yvesvidal

Since there seems to be a lot of interest and questions about the various Sessions, here is a quick rundown on what they offer: Session #3: SESSION #4: Yves

Pierre, yes the kit is made up of 5 sessions. In my humble opinion, it is not possible to assemble Session #1 without Session #2 and ideally Session #3. I have provided the dimensions between the top of the futtocks for each bulkhead and that is paramount for the success of this kit. Session #4 is, for the first time, offering a gorgeous scale 1:1 blueprint (top and side) of the model, with all its details. Yves

That is correct Mike. Yves

Thank you all for the compliments. I have been working on another large project: the CAF HMS Bellona and the Corvette has been relegated to a second position. I need to get back to it and finish it, soon. Yves

Definitely one of the most important milestone of that project. I know I spent a lot of time fine tuning it and it paid off immensely. Yves

Mike, yes Session #5 is available and I ordered it directly from CAF Model. With the shipping and handling charge, I think it was close or slightly above $300 for it. Session #5 has tons of interesting things, all 74 brass guns, decals for the hull, and lots of plastic and 3D printed parts. At first, I was disappointed by the presence of plastic parts, but they are very detailed and having them made of wood or cast metal would have been cost prohibitive. Yves

Mike, the cherry wood planks were bent after dipping them in alcohol. Also, for the bow, I sliced them in two parts (a little bit like a two pointed fork) as it helps tremendously the curvature of the wood. Once glued, filled and painted, it is not really visible. All the wales planking is glued with epoxy slow curing two components glue. A must in this case. Yves

While planks are drying, I started working on the pleasant stuff of Session #2: Some parts of the gun deck and the rear capstan. The assembly above will be glued to the deck and will provide a sturdy pivot/bearing for the main axle. The capstan will be rotating. The lower part of it is fixed and is used as pivot for the axle. The upper part and the 10 feet long sticks are rotating and will be coupled with the capstan on the upper deck. It probably won't be easy to see the lower part rotate, but I will know that it is there. The bars are made of bamboo sticks, for Smores (Publix stores). Each bar is cut at the right length (real bars were 10 feet long) and inserted into the upper part of the drumhead (see pictures below). The upper part of the capstan rotates smoothly and is a pleasure to operate. The deck is planked with maple planks of 0.4 mm thick, 8 mm wide (easy to cut with a pair of scissors) and stained with old oak Minwax varnish (very smelly). Yves

I completed the wales on the port side. I still have to fix and paint the gun ports on that side, as well as install the upper wale. That one is easy (1.5 mm basswood) compared with the main wales (3 mm x 8 mm cherry wood). For a change of pace and more self inflicted torture, I decided to start planking that monstrous hull. Each plank is made of 3 mm thick by 8 mm wide poplar/lime wood and is very stiff. I split the hull in three belts, following the recommendations of experts (such as Chuck) and started planking the garboards and the first planks to the keel. So far, I have installed 4 planks on each side. About 24 planks should go under the wales, on each side. This is still Session #2 and it is by far the biggest session, with the hull planking, wales, upper hull planking, channels, gun deck and 28 big caliber guns to assemble, not counting two capstans, bitts and numerous grates. Session #2 also includes the copper tiling of the hull. I have not decided if I will tile the ship and it will depend of the appearance of the hull. Honestly, I have never planked such a big and curvy hull and each plank presents its amount of challenges. I may be stuck for months on Session #2 and the sanding of that behemoth will require an electric sander, preceeded by a wood scraper. I have secured all five sessions of the kit (you never know what may happen between the USA and China) and I will be presenting the remaining three sessions at a later time. Crazy stuff for sure and tons of parts to assemble for a life time. Yves

You are very brave to start a second build of the same ship. I will be following your progress and I am sure this time, it is going to be a museum piece, as the V1 was not that bad and would have pleased quite a few collectors. Yves

