Oryol 1902 by GrandpaPhil - Orel - 1/200 - CARD - Russian Battleship

[GrandpaPhil]

Making progress on the lower hull:

I still need to make a couple minor repairs then I’ll add the rest of the lower hull fittings and paint everything below the waterline.

 

I really regret not doing this on Solferino so I’m not making that mistake again.

[GrandpaPhil]

I used my light table for the first time tonight:

I traced the cradle from my Orel Tsarevich.

 

The Borodino-class battleships were direct derivatives of the Tsarevich so it stands to reason that they probably shared a similar hull shape.

 

If not, I have a scalpel to reshape the cradles, lol.

 

They are laid out on basswood from a basswood value pack that I got a while back.

[GrandpaPhil]

Also, I feathered out the remaining lumps in the hull.

There’s glue drying on the bottom where I made those repairs, so I’ll seal again tomorrow.

 

[GrandpaPhil]

Here’s the cradle:

I modified the end pieces to fit the Oryol.
 

It still needs painted, and will be painted a dark brown before being glued.

 

I’m going to go with gloss black, like I did Solferino for the actual base.

 

I like gluing my models to their bases for structural integrity reasons.

Edited November 23 by GrandpaPhil

[GrandpaPhil]

The Oryol is sitting in its cradle now:

Working on the fittings for the lower hull before I seal and paint everything below the waterline.

 

I’ll paint the cradle at the same time and then glue the ship to it.

[GrandpaPhil]

The lower hull is now assembled and ready to paint:

The props are assembled too:

I’m going to paint them also.

[GrandpaPhil]

The bottom of the Oryol is now painted and sealed.

 

The props are also painted and sealed in addition to being glued to the ship.

 

The cradle is now painted, sealed and permanently glued to the bottom of the ship.

The first armor band is also glued on.

 

Next up are the bow sections of armor, with another step.

 

After that, I’m going to need to make all the 75mm guns and install them in their proper locations.

 

This is all new to me, as I’ve never built a modernish card ship before.

 

The only other predreadnought that I have built was the Olympia, which had brass gun barrels sticking out of the casemate.

 

I have heard others saying that card guns, if you do the full thing, are very labor intensive and quite the nuisance.

 

I’ll let you know my opinion after I make 20 of them after I install the bow armor sections.

Edited November 24 by GrandpaPhil

[GrandpaPhil]

I have made 2 of the 75mm guns and I am building them completely.

 

I am going to display the gun emplacements with the blast doors open instead of just having the barrels sticking out of the casemates.

 

They are very labor intensive, especially at this scale, but they look good.

 

Many of the parts are between 1-1.5mm that you cut, fold, roll and assemble.

 

It’s a good challenge.

 

I am learning and having fun with this one.

Edited November 25 by GrandpaPhil
Added picture

[GrandpaPhil]

I just added a slide rule to my curio.

[king derelict]

I’ve still got mine 

Alan

 

[Canute]

I've still got my old K+E slip stick  from college and a couple of circular ones from my flying career. 😉

[GrandpaPhil]

I finished making all 20 of the 75mm guns:

I still need to edge paint them and seal them to cover the edges of the card.

 

They are labor intensive and fiddly from the scale, but no worse than the cannon that I am used to making.

 

I figure that these battleships were the early Twentieth Century version of a ship of the line, so I tempered my expectations accordingly.

 

I have already built the Solferino, which was essentially an armored, steam powered, two-decker, with 55 cannon, also in 1/200 scale and made by Orel.

 

Plus, I made all 46 guns for the Revenge, with carriages mostly made of card.

 

So, I already kind of knew what I was getting into.

 

I’m still glad to get over that hurdle though.

 

The next major one will be all the ladders and the railings.

 

Those are always my biggest problems.

 

But, we’ll see how much I learned from Solferino and go from there.

[Coyote_6]

Those look the part Phil - super convincing.  Just amazing results.  Can't wait to see them painted.

[GrandpaPhil]

Steve,

  Thank you very much!

 

The front armor pieces had multiple conflicting compound curves around the bow area that didn’t go quite right.

 

I decided to trim that up a bit and fix some problem areas as well as I could.

 

One of those included the shield emblem on the bow that takes the place of a figurehead.

 

It had a huge gap in it.

 

I ended up making a filler piece then I repainted the Imperial Eagle.

 

It’s not as good as a laser printed one and no where near as good as some of the hand painted stuff that I’ve seen on this forum, but I’m happy with it.

 

The entire thing is 1/2” (12mm for you metric types) across.

Edited November 28 by GrandpaPhil

[GrandpaPhil]

Working on closing up the upper hull:

 

The upper armor strips have been fitting relatively well.

 

Due to the whaleback shape of the hull, a lot of preshaping has been required to get the pieces to accept the curvature of the hull.

I’ll start working on the casemates along with installing the 75mm guns next time!

[GrandpaPhil]

The hull is mostly closed up now:

I made the executive decision to keep the blast doors closed and just have the 75mm gun barrels sticking out.

 

This thing is going to have enough fragile pieces sticking out of the hull without adding more points of failure.

 

Also, a battleship to me is an armored behemoth, and keeping the blast doors closed on the casemates would look better to me.

I still need to put the rest of the blast doors on the casemates, install the anchor shelves, and then I have a lot of tidying up and paint work to do before I install the 75mm gun barrels.

Edited Thursday at 10:34 PM by GrandpaPhil

[king derelict]

You guys who work in card have great skills 

alan

[GrandpaPhil]

Alan,

  Thank you very much!  I have learned so much from everyone on this forum!

The hull is completely closed up and everything is edge painted now:

 

The Oryol is now at the point where it is becoming difficult to tell that this is a card kit from looking at it.

 

The next steps are to seal the model, add the 75mm guns and then make the fore and aft torpedo tubes.

[Old Collingwood]

The  touch ups  with the  paint  made all the  difference  Phil  -  brings it all  together.

 

OC.

[GrandpaPhil]

OC,

  Indeed it does!  This is the part where these models get fun!

 

The 75mm batteries and the torpedo tubes are installed:

The instructions for this model are very generic and are more concerned with the general building order.

They are not particularly detailed.

 

So, I’m ad libbing a bit and working the deck fittings as I build upwards.

 

I’m going to work forward to aft and then up, much like I would on a sailing vessel.

 

I’ll add the outboard railings, boarding ladders and the davits as the last thing prior to masting the ship.

[Jsk]

Is there any indication as to who designed this model? I'm struck by how similar so many of these card kits are to each other. The instructions all look the same, too. Of course, you never find out what's missing in the instructions until you get to building!

[ccoyle]

1 hour ago, Jsk said:

Is there any indication as to who designed this model?

 

I can't remember the gentleman's name, but all or most of Orel's predreadnoughts are designed by one man, and he is prolific, which is why so many of the Orel kits have a common look about them.

[GrandpaPhil]

Gromyk Yuriy (Grom) designed the kit.

 

He did a wonderful job of it.

 

Everything fits perfectly.

 

I am assuming that he intended for this to be built by someone who already knows the ropes of predreadnought building.

 

I’m figuring it out as I go.

 

It’s a really nice kit, it’s just definitely for an advanced level modeler.

 

I’m having a lot of fun with it, it’s just giving me a run for my money.

 

I’m glad that I have a high tolerance for ambiguity, lol, to figure out where everything goes and how it goes together.

[Glen McGuire]

Just found this build log, Phil.  I'm on board for what looks like a cool project.  Looking good so far!

[Veszett Roka]

Phil, here is a few pictures of a shipmodel from a russian page. This might help with the ropes.

 

https://karopka.ru/community/user/23019/?MODEL=629020