BLACK VIKING

Hi
Well, the job's off to a good start, and I think that's the easy part for the moment ...
The photoetched boards look good, with the part numbers already engraved on them .
 

 
so if I've understood correctly, it's better to sand the fields to remove the laser burn for better adhesion of the glue.
 

 

 

 

 

 

Port anchor :


 

Its by no means an addiction. I can stop doing these things whenever I want. With the FW200 spending most of the day waiting for the primer to cure ready for the next round of smoothing and shaping I thought I would try another Art Girona offering. Thirty Years War again; this is a Bavarian Cavalry Standard Bearer. The nonchalant pose sold it to me

After filing off some mould lines I joined the standard and left arm to the torso. The down side of the relaxed pose is that I think its going to have to be painted assembled. I'm nervous about trying with him on one leg.

The flag and the yellow / green bands on the arms are going to be challenging.
 
I drilled the head so it can be stuck on a cocktail stick for painting and I started polishing his helmet
 
Thanks for looking in
 
Alan
 

Working on making rope coils for the shroud blocks - a technique I pinched from Ulises Victoria of MSW (thanks, mate!). They're pretty small and fiddly, but I think they'll do the job.



And now something I've been avoiding for months - just too chicken to start because I dreaded stuffing it up - the halyard/trozza (truss) assembly that holds the lateen yard at the correct height and ties it to the mast so it doesn't flop around. Yes, I'd previously done it on the dromon build, but (a) I'm not sure I got it right back then and (b) it's so fiddly. 

The thing is, on lateeners (now and back then) they seem to divide the rig up into modules connected by toggles, rather than make a whole assembly in one piece. This is very much more convenient when sailing in the real world, but rather more complicated when making a model.
 
So here it goes, step by step: First, the tye around the yard itself ;

A little loose in the loop, so I glued it together a bit tighter


I'd started out with a doubled halyard, as the sheaves in the calcet at the top of the mast were always shown double, but apparently it's a single halyard that goes through the block and back down. So I got clever and faked a continuous loop of halyard through the block at the top of the assembly, by running the two ropes through the block from opposite sides,gluing and then cutting them short, so they looked like a single rope looped through the block.

And then the really fiddly bit - making the truss and running it around the mast, wrapped around the tye and back down to its downhaul. Took me about a dozen attempts before I got it right.Sorry about the hairy rope, but it's not visible to the naked eye.


And then the block attaching the truss to its downhaul via a toggle:


And attached to the loop from the truss (VERY fiddly getting the toggle through the loop!)

And all in place (I still have to figure out how to belay the lower end).


 
Just have to do it two more times for the other two masts, and I'm right . . . 
 
Steven

After tidying up the face its been a day of building up the parts of the figure. I decided head first, then the sword because it will be baulked by the arquebus , then arms and the arquebus itself.
The head was easy; the wide collar gave plenty of area for the glue to grip and it is also mostly vertical. The sword and the arms were another matter. Their weight makes them very difficult to keep in position while the glue sets. I'm using 5 minute epoxy and the best results come from applying the glue to the mating surfaces then waiting for the glue to become almost a gel and then making the assembly and holding them in position for the last few minutes.
I need to come up with something better; maybe drilling each side of the joint and pinning it with a short piece of brass rod.. I'm still trying to decide the merits of assembling the figure fully before painting. I suspect that it might be something to decide on a case by case basis. In this instance the position of the arquebus makes some of the figure difficult to work on with the paint brush. Possibly a better idea would have been to have added the arms to the torso before painting and added the arquebus at the end. 
Adding the arquebus (with the attached hands) was a fight. The hands had to be carefully twisted to line up with the arms and then had to be filed to fit. Even so I had to use some putty to build up the wrist and cuff to get a better appearance. The upper arm is still a little awkward but I'm scared to go any further in case I damage something irretrievably.
This is where we are now.

I need to repaint the hands and cuffs where the putty was added. The arquebus rest has to be added and the base has to be painted and some grass added. Oh and that cat hair needs to be removed.
Thank you for looking in, for the likes and the helpful comments
Alan
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Nothing new to report, except that I removed the jib boom for now. This allows me to put the model under a nice dust cover. Kind of looks like a good way to display a hull model...
 

