Katsumoto

Chuck, all I can say that this is not only a masterpiece from a master shipbuilder, but also a true work of art. You guide others and make these kind of ships possible to build for other model shipbuilders. 
Just great leadership is all I can say. I'm sure you raised the bar with this one! Deep respect! 

Hi Max,

Great you're working on your F.W. zu Pferde again. The updates looks great. It is a challenge to build without a good manual with step by step pictures. 
The model is expensive and not much people build this beauty. 

I wish you luck with the progress and I keep following for sure!

Peter

Hi André,
It was nice meeting you and your beautiful ship at Duizel. Thank you for showing her to me and explaining some of the story behind the build. 

Regards,
Peter

So, this weekend was the Historic Shipmodelers expo in The Netherlands and two of my ships Santa Maria and Cazador were there.
I wanted to make the central railing on the quarter deck. I did not use the one from the kit and I made my own.
With help of a jig, see pictures below I made a new one and placed the swivel guns on top.
 

It is really impressive what you bring to the modeling world Chris and I love it. I hope the copycats in Asia will stay away!

regards,
Peter
 

Bonjour Neko, just a lovely kit and beautiful ship she is. The castings are one of the best I have seen in a kit! I'm just wondering who the kitmaker is as all the mailorder companies like Deagostini, Hachette and I'm sure Altaya also use Artesania Latina, Occre, Mantua as a source of the product / kit. Do you know? None of these companies has this kit in their catalog, so this is a " big" mystery for me and I would really like to purchase and build this kit.
Altaya only sold this in France or Spain but not in other countries.... Are the parts / numbers being sold in France in local shops as you know? Maybe I can drive to France one weekend... 😁

I follow your build! Arigatō / thanks for answering my questions. 🙂

Salut,
Peter

Great work Daniel, love your attention to details, carvings etc. Keep following your log with great interest.

Peter

I also had flashbacks to the big crash of 2013. Luckily this is not the case and cudo's to the admins! 👍

1 minute ago, Knocklouder said:

I really like your work, can I ask when you say bluing the anchors with super glue, do you brush a thin coat on and then repaint.??🙊

Super Gun Blue is an blueing agent that’s been used on firearms. It gives a patina (steel blue/ grey) on zamac or pewter parts. There are a lot of topics on how to blacken guns. For brass I use a different bottle named Brass Black.

both are from Birchwood Casey. 
 

Hello everyone,

In between the rigging of the cannons, I did some "ironwork" needed for a few things on my to-do-list.
I began with the anchors. The once provided within the kit didn't look to bad and they were already blackened. After inspection I decided to change them a little bit and blued them with Super Gun blue.
 

I also made an anchor for the "little boat"....
 

i made a few eyebolds and rings which I used for the oar port lids..
 

All the gunport lids are placed included with the ironwork....
 

I made two of four knees which I placed to reinforce the catheads . Two down, two to go....I'll remove the cleats above the knees and give these another place.
 

As last I worked on the swivel guns. They are made out of zamac and are cast. I bored out the barrels, cleaned them up and blued them with Super Gun Blue.
I dry-fitted these on the quarterdeck, so they are not glued down yet.
 

That's it for now,

Until the next one, happy modeling.
Pete

For the rigging of the cannons, I use a simple but effective jig so I can rig the cannons off the ship. This makes life much easier because I can turn the jig with the cannon in all directions. Also it prevents damage on the ship doing it this way.
So to me the jig has a simple but effective purpose. I can clamp the carriage to the jig so the cannon stays on it's place. I can use both hands, And to be sure, I sometimes during the rigging progress I wish I had 3 or 4. 😁

Now, this jig is simple like I said, It's functional and pretty easy to make. I used some scrap plywood that came with the kit and made a single gunport situation. It's not important how the jig looks, how fancy it is but only that the distance between the carriage and the hooks and bolts on the jig are the same as on the ship. I made the jig a bit smarter by drawing some lines on the bottom. The first line is the line were the back wheels needs to stop so I can cut the length of the breach rope. The second line is the place where the rear tackle positions. I used my drill to make a small hole for the bolt and ring.

There are many ways to make a jig and I'm sure there are much better ones than I made for my cannons, but in the end it's the result or outcome that matters.... 
After finishing rigging a cannon on the jig, I simply remove the jig and place the cannon already fully rigged on the ship. I can do 1 sometimes 2 per evening depends on the cooperativity of all the materials....☺️

Hello guys,
A sunny summer update from the wharf. Where should I begin, I did so many "small" things this time. So I placed a column, some cleats were placed, barrels placed, did a lot of ironwork (nails, bolts, rings etc), redesigned the position of the stairs to the quarterdeck (one is made, the other not finished yet)
For one, I did some major work on the rigging of the cannons. I use the rope and cable BenD from Ropes of Scale made for me and it's a pleasure working with high quality rope. The breach rope is actually 1.1mm cable and not rope. I used 3mm blocks to rig the first cannon. I did it 5 times over, because I wasn't satisfied with the result. Also I did not go for the rope coils on the deck. The breach rope goes through the carriage and the ends of the tackle rigging are just wrapped around the knob of the gun. 1 down, 19 to go...
 

De positie van de trap en het plateau naar het halfdek heb ik volledig anders vorm gegeven en geplaatst. Dit is meer in lijn met de Franse Xebec's.
 

that's it for this update,
Pete

The ropes and cables of Ben are of exceptional high quality. I'm rigging a cannon for the Xebec Cazador with a 1.1mm / 0.043 inches cable and 0.5mm / 0.019 inches polyester rope I ordered from Ben at ropesofscale.
It's great news he offers a price reduction so hopefully everybody can enjoy these wonderful ropes on their ship!

