Bon Retour by DispleasedOwl - FINISHED - Artesania Latina - model by Hugo Bosque

[DispleasedOwl]

Hello fellow modelers!

 

This log is about my first ever model, the Bon Retour from Artesania Latina (AL). Even though this kit is designed as an entry level/beginner kit, i have found that it is NOT the case. I have read other posts commenting on how poor the instructions are, how blurry the photos in the instructions are and how little to nothing is explained about rigging. I can confirm it is true, so if youre looking for a kit to start, i wouldnt recommend this one. Try an easier kit, like "La Provençale", from Artesania Latina, or "Lancha del Capitán San Juan de Nepomuceno", also from Artesania Latina. Or even the HMS Bounty Jolly Boat! if youre still convinced to try out this kit, you can ask me anything you want, i will gladly help you with whatever i can.

 

Being my first kit ever, i wanted to start with something small, to practice for when i get to something bigger that requires a lot more experience. I am sure a keen eye will spot mostly every mistake i made, butoverall i have learned a lot from this kit, and even more from you, guys, as a community. You have been of invaluable help in times of need, and i can't thank you enough. Thats why i dedicate my first ever build log to you, community of modelshipworld, for your wise words, deep knowledge and kind attention. Thank every single one of you. 

 

Anyway, lets get into the build log!

 

 

Hugo Bosque Arenas

 

Beginner modeler

07/10/2020

[DispleasedOwl]

First of all, excuse my english. I will probably misname a part, or mix some names. For that i am sorry in advance.

 

The very first thing i did when starting this kit was to read the instructions from top to bottom. I also got my hands in a digital copy of "Ship Modeling Simplified", so i read that as well. If you cant find it online, i can provide it to you no problem. In that book, it (very wisely) says:

 

"On your first run-through everything should be assembled, piece by delicate piece, without going near the glue."

 

So I dry fitted the keel and the bulkheads and made sure they are tight, but no too tight. Honestly, it took a lot more of sanding than i care to admit. Thanks to my trusty Dremel it was not such big of a problem. Heres a photo, with number writen in pencil on the pieces, of the first bulkheads assembled to the keel:

 

 

And another one with all the bulkheads in place:

 

 

Notice the little curve on the top of the bulkheads? For what Ive read, its intentional. This ship has a lot of deck curve, almos being concave on the lower deck and convex on the top deck. That is going to be a problem for past me, since i didnt notice it when i attached the false deck.

 

I also placed some blocks, to force the bulkheads to stay at a nice 90 degree angle, and the stern blocks, and started to sand so that the planking would lay flat against the surface of the bulkhead. This proved crucial, and i am so happy i took my time to read other logs and research how its done. Now that i had the "skeleton" ready, it was time to fit the false deck.

 

Hugo Bosque Arenas

 

Beginner Modeler

08/10/2020

[DispleasedOwl]

Moving onto the false deck, I just thought i could glue it on. I was mostly wrong. I managed to glue it in place without any flathead pins, but some parts of it were not completely touching the entire surface of the top of the bulkheads. This proved to be a very important mistake, that proved to be extremely annoying and messing up my deck, being now lower on the port side, and not a nice, flat deck. Well, mistakes happen, and i must learn from them.

 

Heres a photo of the false deck already glued to the keel and the top of the bulkheads. If you zoom in you can see how its not laying flat against them. My only solution was to try and "bend" the false deck using water and heat. It proved to kind of work. In my next builds, i will secure them with flathead pins, aside from gluing them on, so i dont ever run into this problem. I also added the side deck bulkheads (thats how the instructions call them).

 

 

I will continue posting this build log tomorrow. Its already late and i have to wake up early to work. Goodnight to my fellow european modelers, goodday to the american ones!

 

Hugo Bosque Arenas

 

Beginner Modeler

08/10/2020

 

[tkay11]

This is a lovely boat. Well done so far!

 

Tony

[KingDavid]

Well done and welcome!

 

David

[BobG]

Hola Hugo and bienvenido a MSW. Your progress so far on this wonderful model is great and your English is excellent too. I wish I could say the same for my Spanish! 

 

My wife studied in Madrid for a year many years ago and she has always wanted to return and visit the city again. So, after we both retired, we traveled on our own for 10 weeks in Spain in the fall of 2015. We started our trip in Madrid and stayed there for 10 days and it brought back many memories for her. It is truly one of the great cities of the world and we both loved it. After Madrid we traveled by train and car to Segovia, Toledo, Cuenca, Albarraín, the Pyrénées, Cadequés, Barcelona, Seville, Granada, Ronda, Grazelema, Vejer de la Frontera and many other pueblos blancos and, finally, Córdoba. Spain is such a beautiful and friendly country! We hope to be able to return and stay for 6 months or more once the world returns to normal.

