ancre Chaloupe armée en guerre / 42ft Armed Longboat of 1834 by Gregor – FINISHED - scale 1:62

[Gregor]

A litte more than a year ago I started a side-project. I bought the plans for this small boat on a whim, after visiting an excellent exhibition at Rochefort, France (thats where the famous frigate Hermione has its home port).

The model is about 22 cm or 8.66142 inches long.

Building this little gun-boat gave me great pleasure and quite a few headaches, mostly due to my choice of a small scale of 1:62 (I scaled the plans down to fit the gun barrel from rb-models in Poland). 

The plans and explanations (ancre.fr) are excellent, available in several languages - even in my native German. Here I will keep my explanations short. I recommend the - as always - very instructive log by Tony 

with further references.

 

My chaloupe is made from pear, painted in French style of the time (with the exception of the imperial green on the inside, which would made it more historically accurate).

 

So here are the first steps:

Keel parts assembled (2 mm pear)

The frames (1.2 mm pear) were watered, bent over a soldering iron and pinned on the form (with a shortcut at the stern, where no frames were needed for this model), covered with glossy synthetic-resin varnish.

Planking was done with 0.5 mm pear planks

To be continued soon...

[Gregor]

The interior:

Floor boards were separated by paper strips while glue dries.

The interior was then varnished with Danish oil.

To be continued soon...

[Gregor]

The interior, part two:

To be continued soon...

[Gregor]

These gun boats were huge! They were 13 meters long (42 feet). A standard ship's cutter of 6 meters looks quite small in comparison.

I was very lucky this summer, when I visited the city of Karlskrona, in Sweden. There is an excellent Museum, with a collection of small boats in a dedicated shed (difficult to take pictures inside...). There I found a sloop, built in 1833, of roughly the same size as my chaloupe! This was really impressive.

To be continued soon...

 

[Gregor]

Small details:

 

 

At this pint, the boat weights 31 grams.

To be continued soon...

 

Edited December 15, 2019 by Gregor

[Gregor]

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be continued soon...

Edited December 15, 2019 by Gregor

[tkay11]

Wonderful to see your work on this. I also appreciate the shots of a similarly-sized boat to show just how big it is. Thanks!

 

Tony

[Gregor]

The gun barrel, the reason for the strange scale (1:62) is exactly 50 mm long (a little less than 2''). Its carriage fits into the slides.

 

 

A (real) lead cover was hammered and formed over an (inexistent) flint lock for protection.; an idea I took from Johann's phantastic build of La créole (

 

 

 

For the side tackles I used Chucks 3 mm blocks.

 

 

 

To be continued and finished soon...

[Gregor]

Here is the finished boat, with a few more details. I really can recommend Gérard Delacroix's plans, and I hope to motivate a few of you to buy them and build your own.

Cheers, Gregor.

 

 

 

[tkay11]

What a nice model! Thanks for the many ideas you've provided in terms of paintwork and metal work in addition to your usual lovely craftmanship. The flintlock cover is a clever addition. I also like the simplicity of the base. Is it stone?

 

What's next?

 

Tony

[Gregor]

Thanks, Tony, you are very kind.

And no, the base is simply black MDF, and two pieces of blackened brass rods - it's not in naval style of dark wood and shiny metal, but I like the simplicity. 

And next? My two schooners are finally getting armed and should be rigged someday... (and there is the lure of a Swedish gun boat, still in its box from Master Korabel - a gift to myself and a souvenir of last summer's travels there).

Gregor

[GrandpaPhil]

Excellent!

[mtaylor]

Just... WOW!  Beautiful.

[archjofo]

Hi Gregor,

 

fantastic work !

[Vladimir_Wairoa]

On 12/15/2019 at 6:41 PM, Gregor said:

The interior, part two:

To be continued soon...

oh my. thank you . so sweet . 

[daniel.b]

Hello Grégor,
I am looking for what colors the armed boat should be painted with. I see yours in black and white, with a natural wood interior.
Do you have a reference that guided you to this choice.
You have made a very beautiful achievement.
Thank you.

Edited Friday at 01:09 PM by daniel.b