Royal Louis 1780 by Ulises Victoria - FINISHED - Mamoli - Scale 1/90 - French 126-gun ship

[Greg the peg leg sailor]

G'day Ulises

Just finished reading your log. Fantastic is a word I can use. I will just be reading and not posting (well not too often).

Cheers from down under

Greg

[Ulises Victoria]

Thank you Greg. Just sent a long PM to you.

Just keep the "Likes" coming

Edited April 4, 2015 by Ulises Victoria

[Ulises Victoria]

Update April 21 2015.

 

Wow! Hard to believe that on April 13 was the First Anniversary of my Royal Louis build start!!!

 

So at this date, I finally placed thew main wales on both sides. I discarded the walnut from the kit and used Boxwood from Crown Timberyard instead.

You will see a couple of ugly fillers there. Had to place them when I realized there was a gap between the wales and the first planking. Since this is not going to be seen and eventually will be covered, I paid not much attention to it... so you do the same     

 

I painted the black with Rub n' Buff. 

 

 

 

[Greg the peg leg sailor]

G'day Ulises

Great job on the whales. ...looking forward to see your progress.

Cheers

Greg

[Ulises Victoria]

Thank you very much Greg. Your comment means a lot.

I put aside the building of the Royal Louis for a moment, and decided to take a break while building the ship's boats. I definitely discarded the metal ones in the kit and purchased Model Expo's kits. These are kits in themselves, and I find the instructions even harder to follow than those of the main ship.   

 

See them here: http://www.modelexpo-online.com/product.asp?ITEMNO=MS0108

 

Will post photos of this side job in a couple of days.

[dgbot]

I knew a modeler who had the boats from that kit and was not happy with them.  He used a Dremel and hollowed out the interior and then made a plug using the boat as a base.  Then he planked it and the result came out quite nice.

David B

[Ulises Victoria]

Thanks David... I will have to try one of them. The worse that can happen is that it may turn into another learning experience. 

[Ulises Victoria]

This is so very informative Arthur. Just finished seeing the full log of the boat. I am afraid I will have to buy again the kit I am working on!!!   Good they are really cheap!

[Ulises Victoria]

Well... I spent several days working in the above mentioned little boats. The best I can say is it was a learning experience. I wasn't satisfied AT ALL with the outcome, so I decided I will buy that little bugger again and do it again, this time using the knowledge gathered and better materials. So I decided to move on to start my big ship's second planking.   So far 4 rows per side have been placed. Starting below the 4th line, planks start to leave an open space between plank and hull, so I measured a space of five tracks below that, ran a single plank strip letting it lay where it wants and traced the curve that will follow the next set of 5 planks. Hope all will be good.

 

This is the basic kit of the boat

 

 

Enough of the boats.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ulises Victoria]

Hello all. Long time no see!!!

 

Today I am placing just 2 photos: one is of the shaped very last piece of wood that goes in the second planking of the lower part of my R.L., and the other of that piece already in place. No sanding, smoothing, fairing of any kind done yet.

I will post photos of the finished lower second planking once it is scraped and finished.

I am awaiting for a set of scrapers I ordered from amazon. I'm going to experiment (gulp) with scrapingt instead of sanding. For what I've read scraping leaves a better finish than sanding. Any comments and/or tips on this will be more than welcome!!!

I am also going to rework the wales. I used a stuff called Rub n' Buff ebony color on them. I don't like the deep black color it left. Since I am planning to put a bit of weathering on this ship, that brand new black black color just doesn't fill my eye.

 

This is one massive hull. It took me 2 months and 10 days to plank just the lower area below the wales.

The upper part will present a different set of challenges, when trying to plank around the gunports.

 

 

 

Edited July 21, 2015 by Ulises Victoria

[BANYAN]

May have taken a while mate, but the result is worth it - well done!

 

I use scrapers but have learned one valuable lesson.  They leave a great finish but watch the corners of the scrapers.  I didn't and in my eagerness got to aggressive with the scraping and the corners left some score marks.  Check you are using the right shape and size such that in concave hollows the edges/corners do not score the wood   I also use single edged razors and glass for scraping.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Ulises Victoria]

Thank you Banyan. These are the scrapers I ordered.

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001C06BLE?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00

 

They should be in my hands any day this week.

[Ulises Victoria]

I got my scrapers (see above post) When I received them I try the edge with my finger and my reaction was. "Hey, these are not sharp at all." I thought they had to be Knife or blade sharp. Then I tried one of them on the wood and WoW... it works. I got some nice shavings. So this is a different kind of "sharp" I guess?.

First time ever I use this stuff. I hope I won't mess things up.

[md1400cs]

Ulises,

 

Your planking looks excellent, nice work.

