La Flore by Alexisgm97 - Constructo

[Alexisgm97]

Hello everyone. In this thread, I am going to attempt to document the building of my latest model La Flore by Constructo. I bought this kit last year although I really hadn't had the time to build it until now, during the lockdown I have plenty of time and I work on it about 5 hours a day!

I won't be writing many of the parts' names and forgive me if I make any mistake as English is not my first language and I don't even know some of the parts' names in Spanish!

I am open to all the advice you can give me so come on!!

I hope you like it!!!

 

 

First some photos of the contents of the box.

 

I had some issues with the "black" thread because as you can clearly see it is GREEN! I emailed Constructo but they didn't help me. They said sometimes this happens when the black colour is "lighter" than normal. I have been searching to buy a new thread and I think I have found some. As this is going to be used towards the end, at the moment it doesn't really bother me. Apart from this, everything is on the box well packed and in good condition. Constructo has good quality.

 

Here I started with the false keel.

Here I put some wood strips to hold the cannons on each side of the ship. I really liked this ship because of the gun line on each side.

 

Then I glued the two lower decks. The prow deck and the waist deck. After this, I sanded the pins and started to plank both decks.

 

[Alexisgm97]

Here I started planking the hull. I started from the gun line. Before this, I sanded the decks and also the two blocks at the back.

These still need to be sanded to fit at the front. I will do it when I finish all the hull planking.

 

 

Now I have started planking the hull. Here is the thing with Constructo. Constructo's kits do not come with double planking (which I like because, in my opinion, it is easier although some experts or purists may disagree). So the kits come with 2x5mm Sapelly strips. I have already made other Constructo kit (Carmen) and I planked the hull with these strips. In my opinion, they are really strong to bend even though they were soaked in water and then heated to keep the shape. So this is what I really dislike about Constructo's kits. Some new models (this one too) indeed includes enough 0.6x5mm Sapelly strips to plank the hull again, after planking it with the thicker strips. I really appreciate this but as I said, these thick strips are very difficult to work with (or maybe it is me, maybe I don't have enough patience!). Anyway, with this kit, I decided to buy 2x5mm Tilo strips because these are much easier to bend and another advantage is that you don't have the pressure to make the hull perfect on the first try because then you are going to re plank it with the final Sapelly ones. So this is what I did! I bought some Tilo strips from a local shop (quite cheap) and started planking the hull with them.

 

Here are the pictures.

 

As this ship has a very curved "nose" I also decided to glue wood planks (I will show them) and then sand them to fit into place. And then plank the entire hull with the thin Sapelly strips. I wanted to try this because I saw some kits do this, although these kits included the wood pre-cut.

 

As you can see there are some gaps. I am first gluing the "complete and straight" ones and then I will fill the gaps cutting and sanding the strips to place, which is a more time-consuming work.

 

I really like this planking method because, as you can clearly see, I made some mistakes (some planks are a little bit too bent or curved...) So this way, I can make little mistakes because then I will do a great filling and sanding work to make it almost perfect and then, after this, plank it again perfectly with the easy-to-work thin Sapelly strips. They are included in the kit! They must be used!!! hehehehe.

I am really satisfied with the result (not finished though) and I am really happy that I am able to put a lot of hours of work on this beautiful ship.
 

[Alexisgm97]

Hello everyone!

 

Some advances have been made and now the first hull planking is complete (well almost)! I still have to sand down the wooden planks that are going to form the bow. But as you can see I made some progress. 

 

[Alexisgm97]

Hello!

 

I have finished sanding the wood parts in the bow and now it is smooth and ready. I also sanded all the hull ready to plank it this time with sapelly strips. Here you can see it.

 

I also planked the stern

Here I started planking the hull with the Sapelly strips. I also put the stern with tape to know where the strips should go. Once I finish I will glue it. 

 

[Alexisgm97]

Hello everyone. It has been a while and a lot of progress has been made. I have completely planked the hull with the Sapelly strips. 

 

Here are some photos of the progress. 

 

[Alexisgm97]

At the same time, I started making various decorations that go on the deck for example this cabin. Also the cannons. 

