surface where it will show around the deckhouse. From here the solid railing was applied around the perimeter of the deckhouse. It was important to make sure that it rose a consistent height of 3mm (42”) above the deck surface so it did not look uneven. In addition, this solid railing here and around the Superior deck is shown on the plans and the photographs as overhanging the deckhouse below. The overhang is only about a foot, but it creates a shadow line that had to be replicated. My solution to these two problems was to first shape and sheathe the lower deckhouse. The roof piece was cut slightly overlarge, then trimmed and sanded to sit exactly flush with the sheathed deckhouse. In the photo the deckhouse is upside down with the untrimmed edge of the roof to the left and the finished edge to the right. This is actually the Superior deckhouse and its roof, but the technique for the Boat deck was the same. After finishing the roof edge my paper planking sheets were cut oversize and glued down parallel to the centerline. When the glue was dry the paper was trimmed to the edge. This has to be done now, since it would be much more difficult to cut the decking to fit after the railings are on. On top of the roof several spacers of 3mm sheet wood were loosely taped to the planking Now the deckhouse was turned over again on a clean, level spot on the workbench. A plastic strip 5mm wide was cut, then set down on the bench and offered to the trimmed edge of the deckhouse roof. It covered the edge and, because of the spacers, always rose a consistent 3mm above the deck. Piece by piece it was permanently attached to the roof edge. Here is the railing of the Superior deck overhanging the Boat deck. The shadow line is just enough, I think, to indicate the overhang without being too stark. And here the Superior deckhouse has been capped by the overhanging Lido deck rail. This worked very well for the aft ends of these two decks. At the bow, however, there was a problem. As you can see in the photo, the forward faces of the Boat and Superior decks are flush with each other, as are the sides, aft to a common setback just ahead of the boats. Not only are the two decks flush, but the forward face is sloped aft quite a bit, as seen on the plans. To produce this smooth slope, I needed the two decks fixed together, but to work on the details of the deckhouses, especially the handrails that go above the solid railings, they had to be separate. I have to say that I have not yet solved this problem. I did clamp the decks together, drilled pilot holes and screwed them together without glue. This allowed me to do the rough shaping of the combined bow end, but I found that the positioning was not exactly repeatable, so I am still working on a better solution and leaving the forward area unfinished for now. As a bit of an incentive, I removed the masking from the lower hull and applied the upper, narrow green line with 1/16” vinyl pinstriping tape. I am not happy with the product. It is too thick and does not take the needed curves at the bow and stern very easily. The 3/16” boot topping was impossible to work around the counter at the stern without radical and obvious surgery, so it was removed. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find thin striping tape in green in the right widths. I am still experimenting with other solutions without a lot of success. But with the remaining deck pieces and funnel cages stacked up, I can see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And here she is posed in front of the model sized plan for the QAR. Quite a contrast, nu? More soon. Be well, everyone. Dan

Nek0 - Well said, sir. Very well said. I am also on the artistic side of the artist/engineer spectrum of model ship builders. I do not think of myself as building a miniature ship, but creating a sculpture that resembles, to a close degree, the look of a particular ship. The historian in me insists that I get as close to the actual look as I can, but I recognize that this is forever to be out of reach due to the limitations of scale, technique, and my poor talents. It is nice to see that this philosophy is shared by others. Dan

Marc - I take it all back. I took a look at what .033 actually looks like, and I am impressed that you got even one centered hole. Great work. Will you be applying them to the hull before or after you paint the planks? Dan

Hi Marc - The bolts and washers look good. You are much better at slicing off tiny pieces of rod than I am. I don't know if it is too late for this suggestion, but there is a technique that works for me in situations like this - I drill the holes for the bolt heads before I part off the washers from the styrene strip. A simple jig will give you a line of holes .033" from each other and centered along the strip. Then you just have to cut between the holes. You can drill into the hull where you want the bolt to go, then pin through the washer and into the hull with your bolt. Glue, clip and clean up. Hope that can help you. Dan

Hi Ondras - This looks like an interesting project, a build of another 16th Century ship, and quite difficult, with your having to compare and adjust two different sets of plans. I read through your prior build log, and you clearly have all the skills and talents that you will need for a fine rendering of the ship. I have pulled up a chair and look forward to enjoying your progress. Be well Dan

Hi Marc, Jan - If French practice at the end of the 17th Century is any guide, the hull planks were fastened with alternating wooden treenails and iron bolts. At butt ends I suspect that two bolts would have been used in the more problematic areas under strain. Not a definitive answer, but highly probable. Dan

Hi Marc - Thank you for posting photos of your outstanding work. You are clearly a very accomplished draughtsman and woodworker, and your model is well on its way to being a top notch work. I will be following along with great interest. It will also be very informative to compare and contrast your work with Hubac Historian's plastic model, and Michel Saulnier's as well. I may never build one of these massive projects, but I will learn a great deal from all of your efforts. Thanks again. Dan

