patmaquette Posted March 14, 2020 Author Share Posted March 14, 2020 8 hours ago, mdesaxe said: This is a common misperception. Stockholm tar is not black but dark brown. Bitumen (tar) is indeed black but not very useful for treating rope (and not really available in the period). Standing rigging should be dark brown because it was treated with Stockholm tar. Running rigging usually was not treated with tar because this could cause it to bind in the sheaves of blocks, so it should be anything from grey to tan, depending on how weathered you want it to appear, as sunlight and salt water faded new rope quite quickly. Maurice Thank you, Maurice. Helpful, timely and interesting! Pat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patmaquette Posted March 14, 2020 Author Share Posted March 14, 2020 Thank you everyone for your comments and discussion, it has been very helpful and some nice things to learn about. Today I airbrushed Warpaints Strong Tone ink mixed in equal amounts with Vallejo thinner medium and airbrush thinners onto the under surfaces of the bowsprit and sprit yard to deepen the shadow effects. This was followed by their Soft Tone ink directed to the sides of the spars. This mellowed the somewhat bland colour of the enamel undercoat and softened the effect of the oil paint pre-shading. Although I liked the resulting light and shade effect, it looked a little cold in tone, so I applied some Citadel Seraphim Sepia using the same thinners as for the inks. All of the inks and washes were airbrushed in light coats making sure the previous coat had dried enough before applying the new layer, otherwise you risk marring the surface or getting paint runs. It may be the effect of the Vallejo thinner medium, but the paint dries noticeably darker after a time and it nearly caught me out. Pin washes of Citadel Agrax Earthshade were now applied around the ropework and blocks to pick out these details. Noting Maurice's message above and some quick (but interesting) Google results, I mixed a black-brown using Vallejo 828 Woodgrain (a dark brown) with 889 Dark Prussian Blue and applied this to the standing rigging. Vallejo Bone White and Dark Sand were used for the running rigging. A few other colours and some fun messing around were had. I still have a lot to learn about using acrylic paint and I know the potential was there to make it look really good. Nevertheless I am quite pleased with how it turned out...... I glued the sprit sail in place this evening (too dark for photos though) so it should be ready for handling tomorrow to add some more rigging before setting this assembly aside to work on the masts. Thanks again everyone for reading, your interest and comments, Cheers for now, Pat 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Murdo Posted March 14, 2020 Share Posted March 14, 2020 30 minutes ago, patmaquette said: I still have a lot to learn about using acrylic paint and I know the potential was there to make it look really good. Nevertheless I am quite pleased with how it turned out...... That looks pretty bloomin' good to me mate!!! Lovely job. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patmaquette Posted March 14, 2020 Author Share Posted March 14, 2020 I made my first visit to the SS Great Britain museum in Bristol a couple of weeks ago. A fascinating place and I spent many hours there. They have a well stocked library (but not open every day) with helpful staff and they pointed me towards a number of books on 17th century ship's rigging. Anyway, I found a couple of illustrations of ships with the sort of stern turrets that have been attributed to Ark Royal.... I think it extremely unlikely that Ark Royal looked like that for reasons previously discussed. Mind you, I am also staggered that any ship would have been produced looking like that! 😲 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patmaquette Posted March 16, 2020 Author Share Posted March 16, 2020 (edited) On 14/03/2020 at 22:09, Murdo said: That looks pretty bloomin' good to me mate!!! Lovely job. That's very kind of you to say so, @Murdo , but really the various blocks would have benefitted from more creative painting in terms of light and shade to bring out their shape and the addition of some fine detailing. I kind of skipped doing this because I was worried that my holding the bowsprit in my fingers during painting might spoil the paint finish, so only did what was necessary. Plus I'm not sure I would have been successful either! Now came the time to try my hand at rigging the ship. I had bought a selection of brown coloured fishing lines in various weights to use for the rigging. I selected line that matched the calculated diameter for each item of rigging and cut an oversized length from the spool. The line was pulled through a pool of matt acrylic varnish and left suspended with a tension weight to hold the line straight whilst the varnish dried. It was then laid onto a flat surface and the ends trimmed using a new scalpel blade. A dot of Liquitape was put onto the start and end points on the model and left to dry until it became tacky. One end of the rigging line was then attached and lined up in the right direction. A dab of superglue then fixed it in place. For the five lines running along the length of the bowsprit, the first attachment point was the blocks at the forward end. (The lines were leads for the fore mast, fore topmast, fore top gallant stays and ties for the sprit yard haul out and haul in). The free ends of these was placed against their respective cleats (or block in the case of the sprit yard haul out tie), held taught by a weight and then fixed in place with a spot of superglue before trimming to length once the adhesive had set. The lines on the sprit sail (a pair of buntlines running from the bottom edge of the sail up to the yard on