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

[MESSIS]

Impressive work! Sharp and clean.

Well done Ulises.

Christos

 

 

Happy that I found your log 😍

Edited December 8, 2018 by MESSIS

[Ulises Victoria]

Thank you Pat. Your comments are always appreciated.

Thank you Nick. Serving is done with Chuck's serving machine.

Christos.... more than welcome and thanks for your words and visit.

 

[EJ_L]

Well done! All of those details are really adding to the realism and giving her life beyond a standard kit build.

[md1400cs]

Ulises

 

Just catching up - looking excellent indeed  and agreed your work with the ropes is so good.

 

Regards,

 

[Ulises Victoria]

Thanks E.J. and Michael.

Rigging is my favorite part of a build. I really don't mind tying several thousands of clove hitches in the ratlines...

 

Edited December 9, 2018 by Ulises Victoria

[Ulises Victoria]

Mini-update.

 

With this set of blocks, I finish the first stage of the bowsprit and masts. I just realized why I must keep building large scale models only: these 1 x 3mm blocks is the smallest I can handle. I just found some 2mm and there is no way I can work with them. 😯

 

Here is how my ship looks at this stage.

 

I think I'm gonna take a break from masts, and start working on the chain-wales

 

 

Here they are just being planked.

 

Thanks for visiting!!!

 

 

[MESSIS]

You are right 3 mm are still very small and hard to handle.

 

Have you sanded the blocks to break their edges or thats the way they came with the kit?

 

I saw your served rope.... fine! What rope are you using? Am thinking of buying my rope from Syrene (Chuck).It looks realistic on the contrary with the common ones in the kits.

 

Christos

Edited December 9, 2018 by MESSIS

[Ulises Victoria]

Hello Christos. Those blocks did not come with the kit. I purchased them, but can't remember Where. It was long time ago. Chuck makes very nice blocks btw.

I took some rope from the kit and served it using Chuck's serving machine. I wouldn't use Chuck's rope for serving. It is a very nice rope to hide with the serving. Use any thick thread for that. And as for the rest of the ropes, I make my own. I have 3 different rope walking machines 😮

 

Thank you for visiting. 

Edited December 10, 2018 by Ulises Victoria

[Jean-Pierre]

2 little ideas if I may.

I use to improve the look of the blocks simply by simulating the sheaves with a black pencil: easy and very effective.

 

Secondly, you may wish to check the rake of the mainmast.  It looks like its 3 parts do not run completely parallel.  This can be partly rectified by adjusting the tension of the rigging, but on the long term... ??

 

Btw, the overall look of your ship is terrific! Congratulation!

[Ulises Victoria]

Thank you all for your comments.

Jean-Pierre... nothing is completely fixed at this moment. Some things will be corrected in due time. I appreciate your comment!

 

[Ulises Victoria]

Update and fixing of an error in kit design.

 

I found out a mistake in the kit.

As you can see here, some deadeyes are placed exactly in front of some cannons.

The arrows mark openings where the cannons could be placed to clear the deadeyes.

 

Moving the chainwale 17mm to the left made the cannons clear the openings but that would unbalance the whole thing.

 

So after seeking some advise in other thread, I was suggested to re-do the chainwales.

So I started by sanding off and replace the planking.

 

Then on to the drawing board to see where the deadeyes wiould have to fit in order to clear the cannons and keep the exact number of them. There were some 5mm and some 4mm deadeyes

 

Here I am checking the new arrangement against the actual placement on the ship. Everything looks good so far.

 

Making a board and starboard copy 

 

Finished!

 

Unfortunately one of the futtock strops broke when ungluing it from the old chainwale, and to my dismay, there was none to spare in the kit. So I was lucky to find some replacements at Age of Sails. While they arrive, I'm going to stop work on the chainwales and start work on the yardarms.

 

Thanks for visiting!!!

 

 

[fnick]

Good fix Ulises. You do wonder whether kit manufacturers build their own models sometimes!🙄

 

Nick

[BANYAN]

I think you chose the best option incorrecting the channels UV, looking good and the shrouds will still look 'right'

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Ulises Victoria]

Update as of Jan 11 2019 and a couple of funny events.

 

I had to re-do the spacing in the main mast channels also, as it was just like the ones in the fore: some cannons were placed exactly behind of a deadeye.

Here I am marking the wood with a pattern I made upon the plans.

 

Checking the correct alignment

 

OK. I'm happy now!

 

Making a mirror piece for the other side.

 

This is the main lower yard in process. You can appreciate its size! It is the largest yard in the ship.

 

Tapering in my lathe the mizzen stay yard (I think that's what it's called)

 

I had to drill a 3mm hole in this part to replace with a dowel a broken pin in the end of the piece; as expected (I'm a firm believer in Murphy's Law) the part cup-like shape exploded!

 

 

so an emergency repair had to be done

 

Here is the end result, anyway.

 

The other end

 

Here is the funny part. Plans showed a 9mm dowel to make this part. It felt strange that the tapering had to be down to 3mm at the ends.

So after I finished the yard, and was celebrating that finally all the yard arms were done, I went to check the plans again. And I realized that this...

 

... was not a 9, but a 6... (Are you done laughing now?) So I had two options: make all the yard again, or back to the lathe to thin it to the proper size. I opted for the second and everything is correct now.

 

Here is a general view of all the yard arms in its place on the plans. They will be painted black.

 

 

Now another funny bit.