Worn out insides 

Still on a short break from blocks.  But I will be back on them this weekend if all goes to plan.  This week I am working on a side project while also helping my son move out to his new place.   I am officially an "empty-nester" now.   So nice although I hear they always come back for one reason or another.
 
Anyway,  this project involves learning to make some cannon with the 3d printer.  Not difficult by any stretch but there is still a learning curve.  How to set the supports and what angles for the cannon are best for the optimal surface quality etc.   So after many tests using a wide variety of resins and mixing colors...I have settled on how I will proceed.  So all in all a very worthwhile several days as I will be making cannon available that I will be making in house.  These tests are of a French style cannon after Boudriot.  I am quite sure folks will eventually have a need for these as well as the typical English Fredrick and Armstrong cannon as well.   
 
Here are the results...for color and texture.   These are 2.15" long and 12 pounders at 1:48 scale and a larger caliber.
 


Earlier test with capsquare which seemed like a good idea but they are just too thin and prone to breakage among other things.  So these will be printed separately.  Experiments are fun!!!  But you can see the quality and surface ultimately achieved along with the scale difference on my Speedwell.  They are a little difficult to photograph but they are not pitch black and a stark black but a very dark gray/black.

My next big hurdle is to deal with the warped keel. My initial idea is to add blocks to the side of the keel between every bulkhead, however someone may have a better solution. I'm open to anything that will fix the issue.

Good point.
This can be distracting on an otherwise excellent model when the knots scale to something about tennis ball size or bigger.

Ratlines on Victory.   
Lees says ratlines are 1.75" circumference.  About .5" diameter.
This scales to .01" at 1:48.  At 1:64 its close to .008"
The smallest rope at Ropes of Scale is .009, so this would be a good match at 1:48.  Syren has .008 and .012.   At smaller scales you are looking at single strand thread to get a reasonable scale match.
 
This is a good option.  One might also consider just glueing the ratline to the shroud.  A little blob of glue will look like a knot.

I removed the arms and drilled them so they can be held on a cocktail stick during painting. I them started adding the first glazes to the jacket and hose. This is more of a yellow ochre than the deep yellow of Skinners Horse. It seems to build up more easily than the brighter colour. 

Following the thinking of others out there, it occurred to me that the casque is polished metal and the figure is metal so rather than trying to paint the helmet maybe I should try polishing it. I started with cut down very fine sanding pads and then moved to solver polish. It looks better in real life but I think I will give it another go with the polish. Its small and awkward to hold (and I am nervous about deforming the collar below). I think a gloss coat and then a black wash to bring up the details


Thanks for looking in, the likes and kind comments
 
alan
 
 

Continued.
 
The hull is now fully planked, and using my usual protective tape on the inner keel areas, the whole lot was sanded smooth. I show a block, but most of the work was done with a sanding mouse, now that I feel confident enough to use it without making gaping holes. 


 
The lower stern planking sections are added. These are made up from two engraved parts.

 
 
Pear prow, keel and rudder post are fitted and wooden alignment pegs used to get the job right. 



 
 
At the moment, I'm waiting for the outer bulwarks to shrink back after soaking. I thought I'd do something useful and got this pile of copper tile made from the roll of self-adhesive copper tape supplied in the kit.

 
Me done for today!

I was very impressed with the white metal figures from Art Girona and thoroughly enjoyed painting them so I decided to try a few more. 
Here we have an arquebusier from the Thirty Years War (1618 - 1648)

Learning (I hope) from the previous effort I have used the heavy duty double sided tape to mount the figure to the pill container doing duty as holder. I decided to keep the head separate to make painting easier and the arms are only attached for the black priming and the directional white highlights.
Next I will start building up the coloured glazes onto the primers



Thanks for looking in
Alan

Conclusion
i am very much looking forward to building this, but research is needed to make a reasonable non OOB build
a lot of generic fittings need to be replaced, like blocks, belaying pins, gratings
no tapering instructions for the masts, i may obtain instructions from the Panart kit 
the way the stern is presented needs work to make it look right, a comparrison of Occre v Panart
2nd photo taken from google i believe is from
a MSW member @testazyk
 

Latest status

The Big Reveal!
 
