Barbossa

Thank you for the praise.
When I tackle the Yamato there will of course be a construction report, Yves. But I fear that it will take a while before that happens.
I'm currently pursuing a slightly different model building project that involves a completely different type of ship.
I will then show it in the Non-ship/categorised builds section.
So all that's left for me to do now is to present you the pictures of the finished model and wish you a lot of fun looking at them.
I would like to thank you again for all the nice comments and I am happy that you have accompanied me.
So raise the curtain...
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Post Ninety-four
 
Stern and Qtr galleries.
This is a critical area of the build, and no matter how many times I have done it before (which is quite a few) I still feel edgy when I begin the task.
One of the things I noticed when looking at the manual pics is that the forward bracket of the Qtr gallery assembly does show thro’ the light at an awkward angle, and the gallery beyond the middle light is a shelf not a floor.

Prototype build photo
This is a simplification for strength and ease of construction.
My first action was to modify the gallery assembly by removal of the forward gallery bracket, and the ‘shelf’ element.
Fortunately, mdf is soft and cuts cleanly with a sharp scalpel.

2386
I converted the bracket into a mini knee.
The modification in its raw state, it still has sufficient stability.

2390

2404
It doesn’t take much effort to do this, and I think it does improve the authenticity of the galleries.
 
With the Qtr gallery assembly fixed in place, slow and careful sanding of the stern frames is necessary to ensure the stern facia and Upper counter sit correctly.
Multiple dry run tests are carried out including trying the Qtr gallery windows in place.

2410
As a final act before fitting I painted the inner frames of the stern to match the décor. Unpainted mdf looked unfinished.

2412
The stern gallery is then glued and I’m pleased with the fit against the upper counter.
This shouldn’t come as surprise if the set-up was done correctly way back in the build when the lower counter was first fitted.

2417
Note how the top of the tafferal butts against the template pieces I added at the time to represent the capping rails.
 
The trickiest part proved to be fitting the finishing below the gallery mullions.
I found it useful to heat bend the part (568) to induce a curve to take the fight out of it.

2426
It also needed a lateral bend at the lower aft end to meet the lower wedge section.

2429
Once pinned into place they were again given the heat treatment to hopefully impart the shape conformation.

2422
I seem to have a small gap at the aft end where it meets the counter, but I don’t view this as significant at this stage, even if a tad annoying.

2425
 
B.E.
19/10/2023
 
 

The base plate
 
Now that the hull is still easy to handle, the base plate is first made. The material is oak (recycled)
Components

Base is glued and sanded

Determine the shape of the supports

Work in progress

Thanks for following

Made some progress:

Got more pieces roughed out and attached to the carving board!

Small update
 
The planking of the starboard side goes smoothly.
The bulk heads are adjusted in advance and the frames of the cannon ports were already partly made.
It's simply taking the dimensions from the port side to the starboard side and start planking.
and the laser also comes in handy.

I had some sawing work for another project and so I sawed wood for the base plate.

Thanks for following

Good luck with this challenging project.
Google and to be more specific, Wikipidia show us an interesting image of a Wappen von Hamburg shipmodel emplaced in a church (?)
Never understood why Corel did not use this model as a starting point to commercialize their kit.

Good luck with this challenging project.
Google and to be more specific, Wikipidia show us an interesting image of a Wappen von Hamburg shipmodel emplaced in a church (?)
Never understood why Corel did not use this model as a starting point to commercialize their kit.

Greetings!
 
Seems I forgot to do my last post for this fine kit.  Well, here it is.  Several pics of the completed ship and 2 with it in the case.  The ship was 4 cm too tall to fit in the back of my SUV so I had to rent a panel truck to get it to my office.  