the front side and four clewlines running between blocks to and from the bottom corner on the rear of the sail, all of which are associated with furling the sail and will eventually be extended to the beak once the bowsprit is glued into place) were trimmed to length before popping into position on the tacky glue dot and then fixed with superglue. Airfix had moulded the buntlines into the sail, but these were too tricky to paint so I used them as guide marks for new lines that were held in position with matt varnish brushed along the sail...... Here is the completed (for now) bowsprit assembly. There will be around the same number again of rigging lines to be added later on once the other masts are in place. For the time being the assembly will be put to one side to avoid damage. Lots of photos as I couldn't decide on which to leave out! I couldn't resist doing a few photos with the bowsprit dry fitted in place.... I'll add some coils of rope to the cleats later on..... So I think so far so good. I will be using elastic thread in some places - does anyone have any ideas for colouring it without it losing its elastic? Thanks again for reading and your interest & comments, Cheers for now, Pat Edited March 16, 2020 by patmaquette 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mdesaxe Posted March 16, 2020 Share Posted March 16, 2020 Pat Try running an appropriate-colour Magic Marker over the elastic thread. Maurice 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patmaquette Posted March 20, 2020 Author Share Posted March 20, 2020 On 16/03/2020 at 21:03, mdesaxe said: Pat Try running an appropriate-colour Magic Marker over the elastic thread. Maurice Thank you for the idea Maurice. I've bought these to try..... ************* I hope everyone is keeping okay. I've made some replacement top and top gallant yards as the ones in the kit are a bit iffy. According to my references, the diameter of the yards is 1/48 of their length and tapers down by 23/24, 6/7, 2/3 & 1/3 for each quarter as you go out from the centre to each end. The top gallant ones calculated out at 0.5mm diameter, which would be too thin to see when glued to the vacuum formed plastic sails, so I based my sizing on some 0.8mm wire that I had available. I didn't have wire of large enough diameter for the main top yard so sanded down a cocktail stick instead. I found it quite easy (and unusually disaster free!) to make the yards by spinning them in my lathe and then sanding to size and profile with a drum sander in a mini-drill, finishing with abrasive paper. You could substitute an electric drill for the lathe if you have a way of holding it securely. My next step is to glue these to the sails and add some detail. Cheers for now, Pat 8 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patmaquette Posted March 21, 2020 Author Share Posted March 21, 2020 (edited) Thank you for your "likes" folks. Continuing on from yesterday, I decided to replace the main yard with one fashioned from wood. The kit item seems to have an incorrect profile and is a bit lumpy and bumpy. This yard is considerably larger than the other ones I have done. After calculating the diameters at each quarter position, I chucked the wood (a 3mm diameter skewer cut to a length of 170mm) in my mini lathe and turned down the outer quarter to a diameter of 2mm. The very end was given a 1mm nib...... The drum sander was then used to add the taper between these two diameters.... This was repeated for the other end before the second quarter was done in the same way, this time the diameter was turned to 2.6mm..... With both ends done, the yard was finished to shape using abrasive paper..... A location pin was made from plastic sprue and superglued into a hole made at the mid-point of the yard. The size of the pin matches the locating hole in the lower main mast. It's ready now for the sail to be added. *************** I have superglued the other fore and main mast sails onto their replacement yards.... Ropes for hanging the sail from the yard (called "robands" apart from the outer ones which are "earrings" that keep the sail spread) were added from 0.2mm lead wire. First of all, dots of Micro Industries Liquitape was applied where the front of the sail connected to the yard and left to dry until tacky....... Short lengths of lead wire were then positioned in place and then bent around the yard. The curved end of the steel rule held the end of the lead wire in position whilst a coffee stirrer teased the lead around the yard. A spot of superglue then fixed the forward side in place before moving on to deal with the rear face.... The stirrer once again proved ideal for positioning and forming the free end of the lead wire to the rear side of the yard. Excess length was then trimmed from the wire before they were fixed in place with superglue. The next steps will be to glue some rigging blocks in place and then apply some paint. Thank you for reading and any comments appreciated. Pat Edited March 21, 2020 by patmaquette 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patmaquette Posted March 29, 2020 Author Share Posted March 29, 2020 Hi everyone. Just a quick update to complete the work on the sails and yards..... I have attached the main sail to the yard I had made from a wooden skewer. Here is the yard with the vacuum moulded sail painted previously (this is the only sail which is moulded as partly furled in the kit, the other sails are fully lowered).... The sail was trimmed to match the profile of the yard. Some packing pieces were found to position the sail against the yard whilst it was tacked in place with superglue.... Once set, the assembly was lifted from the jig and a strip of plastic rod placed along the rear side of the joint to strengthen it and a copious amount of superglue added to complete the job. (I must admit