La Renommèe by Landlubber Mike - Euromodel - Scale 1:70

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks to both Marks!

 

Marktiedens, I believe the two decorative cast metal pieces the bottom of the counter.  Not sure if I will use them or try scratching my own.  That's going to be a tough thing to scratch since I think the area has a slight curve, and the decorative piece is fairly thick.  Will have to see about that.

 

Mtaylor, thanks for posting your Licorne.  It's good to see how the planking flows.  The LAR is a bit different in that the stern is a square tuck stern, whereas the Licorne is a round tuck.  The terms seem a bit reversed, but essentially the counter on the LAR is rounded at the bottom, whereas the Licorne is squared off.  Still good to see how the timbers flow though (and always good to see your gorgeous model), thank you!

[piratepete007]

Mike,

'Out of the darkness' - shifting house has taken its toll on me for the last eight weeks but now I am back again. No work space until another 2-3 weeks but all will be good.

 

In my build (yes, I found the box with this ship in it) I definitely faired the lower edge of that last bulkhead and I guess a few others forward of that. The result, as you suggest, produced a more flattened profile but I was content with that and the planking went well. It was a major decision but I believe the correct one.

 

Enjoying the meticulous approach of this build and respect your ability to amend what the 'kit' presents.

 

Pete

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks Pete!  I’ll take a look at things tonight and see what the lines end up looking like.  Glad to hear you’re almost fully up and running!

[SimonV]

Hi Mike,

because Euromodel LR is also in my stash (for sale) I was gathering information about ship kit and possible build logs. I found one on Russian site and can be very useful. LINK: https://www.shipmodeling.ru/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=5116 . 

 

You are doing good progress and I like your attention to details.

 

 

 

[mtaylor]

Mike,

 

I'll dig out my copy of ANCRE's monograph and see if there's an insight like a planking diagram.

 

I don't know if this will help...  I'll look for a side view of the planking if you think it will help.

 

Edited March 19, 2018 by mtaylor

[Landlubber Mike]

Simon thank you - appreciate the kind words!  Thanks for that link on the Russian forum.  I came across it on Pontos’ log, but probably should look at it more often.

 

Mark, thanks for posting the plans.  I think the Euromodel LAR is a different ship from the one in the Ancre plans, and my guess is that the ship is a Swedish ship, and not a French one.   Apparently there’s been research out there suggesting that Admiral Paris made a mistake in copying over the Chapman plans and calling it the LAR. 

[mtaylor]

Ah... that would explain things. 

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks for everyone that offered thoughts on what to do with the last bulkhead.  I ended up adding two planking strips to it, then fairing the bulkhead back to the original line on the aft side.  Seems to have worked very well - I now have a firm, wider surface to glue the end of the planks to, while having a nice smooth transition to the stern.

 

[Landlubber Mike]

First planking is slowly coming along.  I have seven or so strakes glued from the keel, and decided to switch and start from the gun deck down.  This is what Pete recommended in his helpful Euromodel notes, and was the approach Keith Julier took in his Period Ship Handbook 2 (which has a chapter on the kit).

 

This is my first time working on a multi-deck level warship.  To help ensure that I had a smooth guiding line for the gun ports, I decided to run the top of a planking strake along the top line of the gun deck template.  When checking for symmetry, however, I noticed that in some areas, the outer edge of the gun deck template between the bulkheads was at a different height from one side to the other.  I think what happened was that with all the dry fitting, the two pieces of the template ended up having a slight bend to them, and although generally symmetrical where they were glued at the bulkheads, the outer edge of the templates between the bulkheads ended up differently.  

 

I was a bit worried about this, as not only would I have asymmetry, but the cannons would be all over the place in terms of height it I cut the gun ports out along the proper line.

 

So, what I ended up doing was gluing spacer blocks between the templates and the bulkhead bracer blocks that I had installed before.  In some cases I used the blocks to raise the edge of the templates, in some to lower, and in some to help change the the sweep.  A real pain, but I'm glad I took the step.  Now, the gun deck has a smooth sweep from stem to stern, and is symmetrical on both sides.

 

 

I was thinking about selling this kit and moving directly to scratch building, but I'm glad I decided to stick with it.  Not only is it a beautiful model, but I've been learning a lot along the way.  Maybe some of these things matter less with scratch building (like the bowsprit housing and my recent gun deck alignment adventure), but I think the general lessons learned, especially how to think ahead, will come in handy.  The Euromodel kit is great too in that it gives plenty of optionality to detail the kit as much as you'd like, so I'm sure that will help if I should happen to want to scratch build in the future.

Edited July 12, 2018 by Landlubber Mike

[Ferit]

Hi Mike,

Very nice build as the choice of the ship and the kit.

 

Is there a small gap?