This one is as done as it's gonna get. It is not, in fact, as done as it could be, because I have made an informed decision to leave off some rigging lines that are both poorly documented in the kit diagrams and not well-attested in photos of either other models or real aircraft. Truth is, only die-hard purists may notice their absence. As I have hinted at before, this is not one of the better-designed kits I have worked on. There were many niggling omissions in the diagrams, which left many of the more nuanced construction bits pretty much up to the builder's imagination. I would give this kit a three out of five stars on the design and ease of assembly. The artwork, as I said at the beginning, is very nice and gives the model a good measure of 'curb appeal'. Enjoy the pictures!
 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Build Log Index
Date: 24/07/2024
Time worked today: 2 hours.
Total time spent on build: 19 hours.
 
Sanding the Hull After 1st Planking
I started using a mouse sander with 80 grit sandpaper. I then switched to using 120 grit sandpaper (by hand) and 600 grit sanding sticks. During the sanding process there were a few areas where I needed to add some filler. The method I used to fill the depressions is as follows.
 
Add a lump of wood filler to the centre of the area to be filled.

Use a wooden tooth pick (or similar) to spread the wood filler by rolling it back and forth.

 After a few rolls back and forth the depressions was filled and the excess wood filler is on the tooth pick..

 Once the filler had cured it can sanded smooth. The end result is there is no longer any sign of the depression.

I then checked how the second planking would look at the stern area. I started with fitting the main keel (aft) along with some 1mm planks to simulate the outer keel patterns. A small piece of the second plank material was then test fitted. As can be seen the second plank looks to be reasonably flush with the keel. There is a bit of wood filler that still required to be sanded.

 I then repeated the process with the stern post fitted.

 Next I test fitted the rear stern counter patterns. I was really pleased with how these look.

 After these are fitted I noted that there will be a bit of sanding required to ensure the stern post fits flush.

 The hull now looks and feels nice and smooth and is now ready for the next stage of the build upon my return from holiday.

Second layer planking laid, trimmed and sanded.  I am going to try to remove some of the iridescence of the wood to make it look a bit more realistic.  Maybe a raw umber stain.
 

 

 
 
 

Five of six shroud lines for the Foremast

 
Finicky tying, but getting the ropes tight and keeping the deadeyes all level is a juggling act.
Have a bit of slack there so I adjust when the last one is done

At this point, the hull still isn't faired, but that should happen tomorrow. No time lost though as all of the various fittings and fixtures are now complete, and these next few posts will show you a little of what I have done. There is a degree of work that I'm also not showing here as it's irrelevant at the moment.....such as gallows, bitts etc. painted in red. 
 
Ok, here we go.
 
Capstan
If you've build any VM kits, then this capstan's construction will be very familiar, so here are just a few images showing it up until the painting sequence.



 
 
 
Ladders
It's the same with the ladders. These are a tried and tested formula. Harpy has six ladders of various sizes and shapes, including the ones fitted for boarding. 


 


 
 
Final photos for companionway
As you can seem these now have the PE parts fitted. The companionway will simply be varnished, as will the skylight and wheel unit, so extra effort has been made to make this look pretty.
 
 


Rudder box
The original plans show something that looked like boxing around the rudder protrusion above deck. This was determined to be something that would likely have looked like this. At this stage, this just needed a nice sanding to even it up and clear up the charred ends.

Davits
These hang over the stern and provide an option for hanging the ship's boat. These are simple to build and involve adding the winch holes and end caps to the main parts. I've only cleaned these up enough to blend those parts to the main body, as the whole lot will eventually be painted black.


 
 
Catheads
These consist of two engraved parts which are glued together and then fitted with the winch holes and end caps. These will also be painted black before being fitted to the hull.


More in a moment...
 
 

Today I started on the ball turret.
just 4 pieces inside and glued the two halves together. Put on the Eduard masks and gave it a prime. I thought it would be a quick little part to do… I was wrong!

At first I thought the seams were pretty good but the primer showed they needed a lot of work, so trimmed and sanded them down and after the 3rd check I was happy.
Next I started on the connecting mechanism, but quickly found out it was too narrow or the ball turret was too wide and so the arms were being splayed out and barely holding it in place.

I wasn’t sure if I’d done something wrong so let it sit while I thought about it and decided I’d modify it to fit better.

