Sovereign of the Seas by pirozzi - FINISHED - Mantua

[edmay]

Hi Vince,very neat work,a work of art to be sure,I have had this model for  about 14  years,now retired trying to decide what colors to use, there are several blogs on the sos,I would like to follow yours, picture relationship(photo's) is a good research tool which I find very encouraging,thanks for the pictures.Q,. what kind of glue are you using for the ornamentation, Ed

[pirozzi]

Hi Vince,very neat work,a work of art to be sure,I have had this model for  about 14  years,now retired trying to decide what colors to use, there are several blogs on the sos,I would like to follow yours, picture relationship(photo's) is a good research tool which I find very encouraging,thanks for the pictures.Q,. what kind of glue are you using for the ornamentation, Ed

Hi Ed,

I used CA glue. The middle thickness works best. One thing, since most of the ornaments are placed on painted surfaces, make sure to scratch off a little paint where the contact with the glue will be made. I had a little trouble with them staying on until I figured this out. Good luck on your build. Let me know how it goes. It is definately a fun project.

 

Vince P.

[pirozzi]

The fore royal yard mounted and rigged. After hanging and rigging the sail, comes a big part of the build. The mast will be set on the ship and all of the standing rigging for it and the bowsprit will be completed.

 

Vince P.

[pirozzi]

Completing the blocks and lashings on the bowsprit prior to starting the standing rigging and placing the foremast. There is quite a bit of rigging in this area and it will get congested, so I will have to figure out just what order to do each line in order to make access easier.

 

Vince P.

[pirozzi]

The bowsprit with the stays and lanyards rigged.

 

Vince P.

[st george]

She's looking great Vince. How tall will the completed model be?

 

David

[pirozzi]

Hi David. Thanks. She will be about 40 inches high. It is going to so big, I will have to come up with someplace to put her. The glass case I bought is big enough to sleep in.

Vince

She's looking great Vince. How tall will the completed model be?

 

David

[pirozzi]

The foremast is set on the ship. Now the fun part comes with the standing and running rigging for the mast and bowsprit.

 

Vince P.

[DenPink]

Hi Vince

Looking very nice indeed , quality workmanship at its best.

 

Denis.

[pirozzi]

I have started with the standing rigging. The lower forestays for the foremast and a hand rope along the bowsprit. The heavy rope for the stays only comes in tan, so I colored it using black beeswax. That great idea came from my fellow modeller Denis Pink from New Zealand.

 

Vince P.

[pirozzi]

The fore topmast stay rigged in place. I made some little rope coils for where it belays to the bowsprit. I took some suggestions from modelers of this forum for making the coils and they came out great. I never had much luck with them before. I mixed some wood glue and water to make it real thin. Then wound the coils on a tapered wood dowel, soaked them in the glue, peeled them off the dowel and let them dry. I put a weight on top of them to keep them flat . Perfect.

 

Vince P.

[pirozzi]

Here are some drawings for the stays, blocks, and lashings for the foremast, if you want to rig her with sails and more accurately than the kit provides.

 

Vince

[pirozzi]

The sprit topsail in place and ready for rigging. I figured to place this yard and sail before attempting the upper stays for the foremast. They are complicated and will clutter up the areas of the topmast top and trees, which would make rigging the yard and sail difficult afterwards..

 

Vince P.

[edmay]

hello vince,been following your blog in awe,you and denis are truly masters,I have an sos from 15 yrs ago and now have the time,god willing,thanks for the teaching"s,Ed

[md1400cs]

Vince P,

 

I have been joyfully following your amazing build. So beautiful. The SOS might be my next build. Do you ave an opinion about the Mantua kit? You are building the Sergal, which looks very very excellent. Thanks for any opinions. Keep up the good work.

 

MJD

[DSiemens]

Incredible work it's really coming together.  