I do tend to put too much glue on things!) As this yard was made from wood (unlike the nearly all the others), I decided to try staining the wood rather than paint it. For this I applied The Army Painter WarPaint Strong Tone ink along the lower half of the yard using a microbrush and their Soft Tone along the upper half. It came out well apart from places covered by superglue so these were patched up using brown paint after the robands and earrings were attached using the same materials and method as described previously. I actually like the way it looks with the unpainted lead wire. I may finish it as a weathered grey hemp rope rather than sand brown used for the other sails. That's it for now, I'll do the lateen yards for the mizzen masts later. Thanks for reading and, as always, any comments will be most welcome! Pat 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Courageous Posted March 30, 2020 Share Posted March 30, 2020 Nice work. Stuart 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patmaquette Posted March 30, 2020 Author Share Posted March 30, 2020 (edited) Hi everyone. Now onto the masts. These came out "okay" but not as good as the picture I had in my mind as to how they should look. Once more I shall try out on you some more of my recently learnt nautical terminology (please do respond if I make any errors though). It has been both frustrating and enjoyable during this build to figure out what some so-and-so object is called (or the other way around, like what the heck is a so-and-so). But I do find it interesting and as I've persevered I have come to understand a great deal - all part of making this a most interesting project for me. Note that if in the unlikely event that it sounds like I know what I am talking about then please don't be fooled! The mast tops were positioned (upside down) using a jury rig that was bizarre even by my standards...... The thingy standing on the pliers is a gizmo with a magnetic base that was home made by a fellow modeller and has an array of various shaped arms that connect to each other by crocodile clips. It is great for holding things in position for gluing. I guess he decided I was in need of greater help than he in aligning things properly so he kindly gave it to me. It is very useful and I use it a lot. The mast assemblies were primered with K-Colors ivory primer..... Badger Militaire paints "Mummy" brown was then applied to to pre-shade areas of shadow; mainly beneath the tops and cross-trees (the open woodwork platform where the top mast and top-gallant mast connect). The lower fore and main masts are of the "built" type (from a number of trees), rather than "single stick" (as used for the mizzen, top and top-gallant masts). A drawing showing sections through the built masts of a 100-gun ship built in the late 1700's were found at the SS Great Britain museum..... Areas of the built masts were masked with strips of Tamiya tape and airbrushed with different wood tones (Vallejo beige and green-ochre). Various planks on the tops and cross-trees were painted in by brush. This was followed by the oil-dot procedure mentioned previously for the yards. This was used to not only add some pre-shade variation, but also pick out edges of planks, including abutting pieces of the built mast. Although not a brilliant result, it looked a lot better at full size than in these highly magnified photos!.... The masts were now airbrushed with inks and wash solutions. Each was mixed with Vallejo Thinner Medium and Vallejo Airbrush Thinner. First off was The Army Painter Soft Tone ink. This was applied generously and set aside to dry as the Thinner Medium is white when wet (making the coating lighter coloured) then turns transparent on drying, so it can easily dry a lot darker than you want if you are not careful. Unexpectedly, further work was needed, so this time Citadel Seraphim Sepia was applied in a couple of heavy coats. I think the problem was that the ivory coloured primer was far too pale and slightly of the wrong hue, so it would have been better to have painted this a wood colour rather than throw heavy transparent coats on top of it. Anyway, having now got an adequate result, pin washes of Citadel Agrax Earthshade were applied to nooks and crannies. The bands around the built masts hold the wood sections together and (for ships of this period) are of rope around 3" diameter (0.5 mm scale thickness) known as wooldings. Similar bands below deck level were made from iron hoops. Later ships may also have had iron bands at the top and bottom of each rope woolding. The wooldings were painted medium grey and given a wash with a mix of Citadel Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade to give the rope a Stockholm tar black/brown finish. I had hoped the grey would have been lifted a lot darker than it did, so a coat of Vallejo black grey and woodgrain brown was brushed on afterwards (later, after the photos below) to darken them up. Here are some photos of the results with the masts popped into their holes in the deck whilst the paint dried...... And here with the main yard loosely popped on as well.... Many thanks for reading and your interest. If you have any comments I would love to hear them. Pat Edited March 30, 2020 by patmaquette 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Courageous Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 Nice looking 'sticks', look great. Stuart 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patmaquette Posted March 31, 2020 Author Share Posted March 31, 2020 12 minutes ago, Courageous said: Nice looking 'sticks', look great. Stuart Thank you, Stuart! Pat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArnoldAmbrose Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 Gidday Pat, your spars are certainly looking good, you're in great danger of becoming a perfectionist, if not so already. I think the work you've done on this model is very impressive. Regards, Jeff. