Reale De France by fmodajr - FINISHED - Corel - Scale 1:60

[fmodajr]

7 hours ago, marktiedens said:

That`s an awful lot of repetitive work - looks perfect, even in the close-ups.

 

Mark

Thanks for stopping by Mark!

Yes, repetitive, but my equipment makes things easier, once they are set up for mass production!

I'm going thru lots of red paint also. Lol!

Frank

[Clark]

I can only agree Mark: perfect work. Thanks for your suggestion to enforce deck planks for shroud rigging. Regarding shroud fixation in the traditional ships, mounting in only one layer of deck planks is surely much too weak. I will probably come back to your suggestion when I am at this point (which will definitely take some time).

Clark

[Hubac's Historian]

I was in the STRAND today, and was leafing through a book about the great maritime museums around the world.  The chapter on the Musee de la Marine, in Paris, had a good re-print of the following:

There is no artist attribution for the painting.

 

[fmodajr]

17 hours ago, Hubac's Historian said:

I was in the STRAND today, and was leafing through a book about the great maritime museums around the world.  The chapter on the Musee de la Marine, in Paris, had a good re-print of the following:

There is no artist attribution for the painting.

 

Hubac,

thank you very much for passing along the photo's. very interesting and useful, especially the closeup ones.

It is appreciated!

 

Frank

[md1400cs]

Been away the last couple of weeks – been following on my iPad, but forgot my login info haha – now back at home so I can post again to builds that I follow 🤔

 

Really nice Frank - She will be a beauty!!

[fmodajr]

Hello,

 

Back at work finishing up the upper deck planking.

 

Han Solo, as usual, helping me keep on track!

 

Finished laying in the planks

 

 

Planks at the stern end, port and starboard side

 

Planking at the bow end, port and starboard

Drilled and Inserted the tree nails using the same method I did on the lower decking in earlier posts.

 

I only put in tree nails where they will be visible.

There is molding pieces, which will be painted and installed, that would have covered the tree nails on the outside section of the planks.

See green arrows

 

Thanks,

Frank

 

 

 

 

 

[fmodajr]

So I made it thru the section that I was dreading.

I had to create 8 slots on each side. These slots allow the chains to pass thru down onto the chain plates on one end and the mainmast shrouds on the upper side.

I think they came out pretty well. (Tough holding my hand steady!!)

 

 

Next was drilling for the "Seat of Ease" on both sides Port and starboard.

 

 

Finally staining and sealing with the same light oak stain and sealer as on the lower decking.

 

Next step is to add the trim strips shown on the last post.

 

Thanks for visiting,

Frank

[fmodajr]

Forgot to mention that I did scratch up some of the red trim strips on the edges, while I was carving out the slots.

So I spent some time again with the red paint touching things up!!

 

Frank

 

[GrandpaPhil]

Looking good!

[Clark]

Frank, it looks perfect. I m still thinking about the holes you made for the shrouds. How were the shrouds fixed? Below the outer gangway is nothing. There are still some ropes in middle visible. Are these the ones for pulling the  carriage of the main cannon. If yes, do you have any idea, where they were put on?

Still admiring your work.

Clark

[fmodajr]

2 hours ago, Clark said:

Frank, it looks perfect. I m still thinking about the holes you made for the shrouds. How were the shrouds fixed? Below the outer gangway is nothing. There are still some ropes in middle visible. Are these the ones for pulling the  carriage of the main cannon. If yes, do you have any idea, where they were put on?

Still admiring your work.

Clark

Hello Clark,

 

I am away on a trip this week. When I return, I will send you some photos of the Shroud assembly plan from the Corel plan.

Basically, however, here is how Corel shows it being done.

Just above the waterline of the ship and below (underneath) the slots are 8 chain plates that are nailed to the side of the ship. (Eight on each side).

Attached to the tops of the chain plates will be chain links (supplied in the kit). These links go from the top of the chain plates, thru the slots. At the top end of the chain links, above the slots, you attach what Corel calls toggles. These toggles are what the shrouds will be fastened to. It is quite simple really, but a picture is worth a thousand words as they say and I will post some as soon as I make it back home early next week.

 

I hope this helps and makes sense.

 

Thank you everyone for the "likes" and for visiting. It is appreciated!

 

Frank

[Clark]

18 hours ago, fmodajr said:

Hello Clark,

 

I am away on a trip this week. When I return, I will send you some photos of the Shroud assembly plan from the Corel plan.

Basically, however, here is how Corel shows it being done.

Just above the waterline of the ship and below (underneath) the slots are 8 chain plates that are nailed to the side of the ship. (Eight on each side).

Attached to the tops of the chain plates will be chain links (supplied in the kit). These links go from the top of the chain plates, thru the slots. At the top end of the chain links, above the slots, you attach what Corel calls toggles. These toggles are what the shrouds will be fastened to. It is quite simple really, but a picture is worth a thousand words as they say and I will post some as soon as I make it back home early next week.

 

I hope this helps and makes sense.