 

I look forward to watching your progress. Good luck building your first wooden ship! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DispleasedOwl]

On 10/8/2020 at 12:16 PM, tkay11 said:

This is a lovely boat. Well done so far!

It really is! Its was a present for my father in law, so it had to be something good 😁

 

On 10/8/2020 at 1:02 PM, KingDavid said:

Well done and welcome!

Thank you very much! I look forward to learn a lot with you all

 

On 10/9/2020 at 8:08 PM, BobG said:

I wish I could say the same for my Spanish! 

Not bad! Surely you can come back to Spain soon, like you said, once the world returns to normal. Thanks for the kind comments!

 

As for the abscence of posts, I was really busy. So, picking off where i left...

[DispleasedOwl]

Next step was deck planking. Not going to lie, it was quite fun! In the end i erased the fake nailheads because in my opinion, the made the model look very dirty. One thing that i never quite got the answer is, do i need to barnish the deck? I suppose, if i barnish it, i will protect the pencil marks and the deck will not end up that dirty. Oh well, trial and error, i will know the answer on my next model.

 

 

Once the deck was finished, i started with planking the hull. This part i was the most afraid of, so i took my time and precautions. Chucks planking videos were extremely helpfull, so i will leave a link here, if someone needs them:

 

 

Now, i have worked with wood before in my life. So i had a little bit of experience bending and filing the planks. I knew that, if i wet the wood, it would make it "bendy", but would also probably splinter it. I also knew that heat was the best way to manipulate this kind of wood. So i bought myself a tiny portable iron, and took my old soldering iron and i started to work.

 

This kit is a little special, because some of the planks around the curve of the hull come already precut with laser. Thats one less problem then. The worst part was, that unleveled deck was already being funky. If you look closely, you will se that in the stern, there was a wide space with no planking on it. I had to work around it, and it turned surprisingly good! So i applied plastic putty in between the planks to seal any holes and i got to work

 

I also learned that you are not supposed to push the nails all the way into the wood. Youre supposed to leave the head outside, so you can then clip it and be easier to sand. It was no problem, since my dremmel could easily sand the nail heads, so nothing lost there.

 

In this image you can see what im talking about:

 

 

 

More progress with planking:

 

 

And so, planking was done! (Easier said than done, definitely):

 

 

I learned a lot from this process. And i know i couldnt have learnt it from a book. The more i get older, the better i get at improvising! I also added the rubbing strakes (those side planks made of walnut) and the keel. I also added a layer of wood putty and sanded it until i was smooth and free of any cracks, impurities or holes (i dont have a picture of this step, i am so sorry)

 

Hugo Bosque Arenas

Beginner Modeller

 

11/10/2020

 

[DispleasedOwl]

Next step was painting. I didnt know if either to paint the model as showed in the box or to do some sort of mix between red/white and black paint scheme. In the end, i decided to paint it as the original one, so i bought the paints and got my cheap airbrush and started to work.

 

Now, if you have never worked with wood and an airbrush, let me tell you something. You first have to protect the wood from the paint. Since it is an airbrush, paints come very diluted, and with so much air and water, the wood will splinter. You will not get a smooth surface. There will appear some "pimples", caused by the wood absorbing the water. Do not panic. One of the solutions is to add a protective layer between the wood and the paint primer. I would recommend some sort of mate barnish, applied with brush or with the same airbrush. Now, if you have already have those pimples in your wood after priming it, just sand them and paint another layer. Keep repeating this until you have a smooth surface, and then apply another protective layer to protect the paint. You will a smooth, consistent layer of paint.

 

And so i masked the boat, did everything i just explained, and this is the result!

 

 

A nice, barnished, painted and beautifull boat hull!

 

Hugo Bosque Arenas

Beginner Modeller

 

11/10/2020

[DispleasedOwl]

And so i started working on the details on the deck. Some covers for the (i presume) storage and the bowsprit. I also added the tiny brass eyeholes, and secured them with resin (We are remodeling our bathroom, i saw the sikaflex tube and i though, why not, there is no way this, once dry, comes off. I was very much in the right). I barnished the deck, the covers and started hating to work with brass (Seriously, how do you glue brass and wood? Any ideas?)

 

 

Here is a little close up of the first rope coil i ever did! It turnedout very nice. I made them securing a pair of pushpins into a wooden plank and looping it around them. To add some consistency, once in place i added some water mixed with wood glue, so it stays in the same position.

 

 

Hugo Bosque Arenas

Beginner Modeller

 

11/10/2020

[BobG]

Wow, Hugo, you are making quick progress on this lovely boat! 