[Old Sea Dog]

Very nice work

[pirozzi]

Hi MJD,

Thanks for the feedback. As you might know, the Mantua SOS kit has been around for over 30 years. Recently, Sergal and Mantua merged and they are now the same company. The SOS kit was completely redesigned in 2008 and much for the better. However there are still kits out there that are the old version, or hybrids of the new and old. The new kit, which I was fortunate to purchase does have top quality materials. A friend of mine bought his kit after me and he got a hybrid. It was full of defective parts and had many missing altogether. The plans were dated 1979! I had to send him copies of the new plans, which are dated 2008. Mantua is not known for customer service. He tried contacting them with no response, and even the dealer could get no answers. So, if you do want to buy this kit, my suggestion to get it from Ages of Sail out of California. They are the main distributor for Mantua in the USA, and their prices are as good as any. They also seem to have them in stock, since all of the other dealers have to get their kits from them. The one weakness of the kit, even the new one, is the instructions and plans. They are full of inaccuracies and omissions. I don't know how much experience you have in building complex ship kits, but you will certainly need it with this one. I have found a wealth of books, websites, and others who have built her to help me along. I would be happy to give you everything I have if you decide to give it a go. I can tell you that it is the most fun project I have ever tackled, and she is coming along nicely. I have about 18 months into her by now and being retired, I spend considerable time each week working on her.

Best of luck,

Vince

 

Vince P,

 

I have been joyfully following your amazing build. So beautiful. The SOS might be my next build. Do you ave an opinion about the Mantua kit? You are building the Sergal, which looks very very excellent. Thanks for any opinions. Keep up the good work.

 

MJD

[md1400cs]

Hi MJD,

Thanks for the feedback. As you might know, the Mantua SOS kit has been around for over 30 years. Recently, Sergal and Mantua merged and they are now the same company. The SOS kit was completely redesigned in 2008 and much for the better. However there are still kits out there that are the old version, or hybrids of the new and old. The new kit, which I was fortunate to purchase does have top quality materials. A friend of mine bought his kit after me and he got a hybrid. It was full of defective parts and had many missing altogether. The plans were dated 1979! I had to send him copies of the new plans, which are dated 2008. Mantua is not known for customer service. He tried contacting them with no response, and even the dealer could get no answers. So, if you do want to buy this kit, my suggestion to get it from Ages of Sail out of California. They are the main distributor for Mantua in the USA, and their prices are as good as any. They also seem to have them in stock, since all of the other dealers have to get their kits from them. The one weakness of the kit, even the new one, is the instructions and plans. They are full of inaccuracies and omissions. I don't know how much experience you have in building complex ship kits, but you will certainly need it with this one. I have found a wealth of books, websites, and others who have built her to help me along. I would be happy to give you everything I have if you decide to give it a go. I can tell you that it is the most fun project I have ever tackled, and she is coming along nicely. I have about 18 months into her by now and being retired, I spend considerable time each week working on her.

Best of luck,

Vince

Vince,

 

Thanks so much for your very copious and complete answer to my quire. I also appreciate the name of a vendor. You are also very kind to offer tech. help. It will be a while before I break a seal on a yet to be purchased SOS. A kit that I have been "crazy about" for years. After my Wasa is completed, I'll take a deep breath and go from there. I also note your your comments about difficulty level, Mmmmm.

 

Again, thanks for your words of wisdom.

 

Michael D

[pirozzi]

Hi Gary,

There is a huge difference in the 1970's version and the 2008 version. The thing is that the kit must at least match the plans version. They made many changes to the kit in 2008. The laser cut parts are one of the biggies. Another is the gun port templates. The older version did not these and it was very difficult to align the gun ports with the decks. The newer version came with gun port templates for each gun deck. They are actually part of the second layer of plankng and locate the gun ports very nicely, with a little issue with the curvature of the decks as they progress to the stern. I have an extra set of plans that I had made. You can also go on to the Mantua Help Website and download the whole new instruction booklet which is way better than the old one, but like I said, it still leaves a lot to be desired. They don't have the plans on line however.

