Surabaya by Piet - 1/80 - Mid 17th-Century VOC ship

[Piet]

Hey Marc, thanks for looking in and your encouraging comments. Flying Dutchman 2 eh?  Are you a pilot also? That's what many folks in the past labeled me, I used to fix them, design repairs for them and flew them.  The title kinda stuck.  Besides coming to the USA way back in 1957 from the Netherlands.

In any case, yes, I love these ships, they had character and made a tiny nation the greatest seapower in the world before England overtook them.  

The Valkenisse, beautiful ship and like to see you get started on that project.  How soon?

 

Cheers,

 

 

[amazone]

pic  from e dutch lion are very hard te find , spesily e good one.

 

i always use the same pic  and thats the one  from witsen his book.

 

here the pic  and  the lion i made fore my jacht.

[Piet]

Thanks for the pics Dirk, I can use the Witsen lion okay, looks very nice and with his tongue sticking out too!  Wonder if he is doing that against the English 

Some modelers put the tail on each side, left and right, just to make it look similar. 

 

Hey Anthony, a root canal is minor stuff, believe me, I have had many done and all of them were a breeze.  They numb you and pull the nerve out, disinfect the hole then put a pin in it and the crown or whatever.  Stay away from amalgam, that's mercury and no good for your bod.

 

Re the model work, it'll slow down a little now that I am working on two models and the admiral needs more of my attention due to her bad back.  We just celebrated her 72d birthday    

And yes, I'll be rigging it with sails!

 

Cheers,

 

 

 

 

[Sjors]

Hi Piet,

 

I found those 2 pictures of a Dutch lion head.

 

[amateur]

And this is the lion at the Batavia:

JHaving a crown was quite uncommong (The ZP is one of the few ships known with a crowned lion)

 

[Piet]

Hey Sjors,

 

Thanks for the pics and a lion with flowers on his head?  Rather dainty isn't he? 

The second on looks rather fearsome, very nice indeed. I could use the head on the body from the one on the Batavia Jan send!  Or perhaps it's the same one?

 

Hi Jan, Wow, yes, I remember seeing that one, good looking.  Like I mentioned above, I may just use the head from the one Sjors send on the body from the Batavia or the drawing from van Ijk.

 

Need to make a few sketches and see what falls out.  Needles to say I have my job cut for me (pun intended  )

 

Thanks again for your help 

 

Cheers,

 

[Piet]

In the meantime I made the outer parts for the gun port lids and am about ready to glue them together.  Then the pull cord eye bolts, and hinges.

The inner planking is 10 mm square, the outer planking is 12 mm square.  Both give or take a fraction.

 

The last photo I tried something.  I wanted to see how it would have looked like to just have round port holes for the smaller guns instead of the larger square holes with lids.

In retrospect that’s what I should have done, I think.  But it’s too late now to make a change and I’ll have to leave it this way.  It does kinda  fit my original idea of making this a hybrid ship, a heavily armed merchant vessel.

 

I’m also still pondering whether I should paint the railing in the waist green to have a continuation of the green color between the forecastle and the aft end.  I think it would look better.

 

Any ideas, suggestions??

 

Gun port lid parts

 

Gun port lids in gun ports for a look see

 

Cheers,

[amateur]

The one with flowers on his head (actually, on his crown) is the lion on the Zeven Provincien in Lelystad.

 

Jan

[Sjors]

You are right Jan, the other one is the lion head from the Delft.

 

 

[Piet]

Hello Lawrence,

 

Thanks for the visit and your compliments, really appreciated.  Like I mentioned in my PM to you I'm pretty much bound to building models the hard way, draw up my own plans.  Now that I am retired at a rather late age, my income is drastically reduced and must be careful in expenditures 

My professional background is in aircraft maintenance and engineering.  Aircraft fuselages and ship hulls have a lot in common and once you have a fairly good idea about the shape of the hull, via many drawings and paintings, then it's really not too difficult.

 

Did you visit my submarine build log?  That project has pushed the VOC build on the back burner.  But there are moments between waiting for glue to dry or other things that I can devote some time on the VOC ship.  Right now I'm working on the gunport lid hinges and have already 21 pair done of the 32 total.  Time consuming work but a fun project.  I'll have a few pics in a day or so to keep this log active.

 

Cheers, 

 

 

 

[chris watton]

Looking through this thread, I had a smile on my face. What great work, and great subject, too. I love the details and the execution of the model.

 

I do like the lines and curves of ships of this period - not as overtly pronounced as the earlier galleon type vessels, but not so relatively constrained of the later 18th Century ships.

[Piet]

Hello Chris,

 

Hey, thanks for dropping buy and your kind words, I appreciate that.  Yes, my sentiments too.  I like the looks of the middle to late seventeenth century ships, both the naval and merchant ships.  But, like everything, progress had to happen with lowering the poop deck and enclosed "verdek" or second deck. It made handling the sails easier and kept the crew out of the weather some.

