Iseaz

Hi, it's been a long time! Not many posts but the work continues, slowly... I've made good progress on the hull, the shroud supports, the bow and the stern I've also done the longboat, which was harder than I thought! I'm very happy with the improved crow's nest, which looks much better than the solid part supplied in the kit! I've also made good progress on the mature, all the elements have been cut, except for a few yards, as there aren't enough parts in the kit (and I should have optimised the rods to make 2 masts...). I improvised a tool to turn the wood... not incredible but it helped me a lot Nothing's glued yet because there's one big subject I'm undecided about: the cannons and their carriages. I don't really want to fit the masts before the cannons, it would be too much trouble...

Hello again, I've spent a long time without posting but I've made good progress on the hull. I've already finished the outer lines, and I've got a spiral decoration using a 2mm thick piece of round wood with holes carved in it, which looks better than twisted brass wire. Bow : I hesitated for a long time about the colour of the wooden elements, between black or the "natural" colour. The occre-coloured curves are 1x1mm, extracted from the remaining 3x1mm strips. I love working with 1x1, it allows me to add a lot of relief on a small scale, like on the frieze above the doors. For the anchor holes, I added blackened brass circles, also to add relief, and the result is superb! Below, I used a twisted decoration: 2 brass wires wound with a drill, then flattened with a hammer, then painted in occre. I'm really pleased with the way the bow looks - the curves are magnificent! Stern: For the balcony, I started by cutting the hull right up to the wall, and added a plate for a cleaner result (it was very difficult to cut in this space). The bottles are very complex to make because of the general shape, and the photoetched parts had to be adjusted to follow the curves correctly. The back panel was delicately painted and placed on the wooden piece. As there's very little relief, I added walnut-coloured 3x1 columns on the windows, and strips around the panel, for a clean finish. After struggling to paint all the columns, I glued them in place and the result is superb! Cabin: I have no idea what this cabin is for. It's not planned in the kit, but I've opened doors and windows to get a look at the illuminated interior. If I get the inspiration, I'll add some details on the outside walls... Cannons: Certainly the biggest flaw in this kit... badly moulded, undrilled cannons, simple carriages that are impossible to drill, and no wheels for the 8 cannons on the 2nd bridge, which don't even look like the other dummy cannons on the 2nd bridge. Using scraps from other models, I was able to fit the missing wheels. Unfortunately, if I wanted to replace them with brass cannons, it would have cost too much... The gun ports took a long time to make, fortunately only the first bridge has them! I still don't know what angle I'm going to give them. I've also added scratch rings to attach the rope to the gunport

Hello everyone, It's been a long time since I've posted anything, but I've made a lot of progress on my ship! I've finished planking the entire hull, which was EXTREMELY time-consuming, as it's very large. The instructions don't describe how to do it, so I had to improvise the planking to get a nice hull. At the stern, an electric bender is necessary, as the curve is very pronounced. To avoid gaps between 2 planks, I apply wood glue to the edge, removing the excess after fitting. If any holes remain, I fill them with wood glue and sand around them, so that the dust goes into the glue. Once the hull was finished, I painted the upper part in occre and made the wales. The kit includes 2x4 rods, but this seemed too wide to me, so I used leftovers from a previous model, in 1x4. The result seems much more realistic, and the installation was much easier! Next, I painted the model in the classic blacks of the era, and then took the liberty of painting the upper part in royal blue. To add realism to the breakwater, I used a cutter to simulate the wood joints. For the gunport frames, I swapped the 1x4 sapele for 1x3 deck leftovers, which adds depth and is much easier to paint and trim. I also used a cutter to mark the space between the occre-painted planks. Finally, the hull was varnished. Please let me know what you think, and if you have any tips!