 

I like to take the time to get each plank shaped and bent so that it lays nicely on the bulkheads. Then, starting at the bow, I use just a small spot of medium viscosity CA (cyanoacrylic superglue) on a couple of bulkheads and work my way towards the stern adding a spot of CA to a couple of frames at a time. I don't have to use nails or lots of clamps this way. The key is to get working with each plank until it lays practically perfect on the bulkheads without having to press hard on them before you begin to glue it.

 

Your paint job is very nice also. She is going to be a beauty!

[tkay11]

Gluing wood to metal: the best I've found is an epoxy glue such as Araldite. Others use CA (cyanoacrylate). It depends slightly on the fitting, whether it's being placed in a hole in the wood (e.g. eyebolts), being wrapped round a rod (e.g. mast fittings), or laid surface to surface (e.g. rudder hinges).

 

Tony

[DispleasedOwl]

Thank you for the comments on the CA glue and the epoxy glue! I most definitely will try that out in my next model.

 

Now, for the part i was most unexperienced with: mast and sails rigging. Sadly, there is not many images i took of this process, since i did it quickly in the span of 2 days. Still, i will gladly answer any questions if someone of you is doing this kit and has a problem with this step.

 

Now, the very first step was to prepare, coat and paint the mast, and separatly the boom and gaff. Now, one of the things i realized was that the mast reduced its width the taller it got. So i had to sand it down. Now, i dont have industrial tools at my disposal, and i was really, but really unwanting, to do this step by hand. Luckily, my father had a BOSCH drill, (thank god), so i used that to prepare the mast. 

 

I also had a quesiton about how do i make the wooden blocks that are placed on the mast that keep the strops from sliding down. Bob, you very kindly pointed it out in this post, so i am leaving it here if someone wants to check it out:

 

 

Also, this image was extremely helpfull when rigging the deadeyes:

 

 

And so, here is the mast, painted and dry fitted to the hull:

 

 

And here, with the first strop placed, securing it in place:

 

 

A close up of the strops and the bolsters:

 

 

And so i kept working. Looking over the plans, looking at how other modellers do their rigging, and i found a very helpfull post from another website that contains close up images of the rigging of this exact model. I will leave the link here as well, since it helped me a lot:

 

https://brexitmodeller.com/forums/topic/1505-bon-retour-125-scale-artesania-latina/

 

Hugo Bosque Arenas

Beginner Modeller

 

13/10/2020

 

 

[DispleasedOwl]

And i am proud to announce that i have finished my first ever model ship! It turned out to be a very challenging, yet fun experience. Cant wait to jump on my next kit! My father-in-law loved the present, even remarked how beautiful it looked, so i took that as a compliment of my hard work.

 

Thanks you everyone who stuck with me in this very thrilling experience. I am looking forward to reading you on my next building logs. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the kind comments and the wise words. And thank you specially, Bob, and i hope to see you around in Spain when, as you said, the world returns to normal.

 

Photos of the finished model:

 

 

 

 

Thank you everyone and see you around!

 

Hugo Bosque Arenas

Beginner Modeller

 

13/10/2020

[bruce d]

Well done Hugo, it looks great. On to the next one with your new skills!

[BobG]

6 hours ago, DispleasedOwl said:

And i am proud to announce that i have finished my first ever model ship! It turned out to be a very challenging, yet fun experience.

You have built a beautiful model, Hugo. Congratulations! It's a lovely boat and I just may have to build it someday also.

 

6 hours ago, DispleasedOwl said:

Cant wait to jump on my next kit!

You might want to take a look at the Vanguard Models designed by Chris Watton. His fishing vessels would be a great next step but you could probably do well with any of his models since the instructions and materials are so good and there a lot of excellent build logs here to refer to. I have the Lady Isabella and the Flirt in my stash and I look forward to building them. Another model with great materials and instructions would be the Medway Longboat from Syren Ship Modeling Company and designed by Chuck Passaro who is one of the forum administrators here on MSW. It was my third model and it was quite challenging for me but I learned a lot building it. 

 

6 hours ago, DispleasedOwl said:

And thank you specially, Bob, and i hope to see you around in Spain when, as you said, the world returns to normal.

Is was my pleasure to follow your build, Hugo. I'm sure my wife and I will return to Spain when it is safe to do so. I need to work on my very limited Spanish in the meantime. My wife speaks Spanish quite well though. I also play the guitar and I have recently been trying to teach myself flamenco guitar. It is very challenging but I love it. I would love to spend an extended period of time in Spain studying Spanish and flamenco guitar.

 

I look foreword to seeing what you will build next. Good luck!