 

PS: The S Trinidad OcCre cross-section is next up for me--prob. in 5 years from now (:-(  ha ha )

 

Michael

Edited July 23, 2015 by md1400cs

[BANYAN]

Different type of sharp indeed Ulisis; it works with a burr created on the edge rather than a V/knife type blade sharp   You need to ensure you maintain the burr just as you hone a knife etc.  there are burring tools you can purchase; but perhaps the more experienced may be able to suggest a 'home grown' solution to this?

 

Happy scraping - cheers

 

Pat

Edited July 23, 2015 by BANYAN

[Ulises Victoria]

Thank you for the likes guys, and your comment Pat. I'm going to start scraping tomorrow first thing in the morning. Wish me luck

[Ulises Victoria]

Thank you Arthur. As always, your insight is really appreciated.

All nails will be removed and the holes is what will give the appearance of treenails.

I removed all the nails in the wales also. Scraped them off the Rub n' Buff stuff that I decided I didn't like. Way too black for my taste. I stained them with walnut stain this morning and they look way better. Will apply a second coat tomorrow to darken it a bit more and will take some photos.

I also made a test this morning with my new scrapers on the hull.  I decided I am going to use a combination of scraper and sandpaper in the more problematic areas. 

The trial I did this morning made me a bit more confident on the scraper's use. I like the result I got in a hidden area.

 

I will have to search youtube to learn how to sharpen these scrapers.

 

Thanks for your input, my friend.

Edited July 24, 2015 by Ulises Victoria

[Ulises Victoria]

I reworked the wales. Here they are stained with walnut stain.

I am working on smoothing and fairing the hull below the wales, so imperfections are still seen in that area.

(Well imperfections will still be seen later, anyway.)

 

 

 

 

[GLakie]

Your planking looks great Ulises! 

[Landlubber Mike]

Looking really beautiful Ulises.  The wales look fantastic with that stain - very nice touch.

[Ulises Victoria]

Thank you George and Mike. Your comments are really appreciated. 

Still a lot of work to do on that planking. Hope to post photos of the finished work soon.

I asked a question about planking wood finishing somewhere else. Hope to get responses to do a better job!

[Greg the peg leg sailor]

G'day Ulises

Great job on the planking mate.

Havagooday

Greg

[Ulises Victoria]

Well I finally finished the planking below the wales.

I plan to give this ship a weathered but not abused look, so if it looks dirty to you now its on purpose. Some weathering effects will be added to the whole hull once it is fully planked.

 

This first photo is before scraping, sanding and application of Boiled Linseed Oil.

 

After finishing

 

Here you will see the beginning of the second planking above the wales.

You will see that I was trying to cut pieces to fit between the frames.

I finally decided against this method as there are greater chances that something is going to be wrong.

I think I will place full length planks and later cut and shape the gunport openings.

 

 

Thank you for watching, and if you have comments, more than welcome.

Edited August 14, 2015 by Ulises Victoria

[edmay]

Hello Ulises, nice planking,how was the b/day,Edwin

[Ulises Victoria]

Thank you Ed! It was alright with a nice steak dinner with a Chilean red

[GLakie]

Nice job on the planking and achieving the weathered look. Looks very authentic. 

 

Cheers

[NMBROOK]

Your planking is coming on great Ulises I have recently bought Mamoli's plans for this vessel and do propose to build her in 1/60.Other than cutting and assembling the skeleton,this build is a little in the future for me.

The mention of coppering is something I have been thinking of.Mamoli's model clearly represents the vessel of 1759 and is almost an exact replica of the model in the Paris museum.This vessel was wrecked whilst in drydock in 1772 after seeing active service in the seven years war.I am debating whether she would have actually ever been coppered as this was a little early for the French Navy.She certainly wouldn't have been when built.

I concur that this model in 1/90 is rather large particularly in breadth and having cut out half the bulkheads,in 1/60 it is huge!!!!!

 

Kind Regards

 

Nigel

Edited August 15, 2015 by NMBROOK

[Ulises Victoria]

Thanks for the tips and comments about coppering, and a bit of history, Nigel. There is so little I have found about this ship, that every bit is very welcome.

 

Arthur: I didn't think of that. That is another option to think about. Appreciate it, my friend!

[NMBROOK]

Rather than hijack your log Ulises,if you google Royal Louis 1759 and 1758 you will find what I have so far.She was laid down in 1757 and launched in 59 which somewhat explains having to search more than one year.In google images there are several pictures of the museum model.Her relatively short career is the only explanation I can come up with why there is so little information on her.

 

Kind Regards

 

Nigel

[AntonyUK]

Hi Ulises.

 

Just catching up on your build log..

That's one nice ship and you are turning a pile of wood into a masterpiece.

Very nice work throughout the build.

After reading all the 353 posts I must say that the help and advice is spot on.. Nice to see that people do still care.

Looking forward to your next post.

 

Regards Antony.