MONTH 8: January 2022 The cannons were finally all drilled with a dremel, with many failures. Constructo sent me back the 16 visible cannons, but not the dummy cannons. Many of the cannons were lost because it was very difficult to drill into the brass while remaining in the centre. The result is that only one side of the ship can have all its cannons visible. On the other side, the ports are semi-closed. On the deck, I improvised a loose rigging on the supports, adding some occre rings to attach. To paint the guns, I mixed a black colour with a metallic colour, to give texture and reflection. Finally I was able to start the definitive rigging of the masts, starting with the bowsprit and following the indications of the plan. Tests were done on the foremast to check the inclination of the yards in the wind.

After a lot of sanding to adjust the gunports guides I started the planking. It was quite hard to align the first plank, which is crucial for the rest of the planking. I also had to think about the placement of the stringers on the deck: I like the guns to pop out of the hull, but the stringers prevent the carriage to be against the wall. So I improvised by cutting the stringers at the position of the guns. The inside of the walls was painted with the iconic red.

Thank you Gary ! On the stern, the posts were ruining the view and were not really useful to support the upper deck, I removed them to the base to keep a point of attachment to the sternpiece. The bulkheads required some extra work to run and hide the cables, but the result is worth the effort. Work has progressed on the bow, with the planking (+ walls on the ports to add some depth). You can see here that the pre-cut deck piece is not aligned with the gunport guide. I chose to add some material to compensate for this. The surface for guiding the gunports needed a lot of sanding before planking. One day to sand everything is very long ... I finally designed guides from the pre-cut leftovers to drill the false walls in the middle. Here's the epic result with the raw barrels : I hope to start soon the planking, the step I'm fearing the most, especially since it's a single planked kit...

MONTH 7 : December 2021 As the bow is very simplified and boring, I decided to paint abstract patterns in the black parts. It was a very long and complex job, hand painted in 2 layers. The result is surreal but I think it is beautiful. Also, I wasn't a fan of the white color of the wood, after much thinking I opted for the yellowish pine color, to look like this illustration. During the Christmas vacations, a lot of work was done on the details and the masts. I also took a break for a few days to work on a 1/72 plastic model, which is quite a change of scale!

The Christmas holidays were very productive, I was in a rush to get as much done as possible before going back to school, so here is a summary. I started by carving the structure before gluing everything, to make 2 false decks under the gratings which will be illuminated. I drilled a lot of holes for the wire runs. The protection of the oven was scratch built. To save glue for the decks, I tried double-sided tape, with a few dots of glue, and it works! The joints were simulated with a pencil, but for the most visible bridge, I cut 8 cm planks, to show the joints and to have different textures between 2 planks end to end. It was very long but the result is much more realistic. As the stern will be illuminated and visible, I printed a tile pattern (drawn on Sketchup), as well as bulkheads, which won't be too visible. This result works perfectly for me! I added a small table with 2 chairs, and I replaced the portholes in windows on each side. The bow structure was reinforced to have a better support for the planking, which required a lot of sanding... I relocated a window in the stern by raising it, which was low to the deck ( just like on the real ship) and I didn't like it, so I aligned it with the other smaller ones. Also, I have started to build the interior bulkheads, but I am stuck because I have lost a window... To blacken the brass, I used AK burnisher. The reaction is a bit slow but with only a little bit of product, I was able to burnish all 140 rings as well as some diecast parts! Here is the progress in 2 weeks, I'm very happy with the result with the LEDs, I'm sure it will be the future masterpiece of my collection!

Unboxing First of all, I don't find the box very interesting, it's just a picture printed and glued on a cardboard box. Inside, everything is well organized. There are 4 plastic boxes inside : + Lots of details, the pieces are quite clean, in wood and diecast. The door and window frames may be replaced in wood. - The cannons and carriages are in diecast, which is not very good. Moreover the barrels are not completely drilled, I think about buying better barrels. Good surprise, the pulleys and pins are made of wood! Occre uses a lot of composite on other kits, but it's not very nice. There are a lot of pre-cuts, and a big pack for the hull structure. And here's the bunch of ropes, different colors and sizes, I hope there's enough 😅! Then the set of wood rods, lots of basswood, sapele for the submerged hull and some walnut: Finally, the set of sails (over 20 sails!) Hand sewn: And as a bonus, the led kit I found on Aliexpress, 2 receivers of 10 led each, and so 20 led color yellow/orange. It's basically for Lego, but their small size and ease of use are ideal for model making! It cost me less than 20 €, and will not require soldering.