 

Thank you everyone for the "likes" and for visiting. It is appreciated!

 

Frank

Hello Frank, thanks a lot. Meanwhile I browsed through the plans and found the picture showing the chain plates.  I thought that the shrouds are fixed on the panks of the gangway. Thus you are completely right to enforce the planks. I am glad that you are going ahead to help me to avoid mistakes.

Clark

[fmodajr]

Hello Friends!

Just a quick note to let you know I am taking a month off from the work bench.

My daughter gave us our first grandson, "Luca" last month!! We are so excited, especially after the tough Autumn we had with my dad.

I will be spending the next month helping her and enjoying my grandson.

I've tried to work on the model the last couple of weeks, but have had many starts and stops. I'm worried that i'll mess something up, so I will give it a break until April!!

 

Thanks for visiting,

Frank

[fmodajr]

Hello,

I hope everyone is well.

 

I was able to resume work on my model, which sadly was collecting dust for a few weeks!

 

I cut up and painted a tiny (1mm x 1mm) trim strip of wood for an edge border of the upper planking. The trim piece ends where the upper planking changes at the stern. (See green arrows in next 2 photos)

 

The next step was to make the "Thwarts and Counter-Footboards" that rest on top of the benches.

There are 29 on the port side and 30 on the starboard side.

After cutting the strips to size, a relief radius was added to one end.

 

A bunch of finished "Thwarts"

The "Counter-Footboards" are just thin strips of wood glued onto the "Thwart" piece. The Footboard extends into the relief radius.

View from 3 sides

 

Finished assemblies and then painted

 

When attaching and gluing the assemblies to the model, I made up  a spacer to keep the distance and angle consistent.

One end attaches to the slots of the board that runs across the entire length of the mid ships (added at the very beginning of the build) and the other end with the radius sits on top of the upper platforms

 

 

All assemblies installed

 

 

Now I turn my attention back to doing some more work around the platform area where the cannon are located.

 

Thanks for visiting!

 

Frank

 

[marktiedens]

Welcome back!  Very nice,as usual.

 

Mark

[fmodajr]

9 hours ago, marktiedens said:

Welcome back!  Very nice,as usual.

 

Mark

Thanks Mark!

Took me a couple of days to re-organize my thoughts on what areas to commence work on. Before I took some time off from the model, I should have kept a journal with some kind with notes on what my thoughts were.

 

I hope all is well.

Frank

[Clark]

Glad you are back. "Notebook" is an excellent idea.

Clark

[fmodajr]

Thanks for visiting and for the "Likes"!

Appreciated.

 

So, I'm looking ahead at what I want to accomplish in the next couple of weeks, on the model.

With this in mind, I will be working with a few pieces of the brass photo etch pieces.

On these pieces, I will need to paint the indented, or background areas, while leaving the raised section as the brass.

I've seen this accomplished on other models, but I'm not sure how to go about this, so I was hoping for some assistance from this group.

Here is an example photo of one of the photo etched pieces.

I want to paint all the background of this piece red, (see the green arrow) while leaving the raised portion with the brass or gold look.

 

Any help or pointers would be appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Frank

[md1400cs]

Frank,

Try this. I have used diff. grit sanding discs to make small sanding blocks. Paint over your brass piece then using a 600 grit block on a very flat surface just sand over the top of the brass piece. All of the recessed paint will be perfectly outlined. The 600 grit block is super fine and won't show scratches on the bare brass -it will, of course, dull it a bit. There are certainly other ideas like razor blade scaping and so on - but the 600 grit block will evenly remove the bits of paint that run above the grooved areas keeping the unpainted brass consistent looking.

 

PS: those small sanding blocks are alss just a great way to sand small bits of wood. 😊

[marktiedens]

I agree with Michael`s way - works great.  The only thing I do different is use finer sandpaper - usually 1000 or 1200 grit, the black wet-or-dry type.  I don`t use it wet,though.  Takes a bit more sanding but will leave a shinier surface if that`s what you are after.

 

Mark

[Clark]

Frank, which kind of paint do you want to use? Water based paint would not work, I assume. May be better to use Humbrol or any other enamel paint. But I am not sure if the sanding procedure proposed works together with this kind of paint. Any experience?

Clark

[GrandpaPhil]

Dry brushing works well too, to paint the raised area, if you wanted a faux metallic (what I like to use) or a painted metallic (if you didn’t like the look of the brass) look for your model.

 

[fmodajr]

Michael and Mark,

Thank you very much for your ideas. I will do some experimenting with very fine sandpapered see how it goes.

 

Thanks again,

 

Frank

[fmodajr]

54 minutes ago, Clark said:

Frank, which kind of paint do you want to use? Water based paint would not work, I assume. May be better to use Humbrol or any other enamel paint. But I am not sure if the sanding procedure proposed works together with this kind of paint. Any experience?

Clark

Clark,

Thanks for your input. I am stuck using acrylics. I have to match the red and the blue that I am already using on my model. I will give it a try using the techniques shown to me from Michael,  Mark and Grandpa Phil. 