Thanks for following along with my build log and be sure to check out "Foss Landing and the Shipyard at Foss Landing" in the Non-ship build section of shore leave.
Jeff
 

good morning everyone
thank you for comments and likes
day 204-7
apologies for not interacting with the forum much recently, lots going on in the background, nothing at all bad, just busy
before you all laugh at me about my way of rigging this build, i vowed i would start at the front and work aft, most lines are still just temp and still to be fixed into position, today the foemast mast yard will be mad up, then hopefully get the ratlines done
it might all just bite me on the bum
 
the line between the fore and main is a temp backstay as non are fitted

 

good morning everyone
gardening, and puppy arrangements as well as PC gaming have got in the way of the Indy, never mind though its not a race, even though next build is planned LOL
 
on table 201 -7 days
 
when i put  the Catharpin's in everything around the futtock staves looked bulky, so i redid the futtock shrouds and Catharpin's again and again it  was 4 times before deciding to leave them, not brilliant but not looking quite as bad
then made a decision that may bite me in the future, to go ahead a put the bowsprit on, as this was already made up and ready to go


 

Log #47: The Gun Tackle
I have finally completed tying all the gun tackle blocks. So now it is time to get started on the tackle itself.
 
A while back I constructed a jig to hold a cannon in and used it to rig a single side of the gun.

I had originally planned to use this jig to do all of the tackle, but I realized that this made matters unnecessarily complicated. Having made one gun tackle I then used it to make a jig that I could use to mass produce them. I started the process by running the rope through the blocks and then sliding the hooks onto the two pins.

Then I wrapped the rope around and used a tiny touch of super glue to hold it in place.

I then finished the wrapping again using a small dot of super glue to hold things together at the end. Notice in this picture I also have a second pin at a shorter distance. This is to do the slightly shorter tackles which hook onto the eyebolts that are attached to the shot racks.

I then used the four pins to form the rope coil. This is held in place by a few strategically placed dots of glue. Then once the coil is formed I cover it all in matt varnish to hold it together. In the picture below you can see the rope looks wet because the varnish has not yet dried.

Once everything is dry I pop it off the pins.

I then hook the tackle onto the cannon and use small dots of super glue to hold the rope coil in the correct place. Everything is then given a thin coat of diluted matt varnish to take the shine off of it and hold it secure. Once it is dry I need to check for any shiny spots from the super glue and use matt varnish to get rid of them. In the picture below you can see that not everything is perfectly dry and there are a few spots I will have to deal with.

Hello friends,

Today I post the final and promissed update. It's the photoshoot and the nameplate that's been made.
Well here we go and sit down for a lot of pictures and I hope you like them....

Regards,
Peter
 



En dan de eindfoto's...

(So several months back, I had this huge big plastic model ship kit. Wondering how I was going to paint it. This is what I wrote back in May—)
 

 
If you’re anything like me, you’ll agree that Heller’s Soleil Royal is a striking beauty in the box art, all blue and gold. As if the shipbuilders for le Marine Royale were UCLA alumni (go Bruins!) 
 

 
In the last decade or so, there has been something of a pushback on the Heller color scheme (and not just from USC Trojans). Maybe the Soleil Royal wasn’t blue after all. A few things prompted this.
 
First, there was the late-1990s revision on how the Swedish ship Vasa was interpreted. The 1628 warship, pulled up mostly intact from Stockholm harbor, still had traces of paint, but it took decades to thoroughly examine it. From prior thinking—that the Vasa was blue and gold like the Heller Soleil Royal box art—scholars changed their minds and have now determined that the ship’s upper reaches were mostly red. Plus, the ship’s wooden sculptures weren’t simply gilded—they fully painted in many colors (polychrome). Thoughtful modelers wondered if the Soleil Royal wasn’t likely to have been red too, and if the sculptures were likewise brightly painted instead of uniformly covered with gold leaf.
 

 
The gold leaf itself was another issue. It was pointed out that there was far too much gold on Heller’s version of the ship. It couldn’t all have been gilding. Even Louis XIV couldn’t afford that. Someone went into the French naval archives and figured out that the gold leaf budget for some premiere rang warships was barely enough to gild a figurehead. Applying gold leaf to the working surfaces of the ship—rails, ports, or anywhere in contact with abrasive ropes, tools, hands, etc.—was impractical in any case. Might as well take handfuls of Louis d’or and toss them into the ocean, since the gold would end up there anyway. So gold leaf—nope—most of it had to have been yellow paint.
 
The next prompt came from comments made by author J.C. Lemineur and others, pointing out an alleged scarcity of blue paint in the 1600s. It was claimed that blue pigments were expensive and hard to come by in quantity. “Blue-shade paints were therefore mostly avoided,” Lemineur wrote in his monograph on the 1693 three-decker Le Saint Philippe. Following Lemineur, modelmakers restored their Saint Philippes in red and gold.
 