I made the gun carriages and then added the canons and the brass wheels. Then I varnished the canons that go in the gunports. I didn't go into much detail as these aren't going to be very visible. 

[Alexisgm97]

Here you can see that I drilled all the gunports. 15 on each side. Pretty easy task but has to be made carefully. The most tedious part is sanding them to be a perfect rectangle. 

 

Here you can see the process. I used painters' tape to draw where each one should go, then I drilled them and with the Exacto knife I cut the hole and with the file I sanded it to make a perfect rectangle. 

 

Once I did this, I drilled holes to hold the small cannons that don't have carriages.

 

[Alexisgm97]

I am now closer to finish the hull. I have glued the stern, the sternpost and I have cut and glued the keel. I had to sand down the sternpost a little.

 

After this, I also glued 3 whales on each side of the ship. I thought they were too many as they were 4cm width, but now I have placed them, it looks great.

 

 

The next and almost last step is to make and put the rudder blade. I think that with this, I would have finished the hull and I could start populating the lower deck with the canons and so on, and also the upper deck.

 

 

[Bill Morrison]

Nice job! Beautiful job on the gun ports.

 

Bill

[Alexisgm97]

On 6/12/2020 at 12:23 AM, Bill Morrison said:

Nice job! Beautiful job on the gun ports.

 

Bill

Thank you very much Bill, gthey were a lot of work but at the end it pays off!!

[Alexisgm97]

Hello everyone!  

 

I am still making progress on my Flore. Now the rudder is already glued with its brass hinges. Here you can see some photos. 

 

[Alexisgm97]

After this, I started gluing all the cannons on the lower deck. I also went a bit further and added some thread to simulate the ropes that hold the cannons in place in real life. This is something Constructo doesn't say in their instructions but I recently saw it in a build log and I liked the idea so I tried it and the result is pretty neat. 

 

I have also glued the "false" cannons.

 

I still have to glue the thread to the walls of the gunports. I also have glued the grating and I made some holes to glue eye bolts in order to attach some rope to hold the lifeboat which still needs to be painted and mounted in place. 

 

Also, if you look closely at the gratings you can see two little pairs of stairs. I really like this kind of detail. They are made of brass and cut to length.

 

 

 

[Halfdan]

Great job so far, looking very good!

I’ll be following with great interest as I’m considering La Flore for my next project.

It’s a beautiful ship and looking at your progress so far I’m sure you are going to do it justice. 

Keep it up👍🏻

[Alexisgm97]

Hello everybody, I have finally managed to get some free time to keep the work on my Flore. I am going to upload some photos for you to see the progress. Enjoy them.

 

I made some fake doors to put at the back end of the lower deck because when putting the top deck you could see a hole there and I decided to put this kind of decoration and I think it looks really nice.

After this, I proceeded to glue the top deck and started planking it
 

 

As you can see as well as planking the deck I also glued the stem and side stringers.

 

 

 

Edited June 21, 2023 by Alexisgm97
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[Alexisgm97]

Then, I primed the transom stern, quarter galleries, and the auxiliary boat which is made of steel too but later I thought it would not look nice painted and I changed my mind....

 

I think it looks pretty nice

After this, I also glued the walnut stem stringer

 

Then the head rails

[Alexisgm97]

Now let's move to the auxiliary boat. At first, I just decided to paint it brown and white, but I am not really good at painting and making effects so finally I decided to line this steel boat with sapelli strips and make it look like a wooden boat.

 

At first, I thought about keeping it simple but as I was covering it up with wooden strips I wanted to add more and more details so it could look nicer. I don't have photos of all these details I added on the go but you can see the result here.

As you can see I added two oars and an anchor.

Finally, I stopped adding details and this is how it looks like:

 

That's all the progress for now. As I said I have more time than before and I am going to keep working on my wonderful flore. I won't be a fas progress but a steady one. I hope you liked the photos. Thank you.

 

[jeff shreve]

Nice job on the kit so far and really like the work on the ship's boat!

[SigEp Ziggy]

Nice Work!  I am building the the plastic 'Jolly Roger' and wanted to compare to your build.