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Ferrus Manus

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  1. Ferrus Manus
    The stern ornamentation piece:
  2. Ferrus Manus
    The second panel took me a significantly smaller amount of time to paint. By the end of the 17th century, galleys had transformed from fighting vessels to splendidly decorated royal yachts. By this time, the galley had become a completely ineffective warship owing to its flimsy construction and small number of guns. Even a moderately sized man o' war could rip a dozen or more galleys to shreds, and they did on numerous occasions. It seems like everyone knew this in some regard- that is, everyone except for Louis himself. The last major galley battle had taken place over a hundred years prior, and since the widespread development of broadside gun batteries, sail versus galley duels almost always went in the sailing ship's favor.
  3. Ferrus Manus
    This panel took me almost an hour to paint, but I completed it in one sitting.
  4. Ferrus Manus
    Now, this is where the build starts to get intense. I built the entirety of the upper works subassembly off-ship, and it's currently resting on the stern. It will be glued on before progress continues. The massive timbers at the stern are intended to offset the weight of the humongous bronze cannons at the fore. Anyone who has built a Reale knows what comes next. Most modelers paint the filigree pieces at the stern solid gold, as was likely on the real ship. However, I plan on doing something different. I will paint the interior of the piece light blue, and paint the raised detail gold. This will be done solely to show off.
  5. Ferrus Manus
    Marc, you are absolutely correct in your assessment on the bulkheads. However, they are glued into place as they are, and I am not aware of a way I could orient/flip/rotate the model (nearly 3 feet) to accommodate repainting. I genuinely appreciate your comment and will repaint if I can figure out a way to do so. Perhaps laying under it like Michelangelo painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? Hiring a mini-me at 1/75 scale? To repaint, I will probably go over the entire thing again in red and go for round 2. Either way, the supports are done. The figurehead is the head of a charging golden unicorn. The rudder is my favorite piece so far in terms of the ornamentation. I learned to come at the raised detail at a more perpendicular angle.
  6. Ferrus Manus
    The port side supports are complete.
  7. Ferrus Manus
    True, but when I built my Cutty Sark model (1959) I had none of these issues. That being said, the quality of the molding is exquisite, and the wood grain approaches that of Imai standards. The golden parts are detailed very well, and overall, there has not been very much flash to worry about. If you can get around the Hellerisms of this model, you can make something that looks magnificent. What I do appreciate about Heller is that they have designed large-scale kits of subjects that other model companies like Revell have not attempted.
  8. Ferrus Manus
    The painting shows one support per oar, but the number of supports on this model suggest almost two supports to an oar. The overall lack of locator pins in such a complex model (where every single step massively affects all subsequent steps) has made me very disappointed in Heller. It wouldn't have taken them much more effort to mold everything in the stronger tan plastic, or design parts like the hundred outrigger supports with two locator pins instead of one. The supports each have a square pin that goes into the round hole in the deck. Their HMS Victory and Soleil Royal kits, both of whose constructions are far simpler than this, are better designed.
  9. Ferrus Manus
    I put in the first quarter of the supports for the outriggers/oar benches. There are about 100 in total. They look to be straight, but some of them are not perfectly level with each other at the ends. I guarantee I'll have issues fitting the long strakes onto the supports.
  10. Ferrus Manus
    Don't let the deep blue and gold ornamentation fool you. You could almost always smell a galley before you saw it. If you ever caught the distinctive scent of human feces on the high seas, there was probably a galley nearby. This was because galley slaves and convict rowers were kept permanently chained to their benches- that includes to use the bathroom. Free crew members simply went over the side of the ship, as there were no heads on a galley. Even a large galley could only go four days without resupply, meaning long voyages were out of the question. A third of all galley rowers died within three years, mostly from disease. For that reason, I made the midships area of the Reale look especially disgusting. If King Louis was ever transported in a galley, which I'm sure he was, he would have been travelling in the disease-ridden maritime equivalent of an outdoor toilet.