Thanks,

Frank

[fmodajr]

44 minutes ago, GrandpaPhil said:

Dry brushing works well too, to paint the raised area, if you wanted a faux metallic (what I like to use) or a painted metallic (if you didn’t like the look of the brass) look for your model.

 

Yes, that is my worry also. Once I sand the raised section, will I like the finish of the brass. I would prefer a painted metallic (the same paint I used for the tiny trim pieces I installed earlier along the length of the ship). I am not familiar with dry brushing, so I will do some reading on how that works and how NOT to get any of the painted metallic on the other painted surface.

Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction.

Frank

[Clark]

23 hours ago, fmodajr said:

Clark,

Thanks for your input. I am stuck using acrylics. I have to match the red and the blue that I am already using on my model. I will give it a try using the techniques shown to me from Michael,  Mark and Grandpa Phil. 

Thanks,

Frank

Some recommend to mix the paint with PVA to get an uneven result. I am eager to read the news on your post.

[fmodajr]

Minor update:

I am starting to work on both sides of the upper platform around the cannon area.

 

As I mentioned earlier in the log, I should have waited a little before I installed the framing of the upper deck.

There were a couple of things I needed to do first. 

 

I had to make 4 ribs that sit on top the long center beams that run the length of the ship.

The Corel kit plans called for 2 of these ribs to have toggles rigged into them for future rigging of the foremast. The reason for 2 toggles is because the Corel plans show that the foremast could be moved to either the left of the centerline or to the right of the centerline. 

The Fleur di Lis plans show the foremast station only to the left, or port side of the centerline of the ship.

This is the plan I will be following, so I only had to rig up one toggle. 

 

Photo of 4 ribs and toggle

Toggle Inserted into rib

 

Green arrows showing location of 4 ribs under the upper platform with the toggle on port side

 

I fabricated stanchions from the plans that will go on both the port and starboard side of the upper platform.

 

Installed stanchions. The Corel plans only call for 2 stanchions on each side, but I decided early on to add a 3rd one in the middle. The reason for this is that I hope to not install a false deck on top of these stanchions with thin planking on top of the false deck, as is instructed by Corel. I will install thicker planks right on top of the stanchions, with no false deck underneath. thus the addition of the middle piece for more support.

I hope this makes sense. Lol!

 

Thanks for stopping by,

Frank

[fmodajr]

Hello,

Thanks for the "likes" and for stopping by!

 

Continuing on, I did some work on the decorative sides of the upper platform.

 

Working on the stanchions, I noticed that the plans call for 4 sets of three stanchions. If I did this, however, the assembly would have been too wide. So, I only mapped out 2 sets of three and 2 sets of two stanchions. Go figure!

 

Cut the backing to the correctheight and painted red.

 

Painted the stanchions "Imperial Gold" and glued to backing

 

Added the top cap

So, when attaching the assembly to the ends of the platform, the assembly follows the curve of the deck and beam. (this is the way the plans call for it to be).So when it is time to plank above, the first plank will be wider on one end than the other because the planks are parallel to the upper deck beams.

Assembly glued to starboard side

 

Assembly on port side

 

My next step should be to finish the upper platform decking, per the plan instructions. However if I do this, I will have a hard time installing the canon and canon hardware. I wanted to wait on the cannons until I plank the bow deck, because they will get in the way of sanding and finishing. So I am starting work on the bow area first.

 

Thank you to Mark and Michael for showing me the way to paint the background of the photo etched piece.

I started with the 600 grit, as suggested by Michael and finished with the 1000 grit suggested by Mark.

Thanks again.

 

The brass finish is a little shiny for my taste, but I can live with it if I have to.

Grandpa Phil suggested "dry brushing" the brass. How do I accomplish this without getting it on the red area??

I will try to do some research on this!!

 

Thanks,

Frank

 

 

 

[GrandpaPhil]

Dry brushing only catches the raised areas of what you are painting.  
 

It’s predominantly a miniature painting technique.  I learned to paint from wargaming (Warhammer 40K), years ago.

 

The general gist is that you brush most of the paint out of the brush and then paint what you are working on.  It catches the raised area of the model.  It’s also a great way to shade an area.

 

It takes care when there isn’t much difference in height, but it makes the painting process much easier and in my opinion, looks much better because you can shade your model and add highlights and shadows to it.  That’s how I add the illusion of depth to my models.

I use a flat brush.  It works better to use a brush with stiffer bristles, and the brush must be dry for what you need it for.

Never use a good brush.  Dry brushing is bad for paint brushes.

 

I also use a technique called inking in which you use thinned down paint to add tinges of color (frequently for weathering).

[md1400cs]

Frank - that came out superbly!!  Glad that our ideas worked out. Your work on this project is Top Notch - Pleasure to follow along

My next project will need areas to be painted - this will be brand new learning for me - Hmmmm Learning continues.

 

Regards  as always

 

Michael