Golden Hind by mfrazier - OcCre - scale 1:85

[vossiewulf]

10 hours ago, mfrazier said:

I was not so interested in historical detail as much as doing a good job on how the build turned out. Now my thinking is changing some in that respect, so my next build will require more thought  and research.

This is where much of the challenge is, researching what the ship really looked like and deciding which improvements you're going to make to the basic kit. Just following the instructions is a parts assembly exercise, stepping out of that into making your own better parts is where you'll keep pushing the edges of your envelope.

 

And when I build something, much of the fun is not the process or the finished product, but educating myself as to how that thing was designed, built, and operated, and how it fit into the history of the technology tree. Ships were the space shuttles of their day, the most complex machines operated by man for hundreds of years. Learning the details of how it all worked is a REAL challenge, and it's fascinating to see the highly engineered solutions they had to problems when they were limited to wood, rope, and pieces of iron.

 

Many people start as you did by mostly assembling a kit, then they cross into making some of their own parts, then they move on to full scratchbuilding because that's where the hardest challenge is.

Edited February 24, 2019 by vossiewulf

[vossiewulf]

Mark, search MSW for Golden Hind. There are a couple promising build logs, the one below has numerous links to informational sources on 16th century ships.

 

 

[Baker]

5 hours ago, vossiewulf said:

Mark, search MSW for Golden Hind. There are a couple promising build logs, the one below has numerous links to informational sources on 16th century ships.

 

 

Thanks Vossiewulf,

 

I have been working on this ship for a few years now.
Nobody knows what this really looked like. And most of the "detailed drawings" of this ship were actually drawn a few centuries later. Probably it was not a real warship but an armed merchantman.
Paint schemes are the choice of the builder. 
None (brown wooden hull), red green white (English) Yellow red (Spanish). Nobody can say that you're wrong (or correct).
In the years that this ship sailed over the oceans it will probably have been repainted a few times.
And if you are thousands of miles from home, you have to paint with what you have found from the Spaniards ...

 

What is reasonably certain :

Below the water line it is almost certainly white (the white stuff)
Inside of the gun gates certainly no red (ordinary wood color, brown)
Wales certainly not black, that came into use later

 

Greetings Patrick

[vossiewulf]

37 minutes ago, Backer said:

Greetings Patrick

Thanks Patrick for the additional info! And your build is beautiful, no matter how accurate it is or isn't.

 

There you go Mark, you look just a little bit, and you start learning all sorts of interesting things. If you haven't, you should read up on Drake's depredations of the Spanish both in Europe and in the Americas, there was extremely good reason the Spanish hated the man so much.

[mfrazier]

I got the hull planked and it was a disaster! I had a very hard time with the second planking, as the wood strips (.5mmx 5mm) we're very dry and brittle. Several kept breaking and splintering. I also used CA glue and got that crap everywhere. It was on my fingertips, on the wood ..... I made a mess. About half way through the second planking, I got the hang of it. I spent hours straightening out the mess I made. Because of this, I ran short of the planks so I am waiting for more to come to finish some areas ( seen in the photos). Finally, I am pleased with what is done so far. Trying to follow these lousy directions supplied ( I'm not going to dignify calling them plans) has been difficult, so now I just use them for reference.

I have read through the other build logs on here of this ship and have figured out that no two are alike. The kits, or the builds, while all beautiful, are very different. Right or wrong, this has led me to feel better about making changes. I have made a list of changes and ( I'm my opinion) improvements. One thing I really liked in others was the bow had grating instead of the deck floor like my kit has. I am not changing this now as that part is done. I am however going to make new cannons for the deck as the ones in the kit are not that great. 

     I have sanded the decks and am going to redo the seams and the nail marks to coincide with the beams underneath instead of the random pattern shown in the kit. 

    I have decided on many other improvements and will show them as I get to that point. In particular I am going to make doors from scratch because the brass etched doors supplied just look fake.  I am going to make new gun port doors as the ones supplied leave a lot to be desired.

      I stained the hull with mahogany stain. I am going to leave it this way and not planning any other finish on it. I do want to paint the hull white below the water line. I'm not sure yet how that will go over the stain so I will experiment on some scrap wood with stain and paint before putting anything on the model.

       This build is really getting exciting for me now, especially after seeing what others have done and what is possible.

