Katsumoto

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

I want to thank all you guys who have stand by me during the build and just now to leave such nice comments. Thank you very much!!!!

The final chapter.... Hello everybody, As you can see this will be the last building chapter of this model. She is finished! It has been a journey and the end is a bit bittersweet. Sure I'm proud I finished this model and the way it came out, but on the other hand it was a real joy to work on her and by finishing the build, this stops... However, it's not entirely finished, I still need to make a presentabele stand and a complete photoshoot has to be done as well. This is for later... For now let me take you on the final steps of the build of the mizzenmast, sail and rigging. After sewing on the boltrope, I attached the sail to her yard. While under tension, I used boiled potato starch on the cloth and some sugar in a plastic bag to bring the sail to shape. It takes about 12-24 hours to dry and then the sail holds it's final shape. To hoist the yard, I needed to fabricate the ramshead blocks. In this case this was not an easy job to do. On this scale 1:60, they are really, really small and I wanted to make these blocks the same as the others. So with working sheeves and all...... The upper block is 2mm in width, with sheeves of 2mm in diameter and 0,5mm thick. Again the process is similair as the other blocks and are made out of laminated 0.5mm veneer strips. When a knife is sharp enough, slices can be cut of the upper block to get to the right size. I somehow lost the photo of the final product, ah well....they are the same as the others but smaller. Here you see them installed on the ship. While working on the ship all kinds of hazards and dangers came up her path. In this case a big black and white one who seems to love attention and playing with scale ropes..... No worries, we are good friends and we have a very good mutual understanding. Touching the ship shortens lifes rapidly.... Some kitparts are not needed anymore and are thrown into the bin.... Back on rigging....The principle of the mizzenyard / sail is the same as the two others, however the masthead contains only two sheeves instead of four. Both are used to hoist the yard. Also the parrel is different and much easier constructed. In this case only the trunks (beads) are used. The end of the parrel is tied off beneath the mast foot. And then the end result. So a final photoshoot will occur soon, but in the mean time this is how she looks! I have tried to push my limits with the construction of this ship and can say that I succeeded. Pretty much everything about the kit has been changed and I can easily estimate a little over 2500 hours of work that went into this model. Not all hours are construction hours. I suspect I've spent over 250 hours of research and study just trying to figure out specifics about this type of ship. Unfortunately, generalities are known, but the details are missing from these types of ships and there is also very little documentation to be found. Everything is made by hand, the carvings of course gives an extra special character to this ship. The sails and rigging are fully in accordance with a famous French Xebec from the 18th century called Le Requin, the museum model Singe of 1762. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_xebec_Singe_(1762) I am also very happy and blessed with you guys as followers who have accompanied and assisted me on this adventure. Thank you so much for the interest, reactions, likes, loves and especially support. Thank you!!! I hope you will follow me again on the next journey. I have already done a lot of research for this model and that project will also be quite a challenge. The next update will be a photoshoot with a lot of pictures.... The end. Peter

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.

Hi Paul, Thanks for your comment, hope you enjoy my build and this log.

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

This is a perfect example of how it should be done. Very well executed. Congratulations Frank with this outstanding result. Something to be proud of really!

You will come up with the knowlegde and wisdom to manage a project like RG and it will be a kit many of us will be patiently waiting in line when it hit the shelves in the store. I guess that @James H would want to build the prototype for sure… Thanks for your reply! 🙂

Royal George would be the “flagship” of your productline. I’ll be the first to buy. What a nice alternative to all the HMS Victory buildlogs that would be. It would be a huge ammount of work to design and produce I guess… a nice list for sure you have!

You are doing a great job on your first model. Painting looks very good. Like de red tone as well. Lovely job!

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.

Gefeliciteerd met dit mooie pakket en veel plezier tijdens het bouwen! 🙂 Congratulations purchasing this beautiful modelship. I wish you a lot of fun during the build of this gem.

Clean build, nicely done so far! 👍

Hi Michael, Missed you lately, now I know why. 🙂 I hope we can get an update of your beautiful Sovereign of the Seas soon. She is a real eyecatcher for sure. All the modifications you’ve done. The lightning is really stunning as well. Thanks for the likes and cheers. See you soon! Peter

Thanks Bob, It took me a lot of time to get it like this. Now I have the same amount of work ahead of me for the main sail. It just keeps me from starting with it. I have to find some inspiration and motivation, that’s all. 😮‍💨

I’ve ordered my ropes from ropesofscale.com. @BenD is a member and a sponsor of MSW. I personally think he offers one of the best aftermarket scale ropes you can buy and offers a great service as well. I’m impressed how good his ropes are and how it lifts my model into a next level build. Thanks for your support @CiscoH appreciated very much!