Hi guys,

Some progress on the yard I made some improvements at the focsle construction that holds the fore-mast. To do so, I had to put my saw into the current construction. A bit nerve breaking kind of work.....The part I inserted is a slightly different color. Both walnut, so in time the color difference will be less visible.
 

The mast is on a certain angle and the fit is just what I was looking for.
 

From fore to aft. Some scratch build parts made and placed on deck. And yes, it's not being placed in the center of the quarterdeck due to the place of the mizzenmast.
 

The supportive "arch" I made out of a single piece of solid walnut was a difficult job. The amount of angles this thing has is ridiculous.
It's an add on I see on other Xebecs and I kind of liked it. It supports the spanker boom.
 

Regards,
Pete

Congratulations on completing your Santa Maria. She is a beauty. 😃 

Take care Max and see you soon!

Peter

Nice update and looks of this beautiful ship! Love the color of the pearwood in combination with the black caprailing. Nice touch! 👍

Hi guys,

Today I did some small "detail" work on the halfdeck and made some ironwork eyebolts and rings from brass.

First things first. The halfdeck ends just as shown on the photo below. You can see the endgrain of the veneer wood and the false deck below, so I wanted to change that and place a walnut strip at the end to cover this up.
Well, there wasn't enough space to place the plank and the only option was to cut-off the end of the deck so the plank would fit in between the bulwark.

I decided to use my knife to make the cut. To keep a straight line, I use a "guide" made of a piece of walnut. 

The result is a straight line which needed only a small bit of sanding. After that a placed the strip of walnut.

After this I worked on the eyebolds and rings. The eyebolds were part of the kit, but a bit out scale, so I reduced the diameter and blacked them with Brass Black.

After the rings and eyebolds were put together, I placed them on the bulwarks. The breach rope of the cannons will be attached to these rings.

And that's it for this update,

Thank you for all the likes and comments and help I get allong the way. 

Pete

@Tomasz B Thank you for your reply! 😃 Just practice with your tools help you to “get to know” the tools better. Because I don’t have a lot, I just get the maximum out of them as I can. But you are right, in this scale it is tiny.

When you’re in front of the ship you reallize the small size and it’s something else I can tell you. 🙃

ah well, I just need to “copy” my work to the other side of the ship…

Part 3 of the gun carriages

The closing of an era. I finished all the carriages. Luckily there were only 20. 
I let the pictures do the talking and before I forget, I still need to fabricate all the bolts, rings and blocks for all these cannons...so...I'm not out of the woods yet...

Then a question for those who has the knowledge about rigging these guns. It's a mid 18th century Spanish ship with French influence. Does any of you have a picture how these cannons were rigged? I mean, I have seen pictures were the thick cable goes through the carriage and I have seen pictures where the cable lies round the back of the cannon / barrel. I do not know what is correct or not. Your help is much appreciated. 🙂😅

Until the next update,
Pete

1 hour ago, BenD said:

The gun carriages are looking good. What finish are you putting one them?

I use a medium oak stain and then Danish Oil as a finish.

Hi guys,

I'll continue with the gun carriages. This time I fabricated all wheels. I use two different diameters on the wheels. The front wheels are bigger that the ones on the rear axel. I have only one diameter of walnut and so I fabricate the smaller wheels by hand with a knife, file and some elbow grease.
 

Wheels done, time to move on to the fabrication of all the axles. I made them out of toothpicks.
 

All the carriages are rolling now but I need to make all the parts that support and aim the guns.
 

Well, still not finished, to be continued...

regards,
Pete

Working on the gun carriages

Hello guys,

Last weekend I continued to work on the fabrication of the gun carriages. I needed to make 20 in total and already made two previous examples.
So, I opened the production line and get started. First step is to cut some Limewood strips to length. I use a simple strip cutter from Amati. Second is to model all the individual parts like sides, axels, wheels etc. For that I use my knife and needle files.
 

Next update will show all pieces ready!

Pete

This build brings back memories. 😉

First of all, you have chosen a very good kit of Amati. Second, you build it very very good! Very crisp lines and additions you made yourself. For your first build this is extraordinary!

keep up the great work,

Pete

On 3/31/2022 at 10:28 AM, Artesania Latina said:

 

Hello,

 

Many customers complain about us not including printed instructions or detailed plans in many of our models and changing these for a DVD or downloadable instructions, but you made the point explaining the main reason why we're working in this way lately.

 

We understand many classic modelers may prefer the old instructions and plans, but we feel we're making now the best instructions we have ever done (and by the way, the best instructions any kits manufacturer puts in the market).

 

Around 400 pages of instructions for Soleil Royal or over 500 pages for our new HMS Endeavour are examples of this.

I think this is one of the best progress or results Artesania Latina has made lately, is to make a very detailed building manual with a lot of pictures explaning how to make each step!
However, I think AL can make each kit more interesting to create kit options. So, you can buy the "standard" version with "cheap" woods and a lot of plywood and requires paint. Or you buy the "premium" version and replace the cheap wood with descent hardwood like "Walnut" or "Oak" or "Cherry or Pear", more PE materials and better guncarriages, ropes etc. Some " classic modelers don't like to paint their models and just want to spend some extra money for an upgrade. At this moment this is not possible and not all modelers can mill their own lumber. 😉