rybakov

Thought I would add some close up photo's of Montague.  I was on the NRG site and came across the article by Kurt on taking photo's of ones work and figure I needed to practice  a bit. Guess I have to find a little space for a photo booth when  taking good photo's of my ship.  Well guys one day maybe I get the hang of taking good photo's, hope you enjoy the close up. Gary

Hi guy's. Here's a update on the build but this time it is more about her building board. I add a way of being able to tilt her from side to side  which helps keep the back in tack and a lot easier getting to thing's.  I worked on a couple of hanging knee's and being tilted made it a lot better.  I can't take the Credit for it which goes to  Alan/AON and the tech info on it. Hope you enjoy the pictures and any question will be more then happy to answer them

All looks very nice, Mark. Good process thinking on your run of moldings as well. Hdd you considered painting friezes on paper off-model and gluing them on in sections? Many contemporary models were painted this way. It obviates the need for awkward masking or working against gravity. And, if you mess up a piece, it's easily replaced. The friezework on Comet was done this way:
 

Hi everyone,
 
It has been a long time since my last post. Other things going on, slow progress on the Bellona with little to show of interest. A lot of thinking about next steps!
 
I have finally roughed out the timber ends, giving the hull a much lighter feeling. These still need their distinctive hollowed top and sides. And they bring into play the railings at the their base and halfway up their lengths. I am still thinking how to do this, likely inserting short pieces between the timber heads, and then continuous railings alongside to give the appearance of a railing pierced by the timber heads.
 
I have completed the sheer strake, which was particularly satisfying since it really contributes to the sweet lines of the hull. I am now beginning to fit the moulding over the sheer strake. This will be very obvious in the final model, and it needs a particularly smooth, faired line. I have made a ply template at the right curvature, that I will clamp to the hull above the moulding and then clamp the moulding up to the lower edge of the template when glued. But in the waist, the fairness will be particularly obvious,  and the ply template doesn't have anything to rest on or clamp against. So I decided to start fitting the capping rail in the waist, up to which I can clamp the moulding for a smooth run when I glue it.
 
The lower photo shows a temporary rough blank for the capping rail, to check the fairness in both directions. I'm thinking I will glue the mouldings first, then come back and do the capping rail. This gives me a final edge against which to test the fairness of the outer edge of the capping rail.
 
I got into a whirlwind of thinking, trying to figure out the sequence of painting and assembly in the upper works. Everything above the waist rail already installed is painted a dark blue for the frieze, except for the sheer and drift rail mouldings which remain bright, and the top rails and timber heads which are black. I have decided to spray paint the blue, after masking the mouldings to which I have already applied the polyurethane finish. We will see!
 
BTW, I just received the NRG thickness guide for the Byrnes saw. Beautiful, works well. Thanks everyone who made this possible!
 
Mark
 
 
 


 

As always, David, your perceptions are right on!  For one, the following pic is more representative of the space available to me:

I would like to have more space, but then I’m compressing the width of the three headrails, between the upper cheek and the beakhead grating.  The three headrails also require interspaces; slightly less than a half inch at the forward end (after revision) isn’t a lot to work with.
 
The fact remains, though, that this design process remains fluid, because I haven’t even gone to the vellum, yet, to delineate the rails and position the stiles and figure out what to do with the aft medallion.
 
As always, this kind of feedback is welcome!

I had a series of epiphanies in the grocery store.  First of all, the exact positioning of the aft medallion matters a great deal, because it determines whether the cathead timbers will clear the headrails.
 
Last night, when I was positioning the stock headrail to take a measurement at the figurehead, I was looking at it from the outboard perspective; I had failed to consider that one of the modifications I made was to recess the beakhead bulkhead into the upper bulwarks, so that there would be an “actual practice” plank overlay of the beakhead bulkhead.
 
When I got home, after putting away the groceries, of course, I positioned the stock headrail piece where it actually needs to be.  I discovered that the shortage is much closer to 5/16”, rather than the heavy 1/8”th I had previously based my pattern on.
 
It also dawned on me that I had not even bothered to place the sprit-mast to even see whether the forward medallion was actually now below it.  What was I thinking?!
 
Anyway, these were not difficult alterations to make.  Here is headrail pattern 2.0:


The other important consideration is that the beakhead grating has to flow into the headrail on a steady incline, so the top edge of the headrails can’t dip below the line of the grating.
 