Foresail rigging finished Hi guys! Quite an update today with lots of pictures, 24 to be exact. It was not easy to get everything right in front of my camera. I have all running rigging of the Foremast ready. I really had some trouble rigging this sail. Some things I had to redo over 3 times or didn't turned out the way I wanted it and was pretty exhausting from time to time. Also figuring out the details cost me a lot of evening hours of work. Unfortunately in all the documentation I have the details are vague or not known. I followed the rigging of Le Requin in combination with another Xebec (museum model). In the end you make choices that seem logical and I tried to keep as close to reality as I could or know. The parrel It starts with the Parrel. The parrel is like a "guide system" that actually rolls the rod / yard up and down the mast. The parrel is made up of so-called "trucks", these are the beads and "ribs" the vertical pieces of wood. As always, I start with a drawing to the actual scale. Then I make it as on the drawing in various steps. Oh yes, the ribs that come with the kit are made of metal and also the wrong size. So I haven't used it. Each rib is individually handcrafted. Builders with milling machines can do this faster and easier than I can, but the admiral won't allow these machines on her dining table and that's the end of the discussion.... The parrel is finally assembled with the made ribs and the trucks of (3mm) and attached to the yard. The parrel of this mast is a simple version. Just 3 horizontal rows that are spliced together and extended into one single rope. On one side of the yard, a strop is used to attach it to the yard. The parrel is wrapped around the mast and then attached with a truss by using a bead the other side of the yard. (see second photo). For the main mast I'm going to replace this bead with a block. Finally the rope runs down at the mast to the foot of the mast where it's tied down using a tackle with a few blocks. This can be seen in the following pictures. A lot of lose ends here.... The parrel tackle is seen on the picture and is the one with the dark ropes next to the mast. The other two tackels are used to turn the ends of the yard. The ropes are running throught the top sheeves on the mast. These tackles are attached with a hook to the rings besides the mast. In between I made the flagpole. The flagpole is attached with two metal braces. then a picture of how it looks in full view of the sail. And a lot of detail pictures of how I tied down all the ropes.... All rope ends are nicely bound together and tucked away...I tried to mimic reality as much as possible and hopefully the rigging is truthfull to the real thing.... And that's it for this update. I know, sometimes I can't see the forest because of all those ropes. The mainsail will carry the same amount of rigging. Only the rigging of the Foremast took me approximately more than 40 hours of work / time. I can only say that it is a big job and the same is waiting for me for the rigging of the mainsail. I have to finish the construction of this sail first, put the boltrope on and so on. I hope you enjoyed this update. Until the next update, and I wish you guys a nice weekend! Peter

Hi Ben, thanks! Almost looking at the real thing right? if you discard the background that is..... It's a real treat to work with your ropes and all.....makes all the difference!

Thanks! I will look into GAC400, Thanks for the suggestion. I like the boiled postauto starch too. Easy to prepare and to apply.

Thanks! Happy to have you on board and welcome! 😀

Hi guys, In this update I would like to show you the first impression on how the Focksail looks on the ship. The height and position of the yard is been controlled by to the two ramshead blocks being made earlier. Here you see it in action and placed on the ship. I placed the yard termporarily to experiment with the positions etc. The yard can be detached from the ship. I still need to place some blocks on the yard and make the Parrel. After that I can place all the other rigging that operates this sail and yard. to be continued....

HI Eric, Perhaps your concern is valid, I really don't know and I have to find out if this is a problem for the near future. For the short term it works perfectly. 😉 Thanks for your concerns.

To be honest guys, I don’t really know however the product is being used in cosmetics and house cleaning products so I assume that it will last without issues. It’s something to find out.

Vielen dank Nils! Nice of you to visit my log! 🙂

A small update in between. I've used boiled potato starch (thanks to Ohla Batchvarov @shipphotographer.com) on the foresail and let it dry overnight. She has an excellent video on how to do this placed on Youtube. Just check it out! Thanks Ohla for sharing! Now the sail has it's final shape like the wind blows into it. I like this method better than diluted white glue. White glue makes the cloth very hard and with boiled potato starch it becomes a feels bit like leather but holds its shape. And because it was my birthday yesterday, the admiral surprised me with a complete paint rack of Vallejo which I will need for a future project. It's a skill a still need to master....I asked for a milling machine, however the admiral has her limits of what's allowed on the dining table.... 🙄