Talk about distressed wood !!! It looks like the aftermath of a big battle. You need to spill some blood to make it even more realistic. Yves

Truly museum quality and a display of what PE can bring to a model, in the 21st century. Yves

Lots of engineering going into that giant model. It is almost like building a scale 1:1 ship. Yves

Beautiful model and very convincing rigging. Well done. Yves

Lovely. You must be happy that there are some rat lines.... Yves

Beautiful hull. Yves

The starboard side is pretty much ready for planking. Main, lower and upper wales have been installed and all gun ports sanded and painted: Now, I just have to do the exact same thing on the port side.... Yves

Wonderful results on the mainsail. It is looking really neat. Yves

Interesting kit Kevin. I like the fact that it is not an armor vehicle. Yves

Wonderful work and very nice planking. Yves

I am exploring some colors for the upper part of the hull and the channels: On the left side, we have Wipe-On-Poly on basswood and maple strips. The WOP may get darker with multiple applications. On the right side, Minwax Mustard water based color. The mustard will get duller with time. Overall view to get a better feel: Let me know your preferences and some other tricks to color the maple and basswood. The original model is shown below: And a painting of HMS Bellona by Geoff Hunt: Yves

Breaking away from the CAF instructions (which are recommending planking the lower hull first) I went ahead and worked on the Wales. After carefully measuring and getting the right positioning of these from pictures and the blueprint, I went ahead and started gluing the thick and stiff strips of cherry wood, provided in the kit. These are 8.5 mm wide by 3 mm thick and quite a challenge to bend. Some warm water allowed me to follow the natural curve of the hull: The wales are glued with slow curing two components resin epoxy. I have to wait about 6 to 8 hours for each strip and there are nine strips total. Maybe I need to be less generous on the amount of glue.... Wales are glued staggered, in order to define a nice and regular curve, along the hull. Three strips are about 25 mm wide, which is one mm short of what the blueprint is indicating. However, following the Anatomy of the Ship book, I will be approaching the wales on a more gradual basis, instead of the way it is done in the kit. In the kit, we have 3 mm thick (wales) and we then plank the upper hull with 0.4 mm maple strips. That creates a brutal transition which is contradictory to what the reference book is showing. Instead, I will use 3 mm for the wales, 1.5 mm transition strip (not provided in the kit) and the 0.4 mm upper hull planking. Still plenty of sanding to be done.... Another aspect of the upper hull that needs to be addressed, is the upper deck gun ports: These present a large opening which is not right and will create a void, when the external planking is installed. Using 1.5 x 1.5 mm strip (not provided in the kit), I am filling up the gap created between the outer shells and the futtocks. The lower gun deck, does not need that treatment since the gun port lids are supposed to be inserted there. When dry, everything is sanded smoothly and the upper hull planking could be technically started at that point. We will not do that quite yet.... An overall view of the starboard side with the wale installed. To accommodate the sharp curve at the bow, I took my 8.5 x 3 mm cherry strips and split them in two, on the length of the bow curve. After a soaking in alcohol, the smaller strips created by the cut are easier to bend and less likely to break. At the bow, you can actually see 6 small strips. About four coats of Model Shipways acrylic black paint to get a sense of the wale: Still plenty of sanding to be done and another four coats to make it look nice. Another point to not forget, is the painting of the gun ports and some wood putty in places where they may be small imperfections in the smoothness of the hull. I am trying to finish one side before moving to the port side of the hull. I hate repetitive tasks.... when building a 74 guns ship, what can you expect? Yves

Impressive and beautiful. You pulled it out very nicely. Yves

These wagons were truly luxurious. Yves

Kevin The Bellona copper tiles were 4 feet by 15 inches according to the Anatomy of the Ship. At 1/48th scale, that translates to: 2.5 cm x 0.8 cm. The sample tiles that Tom sent me are about half the required size. I suspect they must have 1/64th scale tiles and that does not work too well, on that huge hull. Yves