 
Some Soleil Royal modelers absorbed all this, plus the information from the Vasa, and revised their thinking about how the Soleil should be painted. In some cases, they straightaway swapped all the blue for red.
 
Another red herring dragged across the modeler’s path was the set of c.1689 paintings of Soleil Royal’s bow and stern made by Jean Vary. These showed the ship all blue, stem to stern, main wale to sheer. Wow! 
 

This gave Soleil modelers even more options, some opting for the traditional Heller paint scheme, others going off in a red direction, others going all-blue. 
 
Finally, there was a fourth bit of drama. It was noted that one version of the Jean Bérain drawing of Soleil’s stern had color indications—

 
Some parts light red, some a kind of tan, deep blue on the stern plate, and the figure carvings are in several different color treatments. What was up with that?
 
So I pretty much know the Heller kit's paint instructions are, um… apocryphal. There couldn’t have been that much gold leaf on a real warship, and the whole issue of whether or not it was actually painted blue was being questioned. How should the Soleil Royal be painted? More important to me, how was I going paint my ship? Was it possible to untangle all this information and come up with a likely and justifiable color scheme? Hold my beer.
 
Please keep in mind that the following information is the product of someone who is admittedly sometimes a mad modeler and a dunderhead, poster boy for the Dunning-Kruger effect. Marc LaGuardia's (Hubac's Historian's) build log is a better informed source. If it’s important to you, always do your own research and come to your own conclusions! And paint your own ship however it makes sense to you.
 
First, it should be remembered that there were three Soleil Royals in Louis XIV’s reign. (This was discussed in the last post.) Paint never lasted very long in a marine environment—ask any former Navy swabbie. Given the need for frequent repainting, it’s not likely that the three ships had only one paint scheme between them. They undoubtedly changed, year to year, refit to refit. And tastes changed too, over the forty-year period the three ships sailed, as did the artisans and bureaucrats who decided such things. Point number one to consider—the Soleil Royal(s) likely had several paint schemes.
 
That being said, the Soleil Royals got associated with blue paint early on. Blue was a logical color for a royal ship. Besides being a mobile gun platform, a French warship was intended to proclaim the might and majesty of the Sun King and his Bourbon dynasty wherever it sailed. Blue, gold, and white were the royal colors. The Bourbon coat-of-arms had gold fleur-de-lis on a blue field.
 
In much of the art from the early 18th century, the Soleil Royal I(a) is shown with blue on the hull above the gundecks, like in these details of paintings by English artist Peter Monamy dramatizing the destruction of the ship at La Hogue in 1692. Monamy was known for his accurate depictions of naval battles and ship portraits, and he made these paintings when the battle and the ship were still recent history.
 

 
Keep in mind that right-hand image, with light blue on the quarterdeck level and dark blue (with gold fleur-de-lis) on the poop deck level above it. Hmmmm.
 
And here’s the image of the Soleil Royal II on the 5-meter scroll painting of the order of battle for Velez-Malaga in 1704, made by eyewitness and battle participant Jérôme Hélyot.
 

 
Ship’s got the blues. From the upper gun deck up, and some on the middle gun deck level of the quarter galleries.
 
So at least two versions of the ship were painted blue above the gun decks after all. The Heller box art wasn’t that far off. But what about those claims of blue pigments being rare in the 1600s? 
 
Turns out, maybe not so much! 
 
Some blue pigments were rare, or unavailable in large quantities, or unsuitable for ship paint, or simply not invented yet. Ultramarine blue (lapis lazuli), a powdered gemstone from faraway Afghanistan, was worth more per weight than gold and was used only for things like painting the royal crest on first-rate warships. Smalt was blue pigment made from ground potassium-cobalt glass. It wasn’t available in quantities large enough to paint a ship. Plant-based indigo (woad) made poor paint that faded fast in sunlight; it was a better clothing dye. The synthetic pigment Prussian blue (Paris blue) wasn’t invented until 1706. Cerulean and cobalt blues weren’t synthesized until the 19th century.
 
Yet many ship paintings from the Baroque period show blue-painted ships. 
 