[vossiewulf]

Did you steam the planks first Mark? That's generally accepted as the best way to bend planks, although some people just use a hair dryer. The only point is to get the wood hot enough that the cells become somewhat flexible.

 

And trust me, I've seen worst first efforts at planking a ship than that, it looks fine.

 

One thing, you need to put a finish on, even if it's just clear oil. The most important function of a finish is to slow the rate of moisture exchange in the wood and thereby mitigate the extremes of shrinking and expanding from changing humidity. Your ship won't last very long at all with no finish, whereas it can last decades or centuries with a good finish.

 

Your list of improvements sounds great, you have the idea now- it's your ship and you don't have to accept just what the manufacturer gave you, you can do better in lots of places. And yep, that's an exciting feeling

 

[mfrazier]

Yes I did steam. The thicker first planks ( white wood) we're easy to bend, twist , and work with , but the .5mm x 5mm second planking was a wood called sapelli. It was just miserable to work with. Kept breaking and splitting. As I progressed, things got easier though. 

     I guess I will reconsider a finish, I never thought about that. I would like a tung oil finish, but I would probably have to do the white paint first. On the other hand if I put a poly or varnish on and I do the complete hull, the white paint below the water line may work better. I just don't want a gloss finish.

[mfrazier]

This is the paper graphics that came with the kit. 

I doubt I will use much if any of them. Yellow is my favorite color, but I think this is too much red and yellow. I want to incorporate some other colors in also. I will make some yellow trim, then add other colors like blue and green and red.

[pontiachedmark]

Gidday Mark.

You certainly are making fast progress with this build.

I have found the instructions, a term I use loosely, in my Occre kit leave a lot to be desired.

I too am thinking of ways to "improve" the kit.

Scratch building in wood does not seem a problem to me but tackling the cannon and other metal parts is a bit beyond me at this stage.  

Your experience with CA glue is familiar to a lot of people. I find glue that is very thin difficult to use as I end up with it everywhere.

I must say that your work so far is impressive.

I wish you all the best with your build.

Mark.

[mfrazier]

I found a bottle of CA glue by LocTite. It is a gel super glue. It is thicker and does not run. The bottle has a small lever on each side that you squeeze to make the glue come out. How far you squeeze the levers controls the glue flow. You can lay a tiny bead, a heavy bead or a tiny dot. The control is fantastic. I wish I had

Found it before starting my build. I found it at Lowe's building center.

[vossiewulf]

Ah yes, thin CA glue is for special purposes. The most cost effective thing to do is go to Amazon and get a 8oz bottle of medium CA glue. This is a bit thinner than gel but gel is rather expensive, you'll go through that little Loctite bottle in no time. Put the big 8oz bottle in your refrigerator, it will last a very long time. 

 

Then get tattoo ink cups. You can get 500 for $15. Drill the right size hole in a 3"x5" piece of 1/2" plywood or something else about that thick, this will keep you from ever spilling a cup. When you're ready to work you pour some from the fridge supply into a cup, after a few days you toss the cup and grab a new one.

 

The best and cheapest glue applicator is some 24 gauge brass wire. You want something relatively thin for when you need precision. To control how much glue you pick up, you can either dip the straight wire or add a small loop in the end, the bigger the loop the more glue you'll pick up.

 

Do not try to smear it on surfaces, it's messy and is likely to cause the glue to start to set before you're ready. Instead, apply it in dots with spacing and size such that you never get squeeze out, you've made a mistake if it ever squeezes out. By placing it in dots, you're minimizing the glue's exposure to both air and the surface it's on, minimizing the rate at which it will set. Glue applied this way has a much longer open time than you get smearing the glue.

[Baker]

Great work

You are on the right track with your GH. The changes you want to make are a very good idea

 

[vossiewulf]

When it comes to colors, look at what Backer said above - colors should either be red/yellow if it was painted in Spanish colors (semi likely on his Caribbean adventures) or green/white/red if it's wearing English colors. I'm pretty sure we have a reasonable amount of evidence to show that Spanish and English warships at least adhered to those colors, with geometric patterns common. I think the patterns are pretty wide open to interpretation but the colors less so. Unless you just prefer it otherwise, in which case you paint it as you like it and move on.