[Landlubber Mike]

Hi Ferit, thanks for looking in.  Interesting, the picture does seem to show a gap or indent, but when I look at the model, it looks perfectly straight/in line with the general curvature of the hull.  My guess is that it's an artifact from my iPhone picture.  I was doing my best to take a picture over the top of the model without capturing my toes in the picture.  Ian Major pointed out my feet on one of my other logs a while back, and I've been self conscious ever since!

[mtaylor]

Looking good, Mike.   I hope you'll keep going as the skills learned and honed here will serve you well in scratch building.  The French ships are beautiful.

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks Mark.  I’m slowly learning.  I agree about the French ships - your Licorne is certainly a great example of the beauty of that class of ships!

[nightingale]

well I'm hooked. I'm pushen 80, this kit should be an inspiration to live to be 90. thanks to all the contributors on your site. aka....Stray Dog 

[Landlubber Mike]

It's a really nice subject and Euromodel does a nice job with their kits.  Go for it!

[Landlubber Mike]

Finally finished the first planking of the lower hull.  Ended up coming out really nicely I think - I might not have to use any filler at all, except maybe around the stern area with that turn up into the counter.  I still need to clean up a bit around the stern and bow, which I'll need to do by hand, but I used a palm sander outside today to sand the planking down.  Wow, does that make life much easier!  Was so quick to sand the hull, I still remember doing the Badger by hand and it taking forever.  

 

I'm now a big convert to bow and stern filler blocks, they really help!  A big thank you to Pete who suggested using them in his build notes.  One thing I started wondering is whether even if you're doing a POB kit, whether just adding filler blocks through the full area such that you don't even have to bother with a first planking would be quicker and easier than going through the first planking, sanding, filling, etc., and then adding the second (essentially, converting it to a solid hull).  Guess it depends how easy it is for the person to do filler blocks.

 

Some pictures of where I am:

One issue that has been bothering me is the fact that the kit provided different wood for the stem/rudder versus that for the keel.  The stem/rudder I believe is walnut, and the keel might be ramin.  The color difference between the two is too striking for my liking:

 

I was originally thinking of painting the lower hull white which would have made this a non-issue, but given how far I'm pushing on this build, I think I'm going to leave the hull natural.  I don't want to chance using a stain to even the colors out, because then I would have to use stain on the planking itself which leads to more chance of something looking out of place.  So, instead, I think I'm going to buy new wood for the stem, rudder, and lower hull planking.  I dropped the hull while planking it a while back and the stem snapped right off, so I think taking it off again should be ok.  The keel is a bit of a different story because I drilled the pedestal holes into it, and it's secured into the false keel by brass rod.  So, what I'll likely do is laminate the keel with thin walnut, and then maybe try darkening the very bottom a bit to avoid any oddities (people shouldn't really be able to see the bottom of the keel though).  Going this route will also be helpful in that I think I would like to spile the full hull as a challenge to myself (for my Pegasus, I only spiled planks up to the copper plating line.

 

Jason from Crown Timberyard is back up and running and has been very helpful in answering some of my questions. He sells both a dark walnut and mahogany.  I want the upper hull to be lighter in color than the lower hull, and I found a nice lighter cherry veneer that should do nicely.  I'm leaning towards using Jason's walnut over the mahogany as I think the colors will work better together.  Mahogany looks beautiful, but as a chocolate/orange/rich brown, I don't think that using cherry for the upper hull will work well.  Walnut and cherry though seem to complement each other nicely, at least what I've seen in other build logs.  Certainly welcome to any thoughts, ideas or suggestions!

 

Next, I'm thinking of working on the gun deck - planking, hatches, etc.  A nice respite before having to go back to planking the hull.

[Old Collingwood]

Excellent job on the hull planking very neat and tidy, either way  with  wood look or white  the hull will look really nice.

 

OC.

[mtaylor]

Mike, the cherry might just work very well. It does darken with age in the rich deep, I'm not sure I can call it red but it is beautiful   I've used it and with the right woods for contrast, it works well.

[marktiedens]

That hull is looking nice & smooth - should be a good base for the second planking. In my opinion,I think walnut would be good to use with the cherry rather than mahogany. People may think I`m nuts, but I really don`t care for mahogany that much. Also,I think that REAL walnut looks much better than most of the kit supplied "walnut". Either way,it`s your ship so do it to your liking!

 

Mark

[jwvolz]

Nice job on the hull Mike.

[rafine]

Very well done on the hull planking Mike.

 

Bob

[Allatum]

Hello! Finally I've found the build log of the ship. Is there any news about building La Renommee? 

Mike, could you please measure the length of the main bulkhead? And what's the width of plywood of this detail? Good luck with this project and hope to see more progress soon!  

[piratepete007]

I have sent Allatum the information that he requires. Did not want to clutter this posting !