  11. Ferrus Manus
    I went and looked at multiple other renditions of this model, and no one nailed down the paintwork on these two pieces. Anyway... This subassembly makes no sense to me. I am used to making galleons, caravels, and other sailing vessels. It seems to me as though this deck should be flush with the hull, but the instructions clearly show this assembly the way I have it. More than that, there seems to be another deck that goes directly on top of this one. If so, why is this deck textured, or even there in the first place?
  12. Ferrus Manus
    I'm not exactly happy with the paint job on these two bulkheads, but it will have to do. Someday, I'll become a better painter. Anyways, on to the next thing- decking.
  13. Ferrus Manus
    That means a lot to me, Michael. Thank you. When I had finished painting the gold work on the starboard side, I noticed something strange- the blue paint on the upper edge of the port side of the hull was being worn down, everywhere except at the bow and stern. I reasoned this was because that's where I was holding the hull when I was painting the stbd gold works. So, in preparation for the port side decorations, I decided to run a protective line of painter's tape along the stbd midships section:
  14. Ferrus Manus
    This is what I spent the last two and a half hours of my life doing: In contrast to Michael D's experience, the fleur-de-lys were bearable. The scrollwork, however, made me want to turn the Reale into an airplane.
  15. Ferrus Manus
    When the shade coats are done drying, I will coat the entirety of the hull in a gloss varnish to protect it. After the fleur-de-lys and scrollwork is done, I will apply another coat of varnish. When the ship was under sail, the slaves on the lee side of the ship would sometimes be swamped waist-deep in water. Thus, owing to the low freeboard of the hull, covering the entire thing in gloss would not be outside the realm of reason.
  16. Ferrus Manus
    This is the hull so far: The water content in the dark blue shade I used took off some of the paint in the raised areas, which will be repainted gold anyway. I will likely add another coat or two of shade, as the hull is not dark enough. I fixed the waterline as much as reasonably achievable.
  17. Ferrus Manus
    This is the hull below the waterline. I wanted it to look like the Landstrom painting.
  18. Ferrus Manus
    This is an image of another Reale. I doubt the broken off bits on mine will make that much difference to the whole. However, crappy reconstructions of them will. I can remake the railings with wooden strips.
  19. Ferrus Manus
    Now it's time to start the real fun- painting.
  20. Ferrus Manus
    Is it possible I could email Heller for a new sprue? I have heard horror stories about Heller's lack of answering emails. Will they do this for a model that was bought second-hand?
  21. Ferrus Manus
    The only other damage is to one of the swivel guns in one of the bags. I assume the piece itself still exists. I will chop off all the thole pins, drill holes, and insert brass rod. That seems reasonable. The construction of the galley has been, so far, a galley. Neither the beakhead nor the stern have any kind of locator pins whatsoever, The decks have some sort of guide points on their underside, but no corresponding element on the hull. In French, comparing something to a galley is a hyperbolic figure of speech indicating the arduous, difficult, or a pain in the neck.
  22. Ferrus Manus
    The galley arrived, mostly intact. That's right, mostly. Four of the seat rests are broken off and one of the assemblies is broken in half, some of the thole pins are broken off, and the railings are completely unusable due to warping. The broken-off elements were not in the box. I could just cut all the foot boards (or whatever those are) off and be done there. I will ask 72nova what he did with the railings. The rest of the box:
  23. Ferrus Manus
    Thank you! However, I own the Landstrom book, which is something I addressed in the PM. That being said, I should probably make that clear to the rest of the viewers of this log. What I don't have access to (yet) are comprehensive rigging plans that show where (and on what) everything belays. The model and instructions should be here by tomorrow. I can use Google Translate to decipher the instructions, which are sure to be in French.
  24. Ferrus Manus
    Wow Baker, that was fast! Thank you for the comments on my last project.
  25. Ferrus Manus
    @Isaiah @kirill4 @72Nova @Baker Welcome to the circus. At some point I might have to start charging admittance.

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