[mfrazier]

 

I been studying the so called "plans" supplied with the kit and found they DON'T match the kit! (big surprise). The "picture" directions match the kit but the rigging plans do NOT. This left me with a few questions that hopefully some of you guys may be able to answer. I will be asking some questions as I get closer to that part of the build, but one question I am really stumped on is , I think they are called, ratlines? ( The "rope" ladders). The photos are too small to see and do not show how the lines attach at the top underneath the "crow's nest" or lookout, what ever it is called. They all seem to go to one point, I think on the mast but there is absolutely no detail in any of the drawings what they attach to. After a lot of studying and frying a few brain cells thinking, I am thinking there must be one of those little screw eyes installed right at the bottom of the nest and they tie to it. The photos are not clear and the rigging plan jus shows the lines going to a point on the mast but nothing about how they are attached there. All the other rigging lines are fairly clear as how to do them.

     The cannons are another issue. I have pretty much figured what I will do with them and how, but the photo plans show all the dummy cannons below deck and 4 cannons on the top decks. The  rigging plans show all the cannons on the top decks which does not match the kit. This also throws off the rigging lines a little as I have to work around all those cannon doors that are in the kit but not on the rigging plan. It is all good though, but it just ups the challenge a little. I am finding I need to look WAY ahead to avoid problems later do to mistakes in the kit or plans.

         I am really starting to enjoy building this ship as I get closer to the details of dressing up the empty hull and finding ways to increase details or make some things better than the kit supplied.😁

[vossiewulf]

The lines running vertically to the mast top are called shrouds. The ratlines ran perpendicularly across the shrouds.

 

Shrouds are served over their length, which means another very fine line was wrapped tightly with no gaps around the shroud. At one end is a big loop, at the other are deadeyes. The loops go over the mast top and the line is tensioned with the deadeyes at the other end. 

 

Rigging in the Age of the Spritsail Topmast is the best book I'm aware of about rigging close to this period. You'll need to delve into it pretty deeply to be sure you understand how the standing and running rigging worked and how they were set up and belayed.

[mfrazier]

Thank you for that information. I see in the plans the shrouds have the dead eye at the bottom end. The plans have no details about the top of the shrouds.  These plans also show to only serve the end that wraps around the dead eye. I can see that  from the close up photo of the dead eye end. The more I study these drawings, I am convinced they merely tie the top end of the shrouds to a brass eye screwed into the mast. They  show another set of these shrouds from the nest to the top of the top mast section and the bottom of these shrouds tie in small brass eyes  in the nest railing. I am assuming they did this to make construction easier for most builders of the kit. I, at present, do not have a way to serve the entire length of the shrouds ( without building one of those server machines I have seen others on here have made. )  This is going to require some thought. I was considering making a serving machine, but not this soon. Showing my ignorance here, I would like to ask why the shroud line is served the entire length? 

 

The following are the only reference to these shroud lines in the plans.

Kind of vague .... huh? You can see in the second photo, how the lines attach to dead eyes eyes  which then attach to brass eyes in the railing of the nest . I think I will get the book you suggested to gain more knowledge.

[mfrazier]

While waiting for the wood I ordered, I started making some of the other components. 

I made the grating for the decks and the Crow's nests. The plans show the grating on the deck but you can see the deck underneath them. I am thinking to either paint the area under them flat black or put a black film on the underside of the grating to simulate the dark opening. I think it would look better. I ruled out cutting actual openings because the bulkheads in the frame work would be visible and the decks are glued to them also.

 

[vossiewulf]

With stays (standing rigging that just holds the masts and bowsprit in place), including the shrouds, they were actually wormed, parcelled, and served.  A serving machine is not difficult to make, search for serving machine here on MSW for self-built ideas.

 

Otherwise I would recommend the serving machine from Syren Ship Model Company. You still have to put it together, but it works well and is not expensive ($55).

 

It's very possible they simplified the rigging, as you say it's an entry level kit and that almost always means simplification. 

 

You're about to be confronted with the biggest mass of confusing terminology there is anywhere when you face ship rigging for the first time. You pretty much must get some books to help explain that terminology and what all the standing and running rigging did and how they were made and set up if you want to know what you are doing and to make a rig that is actually sensible.