Hello everyone ! Today I'm glad to present you my new project for the upcoming months (years?). Context: I may have been too ambitious ... 🤔 My initial plan was to choose a medium size kit after finishing my King of Prussia from Corel, for less than 300€. But there was the black friday at Occre, I saw this beautiful kit at -30%, at 370€ instead of 530€, I could not resist the temptation. I am now building the most complex ship from Occre, while I am a student in last year of civil engineering school 😅 For the historical point, the Montanes was a 74 guns Spanish ship launched in 1794 and wrecked in 1810. It participated in the battle of Trafalgar but was only slightly damaged and managed to return to Cadiz. Objectives: Besides finishing this model, I have set myself a few other goals. The first one will be to illuminate the model with a method I've never seen before in model making, using LEDs designated for Lego sets. Secondly, I would have liked to have a french 74 gun ship, but I only know one kit, Le Superbe from Mantua, which does not seem to be of such good quality. So, the goal will be to modify this model to be closer to a French ship, while keeping some details specific to this model, making a hybrid Spanish/French ship. The model as a whole will be a fictional ship, but I will try to make historically accurate modifications of some elements. I will base my work on pdf's from Jean BOUDRIOT's collection "le vaisseau de 74 canons' ' and many other build logs (Montanes, san ildefonso or Superbe) , especially on John Aliprantis' video series of the Montanes. I hope this log will be interesting !! The next post will be the unboxing.

Thanks a lot! Keith, this Royal William is on a whole other level, amazing, can't wait to see more! MONTH 6 : November 2021 Work progressed everywhere, especially on the deck and the lower part of the stern, the kit provided only 2 gunports, instead of 4 on the original design. As I knew I had some gunport parts left, I simply added 2, on a black background. On the deck, there were some problems with the stairs and landings that didn't look like the instructions. In fact, they were too short to pass over some of the cannons properly. I fixed this problem by adding steps between the landing and the upper deck. The solid railings had to be bent to follow the walls, which was impossible without an electric plank bender. In the end, the curve was different from the railings (made of pre-cut wood). So I had to trim them, refine them to correct their curve. The masts are also beginning to take on more detail, with the foremast jib.

MONTH 5 : October 2021 The beautiful stern was finished this month. To align the grid, I made a small plan on sketchup, to know all the dimensions. Then I had to make the windows: the kit provided a very thin mesh, not very practical to cut and not very pretty. I did a first test with brass rods, but it was not convincing. Finally I tried to print a pattern on paper, and to my surprise, the result is very good! In the meantime, the bottles were built, filled and painted and the many decorations were put up. I started to think about the shroud holders: the kit provides a 1cm wide board, but when testing a wire, you realise that it touches the top of the hull (on the railings). Indeed, the particularity of this ship is that the shroud doors are at the level of the 2nd gun deck (and not the 3rd). I therefore enlarged them by 6mm and sanded them to adapt to the curve of the hull. A varnish from OCCRE was applied under the hull, which brings out nicely the wood grain.

The next part of the model consists of the rigging and the making of the yards. I made them by inserting the wooden rod in an electric drill and sanding progressively. On the central part, I covered with 0.6x4 wood to create a hexagonal section. Then I sanded, painted, added the details and blocks, and attached them to the mast one by one. The end of the construction is approaching, there are still a lot of rope knots to place to finalize the detail work. The future model has already been ordered during this black friday, I hope not to receive it before finishing this one ...😅

Thanks a lot, I hope this thread will help you avoid some mistakes, if it's the same model! MONTH 4 : September 2021 The first decorations are installed, the gold paint was a nightmare to paint with a paintbrush... A first small improvement was the orientation of the "legs" on the bow, for a more realistic look even if the design of the bow remains very simplified. The most impressive part is the stern, with a large amount of miniature. I improved the model by slightly bending the grid (horizontal lines) to follow the decks. You can also see the final stage of the bottle, with lots of bits of wood to form the dome.