 

Cheers,

[Adrieke]

HI Piet

 

finaly looked though this buildlog too

 

what beautifult wotk you are doign on both ships

[Piet]

Hey Andrieke, thanks for visiting the Surabaya!  It's a fun project and I'm enjoying it much, keeps me out of the bar     except the one on your river boat   

 

Well, as the epoxy is setting up on the O 19 I've been working on the gunport lid hinges and laid a couple on top to see how they look.  Funny thing is that on the bench it looked okay but now looking at them on the pics they are way too large for scale.  I'll have to make them a lot smaller, almost half as big.  

Oh well, no problem, just a few hours more "fun," filing.

 

A few of the completed hinges laid on the lids for a look-see.  Now looking at them they are a bit out of scale.  I used brass sheet with copper tubing soldered to the brass strips  Sooooo, some more filing to do.   

 

Cheers,

[Sjors]

That's to big Piet???????

They are looking very small…..

 

[Piet]

Hi Sjors,

 

Yup, much too big.  At a scale of 1:80 they would be quite large and heavy.  So, I cut then down a little, which was kinda tedious to say the least.  I used a pair of large sewing scissors to cut a sliver off and then a small file to file the copper tubing to fit.  I had to do all this while holding that little thingy between my thumb and index finger of  my left hand.  Yeah, I have dainty small hands but enough grip to crush your's 

I'll have Gwen take a pic for yuns to believe it.  She was surprised to see that I still had all my fingernails.

 

I redid two pair of these little critters and made a picture.  Looking at it I realize that I need to do some more filing.  Photos are a great source for finding small imperfections.  My oh my, what have I gotten myself into, 32 gunport lids, that means 64 little hinges and then the hinge brackets    

 

Okay, here is a picture of the reworked hinges.

 

The reworked hinges laid on top of one of the gunport lids.  The right one needs a little more work. 

 

Cheers,

[Sjors]

Wow piet,

 

I have already problems with those small deadeyes and those lids are even smaller….

I have big hands!

But it looks great.

And only 64 of those…..

By the time it is Christmas, you are finished with them 

 

[druxey]

Those reworked hinges look great. Piet. Well worth the extra effort.

[Piet]

Hey Sjors, the port lids are 10 X 10 mm and the hinges are just over 1 mm wide at the bottom with about 1 1/2 mm copper tube on top.  I may have to file them down a tad yet.  Yeah, they are small but once you get going on them it goes rather fast.  But then again fast is relative.  Next Christmas eh?  Well, I hope not but the sub seems to take priority right now so you may be right 

 

@ Druxey, thanks for your input and yes, I think it'll look better and closer to scale.

 

Cheers,

[runner63]

Piet;

I to will be following your build, it looks interesting.

 

Runner63

[Piet]

Hi Anthony, well, the thought of a crock head did cross my mind some time ago but then again the name of the ship is a combo of two names, the crock and the shark.  I also thought about small sculptures of crocks and sharks at the midsection railings instead of the traditional dolphins.  The counter is getting a sculpture of the crock and the shark in battle and that should be enough.  I kinda like the lion at the bow though.

 

@ Runner 3, is that you Bob?  Thanks for dropping in but the build is slowed down a bit due to more attention to the O 19 sub build.  But I decided to split my time between the two, so I should make some progress with the VOC ship.

 

Well, I have done some more work on the gunport hinges and can now also show how I handle these small critters.  In a previous post I mentioned to Sjors that I hold them in my left hand to file them down.  Below are a few pics that'll show you that I was not kidding.  The trick is that I let the edge of the file ride across my index finger.  It does'n take any skin off and is a good guide. 

They are small alright and do jump out of my hand quite often.

 

An indication of size.  Then consider that I have long, slender hands with rather slender fingers.

 

This is how I hold the little buggers.

 

This is a close-up the Admiral took of me busy filing the hinge.

 

Cheers,

[Piet]

G'day everyone,

 

I have completed 16 pair of gunport lid hinge brackets and am ready glue them on the lids.  That's enough for one side of the ship.  I also painted all the gunport openings red and the waist railing green to match the forecastle and aft part of the ship.  I'm contemplating to start putting Danish oil on the hull from above the lower wale only before mounting the gunport lids.  Who knows, I may just do the entire hull and get it over with.  

 

I also started to make the gunport lid rope eye bolts and used .5 mm brass wire.  It's still too large to my liking but the problem is my needle nose pliers.  This is about the smallest I can make them with the modified pliers I have.  I already ground the tips down and am afraid that if I grind the tips further that they'll brake off.  The opening is the right size for a sewing pin that I plan to use for hinge pin.  Perhaps once they are mounted to the lids they may not look too big, I'll have to experiment some.  I'll try with thinner brass wire and use my other round tipped needle nose pliers with the tips ground down to 1 mm.

 

Here is a photo of one of them.

 

The outside diameter of the eye is actually only 2 mm and the bolt part is also 2 mm.

 

A visual representation of the size, it's not the best one out of the 6 I already made but it's okay for demo purposes.

 

Cheers,

[Sjors]

Morning Piet,

 

I need a magnifier to look at that!