 
There’s even a book that discusses it—The Colour Blue in Historical Ships, by Joachim Mullerschon. There are several more blue-painted French ships on Hélyot’s scroll, including— ironically— the supposed-to-be-red Saint Philippe from Monsieur Lemineur’s monograph mentioned above. It had blue above the middle gundeck just like the Soleil Royal. At least, it did in 1704. Huh!
 

 
So where were French shipwrights getting blue paint? 
 
Azurite (azure, azul) is a deep blue copper mineral mined near Lyons, France. It was the most important blue pigment used in the middle ages. By the 17th century, it had been synthesized and manufactured in quantity by mixing copper nitrate with calcium carbonate (chalk). The inexpensive synthetic pigment was called blue verditer (Bremen blue, blue bice) and common enough to be used as wall paint during the 1600s. 
 
Verditer comes from verd de terre (earth green) because natural azurite often came mixed with another greenish copper ore, malachite (copper carbonate hydroxide). Depending on how much malachite was in the mix, azurite could be green or a greenish blue. But synthetic blue verditer could be close to cerulean or cyan in hue. See the swatches below. Blue verditer was often mixed with lead white to make a light blue shade (Versailles blue), or with lampblack, to deepen it.
 

 
Blue verditer isn’t used any more because it needs other paint binders, like casein, rather than common linseed oil and turpentine. Linseed is too acidic and causes the pigment to degrade to dull olive green or black in time. Ship paint rarely lasted long enough for that to happen.
 
Yes—there was plenty of blue paint to paint ships with in the 1600s. 
 
But were any of them painted all blue, like in the Jean Vary paintings?
 

 
What about the Vasa being red with polychrome figures? Was it possible that some version of the Soleil Royal had been painted that way? Well… maybe. We don’t know how the Soleil Royal was painted when it was first built by Laurent Hubac in 1668–70. From the look of his ships, Hubac built with a large helping of Dutch influence, and the Dutch painted their ships with a lot of color. Color was an important component of early Baroque art in Northern Europe. The art style is called Mannerism. It was a holdover from the styles of the Late Renaissance, and by the mid-1600s it was still popular everywhere, it seems, except around Versailles and the French court.
 

 
As head of the French navy, Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert tried to separate the decoration of the royal ships from the actual shipbuilding, with different officials presiding over each function. The same artists and designers working at Versailles were given the job of designing the decorations for the ships, but management was limited to an exchange of letters and drawings. We don’t know how that played out in the shipbuilding port of Brest, which was isolated out on the western tip of remote and rebellious Brittany. It could have been that all those independent, conservative shipbuilders took direction well and dutifully painted the new warships in the approved Versailles style. But maybe Colbert's instruction letters went into la poubelle with the fish wrappings. I think it’s at least possible that Dutch-trained Hubac still had a say in how his ships were painted, and that would have included using a lot of Mannerist-styled color. 
 
On his log on this forum, Hubac’s Historian (Marc La Guardia) has an absolutely beautiful partially-scratchbuilt Soleil Royal that I would place as painted in the Mannerist tradition. It’s the most amazing Soleil Royal model I’ve ever seen! If there were no Soleil Royals painted in the Mannerist tradition, Marc shows us that there should have been!
 
Laurent Hubac died in 1682 and by the late 1680s, the Royal bureaucracy at Versailles was in full control of the shipyards. Jean Bérain was filling in for the aging Charles Le Brun as chief decorator of the king’s warships. From surviving documents we find out that Bérain exercised more control over the process than his predecessors. His detailed drawings of ornamentation and sculpture were apparently followed, and we can suppose his chosen colors were too.
 
What about that one version of the Bérain stern drawing with the color indications? The one with the odd-colored statuary? How do we interpret that? Well—it not only shows all the signs of French Classicism in action, it also directly invokes the architecture of Versailles. Remember that Jean Bérain was the chief decorator of the palace. 
 

 
But I’m more interested in working up a color scheme for the 1693 Soleil Royal II. The end of the 17th century was an age of bright yellow sterns.
 

Ludolf Bakhuizen, Battle of Barfleur
 

 
L to R—Konung Karl, Le Foudroyant (actually painted in 1834, but I like it), Le Royal Louis.
 
The sketch of the Soleil Royal II on Jérôme Hélyot’s 1704 scroll of the Battle of Velez-Malaga shows a ship that looks like it fits right in with that paint scheme.
 

