Spanish Galleon by Jeff T - Revell - 1:96 - PLASTIC - with modifications

[Jeff T]

The cannons are now painted.

 

It was a multi-step process, starting with mounting them temporarily on toothpicks:

 

 

The first coat of paint, an "undercoat", was thinned-down Testors flat black enamel:

 

 

If I had left the cannons unpainted, they would have been too yellowish to pass for bronze.  Testors metallic enamel paints are generally good for making a surface look like it is made of metal.  I could not find a metallic bronze paint, so I mixed Testors Model Master brass enamel with Testors metallic copper enamel.  In the photo below, the brass paint is on the top mixing stick, copper is on the one in the middle, and the bronze mixture is on the bottom one:

 

 

I painted bronze over the flat black:

 

 

The metallic paint seemed a bit "grainy" with its metal flakes, and it did not level well (see test brushings below):

 

 

I think that if I thinned it, it may have ended up not dense enough for the pieces to appear like solid metal, so it was applied with full viscosity.  The grain and the brush marks, however, could be used to my advantage when it came to applying the patina.

 

Since I am weathering other parts of the model, I wanted to present the cannons as if they had been exposed to salty sea air over several years.  Patina for bronze can have a blue-green appearance, as in this cannon:

 

 

and this bell:

 

 

I wanted to make the cannons still appear metallic, so I did not coat them entirely with the patina paint.  Rather, the application was done sporadically, such as can be seen on the cannon in this webpage:

 

https://www.ima-usa.com/products/original-18th-century-bronze-2-pounder-falcon-cannon-with-oak-naval-carriage?variant=19428799938629

 

I found this acrylic patina paint:

 

 

Rather bluish on the stirring stick:

 

 

I applied it with (mostly) a dry-brushing technique:

 

 

To protect the paint, I applied a gloss acrylic polymer varnish.  Gloss was used so that the metallic look of the bronze would not be too flat and dull for my taste (although I know that in real life, the bronze can become really dull with time).  I used matt acrylic varnish to cover most of the patina and some of the raised texture.

 

Once the cannons were removed from the toothpicks, I cleaned up the muzzles with sandpaper and coated the bores inside them with flat black enamel (to simulate dark inner shadow, eliminating the brightness of the brass).  Then, the muzzles were painted bronze.   Patina, followed by the varnishes, was applied to the fronts of the cannons.  

 

Here are the final results.  I am showing pictures both with and without the camera flash because each method shows differences in the detail. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next up will be to mount them into the carriages and make the capsquares.

 

[Jeff T]

I realized that the link to a website showing a bronze cannon in my post above isn’t working, so I will try it again:

 

https://www.ima-usa.com/products/original-18th-century-bronze-2-pounder-falcon-cannon-with-oak-naval-carriage?variant=19428799938629

[Baker]

Very nice bronze cannons 👍

[Jeff T]

Thanks, Patrick!

[Jeff T]

I have just been hit with a major setback in my build, which erases months of work (because I cannot work on the build continuously).  I found that after gluing the rear of each cannon to its gun carriage with 30 minute epoxy to stabilize it before I would glue down the styrene trunnions with liquid plastic cement, some of the epoxy did not cure completely.  It was tacky, and it was softer than the other epoxy that I had mixed, long after it was expected to be fully cured.  I researched online the temperature at which styrene would warp, and keeping that in mind, I tried to gently heat the cannons/carriages, staying below the warping temperature, to try to force the epoxy to fully cure.  Unfortunately, the styrene of the gun carriages and trunnions warped anyway, ruining all 20 carriages.  The photo below shows what some of the carriages looked like (with the cannons removed).

 

 

I will not be able to salvage any of them.

 

So it is basically "back to the drawing board" for the cannons.

 

But now I do not have any gun carriages to work with. 

 

I looked online for Spanish-style gun carriages, but there are few.  I could make my own, but I know that I would have difficulty making them consistent in size and shape, especially since I need 20 of them.  In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, which would be the time period for this galleon (which seems to be like an early 17th century style), the Spanish used two-wheeled gun carriages, with large wheels like one might see on a land cannon at the time.  See the drawing below, which is reproduced in Angus Konstam's book on the Spanish Galleon which I have referenced earlier in this log.

 

 

A Russian model company called Falkonet makes carriages that are very nice and look much like the carriage pictured above, but only one size is available to me, and it is just too large (wrong scale).  So I will have to alter some four-wheeled carriages.  I have ordered 20 carriages from Radimir at HiSModel that will fit with my 29 mm cannons.  I will shape them to look a little like the carriages that came with the kit, which will hopefully be easier to do than trying to rework them to match the picture above.  The wheels for the four-wheeled laser-cut wooden carriage kits that I ordered are too small to look good in a two-wheeler, so I ordered some 8 mm wooden disks to make new, larger wheels.  We will see how it all works out.