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chewbacca Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 You work on this continues to impress me and those masts and yards look so realistic. The only thing I don't quite understand is why you've chosen to use the vac-formed sails. Maybe its just me, but I've always though they were the most unrealistic part of any Airfix classic ship. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patmaquette Posted March 31, 2020 Author Share Posted March 31, 2020 6 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said: Gidday Pat, your spars are certainly looking good, you're in great danger of becoming a perfectionist, if not so already. I think the work you've done on this model is very impressive. Regards, Jeff. Thank you, Jeff. I must admit to liking playing with fiddly bits of detail and using paint for light and shade. Working on this galleon is a lot different from my usual choice of subject, but I did decide not to trap myself with making precise miniature blocks and tackle, so I'm sure expert period ship modellers will not be at all impressed with my work! 4 hours ago, Chewbacca said: You work on this continues to impress me and those masts and yards look so realistic. The only thing I don't quite understand is why you've chosen to use the vac-formed sails. Maybe its just me, but I've always though they were the most unrealistic part of any Airfix classic ship. Thank you, @Chewbacca. There are one or two reasons really. I want to depict the ship under sail (so having no sails at all was not an option), I would find it difficult to get convincing results with fabric and the plastic sails allow me to add light and shade effects by paint. I also had read a book on making period ship models which said the only convincing way to do sails is with cloth - so saw that as a gauntlet thrown down! Sorry to burden you folks with more reading. This one will bring us up to date and future ones will be shorter and less frequent. Before I get too far ahead with the fore mast assembly, I need to complete the eight 18-pdr culverins on the main deck. You may recall that I cast these from a master I made. @Black Knight recommended I try using an ultrasonic bath to reduce the amount of air bubbles and I have done this on the most recent moulds and castings. I bought a couple of low cost ones on e-bay: The internall dimensions of these are : left one 78mm side to side with semi-circular ends, 57mm front to back and depth 36mm (although some additional head space beneath the lid). The right one is 79mm side to side, 72mm front to back (although semi-circular front end), depth 38mm. The one on the left is a lot more powerful than the one on the right. They have certainly improved my results and, although trapped air remains a problem, the parts are not as much like an Aero bar than they were! Here are the castings for the cannon, carriage and wheels. The culverine is about an inch in length to give you a feel of the actual size. The base of the castings was sanded flat by first removing the bulk of excess resin using a drum sander in my modelling drill and then rubbing the part on a sheet of abrasive paper. It is essential to wear a mask when sanding this stuff and best done outside. Axles were made from plastic strip superglued to the carriage underside. The first item attached was a rectangle of plastic card to set the space between the axles. The axles were abutted against this so they were square to the carriage. The plastic strips were made longer than necessary and then trimmed to length once the superglue had set. I unfortunately made the carriages a smidgen too high and so some fettling was needed to set the cannon lower into the carriage. Each cannon was test fitted in its gun port before proceeding. The wheels were now glued on and a short handle added to the quoins (which is the wedge shaped piece beneath the breech used to set the gun elevation). They were glued to some scrap sprue for painting.... The carriages were painted a yellow ochre colour with black-grey metal details. The cannons themselves were painted with Humbrol brass and dark earth for shade. As mentioned back in page 1 (wow, that was a long time ago!), the gun tackle attached to the carriage and not to the cascabel (the spigot feature on the breech of the cannon) and was used to haul the carriage outboard, there not being any tackle installed for hauling the gun inboard and away from the gun port. I found only one illustration of what this arrangement might look like and reproduced it using 0.3mm copper wire. A template was made for bending the wire so the tackle would look consistent for each gun.... The final step was to double the wire and this was done by bending it over a thin brass strip.... The excess wire was trimmed off after the wires had been airbrushed with Humbrol 94 Sand. The tackle sat in a groove cut across the plastic card under the base of the carriage and was glued in place at the same angle upwards on each one. Dots of Vallejo Pale Sand paint were applied along the wire to give the effect of twisted rope. Blocks were added to complete the tackle. Other items for each gun are the rammer, mop, worm and handspike for handling the gun. Owing to the required length of these and the limited space available on the deck, I decided to place sets for a pair of guns on brackets attached to the inside of the bulwark. These were made from wire with the mop and ram heads punched from plasticard. The parts were placed into the brackets and matt acrylic varnish washed over them using a Microbrush to hold them together. Superglue was added to the areas outside of view once the varnish had set. They were painted in a light