 
What would this look like on the model?
 

 
This is one of my Photoshop/Illustrator sketches—I made several. Okay, fine—but what about separating the decks? Specifically, separating the upper gun deck from the quarterdeck? The way I drew it, they have two different ornamental schemes going on. (I’ll discuss the decorations in a future post.) How about going dark blue / light blue, like the Konung Karl in the All-Blue-and-Gold-Ships box above?
 

 
Cool. But now, what about the poop? Maybe the poop should get its own decoration scheme. Dark / light / dark?
 

 
And yeah—the poop now gets some fleur-de-lis on a dark blue field, similar to other period French warships depicted in art. (See that Monamy painting at the beginning of this post.) Each deck now has its own color and ornamentation. I stared at this variant for about two weeks before deciding I liked it best. Finally decided, you know, I could live with this. 
 
Okay, so—paint! How should I approach painting this plastic model?
 
If we were absolutely true to our perception of scale, all small ship models like Soleil Royal would be built with smooth styrene. Not a hint of texture. There’s hardly any texture to finished and painted wood anyway, and certainly none that would be detectable in 1/100 scale. I dislike many small-scale models made of real wood for this very reason—real wood grain doesn’t show up on that small a scale!
 
This is not what most modelers and viewers expect. They like to see indications of what the thing being modeled was supposed to be made of. Wood should—in most viewer’s minds—look like wood. Metal should look like metal. Stone should look like stone. Never mind that at 1/100 scale, everything should look like smooth plastic.
 
Besides, modeling and painting textures is really cool. The Heller die-makers certainly thought so. They did a hella (Heller) job of giving the sides and decks of the Soleil Royal a great-looking raised wood-grain texture.
 
This sets up an interesting dialog. The real ship was a fairly new, well-kept, premier rang warship that was also a national symbol, cared for by hundreds of low-ranking swabbies with an officer-enforced mandate to keep all hands busy. (“If it moves, salute it; if it doesn’t move, paint it.”) In other words, ships like the Soleil Royal should look almost new.
 
On the other hand, modelers love to age, weather, wear, begrime, and texture surfaces. The Heller model invites this. I don’t want to sand away all that nice wood grain. Likewise, I don’t want to paint over it and pretend it’s not there. I can’t resist the temptation to work with it. At some point, the casual model-builder (me) has to shrug and go with the flow. I’m left trying to find a middle ground between this—
 

 
And this—
 

 
(The Victory and Neptuno are, IMHO, just really, really big model ships.)
 
But I’m not much of a fan of weathering. To my mind, a model ship should look like it has had at most a few weeks at sea, not months and years of neglect.
 
So I’m going to try and make the Heller wood grain subtle, but still present. I’m not going to emphasize joints and plank edges with subsequent washes of detail-enhancing dark color. Decks will look used but well-scrubbed. The hull can look like it has weathered one hard blow off Ushant, but no more. No nails, bolts, trennals or other passages for the Big Wet to penetrate will be visible. 
 
And not much attention will be given to places where I don’t want to attract your eye. Forget about seeing much beyond featureless light grey below the waterline, I don’t want your attention there. And I’ll be using the old illustrator’s trick of using flat black on any details that I want to disappear. Hopefully, the end result won't look too different from my Photoshop sketch.
 
(Nope, it didn't.)
 

 
Next week I'll go through the process of painting the lower hull and the decks. Stay epipelagic 'till then.
 
 
 

Post seventy-seven
 
Waist Beams
This section completes the framing over the waist.

1286

1285
2028
The beams slotted into place without issue.
I’m glad I made the decision to replace the beam supports over the head ledges with ‘iron’ stanchions on my particular build.
 
The shipyard is now closing for a week.
 
Cheers,
 
B.E.
08/09/2023.

Time for another minor update. I am making faster progress than I thought and have all the breaching ropes done. I then attached all the deck fittings as the gun tackle will be done on a jig and then just hooked in so I am not as worried about things getting in the way.

The planking on the port side is done, and the cannonports are installed.
Ready for a first sanding.
Sanded

Good to see, the irregular placement and the different sizes of the cannon ports.