 

Since I will be gluing the cannons and trunnions to wood, I do not have to re-make styrene trunnions (which I did previously for a styrene-to-styrene bond).  Instead, I will use the brass trunnions that originally came with the brass cannons (and I had lost one of them, so I made one from a brass rod).

 

To melt away the warped styrene trunnions from my cannons, I had to strip off all of the exterior paint from them.  I did this using both acetone and enamel thinner (which has mineral spirits).  So now, the only paint that remains is the flat black paint in the bores. 

 

Here we go again...

 

 

[kirill4]

Good day Jeff,

It was sad to hear that monts of job done now ruined

Guns were looks very nice... why do not use CA gel for cluing purposes?

It works very good ,making strong parts fixation,dry fast and easy in use...

Wish You all the best!

Kirill

Edited June 17, 2021 by kirill4

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

  I've learned that epoxy, like CA, goes bad after a while on the shelf - especially at room temperature.  It's a good idea to buy new epoxy for a given build, and store epoxy (and CA) in the freezer (in a ziplock bag).  Date the bag and still discard after 1 year (a rule of thumb).

[Jeff T]

4 hours ago, kirill4 said:

Good day Jeff,

It was sad to hear that monts of job done now ruined

Guns were looks very nice... why do not use CA gel for cluing purposes?

It works very good ,making strong parts fixation,dry fast and easy in use...

Wish You all the best!

Kirill

Thanks for the recommendation, Kirill.

 

Yes, I did think about using CA glue, and I do have some and will use it for some applications, but I think epoxy has better shear strength than CA, so if I accidentally bump into one of the cannon barrels while working on rigging, there would probably be a smaller chance that it would pop off if I use epoxy.

[Jeff T]

I have started work on the cannons again.

 

After they were stripped of all exterior paint (because the styrene trunnions were ruined and they needed to be soaked in acetone to remove them), I glued in brass trunnions.  Here they are drying (blue tape impedes them from rolling to the side and that can keep the trunnions from slipping):

 

 

Ready to paint:

 

 

This time, instead of painting a black base coat first, I went straight to the bronze color.  That way, if I thinned it, it would not show black through the bronze flakes.  By thinning it, it made brush marks less noticeable, but some of the larger bronze flakes are still visible.  Here are some of the cannons after two coats of bronze:

 

 

Applying the patina color will be the next step.

 

I am also working on preparing wheels for the gun carriages.

 

[Jeff T]

I have finished repainting the cannons:

 

 

Since I wanted to do the patina again, I decided to use a color that was a little more green and a little less blue, so I used a different paint and mixed some colors into it.  The photo below shows the newer, greener paint mix on the bottom stick and the original one on the top stick:

 

 

 

[Jeff T]

Here is my experience so far with trying to recreate gun carriages to replace the ones that warped.

 

I ordered some wooden gun carriage kits that will fit the brass cannons.  These gun carriages are designed for H.M.S. Victory, so I will need to modify them a bit to make them resemble 16-17th century Spanish naval gun carriages. 

 

 

The wheels for the carriages in these kits are too small for two-wheeled Spanish gun carriages, so I also ordered 8 mm laser-cut wooden disks (seen to the right in the above photo) to use for the wheels instead of those provided.  The Falkonet Spanish gun carriages, which I did not order because they are of a larger scale, have laser cut-out spaces between the spokes of the wheels, but I do not have a good way of recreating something like that, so I am using them "whole", with simulated spokes.

 

The disks had small ridges at the edges that appear to be artifact from the laser-cutting process.  I  need fairly smooth edges to simulate the iron outer rims of the wheels.  So I puttied and sanded the edges to smooth them:

 

 

I made cross-hairs on the disks so that I could center the hubs.

 

I made the hubs for the wheels using a steel-filled epoxy that I placed into holes drilled in a sheet of styrene that I used for molds (a microcrystalline wax was used for a "mold release":

 

 

You can see the dark grey epoxy in the holes, above.