Hi all - Thanks for the likes and compliments. I am quite happy with how it finally came out, and the museum people seem to like it too. I did work out one final technique for the sails. Over the months that it took to make, hang, and rig the sails, they developed some kinks, bumps and dents that took away from the simple billowed shapes that I wanted. But I realized that they are all stiffened with matte medium, which responds to heat by softening. So I 'borrowed' my wife's hair dryer which has separate controls for temperature and fan power. Using the high fan with heat I softened each sail while blowing it forward (or to port for the staysail and lateen). The heat worked a treat in smoothing out wrinkles and bumps, and the fan filled the sail with wind. Once it took on the shape that I wanted I turned the dryer to its cool setting, but left the fan on high. After a few minutes the matte medium set in the desired configuration and the fan was shut off. None of the lines were damaged and the look of the sails was much improved. This should work with almost all stiffened sails, even those done with dilute white glue. Hope it works for you. Dan

Hi John - An interesting project, especially if you are looking for a level of historic appearance. Count me in. As for the color, I think you are right - in the photo it looks too far to the orange end of the chart. Since the color red was associated with the notion of being 'sacred', I imagine that it was derived from the color of blood. Somewhere between the crimson of fresh spilled and the brown/maroon of dried blood. A quick review of waka images on Google has canoes painted a surprisingly wide range of colors and tones. Some to the orange side, but some even to the purple end of the spectrum. This is compounded by photo conditions that can change the appearance of the same object. You could find a shade that you like and mix your current color with a bit of brown, black, or even dark green. Just record what you have added so you can duplicate it when you find the mix that dries to the color you want. Best of success. Dan

Hi to all who are following along - Sorry that I have not posted any progress recently, but I had to complete the second edition of the Queen Anne's Revenge for the North Carolina Maritime Museum. You can see the finished model by clicking on the Queen Anne's Revenge site below in my signature and going to the end. I will get back to this project shortly. Best wishes to all our friends in Texas and Florida. Dan

Hi all - Well, the second coming of the Queen Anne's Revenge is done - finally - and will be on its way to North Carolina on Friday. There are some minor differences between this one and the first (i.e. chains for the lower deadeyes rather than straps were discovered underwater, so they were changed on the model). But overall, they are very similar in both technique and final appearance. I did plank the entire lower hull before putting on the white stuff, which eliminated the earlier hairline cracks from the movement in the wood of the framing, but very little else. Here are some of the finished photos. The blue flags are Post-It paper to warn of where the bowlines for the sails are. They are well nigh invisible without them. All questions, comments and critiques are welcome. Be well Dan

I trust that there is an open chair in the front row. I have always been interested in ship types that are not the usual British, American and European line of battle ships. This should be a very fascinating build. The lateen rig is one that I know very little about. Looking forward with great anticipation to learning new things and watching your talented construction techniques. Dan

Hi Nils - Just saw that you are thinking of building a Chebec for your next project. If memory serves, Frederick af Chapman has a wonderful plate of drawings in Architectura Navalis Mercatoria on the Chebec. Probably where Amati derived theirs, but I would trust a marine architect like Chapman before I would trust a kit maker to be accurate. I am sure that they did their best, but they probably made some changes to accommodate the limitations of kit manufacturing. You could get both, compare them, then decide for yourself. I will pull up a chair for a ringside seat whenever you start. Be well, Dan

Hi Marc - I used a very similar technique when I did the Heller Sovereign of the Seas. First a primer, then a base coat of buff yellow flat acrylic. The difference is that I then used a wash of brown wood stain rather than a full opaque layer of brown paint which has to be partially removed. The issue I found with an opaque coat is that it is difficult to remove equally, especially around protrusions. Thus you get dark patches, like the lines across the stern of the Hollandia. You may have similar problems with the bolt heads on your wales. I completely agree with Herbert that you should do a lot of testing before committing to the final model. I know that your artistic talents are up to the job. Dan

Superb, Nils. A museum in your home. How wonderful and inspiring. Dan

Hi again - When you get the second kit, it will give you lots of test pieces to work out solutions to issues like the grain. As to that, I am sure that you have already worked out how you are going to simulate wood on the plastic surface. Once you have that base layer on which should fill the grain a bit, you might consider a 'filter' wash of very dilute darker color. It should settle into grooves of the grain to make them visible without overemphasizing them. Just a technique that I read in FineScale Modeler. Looking forward to seeing how you work it out. Puzzle problems like this are the best part of ship modeling for me. Dan

Hi Marc - You are welcome to store stuff in my locker in the basement of my building. Not really convenient, since you are in Manhattan, but better than PA Dan

Hi Chuck - Looking forward to watching your artistic and engineering talents on display once again. If those stem pieces fit together as well as you describe, you have taken laser cutting and kit making to the next level. Thank you. Dan

Hi Ken - I'm always interested in an unusual build, and this promises to be a good one. Add me to the audience. 1:376 is an odd scale, but, if you haven't already, you can find 1:350 scale railings, ladders, doors, etc. which should work for you. Try Gold Medal Models and Tom's Modelworks. Are you building it hollow because you will be detailing the interior spaces, or because it will be R/C powered? Best of success with the project Dan