What is that thing doing on MY table

A close up

Next to do: the starboard side

Making the stand

Hi guys,

Although the ship is finished I still have to do a few things before I can call this project a success. First of the things I have to do is to make a proper stand.
There are many great examples to find on the web, but I like a "simple" but elegant one. This will be a baseplate with two pedestals on it however in the near future I need to make a proper dustfree case. Dust is the enemy of all wooden models. Dust attract moist and hold most and this doesn't goes well with your model. So, do not worry, I will make a case, but that's for later.

For now I start with the construction of both pedestals. I decided to make it all out of American or Black Walnut. I have a few boards on stock and it resembles the wood I used for the ship. So both the stand and the ship should complement each other, although that's the idea.
I used my tablesaw to saw a piece of 25x25x100mm. I will use a lathe to get it from square to a round shape. I never used a lathe before and purchased the cheapest one from Proxxon I could find. It's just a test if the machine and I can become friends....some machines will be your enemy forever....
 

 

 


With a pencil it's fairly simple to draw a couple of lines. With some wood gauges I shaped the pedestals.
 

 

 

 


Still need to make the slots to hold the keel of the ship. I cut these 90 degrees from the direction of the grain of the wood for strength.
 


I know you probably can purchase these pedestals and perhaps even better ones or brass ones than I just made. For fun I tried the make these things myself and I liked the lathework!

For the baseplate I used a very nice piece of solid walnut. However, the board I had was to thin to use, so I cut it into half and glued both pieces together with carpenters glue. I let the glued board cook overnight and the next day cleaned it all up on my table saw. I used a router to make a nice profile on the edge of the board. On the picture below I marked the glued edge between both boards. You can hardly see it.
 

 


A dryfit of the pedestals on the board.
 


After some measurements I glue both pedestals to the board. I also used a drill bit to drill a hole through the middle of both pedestals and the board to hold a bolt. When the ship is placed on the board, I use a bold / screw to fasten the ship to the stand. This also worked out perfectly.
 


The marriage between the stand and the ship. I must say....the both complement each other and it worked out perfectly.
 

 


The nameplate and the photoshoot is all that is left to do.....

See you soon,
Peter

Thanks again for all the likes and generous comments.
 
Diana is the biggest and most complicated ship that I have built but I've really enjoyed the challenges that it presented. Although it took a lot of time and some hair pulling, I'm glad that I went with the open rails on the quarter deck and my thanks go to Ray and Robdurant for showing me the way. Also my thanks to the many others on these forums that have posted tips, help and advice that I have shamelessly copied.
 
I've managed to take some better photos of the finished model which I've added below. I hope I haven't overdone it!
 










 
Thanks all for looking in. I hope to see you again on my log of HM Cutter Trial
 
David
 
 

The rigging of the main sail is done, it was a race against the clock but it's done before my vacations starts (tomorrow) After my vacation I can start on the Mizzen mast / sail.
 

 

Main sail and Parrel

Hi guys,

Last week and weekend I've been working very hard on this project. It's a tedious job with all these ropes, blocks, stitching sails, boltropes and so on. You all know the work that's into making models. I've done so many little things, that its hard to mention it all. So let met start with the attachment of boltrope. It's a 0.6mm rope and I need the thinnest needle I can find to get the threat through one of the three threats of the rope. Then I push the needle through the sail fabric and tighten the threat so the boltrope is secured against the edge of the seam of the sail. Using this technique, no threat is seen on the outside of the boltrope which I like. It's a bit more work, but details, details and more details it is for this build I guess.
 
 
 
 

Then the preparations of the reef lines. The cloth is so thick at the place where the reef lines are attached to the sail, that I need a hammer to lightly tap on the head of the needle to get through the layers of cloth. When the end of the needle hits my cutting mat, I turn the sail upside down and push the needle, with the head on my cutting mat, through the cloth.
 
 

In the end I've attached all the reef lines on the sail, attached all the needed blocks on the yard and attached the sail on the yard.
 

Back to the ramshead block. To attach the lower block on the ship, a served rope is made where the ends are attached to rings and hooks. The hooks are then attached on rings that are located on deck behind the main mast.
 