Of course, the next question is whether I will have room for the pixie figure that I drew, just aft of the headrail:
 

I’m not sure about that:

Although, it could simply be a matter of re-scaling the figure.  When I drew her, it still had not dawned on me that the Berain bow drawing does not account for the forecastle deck.  The figure I drew is “stretched” in order to accommodate that reality:
 

Perhaps she can be somewhat reduced in scale to fit comfortably between the headrails and that first port opening.  I may, ultimately, need to alter the aft medallion to copy the actual Berain design because the Heller version adds width to this critically tight spot.
 
That’s a problem for another day.  At least I have the length and sweep worked out. 

A lot of small odds and ends have been happening.  I’ve smoothed-over and re-touched the upper bulwark joint.  I painted and installed the starboard spirketting and the quarter deck beam.  I’ve fitted and installed the last little piece of the frieze, where it bridges the bulwark joint.  I’ve also installed all of the starboard channels.
 
One aspect that has provided a series of mis-steps is the buttressing knees of the channels.  First, I could not locate the card template I had made for the port side, so I made a new template.  Then, the first knee I fitted was made from slightly thinner styrene than what I used  on the port side.  After the second knee, I found my original template!  So, even though I will remove the first too-thin knee and replace it, I manually faired the first two knees to the correct profile.  The third knee I installed was too tall!
 


I decided to take a break from that frustration, for a moment.  The port side gallery bracket is well-underway and coming along nicely.
 
Last night, I was in the mood to take a stab at a pretty challenging re-design.  As previously discussed, the kit head rails are now a generous 1/8” too short, after increasing the hull width at the stem.  To attempt to use them, anyway, would result in a visual compromise that would only serve to draw heaps of attention to its wrongness.
 
Even on the stock kit, there are numerous problems with the way these rails were designed.  Most significantly, the forward escutcheon rises above the level of the sprit-mast, where it becomes an encumbrance to the rigging.  Secondly, the low-sweeping arc of the rails makes it very difficult to craft plausible supporting knees, which the kit omits, in the first place.
 
Since, I have to re-make the rails, I thought I’d try and solve these two additional problems, while also improving the grace of the arc.  My plan is to extract the forward and aft medallions, as well as the acanthus stiles that connect the three rails.
 
The pattern I arrived at, I think, does a reasonably good job on all of these fronts.  The three rails taper, gradually, from 3/4” across the rails at the aft medallion, to 1/2” at the forward medallion:

Arriving at this pattern was just a matter of holding the stock part to the model and taking a measurement for the increased length, as well as figuring out the point at which the arc could transition into a slightly more shallow curve (just aft of the cathead support).  Then, it’s just a process of drawing and erasing arc segments with a set of French curves.
 
The stock rails on the model:

The sweep is so low, your supporting knees must be practically flat in profile.  The forward medallion is also way too high:

By contrast:

There is, now, at least some elevation to create a cyma-curve for these supporting knees.

I think the curves are more fair now, as well.


There is a lot of work in these, to bring them to fruition, but I think this is a solid starting place.
 

Thanks you all!
 
I've been catching up on areas of the ship that were not completed earlier. The Q-gallery windows where on hold to avoid damage or dust collection. The remaining large guns due to my just being lazy. Anyway, here are some photos along with a few updates to chapter ten. After I drill the holes for the pinned QD guns I will finish up the upper rail on the QD.






Mike

Hello,
we are back at the yard and I'm busy with the stanchions for the head rails. 😰

Hello,
the Tiger and I decided to have a brake at the yard and enjoy the beautiful spring here. To the left you see the real Tiger, my model for tigers and lions. 😉

Hello and many thanks for your nice comments and likes.
the last days I finished the drift rail here at the fore castel. I took her out of the basement, so that the paint could dry better. Since I changed there my light system to LED, is that a problem.
The next days I would first build the rest of the head rails and then the cat head supporter. So it may take some time before you hear again from me.

Right you are, Bill!
 
The reason that I will not labor to remake the bracket is illustrated right here:

The figures’ vestments will completely obscure the stool that they sit upon.  In fact, those pesky clothes will obscure most of the detail I have labored to create on the forward side of the archway bracket.  That is perfectly  okay with me, though.
 