 

Vince P.

This is my next build. I picked my kit up from an estate sale. My plans say June 1974. Would it be that much different. I know here is errors in the back part of the ship and I have several books and articles about her.  I may have a lot of what you are talking about but would like more information?

[pirozzi]

This is the fore top gallant forestay. The kit has a very abbreviated one that is nowhere near the real thing. This one is right from the prints of the real SOS. I am doing as much rigging as possible from good sources. It does however require a pretty good amount of additional rigging supplies such as deadeyes, blocks, and cord. If you are anything like me, you have built up a good stash of supplies over the years. I have been raiding my stash pretty heavily, but have not had to buy more yet, but I will eventually have to replenish my stock.

The trick with this forestay was getting each level fairly taut. I started from the mast end and built each layer seperately, using weights like alligator clips to put tension on the lines while each section is rigged. There are several more stays for the spritsail topmast and the mizzen that are even more complicated than this one. It is fun however to do these.

 

Vince P.

[pirozzi]

Gary,

Go on to the Mantua Help Website. (www.mantuamodelhelp.com) They have drawings of all of the laser cut boards with the part numbers. You can download the drawings. Like I said you can also get the new instruction manual that matches the new plans for free as well. If you have some laser cut parts, you might have one of the hybrid kits, as the original did not have laser cut parts. I would be willing to send you the whole new plans set I had made for the cost of the shipping, which is about $15. There are 9 large sheets of plans.

 

Vince

Very nicely done.  I looked at my kit and all the parts are laser cut. It also had the sails in the kit I bought. Guess I need to have ages of sail get me the strips that has the gun port positions. He has been able to get parts from Mantua for my La Soleil Royal. There is a part number stamped on the wood. Can you give that to me.

[pirozzi]

I went on the webite. The part # for the gun port templates is: 787013.

 

Vince P.

Gary,

Go on to the Mantua Help Website. (www.mantuamodelhelp.com) They have drawings of all of the laser cut boards with the part numbers. You can download the drawings. Like I said you can also get the new instruction manual that matches the new plans for free as well. If you have some laser cut parts, you might have one of the hybrid kits, as the original did not have laser cut parts. I would be willing to send you the whole new plans set I had made for the cost of the shipping, which is about $15. There are 9 large sheets of plans.

 

Vince

[pirozzi]

Ok, here is the last forestay for the foremast. Now comes the Spritsail topmast back stay, which is even more complicated.

[pirozzi]

The Spritsail Topmast Backstay. This was a dilly. I had a hard time trying to get everything taut. The thing has 3 seperate sections that all connect together. I did the best I could and had to redo it twice.

 

Vince P.

[pirozzi]

The Spritsail yard ready for the sail and rigging.

 

Vince P.

[pirozzi]

Hi Gary,

Got your plans ready to go. Will mail them out Monday.

 

Vince P.

Looking good. Lots to balance. Must have been hard to do with real rope on the real ship without it overpowering the workers. It is sure shaping up to be a beautiful model.

[pirozzi]

Here are photos of the completed bowsprit. I decided to do a loose furl on the sprit sails to give more exposure to the bow. It is the kind of furl they would do to trim sails with a ship under sail on the seas. I think it looks OK. The only running lines not done on the bowsprit are the sheet lines in the lower corners of the sails. Since they are way outboard on the hull, they will get in the way in rigging the foremast. I will complete them after completing the foremast rigging and the forward hull such as the gun port doors and the anchors.

 

Vince P.

[pirozzi]

You welcome to come by when she is done, or sooner if you like.

 

Interesting. Once it is in a case, I don't know if it would make much difference. I can see not letting the bottom sail out so you can see the lines of the vessel. Once you get it finished and cased, I would like to come and see it up close. Either way, it will look glorious.

[pirozzi]

Here is a drawing of the block layout for bowsprit yards.

 

Vince P.