 

Another good move is to go to Syren and replace all the line that came with the kit with Syren rope, it's far, far better than average kit line and the entry level kits get the worst line. Very fuzzy with threads sticking out a scale foot or more. BTW don't use beeswax on your lines, it's acidic and will eat away the rigging over time. If you must use wax, use paraffin. But IMO the best rigging is just good line with no wax.

 

And you're zooming right along, so make some decisions and order some things so you don't get stuck waiting for supplies to arrive. That's always very frustrating when you're on a roll with a build.

 

 

[vossiewulf]

Two other books I recommend:

 

Rigging Period Ship Models (excellent detailed drawings of everything)

The Masting and Rigging of of English Ships of War 1625-1860

[mfrazier]

Today I installed the rudder. I also made the little "hickey with a window". I'm sure someone can tell me what it is actually called. I set the items on the deck temporarily to see how it looks. I am fiddling with these detail parts while waiting for the wood I ordered to finish the hull. It is supposed to arrive March 5th. 

I have to go to the store and get paint to start the small "life" boat. It is cast metal and I want to finish it to look like wood.

[vossiewulf]

Looks good Mark, nice progress.

[mfrazier]

In the photo above, the grate on the middle deck was made the size the plans called for. But when I set it in place, I then set the two cannons that go on that deck in place and found they were a tight fit and there was no space between the grate and the cannons. If this was real, there would be no space to walk from the lower deck to the upper deck. So I cut that grate in half and staged everything again and it looks much better. I have learned I have to be thinking way ahead when building to avoid big problems later.

 

( Photos would not upload for some reason)

[Old Collingwood]

Have a read here  - 

 

 

Its a well documented situation.

 

OC.

[vossiewulf]

1 hour ago, mfrazier said:

I have learned I have to be thinking way ahead when building to avoid big problems later.

The way I put it recently is that to build a really good ship model, you have to entirely build it in your head first, working out every detail and process and tool. If you say I'll just figure that out when I get there, the gods of ship modeling will definitely smite you.

 

Welcome to your first smiting  It won't be the last.

 

Don't worry about the photo upload problem, just create an account on http://www.imgur.com and upload your photos there. That also allows you to paste in the photos in a certain order and to comment them as you go.

[Baker]

12 hours ago, mfrazier said:

I also made the little "hickey with a window". I'm sure someone can tell me what it is actually called.

that is fore the helmsman

[mfrazier]

Ahhhh ..... Thanks for the picture. Now I understand. I was wondering, since there was no ship's wheel, who and how the boat was steered. ( A picture is worth a thousand words). It is a bit of disappointment as I would have loved to had a ships wheel. I just like them.

[mfrazier]

These were the kit supplied little brass ladder pieces I have destroyed. They are so tiny and thin it is impossible for my big hands to work with them. 

 

It worked out much better because I am happier with the scratch built wood ladder I made. This one is nice after 4 hours and the third attempt, I finally found a way to do it.

 

The above photo shows the grating for the middle deck as the plan called for. There is not enough room for the cannons as they are tight fit and no walk around space. I cut the grate in half and will turn it 90 degrees and there is plenty of room for the cannons and it looks much better.

 

Today I will varnish the decks and continue to make detail pieces as it will be next Friday before the wood to finish the hull arrives.

 

[Baker]

I am probably too late with this. Sorry.

If you paint the deck that is under the grating black then it will look more like there is an "space" under this grating.
So, just paint the piece of deck under the grating black. The grating itself is not be painted black.

 

Ps,

If you do not like this yourself. Then you should not do this.
This is just free advice.

[mfrazier]

3 hours ago, Backer said:

I am probably too late with this. Sorry.

If you paint the deck that is under the grating black then it will look more like there is an "space" under this grating.
So, just paint the piece of deck under the grating black. The grating itself is not be painted black.

 

Ps,

If you do not like this yourself. Then you should not do this.
This is just free advice.

Thank you for the suggestion. I had thought about that. I will do it just before I mount the grating permanently and use flat black paint.

 

Suggestions are always welcome. 

[vossiewulf]

The ladder looks good Mark, congrats on a nice scratchbuilt part.

 

I'm sorry I didn't mention black under the grate, I thought that was fairly obvious. If you want to be very realistic of course, you can cut away the deck and false deck under the grates.

 

Ship's wheels were a fairly late innovation, until then the steering was done with some form of tiller, and small boats (like cutters and such) maintained tiller steering all the way through the age of sail.