Vic, I suppose that a real-time video of me “whittling,” as my work friend likes to quip, would be intensely boring; ever watch a termite bore through wood?
 
As a near-sighted person for most of my life, I am adjusting to the mid-life reality of constantly removing my glasses for close work, while simultaneously resisting the pressing need for bi-focals/transition lenses.  This is the status of my mid-life crisis.
 
I’ll post a picture of the three main brushes I use, a little later.  They are great, but not especially spectacular; all synthetic, and totally in-expensive.

Marc,
The angle of the cap to the piece you made doesn't look right as it violates the ship's lines aft. It is the only piece with a down-slant aft looking at the broadside view. The forward view looking aft shows the piece tilted downwards.
Bill
 

The more I consider your specific point about color saturation, Marc, the more I can appreciate the truth of atmospheric conditions and the way that they impact our perception of color, in real life.  Once again, when it comes to diorama ships, Herbert Tomesan comes the closest I’ve seen to getting this right.  Your point is well-received and I will do my best to tone it down a bit more.  And, yes Vic - one does need to be careful with clearcoats.
 
So, the process of making this first starboard bracket has been highly educational!  Anytime I’m making a part like this, I am designing a process to arrive at a level of detail with the least amount of difficulty.  For these brackets, one of the primary details that I wished to capture is the pierced filigree of the false canopy.  This, much like the trailboard at the head, can only be arrived at through careful piercing and paring, from one side to the other and back again.
 
As always, though, I like cleanly delineated shoulders and panel reliefs, so I thought it would make the most sense to build the bracket up from three primary layers of .028 styrene sheet which, I will show later, gives me just nearly enough part thickness to mount the Four Winds mascaroon.  Carving  the filigree into a larger supporting lamination is far easier than carving it as an independent insert piece.
Above, I’ve already carved the filigree and laminated the aft layer to the center.  The edge that joins with the hull is also about a 1/32” oversize, to allow for precise scribing to the hull, a little later.
 
The bottom of the scroll, where it mounts to the bulwark rail, has been left deliberately overlong for final shaping, once the three layers have been laminated together.  I was mindful, at this stage, that the back-raking angle of the bracket would necessitate a raking angle for the scrolled foot, as well; were I to shape each lamination to size, before gluing, I would end up with a significant gap, at the forward face of the foot.
 
After lamination and initial scribing to the hull and gallery rail, the foot looks like this:

With the bottom angle of the foot established, I could proceed with shaping the scroll and fairing the leg to it’s final form.  Here is a montage that shows the evolution of this process:
 

One thing I have found to be true; it is much easier, at times, to “draw” with the tools, than it is with a pencil.  I was able, for example, to emphasize an elegant sloping transition into the foot with my files and a sanding stick.  Now, when I position the bracket on the model, the negative space of this archway is at a more complementary angle to the adjoining windows than my initial drawing/template.



It’s a little hard to read in the following picture, but I have introduced a slight taper to the scroll foot from bottom to top; this is the first step along the detailing path of a scrolled volute.  I will show the relief work, in this area,  in the next post, after I have attached the acanthus brackets.

So, with this much established, I could focus on fitting the mascaroon that I had retrieved from the kit quarter gallery.  Given the difficulty of carving convincing faces, it is always worthwhile to see whether one can salvage the kit sculptures.  The mascaroons are oversize, but I thought I could make it work.  

What I am trying to achieve:

After much fettling, the mascaroon pares down quite a bit from where it began:

Now - the head is unavoidably wider than the bracket, but I will show a little later how simply softening these hard edges makes the sculpture look more like a deliberately rounded relief.  I was able to retain just enough of the headdress, so I consider this sculpture experiment a success!

Next, I turned my attention to the mouldings which are really just a continuation of the top and bottom rails of the upper gallery bulwark.  My idea was to simply profile a piece of scrap 1/16” styrene and then “rip” the moulding off the blank:
 

After truing the back edge, it was a simple task to profile the ends and secure them to the bracket:
 

This approach results in a generous perch for the seated figures:
 

I am currently adding-on the final layer of appliqués:  paneled headers, bell flower escutcheons, filigree accents,
and acanthus brackets.
 