wood tone so they would stand out from the surrounding woodwork and given a wash to define the detail. A dot of Pale Sand was placed at the very end of each item to highlight them. Everything was now glued permanently (hopefully!) in position. As discussed in the early days of this build, the big guns dominate the deck area..... I'm quite pleased with how they look, even though many problems and setbacks were had along the way. Thanks all for reading and your interest. Stay safe and please let me have any comments. Pat 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ex-FAAWAFU Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 Fab. Just that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Courageous Posted April 1, 2020 Share Posted April 1, 2020 Well explained detailed work. Stunning. Stuart 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chewbacca Posted April 1, 2020 Share Posted April 1, 2020 9 hours ago, patmaquette said: Thank you, @Chewbacca. There are one or two reasons really. I want to depict the ship under sail (so having no sails at all was not an option), I would find it difficult to get convincing results with fabric and the plastic sails allow me to add light and shade effects by paint. I also had read a book on making period ship models which said the only convincing way to do sails is with cloth - so saw that as a gauntlet thrown down! Thanks for the explanation Pat - a man after my own heart there of accepting a challenge when others say it can't be done. I must admit I have always sat in the camp that says realistic sails are usually cloth, but then it's very difficult to depict the sails with the wind in them. If there's anyone who can make the vac-formed sails look realistic through paint techniques, I think you have proven you have the skills for that so I shall watch with anticipation. Those cannons look fabulous but if you don't mind me saying, aren't they a little large? When they recoil to reload they look as if they'll hit the gratings 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Courageous Posted April 1, 2020 Share Posted April 1, 2020 3 hours ago, Chewbacca said: aren't they a little large? Now that you mention it, I tend to agree. Not just the recoil but the reloading... Stuart 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Knight Posted April 1, 2020 Share Posted April 1, 2020 It wasn't unknown for the crew serving the guns to climb outside the ship to swab and reload the guns. There are true tales from the Napoleonic wars period of where the ships were so close that the gun crews actually stood upon the enemy ship as they reloaded 1 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Knight Posted April 1, 2020 Share Posted April 1, 2020 Sorry, just to add a bit to the above. Something I just remembered One of the known survivors of the Mary Rose sinking was a gunner. He survived because he was on the outside of the ship. I've not read anything about why or where he was outside, but as 1. the ship was at war, he must have been serving his gun, 2. there were 3 classes of gunner; Master gunner, gunner and gunner's mate, logic makes him in the middle group, the men who swabbed out and re-loaded the guns. These ancient sailor types were like the erection workers building the NY skyscrapers in the 1920s & 30s, fearless monkeys You're doing a grand job on those sails. Please just be aware that that plastic goes brittle very quickly in sunlight. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mdesaxe Posted April 1, 2020 Share Posted April 1, 2020 8 hours ago, Chewbacca said: Thanks for the explanation Pat - a man after my own heart there of accepting a challenge when others say it can't be done. I must admit I have always sat in the camp that says realistic sails are usually cloth, but then it's very difficult to depict the sails with the wind in them. If there's anyone who can make the vac-formed sails look realistic through paint techniques, I think you have proven you have the skills for that so I shall watch with anticipation. Those cannons look fabulous but if you don't mind me saying, aren't they a little large? When they recoil to reload they look as if they'll hit the gratings In the Royal Navy (and most probably in Dutch fleets) up to the 1660s-1670s gun tackles were used only to run cannon outboard at the beginning of an action. After that the guns remained run outboard solidly lashed in position. The loaders hung out over the port sills to reload. There are quite a few Van de Velde sketches depicting this and there is a brief reference to the practice in John Seller's The Sea Gunner as late as 1691. Maurice 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Knight Posted April 1, 2020 Share Posted April 1, 2020 Back to the rigging. Up to the 1950s the only material for making ropes was hemp. But it needed protected and replaced frequently. With the usual caveats, this is a photo of rigging on HMS Victory. The ropes are hemp. This is just to illustrate the difference in colour of the tarred standing rigging and the natural, but bleached look of the running rigging Close up the tarred rope is a dark burnt umber colour. For modelling purposes a very dark brown or even black would look alright. For the running rigging a beige would look best I think. I can match these colours in my leatherwork threads. They can be matched in the Gutermann sewing threads range 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chewbacca Posted April 1, 2020 Share Posted April 1, 2020 Thanks for those explanations. My knowledge of historical gunnery doesn't really extend back beyond Napoleonic and certainly then my understanding was that in those days the guns ran back under recoil until the muzzle was about level with or just inside the gun port.. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now