Pete

[popeye the sailor]

hello Mike........read through your log and found it quite enjoyable.  couple of small diggers there,  but you handled them well........the stern planking came out really nice       nice job on the planking.......the second planking should be a breeze!  

[Landlubber Mike]

Allatum, I just saw your post.  I hope you purchased the kit (or at a minimum, the plans) - it's not fair to the nice folks at Euromodel if you are attempting to build it from scratch using proprietary information owned by Euromodel.

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks Popeye for the kind words.  I'm slowly plodding along planking the gun deck at the moment, which I have just about completed.  I'm planning to spile the upper hull planking which should be interesting.  It's a curvy lady!

 

I've also started working on a new stem.  I wanted to use wood of a consistent color and grain, and unfortunately the kit walnut differs.  So, I'm going to replace the stem and laminate over the keel using some nice dark walnut from Crown Timberyard (as well as plank the lower hull with it).  The nice thing about replacing the stem is that I can build it in pieces per the plans, rather than a solid piece.

[Allatum]

11 hours ago, Landlubber Mike said:

Allatum, I just saw your post.  I hope you purchased the kit (or at a minimum, the plans) - it's not fair to the nice folks at Euromodel if you are attempting to build it from scratch using proprietary information owned by Euromodel.

Good morning Mike. Its all about an old story of Swedish "Jupiter", the 40 gun privateer. Just wanted to know how close Euromodel's keel to scaled 156,5 feet keel length of F.Chapman's privateer/Jupiter. PiratePete was so kind and already gave me the desired measurement.

[Landlubber Mike]

It's been a while, but I'm finally at a point where I can show more progress on my build.  As I mentioned before, I wasn't too happy with the different colored wood for the stem and keel pieces.  I thought maybe I'd be ok with it, but the color disparity kept bothering me so I replaced the stem and keel with walnut from Crown Timberyard.  It was a bit tricky in that I had epoxied brass rod through the keel for added strength, as well as from the fact that I had drilled holes in the keel for the pedestal screws, but all seems to have worked out ok in the end.  I also took the opportunity to build the stem in seven pieces according to the plans.  I need to do a little cleanup, including sanding taper into the stem and keel, but I'm pretty happy how things turned out.  The walnut is actually pretty dark - the lights in my workshop washed out the color a bit.

 

I also finally finished planking the gun deck.  Most of the gun deck will be covered so I didn't attempt to make it pristine, but I went ahead and planked the full deck as a practice run for the main deck and quarterdeck.  It should work nicely against the new walnut I'm using from Crown.  

 

For the deck, I ended up using some light cherry veneer that I found from Woodcraft.  The veneer was a little tricky to use because the sheets were a bit wavy (probably from the cutting process).  The sheets were thicker than I needed, so I just ran them through the thickness sander to get to the thickness I needed, which helped cure the waviness issue.  I was originally hoping to do both the deck and upper hull planking using the veneer, but I likely won't have enough.  Thankfully, on a second run to Woodcraft I found another batch of similar veneer which is a touch darker.  So, it should all work out.  I also picked out some cherry dowels which were on a big sale that I likely will use for the masts to tie the colors together.

 

Next, I'll probably work on the upper hull planking.  I need to figure out what to do, however, when it comes to the bulwark planking at the gun deck level.  I have the Keith Julier Period Ship Handbook that covers his work on the Renommee, and he just took planking strips across the inner faces of the bulkhead extensions.  I'm not sure that is correct, given the aggregate hull thickness at the gun deck level would exceed 10mm after two layers of outer hull planking.  Running bulwark planking between the bulkhead extensions would give you the 5mm or so thickness that matches the plans.  I'm still thinking about whether I will be painting the bulwarks (and cannon carriages, etc.) in red ochre, or using redheart to paint with wood, which I will need to figure out sooner rather than later.  It may not matter much for the gun deck bulwarks given that these are almost impossible to see.

Edited December 24, 2018 by Landlubber Mike

[piratepete007]

Mike,

Finishing the gun deck bulwarks, carriages, etc in resplendent colours and timbers reminds me of the construction of ship's stoves. We do them because we can but the shame of it is that almost all of it will not be visible. So it comes down to personal choices.

 

As regards the bulwark thickness at gun deck level, Keith Julier did indeed take short cuts and yes the thickness using his method would be a problem when it comes to placement of the gun carriages and cannons. So my advice would be to plank between the frames.

 

Pete

[Hubac's Historian]

Why not reduce the inboard faces of the bulkhead extensions by a uniform dimension, using a rotary tool to waste and a flexible sanding stock to fair the bulkhead extensions to each other?

 

My concern is that planking between bulkhead extensions will always look like a workaround, and that it will be distracting on the finished model.