Here you can see how softening hard edges helps turn a shortcoming into an advantage:
 


Honestly, I don’t think I can do a better job of satisfying the design and artistic challenges of this complicated part.  Nevertheless, it did dawn on me that my approach resulted in a fundamental architectural flaw that would never have found its way onto the actual ship.  Can anyone spot it?
 


I’ll give you all a little time to mull it over, and then I’ll explain why it won’t matter for this model, and is not worth the monumental effort of remaking the part.  I got lucky, this time, but the insight has only deepened my appreciation for these 17th C. shipwrights who managed to knit the whole structure together seamlessly.
 
As always, thank you for your support!  More to follow..

Hello !
Hello Vic, the guns are juste laid on the sill of the gunports, in place just for the picture, I have since removed them
Concerning the guns, I thought it might interest some of you to know how I painted them. I was inspired by the guns in front of the Strasbourg mess, as well as those that can be seen in museums. I found their patina was very elegant, not too marked, and highlighting the decorations. The difficulty is mainly related to the scale; at 1/72 the painting, even well diluted, does not behave as at 1/48 or larger scales, especially on reliefs as small as the ones on the bronze guns. So I included a picture of the guns as received, already passed through the burnisher by Alexey. Pretty but a little flashy and not homogeneous from one to the other, going from very dark to quite light. After going through the burnisher to have a very dark working base, I apply a coat of green (house mix) with an airbrush to give the dark bronze color. The airbrush makes it possible to have a very fine layer of paint which does not thicken the reliefs of the decorations. We get a very matte result. I then apply a thin coat of protective oil for metals which will protect the base during subsequent operations. The verdigris patina is then done with Citadel's "nihilakh oxide" paint. It has the consistency of a wash, and after passing it sparingly I wipe it away, leaving it only in the hollows. The final step is to rub the barrels with the shine brush of a Dremel, which will smooth the paint a little and restore the metallic aspect to the tube. It's quite difficult to take a picture of this. I tried with different lights. the last picture  is "burnt" but the color of green is the closest to what we see in real life.
That's all !

 

Hello,
except for his knee, the cat head is now ready. The knees comes then together with the rest of the head rails. But before that I would build the rest drift rails around the beakhead bulkhead.

Hello,
only a short update. I carved and painted a little over the weekend. 

Hello and many, many thanks for your likes and comments.
My garden took at least a lot of my attention the last week, so the shipyard had to pause a little. The beakhead bulkhead is now fast installed and yesterday I build the seats of ease in front of the round houses. Today I started with the cat-hats and -tails. I think, the pictures speak for themselves.

Continuation: Cleats for the topgallant lifts and royal lifts
Since tying the cleats to the shrouds did not turn out to be as problematic as originally feared, I went a step further to approximate the original method of execution.

Source: "Le gréement des navires anciens (1700-1850)", Gérard Piouffre
 
 
The following picture shows the result:

Accordingly, I will now attach the cleats for the lifts of the topgallant yards and royal yards to the topmast shrouds.
 
To be continued ...
 

As always, Druxey, you are very welcome.  I appreciate your sticking around through this slow, steady climb.
 
It has been suggested to me, by a friend on the other forum, that my pass-through arches might benefit from a slight re-design.  His point was that the pedestal support, as it rises from the balcony rail, appears to move slightly away from the ship side:
 

I related that part of the reason for this is that I needed a wide-enough seat to accommodate the figures of Africa and the Americas, so that they wouldn’t seem cramped beneath the quarter-piece supports for the side lanterns.
 
When I reduced the sheer by 1/4”, I lowered these quarter-pieces, as well, so that they would be in-line with the sheer railing, as opposed to above the sheer railing.  I even carved away the lower finishing of the quarter pieces and reduced their depth, somewhat, but they still present a challenge to spacing.
 
Nonetheless, the more I studied the problem, I could appreciate that he was right, and I found a path to get ever so marginally closer to what he was suggesting.
 
Now, the differences are slight.  I kept the canopy at the same projection as before, but I redrew the support pillar at a slightly steeper angle toward the ship’s side, while increasing its heft.  I re-drew all of the scrolls and the acanthus brackets and they are better now.
 
Here is the difference:
 

I will minor-tweak some of these panel reveals, as I make the parts, but this is what the new bracket design looks like against the ship:

This is not a dramatic difference, but it is a worthwhile improvement, IMO.
 