 

Here are the hubs, below:

 

 

The hubs were glued to the disks:

 

 

The outer rims were painted black and then masked:

 

 

After I painted more black near the edges of the tape to prevent a lighter color from bleeding under it, I applied a coat of white, then tan, then a brown wash for a simulated wood grain effect:

 

 

Spanish naval cannons from the time period looked like "land cannons", with two large spoked wheels.  The spokes were broad, and there were four of them for each wheel, in a "cross" orientation:

 

 

(The above photo, from Angus Konstam's book on the Spanish Galleon, has been referenced previously in this log.)

 

To simulate the spaces between the spokes, I decided to paint a mixture of brown and black (to look like shadows on the carriage wood seen between the spokes).

 

To mask off the rims of the wheels, I used a hole punch to punch circular holes in masking tape:

 

 

The masking tape was applied to wheels:

 

 

2 mm masking tape was used to mask off the simulated spokes:

 

 

The brown and black mixture was applied to the "spaces":

 

 

Here are the wheels unmasked:

 

 

To do the back sides of the wheels, I used a similar procedure, except that I omitted some steps.  I did not do the simulated shadows between the spokes on the back sides, because not much of them will be showing as they will be glued to the carriage with spacers.

 

The central areas of the back sides are left as bare wood so that the glue will hold:

 

 

Here are some of the wheels after the back sides were completed and the black outer rims were "touched up".  Eventually, they will have a matte sheen and some small "rust" areas will be added to the iron rims:

 

 

The next project will be to make the carriages, adapting them to look more like the Spanish ones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jeff T]

Making the gun carriages has been a long process, as I have only been able to work on them sporadically, but they are finally finished.  I had to do a lot of extra work in order to turn something that looks like this

 

which fits a cannon from an 18th century British ship, into something that looks more like this

 

a two-wheeled carriage that the Spanish used in the 16th and 17th centuries.

 

I could not get an exact match of the Spanish gun carriage pictured above, but I think that the result is closer to that than if I were to build the carriages "as is" from the kits.

 

I first used a 3mm hole punch to punch out "spacers" from excess card material that came with a set of triangle deadeyes that I had ordered.

 

I glued them to the cheeks in each kit, using 1mm masking tape to help set them back from the front of the cheeks uniformly.

 

The carriages were assembled:

 

I used masking tape as a guide to sand down the "steps" on the cheeks to get a smooth downward slope:

 

I made "trails" for the cannons by gluing together pieces of a square wooden dowel:

 

Here are the trails attached to the rears of the carriages:

 

I used excess wood from the gun carriage kits to make extensions of the cheeks along the trails:

 

I placed a cannon in an unfinished carriage to determine how far back in the trail to place the quoin:

 

A jig was made out of cardstock to help me place the quoin at the right distance for each cannon, using the front end of the cheek as a reference:

 

I had to do a lot of puttying and sanding to get the profiles of the carriages to look smooth:

 

The white putty is Superfine White Milliput epoxy putty.  The red putty is Bondo 907 Glazing & Spot Putty.

 

I painted the carriages with a tan acrylic base coat:

 

A brown enamel stain from Testors was used to "weather" the carriages and recreate a wood grain:

I glued the right-sided wheels in place:

 

So that the left-sided wheels would line up at equal height and forward reach, I made a jig from an old piece of plastic:

 

I drilled a hole in the wall of the jig so the hub of the wheel could sit in it and the wheel sit flush against it.

 

 

  When the right wheel sits flush, it helps me situate the left wheel so that it is parallel to it:

 

Left wheels glued in place and carriages held with tape to dry:

 

I painted spots on the simulated iron "tyres" (tires or rims) of the wheels to simulate rust:

 

To remove the gloss, I used a matte varnish:

 

So now they are ready for the cannons.  Note that at the front ends of the quoins there are "bare" areas where you can see underlying exposed wood/epoxy/putty that will be used as surfaces to glue the breaches down to the carriages.  Also, the tops of the cheeks where the trunnions and capsquares will go have been scraped of paint/varnish to help with glue adherence.

 

Ideally, the carriages should have been bigger with respect to the size of the cannons, with proportionately larger wheels, if I had tried to make these completely historically accurate.  I think that there would have possibly been less deck space if I were to do that, and also, the cannon barrels may have been too high in the gun ports.  At least, even with the more miniature size, there is still a sense of the basic style of 16th-17th century Spanish naval cannons, which may have been a lot like the field artillery of the time.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 8, 2022 by Jeff T

[Baker]

A lot of work.
And a very nice result.

[Jeff T]

7 hours ago, Baker said:

A lot of work.
And a very nice result.

Thanks very much!

[Jeff T]

 

The cannons are now glued in to their carriages.  I used 30 minute epoxy for durability.  I have now finally caught back up to the point where I was last year when the original carriages warped. 