The lower and upper blocks are attached to each other due to a 0.6mm rope that's running through the sheaves of both blocks.
A 0.9mm rope is looped through the top of the upper block and then goes through to both lower sheaves of the mast head. On the ends of the rope a pin is attached. This pin holds the weight of the entire yard. That means that the rope on the yard that will be attached to this pin, will be served for extra strength. This is seen on the second last photo.
 

The next picture shows a sideview of the two ramshead blocks located left from the mast and show some of the details of the pair. Between the blocks a single sheave block is attached to the upper block. The function is simple, the upperblock has less sheaves then the lower block. So a block is placed between them to compensate. Another thing that clearly can be seen are the lines that goes through the back top of the lower block and are not behind the block.
Sometimes the word insanity goes through my head to add these kind of details on this scale....😅

On the right side of the mast, the parrel tackle is located. The rope is attached to a violin block on the top and a single sheave block at the bottom which eventually ends in a hook that's attached to a ring that's located on deck in front of the mast. The end of the rope is attached to a cleat beside the parrel and located on the mast.
 

The upper part of the parrel. It's the same as on the Foremast however this one has four tracks instead of three. I've used a double sheave block for the rope of the parrel to lash it around the yard.
 
 

The last thing for this update is to secure the ends of the rope of the ramshead blocks on the cleats.
 


Well, some things I did, didn't made it on the pictures, but I will show in the next update. The running rigging that will manage and control the main sail and yard are made next. This will be done after my vacation trip with my family. I wish you happy modeling the next days and thanks for taking time to read and respond in my log!

Peter

Really enjoying this part of the build doing the PE now that I have started to gain some experience is very rewarding.

Hello friends,

In my previous update I've finished the work on the Fore. Time to move on to the Main mast. The yard is lifted by two heavy ramshead blocks. The blocks have many sheaves to distribute the load. Below you see how I made these.
All are handmade out of walnut. Re-used some of the pictures of the ramshead blocks of the foremast, because the process for making them is the same.
 
I all begins with a 1:1 scale drawing of the two blocks. with a front view and side view. 
 

After this I cut the needed parts out of walnut strips of .6 and .8mm thickness. I re-use some of the pictures of the Foremast blocks.
 

 

 


On the sides of the bottom block, two large cleats are attached. Let me show you in detail how I made these...
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


The blocks are blackened with East-Indian Ink and after it dried finished with Danish Oil. Some of you guys swear by Clou, but it looks a bit to shiny to my liking...
The sheaves of these blocks are made of .8mm thick walnut and 8mm in diameter. I reduced the diameter to 7mm and 4mm by hand.
 

 

 

 

 

Here is my summary along with pictures of my just completed model of the HM Brig-Sloop by Vanguard Models.  The kit itself, both quality of the materials and the accompanying instructions are superb! A number of build logs are have been done on this kit and thanks to them, I had some great hints and tips during the build of this project. Rather than add another build log ( I must admit at 70 years old and not very computer literate, the thought still intimidates me a bit) I've decided to add a few areas in which I diverged from the "out of the box" build.  Over-all, the project took me 650 hours to build.  Not sure if this about right or if I proceed at a snails pace.  I'm somewhat of a minimalist when it comes to tools.  An exacto handle with #11 blades, an old 12" Craftsman band saw and some small hands tools is about all I use.  For refences I used Steele's Elements of Mastmaking, Sailmaking and Rigging (1794),Darcy Lever The Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor (1819), Lees The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War 1625-1869 (1979) and Ian McLaughlin The Sloop of War 1660-1763 (2014).
 
With that said, here are some areas in which I diverted from the original kit.  I know these comments are very brief, if anyone has any comments/questions please do not hesitate to ask.  I am by no means an expert so any comments are greatly appreciated.
 