The rigging continues with the start of my construction of the yards (gaff-sail boom?). The gaff jaws had to be cut out of 2 blocks of wood, then the dye was applied. In the same time, I also started the installation of the shrouds. With only 2 shrouds in 3 parts, this boring step is quite fast (even if I still haven't finished...). Despite a few mistakes on the plan numbers, the rigging is a very pleasant step on which I like to take my time.

MONTH 3: August 2021 At the start of the month I finished drilling all the gun ports and planking the hull. It seems that there is a mistake in the plan, it says to add a 2x4 walnut strip instead of 2x6, to have the right height in the middle of the deck, but the wall was too low on the poop deck. I then added a remaining 2x2 rod from another model. Note that some ports were more complex to open because of the bulkheads that went through the same place. A better design of the model could have made this step easier... Another very difficult step was the bottle at the stern. I had to cut and glue many small pieces of wood to make the complex shape, with a not very precise guide. To fill the holes, I used wood glue and then sanded around it to make a thin layer of wood dust. The painted result is quite good compared to the raw shape without paint. On the bow, the elements are not pre-cut, which took a lot of time to adjust. An electric bender was very useful to bend the larger piece under the figurehead. I also enlarged the space for the anchor rope holes from 4 mm to 6 mm high, as it seemed too small. The grating was tricky to cut because of the slightly rounded shape of the deck. I tried to make a relief effect on the side of the railings with a nail in a guide made from pieces of wood. The result is not very clean, because of the average quality of this wood, there was a lot of residue that I could not get out. Of course it would have been easier if I had managed to find a micro profiler from artesania latina Finally, I added nail marks on vertical lines between the ports with a pencil.

The guns were finally painted red and attached after many minutes of thinking. I chose to attach them in a more " ordered " way, like in another model I saw. Before that, I slightly modified the carriages by cutting horizontal lines and imitating the nails with a pencil, as well as the wheels. At the risk of running out of thread for the rest of the model, I used leftovers from other kits. I re-tooled some HMS Prince hinge scraps to simulate the “capsquare” (?). After that, the rigging really started with the standing part. The rope provided is only one colour, I used TAMIYA panel line to blacken them, which is very effective. As this model is bigger than my previous ones, the rope can be more easily detailed, for example on how to attach the blocks more realistically

MONTH 2: July 2021 The work continued with the drilling of the gunports. This was done with a rotary tool through a lot of small holes on the sides, then I sanded them. A small wooden guide allowed me to see if the gunports had the right dimensions. In the middle of the guide, I put a pencil lead to place the drilling point on the false wall for the dummy guns. I saw several problems afterwards: the 2 artillery decks in the hull are a few millimetres too low, my reference lines were not at the same place as on the plan... Also, despite the wooden guide, there were a few mistakes, ports that were too wide or too tall... These details were obvious during construction, but on the finished model, thanks to the other details, you don't notice anything! The drilling and sanding of the more than 100 ports in addition to the installation of the mantelets was a very repetitive and boring task so I also started building the bowsprit, bow and stern.

MONTH 1: JUNE 2021 The adventure began. I received the box on June 4, very excited to finally have a model ship of the line. It's a beautiful box, inside, everything was nicely arranged. I obviously started by making the bulkheads, checking the perpendicularity with Lego blocks. The pieces were well cut, thick, rigid and fit together very well. Then I installed the false walls for the dummy guns, which were long wooden strips to be inserted through all the bulkheads. As it didn't fit properly, the holes had to be enlarged and big hammer hits had to be used. This could have been risky for the installation of the guns if the walls were too high or too low in comparison to the gunports... Then comes the planking. A second sapelli plank is available just in case, but the kit is made for simple planking. It was a challenge for me, but I did it quite well! Be careful though, one or two bulkheads were not wide enough, to avoid a hollow in the hull, I added 2 layers of 0.6 mm planks on the sides to make them wider. Another remark, the guns were awful, I had made a post about it here...