Some days ago I went to review all the printed material I have of my ship. Plans, drawings, instructions, etc. And saw that one sheet with pages 5 and 6 was missing. This was a critical paper for the rigging stage. I went through all my papers, drawers and boxes and couldn't find the sheet. I started thinking about asking members who had those plans and to send me a copy of that sheet, I searched the Internet, etc... then I went out of my shop for a coffee and when returning....

.... this is a photo of my shop... can you guess where that sheet of paper was???

 

Ok ok... It happens...!!!

 

Bye all. Thanks for watching.

 

Happy New Year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 11, 2019 by Ulises Victoria

[EJ_L]

I've had a similar experience with a "missing" plan sheet. After searching everywhere I could conceivably image it could be it turned out that it was on the reverse side of the plan sheet tacked to my board. 🙄  

 

The yards on her are indeed huge! My RL will be the third model that will be of that size. The admiral keeps joking that soon I will have enough of these ships in cases that they could be stacked up to make one of the missing walls in the basement. She may be joking but, I have sketched out a few ways to incorporate the cases into the wall design so they would be visible from both sides. She may end up regretting making that joke.      

[BANYAN]

Great progress UV and love the 'life's little adventures' along the way   I cannot recount the number of time I went looking for things only to find them in the most obvious place  

 

cheers

 

Pat 

[Ulises Victoria]

Small update Jan 16 2019

 

Working on the Spars.

 

Here they are, painted in black and displayed over their respective place on the drawing.

Detailing will follow. Hope its seen in the photos.

 

Here I add the loop wires where the stirrups will run through.

 

A very light touch of aluminum color applied with dry brush, to make look those part "metallic"

 

And some "rust"

 

 

 

Finally a light dry brush with a lighter color to make them look more "woody"

 

 

Not sure if these effects are captured by the camera, but anyway, the thing with "weathering" is that it should be very subtle.

 

 

I am very happy because finally I sat down at my computer and organized all of my build's photos. I have 853 photos which were scattered through 2 computers. Now they are properly organized.

 

Bye, best regards and thanks for coming!!!

 

 

 

 

Edited January 16, 2019 by Ulises Victoria

[zappto]

Beautiful weathering. I admire your creativity making all ship looking long time in the sea. Stunning work!

[Ulises Victoria]

Thank you Zappto!

 

 

[MESSIS]

Very fine work!

Christos

[BANYAN]

The weathering looks very effective Mark

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Ulises Victoria]

Short update, but a big advancement...

 

I finally finished work on all the yardarms.

 

Here they are displayed over the drawings in their respective places, with all the blocks, rings and ropes called for in the plans/drawings.

 

 

 

I always try to avoid making knots, but if I must, I try at least to make them as aesthetically looking as possible.

 

 

I will start working on the chainwales, now that my replacement pieces have arrived!!!

 

Thanks for visiting, mates.

 

Edited February 27, 2019 by Ulises Victoria

[BANYAN]

Nice to see the update UV; some good progress made there.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[md1400cs]

Ulises,

 

Very  nice work on your spars - I don't remember if you mentioned if you will also add sails and running rigging on this one?

 

Regards,

 

 

[Ulises Victoria]

Hello Michael. Thanks for your question.

 

Many years ago I purchased a set of sails for the RL. I remember it was the last one they had.

 

The kit comes with instructions to build with no sails, so I would have to go somewhere else to get running rigging instructions.

(Now that you mention it... it's about time to start rummaging through my rigging books  )

 

Here they are deployed over the drawings.

 

They ended up being too thick, however, they are very well made and too expensive not to use them. 😮

 

So I am planning to put them in furled/semi-furled position.

 

I always like to put sails on my ships.

 

 

 

Edited February 28, 2019 by Ulises Victoria

[MESSIS]

Lovely yards!

Christos 

[EJ_L]

Nice work on the yards and well done on those knots! Wow! Looking forward to seeing what you do with the sails.

 

[Ulises Victoria]

Hello friends!

Update as of March 20 2019

Working on the chainwales. This has to be the most frustrating experience in my shipbuilding career!

 

Assembling the chains

 

Remember a few posts above I mentioned some errors in design like the placement of deadeyes directly in front of cannons?

 

I managed to fix that, but... design flaws made me do things I am not happy about.

I just could not:

1- Align the lower shrouds deadeyes to not interfere with the upper cannons line of sight, AND

2- Align the chains that attach the strops to the hull in a way that they do not interfere with the lower cannons line of sight, AND

3- Keep the same number of deadeyes/shrouds for each mast.

 

 

 

 

Anyway I just finished mounting the chaiwales. Good or wrong I am going to have to live with that!

 

Now working on the sails...

 

Original color:

 

Drying them after staining with a water based stain from a Guitar Products shop in UK.

 

 

Thank you all for watching.

 

 

This is a general view of how my ship looks at the moment.

 

Edited March 20, 2019 by Ulises Victoria

[BANYAN]

Some very nice progress there UV; she is looking mighty fine.  That stain product looks very interesting; being water based I am assuming it is PH neutral and therefore safe for fabric.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Ulises Victoria]

Thank you Pat!

Indeed... I chose to use that stain instead of strong tea or coffee which being organic may deteriorate over the years.

I will post soon a couple of photos of how the sails end up looking after dried. Have to say I am very happy with the result!

 

Best regards!

Edited March 21, 2019 by Ulises Victoria