Next, I will work on capsquares to go over the trunnions.

[Louie da fly]

They look very good.

 

Steven

[Jeff T]

I made capsquares for the cannons using a technique similar to one that I saw on Model Ship World (can't find the post).

 

Starting with a 5 mil thick sheet of brass,

 

After sanding the front and back surfaces of a long edge of the sheet to aid in future paint and glue adhesion, I used a paper cutter to cut thin strips:

 

I used the cutter again to slice measured lengths:

 

A black paint marker had been used on the edges of each capsquare before placement as they would be difficult to paint after gluing the capsquares down.

 

I glued the front of each capsquare down first using thick CA glue:

 

After giving plenty of time for the glue to dry, I bent the brass over the trunnions and glued down the back ends (glue was also used over the trunnions):

 

To simulate latches or bolts on the capsquares, I used a "puffy paint":

 

The narrow nozzle on the bottle was used to apply a small spot of paint to the front and back of each capsquare.  The paint dries as a raised bump or cone shape:

 

 

Black enamel paint was applied to the capsquares to simulate iron:

 

After a clear coat of acrylic, I applied rust color details (same as for the wheel rims or tyres):

 

To make an even flat sheen, after a clear acrylic isolation coat, I applied a flat varnish (AK Interactive Ultra Matte Varnish, which gives a great result, but is difficult to work with).   Now, my cannons are finally done:

 

Here is a comparison of my cannon compared with the contemporary drawing of a Spanish naval cannon:

 

It is not exact, but it is a similar idea.  I know that with mine, the proportions of the gun to the carriage are off, but I think it will still look fine on the model.  I will not be able to maintain exact scale throughout the build, and I'm accepting that.

 

I've been working off and on with these cannons for so long that I have become a bit tired of them for right now, so I will set them all aside and work on some other preparation.  It will be a bit of time before I get them onto the ship.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 16, 2022 by Jeff T
Correction of description of technique.

[72Nova]

Thats some dedication for sure, but the end result speaks for itself👍.

 

Michael D.

[Baker]

Great work 👍.

And so much better than the kit's cannons.

[Altduck]

21 hours ago, Jeff T said:

I've been working off and on with these cannons for so long that I have become a bit tired of them for right now, so I will set them all aside and work on some other preparation.  It will be a bit of time before I get them onto the ship.

Very nice recovery from a major set-back, but the end result looks great, and will be a real enhancement to the model.

Well done

[Jeff T]

Thanks for all your kind words!

[Jeff T]

I'm going back to the plastic again.  It has been a while since I worked with the styrene kit pieces, but I have decided to continue with the preparation of some parts that I had left undone over a year ago before seeing the cannons through to completion. 

 

Basically, I am cleaning up a lot of seam lines, leveling (the best that I can) slight mismatches of the mold halves, and flattening out ejector pin marks and depressions for stairs, catheads, pinrails, cleats, and boat cradle pieces.  I am sanding, scraping with a hobby knife, "smoothing out" some areas using Tamiya Extra Thin cement brushed over the styrene, and I will also use Milliput Superfine White epoxy putty where needed to get the pieces ready to paint.

[72Nova]

A step often overlooked by many that makes a huge difference in the finish product....drives me nuts!!!. I like to use as much of the original parts as possible, with a little tweaking here and there can be made to look very convincing. Great work Jeff.👍

Michael D

[Jeff T]

3 hours ago, 72Nova said:

A step often overlooked by many that makes a huge difference in the finish product....drives me nuts!!!. I like to use as much of the original parts as possible, with a little tweaking here and there can be made to look very convincing. Great work Jeff.👍

Michael D

Thanks, Michael

 

As a kid, I would just twist the parts off of the sprue and immediately glue them to the model, painting it after it was built.  Thanks to the internet and the forums, I could never go back to that.   I see what can be done, and I want to make it end up being the best model that I could build.  Far from perfect, yes, but my best effort.  Preparing parts can be tedious and sometimes frustrating, but I look forward to the result.

[Jeff T]

Progress with these parts is slow and sporadic, as usual for me.  They required a lot of puttying and sanding, and once that was done, I scribed wood grain (where I had sanded it off) with a knife.  Here are some

photos before the first coat of paint.  I find that clothespins and  clips can be handy to hold the pieces (by the surfaces that will later be glued) for painting.

 

[Jeff T]

This is an update on those miscellaneous deck pieces (above). 

 

I used enamel paints:  Model Master Flat Leather for pinrails, Italian Dark Brown for catheads and cleats, or Military Brown for stairs.