More progress today. I managed to get the wheel finished and on the ship. I could have used the laser cut spokes, but I decided to scratch them instead. Either way would have worked just fine.

Mike

Continuation: Cleats for topgallant lifts and royal lifts 
Mostly it comes differently than one thinks! 
So in this case. While I had thought that binding the filigree cleats to the topmast shrouds would be very difficult, my first attempt showed that it would be relatively easy.
Before I started with the shrouds for this model, I first built a corresponding jig for experimental purposes. This served later among other things also with decisions for attaching the ratlines. And now it served to test how best to attach the cleats to the shrouds.
The trick, if you can call it that at all, is to tie the cleats comfortably to the shrouds from the front, and then simply turn them backwards to the desired position. 

 To be continued ...
 

Cleats for the topgallant lifts and royal lifts 
I almost forgot!
Wasn't there something else with the shrouds? There are a few details I'd better mention now.

The description of the monograph for La Créole itself does not clearly state how the lifts for the topgallant yards and royal yards are to be attached. As far as I could tell from the description, the lifts were attached somewhere in the area of the top. On the original photos of the Paris model of the La Créole, you can clearly see two cleats on each of the topmast shrouds. Until now, I could not clearly identify the ropes used there. However, after some research, my suspicions were confirmed. These are the lifts for the topgallant yards and royal yards.
 

Source: Monograph by J. Boudriot, detail of original model
 
The next step was to clarify the shape and size of these cleats, a total of 3 x 4 pieces, which I derived from the original photograph and drew.
 I made the cleats from service tree. The following pictures show different stages of the production. 



     
      
The last picture shows the result.

 
Attaching these cleats to the topmast shrouds will probably be another small challenge to master.
 

Yesterday was a milestone day as I completed the main deck gallery of stern windows and finally completed the wrapping balcony.
 
Per usual, there was quite a lot of touch-up, but here is where we are after applying the walnut ink wash:

Somewhat remarkably, I managed to avoid breaking the aft bulwark supporting knees, the angle of which had to be faired a little to match the corresponding rake of the corner joint.
 
Because the nature of this reverse-engineering project precludes a comprehensive drawing, from the outset, the build is always evolving, in-process.  I realized, for example, that increasing the camber on this main-deck tier of windows ultimately necessitated adjusting the camber of the bulwark railing, if those two things were ever to agree with each other.  Even though I thought I had set the camber of the windows to match that of the bulwark, it didn’t quite pan out that way, in actuality.  Unfortunately, this only became manifestly evident to me AFTER I glued the bulwark in place.  For the sake of comparison, here is the relatively flatter camber of the bulwark, prior to alteration:
 

Fortunately, there was enough solid-bond glue surface to enable me to re-shape the bulwark, in place.
 
The bulwark cap-rail, itself, was determined by making graphite rubbings along the top edge with masking tape.  This gave me the precise shape, as well as the location and depth of all of the pilasters, so that I could arrive at a reasonable overhang, without making the railing appear too heavy.
 
The forward end of the side cap-rails required some allusion to timbering, considering the need to cover the relatively large-scale expanse of the wooden end-piece beneath it.

My big idea was to wrap the side railings over the corner join to the aft bulwark, thus re-enforcing the construction.


A few different perspective shots with all of the paint re-touched:
 





So, now the stage is set to make the pass-through archways that also serve as supports for the figures of Africa and the Americas.  My adaptation of the Berain design is as close as I can keep it, while still respecting the particular slope of tumblehome on this model.  Here, I’ve drawn my proposal directly to a cardboard pattern:
 

These will be fun to make, as I’ve made all other things like this, before; there will be a primary sandwich of three layers of styrene, with two thinner appliqués that make up the acanthus brackets, and applied mouldings that continue the lines of the upper stern balcony.  There will be pierced fretwork and applied ornaments and all kinds of fun that add up to about a week of effort to make each bracket.
 
I’ve extracted two of the Four Winds carvings from the stock QGs, that will be fitted to the outboard surfaces of these brackets.  I didn’t bother to draw them on the template, but here they are beside said template:
 

They will be reduced, accordingly, to fit between the upper and lower scrolled volutes.
 
As always, thank you for looking in, and for your kind comments and support of the project.
 
More to follow…
 

Hello,
it is done, I painted the bulkhead! 😲