Copper Plates: After a brief (but unsuccessful) try at using the kit supplied plates I decided to use 3M black back copper foil Venture Tape #3M1765 - 1/4" width. I had real trouble fitting the kit supplied plates at the bow and stern areas having to cut them to fit the curves. Using the copper tape, I created strips of 4 plates adding the rivet details lightly with a very small pounce wheel. The tape was thin enough to allow to to navigate the curves and the adhesive back was very strong so they stayed put once set in place.  I did use the kit supplied plates on the rudder assembly however as I did not have any issues fitting the plates at this location.  Once completed, I darkened the plates using Liver of Sulphur extended life gel by EuroTool that I found on EBay. Follow the instructions carefully.  Two notes of caution.  The stuff darkened the copper very quickly, almost on contact.  Have clean water and a soft cloth ready to neutralize and rinse off the solution. Once dry, I buffed out the copper using a soft dry cloth which brought out some highlights in the copper. And secondly, work outside unless you want your house smelling like rotting eggs!  
Rigging Line:  I decided to try my luck at making my own line using Syren Model's "Rocket" rope walk.  After trying to make the line using synthetic thread, I landed on using Gutterman 100% cotton thread Dark Brown #2960 and Taupe #1225 purchased thru WAWAK in NJ.  The synthetic thread stretched a bit and I couldn't get the feel for it.  When I cut the line, it shriveled up looking like a gypsy moth caterpillar on my work bench.  I also wasn't too keen on having to set the synthetic line in the toaster oven.  The cotton thread worked better for me and the "frizzies" associated with using cotton thread was minimal.  I did not finish the line with beeswax.  It left a whitish coat which was especially visible on the darker standing rigging.
Sails:  The most difficult aspect of this model was in the making of the sails.  Many of the line controlling the sails was not included in the instructions/belaying plans.  I referred to the references mentioned above.  And yes, I am sure I made a number of mistakes that many more experienced will notice but the important thing is to learned a lot and aim to get better with each model.  The sail material is two layers of Silkspan purchased thru Bluejacket.  I am not sure what weight it is as they only offer one weight.  I added the sail details using a #2 mechanical pencil (sail outline with 3/16" hem, reinforcement points, etc) before laminating the two sheets together.  I used a frame and taped the two sheets together prior to laminating.  I used a 10 to 1 ratio of water to white Elmer's glue then added some Tamiya "Dessert Tan"  to the mix to give the material an antique tan color.  The biggest problem I ran into were wrinkles in the fabric.  Had to make several sails over and the finished product still has some small wrinkles in them.
The bolt ropes, reef points and cringles were glues on the sails afterwards using matte medium which dried clear.
Flags:  I made the flags by first downloading the files from Google.  Since I was going for an earlier time period than when Lord Cochran was Master and Commander, I used the white ensign as Speedy worked primarily in anti smuggling operations in the home waters during the first part of her career.  Try to find as high a resolution in the files as possible.  I then taped a piece of silkspan over a piece of white 8.5 x 11 paper and ran it thru the desktop printer.  It might take several tries, but with the silkspan, the ink goes right thru the material and you get a double sided flag.  Once cut to size ( I left a tab on the ensign side to fold over to create a reinforcement point when attaching the halyards) I finished the flag off with spray on matte fixative and let dry.  While it is drying you can work the flag to give it more of a curl as when flown in a breeze.
Sailors & Marines:  These were purchased thru Vanguard Models and are exceptionally detailed which makes them a bit more easier to paint when you can see the crisp details.  I used Tamiya acrylic colors dusted with pastel chalk to bring out some details.  The figures were then topcoated in matte clear lacquer.
Display Stand:  Rather than use the clear acrylic cradle which comes with the kit, I used the acrylic pieces as templates and fabricated anew cradle in 1/4" solid walnut. I lined the inside face of each cradle with green felt.  The base of my display case is white ash with walnut trim.  The case itself is fabricated from 1/4" acrylic and siliconed together.
 
Thanks if you reached this far in the reading.  I hope this helps many of the newer members of our hobby.  I recommend this kit to anyone as it build into a very beautiful model!
 
 

Log #38: Painting Complete
I have finally finished with all the painting. The frieze was a challenge at only around 3.5mm of space, there was not much room to add in detail. As I have progressed I have gotten a better handle on the style, but I could definitely do a better job if I was to start over.
 
Below you can see how what I accomplished compares to the alert painting. I think I largely captured the feel, though as I have discussed in previous logs I did make some changes based upon what I felt would better capture Neptune and Salacia.


Though not strictly realistic (a ship this insignificant would likely not have had this much decoration), I do like the look. In a sense I am trying to capture the essence of the ship as envisaged by the designer even if the ship itself likely didn’t look like this.

Overall I am glad I went down this road. I have learned a lot about painting and I feel the model is finally starting to come to life.