Thanks for the little tutorial how you make the hinges…...

My hands are still to big to do such tiny things 

 

[Adrieke]

wow Piet

 

not much bugger then the eye of a needle . dont know how yuo do it

[Piet]

Hello all,

 

Well, I have been able to do some more work on the VOC ship, not much mind you but every little thing counts.

 

@ Sjors,  I do too my friend.  I put 3X magnifiers over my trifocals, which make it a 4 X magnification on the bottom reading part.  I learned that just two days ago when I went to my eye doctor for my yearly checkup.  I'm getting new glasses, not that my eyes have changed but I need more on the reading part.  The distance part will be made smaller because I actually don't need them, that's close to 20 - 20.  Another $ 375.00   ouch. 

 

@ Andrieke, well, with the glasses and magnifiers as explained above and my thin fingers I seem to manage quite well.  I also modded my other pair of needle nose pliers by grinding and filing the tips down to .75 mm.  I dare not go smaller in fear of breaking the tips off.  Works like a charm and am happy with it.

 

I thought to take a few pics of the ship this morning to show the current status.  I mentioned before that I painted the gun ports and the waist deck railings, so below are the pics.  How do yuns like the green railing for the waist?

 

I also glued the back planking of the gunport lids to the front and am competing with Sjors playing checkers 

I may cement the hinge brackets to them tomorrow with CA. 

 

There is also a photo of my modded needle nose plier and another eye bolt for the gunport lids.  This time I used a smaller diameter brass wire of .3 mm.  Any thinner may be too flimsy.  

 

This is as the VOC ship "Surabaya" looks like as of may 30, 2013.  Ready for the Danish oil, yes?

 

A seagull's view of the ship with some of the parts i'm working on.

 

I had to lay the parts out as they are to be affixed to the ship.  Each one is custom fit.

 

Here the inner planking is glued and clamped.  I just did the port side.

 

The clamps are removed for the final dressing and painting.  Then the hinge brackets and finally the Danish oil.

 

These needle nose pliers have rounded tips but at 3 mm, much too large for my purposes.  So I first ground the carefully down on my electric bench grinder and then finished it off with a small file.  I think that at .75 mm at the tips should be enough.  The final crimping of the eye brings the eye inner diameter down to .5 mm, enough for the rope to just go through. 

 

This is the result of an eye bolt made from .3 mm brass wire.  The eye is .5 mm ID and 1.2 mm OD.  I think they'll look much better albeit not quite to scale yet but close enough.

 

This is a close-up of the new style eye bolt and believe it that it's all handled with my itsy bitsy fingers, no other tools    I have to really stay over my work area, loosing this one to the floor is goodbye forever. 

 

Cheers,

[DSiemens]

Wow you aren't even kidding.  I don't know how many pieces I've lost to Davy Jones carpet.  

 

Your ship is absolutely amazing.  Very well done.  I look forward to seeing more.    

[mtaylor]

Piet,

 

Just....wow! That is tiny.    I think you might be right..time for the oil.  She's looking fantastic.

[Sjors]

Morning Piet,

 

Thanks for the overview picture!

That is really a great build !

Mine gun port lids are almost the same as yours 

 

Edited June 27, 2013 by Sjors

[Piet]

Hello folks,

 

This post was supposed to have been placed last night but I guess I missed clicking on the "Add Reply" button.  Stuff happens when you get old 

 

@ Daniel, Yes, these eye bolts are getting tiny and with another tool I was contemplating of fabricating I could reduce the size a little more but I think this small enough as the pics will show.

 

@ Mark, tiny yes but it aint Tim    I oiled the hull this morning with some stain thrown in.  I kinda like the hull a little darker, simulate some weathering.

 

@ Anthony, hmmmm, I checked the Yellow pages for Gnomes and Gnomettes but there aren't any here in palm Coast, Florida.  It just so happened that I could have used one or two because little old doufus me accidentally knocked my little hold jar with 6 completed eye bolts from the work bench.  Naturally they scattered all over the floor but I was able to retrieve 4 of these little buggers.  No problem though, it takes me only 10 minutes to make one.

 

@ Sjors,  thanks for your kind words and I keep track of your build too my friend, with all the friendly banter that goes with it.  What are the measurements of your gunport lids?

 

I finished one gunport lid, except for the blackening or painting of the brass work.  Here are a few pics how they looked like yesterday.  I decided to trim some off one of the hinge bolts after seeing these pics.

 

a straight-on view of the completed lid.  The sewing pin is temporary, I plan on using some very small brass nails.  Looking at this close-up the hinge bolt on the left needs a little trimming, which was done this morning.  I also used the brass nails for hinge pins and CA'd the ends to keep them from sliding out.  Pics with the blackened hardware will be coming soon.

 

a side view.  Yes, I dressed it up a little.

 

Cheers,

 

 

 

[Sjors]

Morning Piet,

 

Great gun port lid!

Mine are 12 x 12 mm.

But no planks on it.

Just ochre red….