I measured how much I wanted to widen it by and added some plastic to each part and removed the centre pole so that it fit well. Then reattached the centre pole and spent awhile working out how far out of the plane the turret should sit. At this original height it seemed to be protruding a lot more than reference photos showed so trimmed it up till it looked right. Then I let the glue harden before sanding it into shape. Added the ammo boxes and also made an oxygen bottle which I’ll add later. Then test fitted it and gave it a paint.
 



This is how it will look once attached. I also learned during the dry fit that with the ammo boxes on I can’t install it if the two halves of the plane are together! So I’ll have to make sure to install the mechanism before closing it up. But I can remove the turret easily so that’s ok and can put the ball in its place once the undercarriage is on and the painting is complete. Also I’ve not painted the ammo boxes or any of the mechanism that is inside the plane, only the external parts.
 

I haven't had much time for my S.O.S lately with home renovations going on but figured I'd post a small update, the catheads are finally completed and currently working on the starboard fore channels, the deadeyes measure out to just under 2mm and are stropped with thread, the chain plates are flattened 28g copper wire, the assembly process as follows, with the channels off the ship I'll glue the deadeyes into the notch and fold a short pigtail of the strop underneath and glue, next secure the channels to the hull and feed the chainplates for the tackles thru the channel from the top and secure with a length of copper wire to simulate the bolt/spike then cut somewhat flush with a cuticle cutter and lastly the deadeye chainplates with the bolt already attached will be fitted into the hull and the upper part will be glued into the remaining notch covering the deadeye strop. Thanks for your continued likes.
 
Michael D.

Post 28
Risers fitted
Before gluing the risers I followed Chuck’s lead by applying the ‘nail’ heads using 10lb fishing line.

0179
I double checked the fixing marks before committing to glue and completed the Starboard side first.

0177
The port side rear riser was then clamped into place and the temporary thwarts used to confirm level and squareness.

0181
Moving onto the forward section riser on the port side.

0182
Multiple checks and re-checks are made to ensure that the thwarts are level.

0185
The temporary thwarts are used to confirm the levels at each point.
I use the Proxxon vice to support hull and get a true level, and tweak as necessary.

0205
Forward portside risers glued into place, always relieved when this part is over.

0196

0207
Moving onto the thwarts proper.
 
B.E.
19/07/2024

I finished the molding on the port side and now it is on to the channels.
 
Given that the channels are going to take all the standing rigging and most of the running rigging "load" it is imperative that they be securely anchored to the hull. Don't ask me how I know but having to "re-secure" a channel (or pin rail) during the rigging process is to be avoided if at all possible. The addition of the pins securing the channels to the hull is a good start and hats off to Vanguard for supplying them as part of the kit.
 
I used medium CA on the edge of the channel and when that was dry added a bead of medium CA along the underside of the channel (hull turned upside down) as an extra measure of "security".
 
Then to make sure the molding (which is going to support the knees) as securely fixed to the hull I added .020 phosphor bronze pins through the holes already in the molding at the locations behind the channels.
 
I also scraped the black paint off the channel where the knees are going to be placed. I decided to paint the knees black rather than leave them "natural" - probably to avoid cleaning off the laser char on very small curved surfaces. Anyway I painted the sides while they were on the carrier sheet as I do not trust my hand to paint the sides once in place. Although the area behind the channels is not going to be all that visible after all the deadeyes and rigging are in place.
 
So here is a closeup of the fore channel and an overall view of the starboard side with all the channels and knees in place.
 

The starboard "fighting port holes" (no idea of the proper nautical terminology) at the waist have been added. I don't know if it would be appropriate, as per the Zeven Provincien 1665 drawings that Chapman has in post #131, to have some kind of ring around the holes inside and out? I looked at additional Zeven Provincien drawings (and pictures of a model)... very interesting and informative. The Zeven Provincien had no gangway decks at the waist; is it possible that Soleil Royal #1 also lacked gangways, and simply had a wooden wall at the waist? That would be an interesting take, but unless there is compelling evidence... I am adding the kit gangways.
 
Also... I would love to move the ladder aft one gun port, but it would just interfere with the wooden strip between the wales (name?) that will serve as the anchor point for the eye bolts at the bottom of the main mast shroud lines. Unless I cut off the decorative tab that I added (but I also have a scarf joint at the top middle wale at that spot). Guess I will just leave the ladder steps as is.