Hello everyone! Here is my HMS Prince (constructo 1/61), started in June 2021 and finished in June 2022, after 1 year and 10 days of work. This is my third model after the Polaris and La Candelaria de Occre, and by far the most difficult to make. It's a beautiful model but not without its flaws, like the guns that were not drilled, some mistakes in the plans and not enough rope. This adventure was exceptional, I didn't think it would last this long, but it wasn't boring. Brief history: she is a first rank ship of the line built in 1670 in England, based on the plans of Phineas Pett. Her artillery is composed of 100 guns spread over 3 decks. Her length is 50m. Flagship of the English fleet during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, she fought De Ruyter's flagship De Zeven Provinciën. In 1692, she was rebuilt and renamed HMS Royal William until her dismantling in 1813. As for the model, I chose it because it was one of the cheapest ships of the line and its decorations are magnificent. In this log, I will post the pictures of each month of the construction detailing the problems encountered, the solutions, the mistakes and the many improvements I added. I hope it will be useful for beginners like me who encounter the same problems! IMPORTANT NOTE: This model is a balance between feasibility, aesthetics and historical reality. This is my version of the ship, which I have slightly customized to my taste.

Hello again, As I still can't decide on the colors of the cannon carriages 😅, I started to make the main mast. The top had to be carved, tapered and cut into a square section. For the upper part, I cut the square section in another larger piece of wood and glued it to the mast by adding a brass rod to reinforce the connection. For the mast, I chose to make the supports (1) in two parts of 2mm+3mm instead of 5mm because I failed to precisely cut the piece to insert the bars (2). Thanks to the walnut dye, the connection between the 2 and 3mm parts is barely visible. Now I have a problem because I don't know which way to orientate the mast: the instructions indicate direction 1 whereas all the models I have made so far are in direction 2. I don't know if this is a typical detail of this kind of ship 🤔. Then i made the anchors, which had a problem: the hole in the bar was too big, so I filled it with the remains of another model mast and re-drilled the hole. The reinforcement rings are simply made with black cardboard (like on the capstan). Here is a last view with the coloured carriages in walnut (nothing is glued):

Hello everyone, Thanks for the advice! The deck is almost finished, but I need to install the guns before making the mast. I'm wondering if I should paint them red or leave them in natural wood to add contrast (like on the box illustration). Were the supports always painted red at that time? Do you have any suggestions? Here is a photoshop editing to see the result :

Before finding a solution, I repaired the railing and repainted the whole thing black to hide all the glue stains. The paint is really a cheat code on this build 😅... I saw on another build that the stair cover was bulging, it's a good detail that I tried to reproduce, by soaking the parts in hot water and then using a plank bender. I then worked on a big piece: the capstan. This involves cutting a 12mm diameter round piece into a hexagon. It was quite challenging to keep a good shape, but I'm happy with the result (far from perfect). Also, I carved the mast of the bowsprit in square at the base, then I added a thickness of wood to fill the lack of material: Here is a preview of the deck, with most of the elements not glued:

Hello everyone! I didn't have a lot of time to make progress or repairs in the last few weeks, I only did the gratings. Now I'm wondering how to glue them as the deck is quite curved. I have 3 ideas: bend them (is there a method?) sand them to fit the curve of the deck enlarge the opening of the bridge to insert them What would you recommend?

Today is a sad day. Mistakes were made. I started the weekend by installing the railings, after bending the pieces flat to follow the hull. It was difficult to apply the glue because of the size of the small supports and the stresses induced by the rail. I was satisfied to see that it held. But today, as I was drilling the holes for the swivel gun with a rotary tool, I don't know why, the right hand rail exploded taking part of the stern rail with it. I quickly tried to glue it back together but it made it worse because of the glue residue. It's very frustrating, I've stopped everything for the moment and will start again next week to fix everything. I should have attached the supports with pieces of nails Some pictures before the accident, how I sanded the supports to the right height :