After an isolation coat of clear acrylic, I used the same brown enamel stain that I used previously (for consistency) to weather them:

It

 

 

[Jeff T]

In the last two photos above, you can see that the gloss of the enamel stain has been deadened by matte varnish.  I avoided using the acrylic matte varnish that I had used for the cannons because the matting solids didn't always cover evenly on the first coat.  This time, I used Golden acrylic varnishes, and still had some difficulty getting an even sheen at times, but I think the end result turned out okay.   Note that many of the surfaces that will be glued to the model were left unpainted to help with glue adhesion.  Also, I am keeping the cleats on the sprues for now so that I don't lose them before it is time to glue them in place.

[Jeff T]

Also, I am waiting to paint the boat cradle pieces until they are glued to the boat -- I have thought ahead and I think that it will be easier to accomplish by dry fitting them to the grating, setting the unpainted boat in place so that it is seated correctly, applying liquid cement to the interface between the boat and cradle pieces, and then removing the assembly, painting it in one piece.

[Jeff T]

In order to be able to assemble the sterncastle (or aftcastle) on the ship, I will need to have all of the furnishings for it to be completed first.  The kit does not include inside furnishings for the cabins, because the windows on the molded pieces were blocked out.  Now that I have made transparent windows, we will be able to see into them, but all I have from the kit to put into the cabins are crewmen figures.  So I will be using third party kits and pieces and I am doing some scratchbuilding to complete the furnishings.

 

The photo below shows that there are two cabins, the upper cabin on the half deck, and the lower cabin on the main deck:

According to Angus Konstam and Tony Bryan's book Spanish Galleon 1530-1690, the upper cabin is the camarote or pilot's house, and the lower cabin is the captain's cabin (pp. 29 and 33). 

 

I decided to start with fabricating hanging lanterns to be mounted from the ceilings of the two cabins -- two for the pilot's house, and three for the captain's cabin.

 

I have some old black upholstery nails that I thought would work well to attach the lanterns (with the wide round nail heads being the canopies or attachment points):

The shades of the lanterns (glass enclosures protecting the candle flames) would be simulated using 3mm square Evergreen styrene tubing:

After I trimmed them to size, I painted them with white enamel as a primer so that acrylic paint would stick to them:

To create the effect of light, I used the same neutral orange glow-in-the dark paint that I had used for the stern lanterns.  I mixed dilute Liquitex Flow Aid with it so that it would go on smoothly.  It is almost white in color (slightly yellowish when dry) when it is viewed under ambient light, but after it is charged (I use an LED light), it glows orange in the dark.

Several coats were necessary so that there is enough strontium aluminate laid down for a strong glow.  It made the surfaces of the shades "bulbous", but I would rather accept that than settle with a very weak glow.

4mm squares were cut and sanded from Evergreen styrene strips (for the bases and crowns of the lanterns), and I drilled holes in the crown pieces:

I made temporary spacers to elevate the crown pieces above the nail heads so that, when the spacers were placed on either side of the nail, the pieces could rest on them and be secured with epoxy to keep them at a uniform distance from the head.

Three tiny washers had been placed between the head and crown piece for each lantern, and when the lanterns were turned upside down, the washers would stack over the flat styrene.  I secured them in place with thin cyanoacrylate glue, and then used thick cyanoacrylate (followed by sanding) around their edges to try to eliminate the stacking grooves.  This would give the crowns more height and shape.

 

Black enamel paint was applied to the bases and crowns, except for where the shades would be glued.

 

The shades were first glued to bases, then the other ends of the shades were glued to the crowns:

 

The lanterns needed something more, so I decided to make verticals for them using 24 gauge copper wire.  (I can also use that wire later on to strop the lower deadeyes).

 

I scraped off paint from the corners of the bases and crowns so the cyanoacrylate glue would adhere well.

 

The wire was straightened, trimmed, and glued in place at the four corners of each lantern:

 

Here are the completed lanterns:

 

When this photo is turned upside down, it shows what they can look like when "hanging":

 

The lanterns have to "hang" down far enough from the ceilings so that they are fully visible through the windows, because they will need to collect as much light as possible from the LED shone through the windows in order to glow sufficiently.  I realize now that I will need to add more spacers between the (nail head) canopies and the ceilings when mounting them.  I don't think that the canopies and spacers will be easily visible though the windows due to the angle of view.

 

Here is what a lantern would look like in the dark after being charged with LED light:

 

[Wintergreen]

That are some very neat lanterns!

Fascinating (for me at least, since I don't do plastics, yet.)