Monday, January 13, 2014 - Channels and chain plates
 
Yesterday I spent the afternoon of Sunday working on Soleil.
 
I delayed for a while the preparation of the chain plates, waiting to feel confident with "soldering" methodology. But I had to find new size of deadeyes, 7mm. rather than 5mm. (the latter are provided by De Agostini but I feel them out of scale), so I worked to finish the wooden part of the channels.
 
In practice, as you can see from the pictures so far proposed, they lack all the reinforcements of the upper side, similar to reversed bracket. These pieces are distributed by De Agostini pre-cut but, once again, I decided to redo them from scratch, starting from a strip of solid dark wood.
 
In practice I had to do from scratch these fairly small pieces with the aggravating factor that I had to correct them to get the joints to fit (one by one) to their individual locations.
 
This activity, laughing and joking, took me a whole afternoon . .
 
PS: the pencil marks on the channels and the wale below indicate the position for each chain plate. This positioning takes care of the locations of the gunports.
 

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Saturday, January 25, 2014 - Chain plates again . .
 
On Thursday and Friday I continued to devote myself to the construction of the " blessed chain plates". After the ten prototypes that I have fully complied with, now it remains to construct another 50 to complete the full set.
 
So these two days I started this business, pretty boring because of the high repeatability.
Let's say that today, if I find a couple of hours to work, matter that is not guaranteed due to other commitments, I should add to the ten prototypes about 35-40 new pieces.
 
Then I'll can finally proceed with their installation on the hull.
 
But first, there is still another task to do : paint or burnish brass/tin with which they are made.
 
1st hypothesis : Painting
Here the problem lies in how to prepare the pieces for painting . The solding flux paste leaves a film of dirt that must be removed in advance with a detergent. Then a coat of primer and matt black or gun metal. Does anyone have any idea what is better to use for cleaning ?
 
2nd Hypothesis : Browning
Again, there is the problem of degreasing with the addition of the uncertainty of how the burnishing liquid works on brass and tin. If that produces the same color effect or not. In the latter case I would say that this hypothesis would be rejected. Has anyone an answer on this matter?
 
For now it's all about, to hear from you, Jack.

Thursday, February 20, 2014 - still chain plates . .
 

Today I started the painting of the more than 50 chain plates.
 
- I prepared a small polystyrene frame on which I applied two strips of double-sided adhesive on which to place the pieces to be painted.
 
- Once I placed all the chain plates on the frame I painted with the airbrush a metal primer on all the items. I then waited an hour or so waiting the primer to dry.
 
- In the meantime I prepared the airbrush with the final paint color (the final color is not exactly this, but for now we can consider it so).
 
- I then sprayed the chain plates and I left everything to dry thoroughly.
 
- Tomorrow I will proceed to remove and reposition the chain plates on the other side to repeat the same procedure on the hidden side . Only at this point the task of painting can be considered as finished.
 
At that point i'll have to mount them in place and, once established definitively, with the dry-brush technique pass a rather rough coat (only on the metal parts of the chain plates) with "gun metal" paint.
 
Hoping everything is clear, warm greetings, Jack.

 
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Saturday, April 19, 2014 - slowly but . .
 
As I said in the title, slowly. . . but regularly, I resumed working on the Soleil Royal. This week I finished the installation of the chain plates and the deadeyes, left missing on one side of the hull. This time, thanks to the experience gained from the work of the previous week, I went slightly faster.
 
I then changed type of activity: although it probably will not be the most appropriate activity in a logical sequence, I began to work to install the gun ports and the guns (or the half pipe skeletons of the gun) themselves. Twenty-six gun ports on each side plus four aft and four in the bow.
 
I already prepared long time ago the wooden part of these ports. Now I have prepared brass rings starting from wire 0.25 rolled around a drill bit of 0.5. For every door will need three, two to lift it and one to withdraw, so 60 x 3 = 180.
 
To make the story short, after having prepared enough material for one side, I set the rings on the gunports, and then I tried gluing the ports in their position. I  used for this task the two components epoxy glue and a drop of cyan in gel format. The gel is useful to keep the ports in position for the 12/24 hour necessary to the epoxy for hardening.
 
I think this is the strongest bonding possible, as confirmed by the prototype that I prepared and shown long time ago.
 
Here are some pictures . . but the work still to be done is a lot. I took photos with the smartphone, so they are not very sharp, but still give the idea in their own way .
 
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Tuesday, April 22, 2014
 
The day is dedicated to building a hundred rings with pin, to simulate the ring bolts on the gun ports, in order to have material enough for the remaining pieces. The photo below shows the procedure I used to build these "ring bolts": 0.25 brass wire with the ends bent and clamped in a tweezers. At this point everything is screwed around a drill bit and run enough revolutions to achieve the right piece . . simple but VERY repetitive, every 10 pieces I was surfing on the internet to change and relax.
 
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Then I browned the whole so that they were ready for final assembly.
 
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
 
At the last moment I discovered in my personal, old, unused pieces reserve some copper elements that may serve very well to simulate the hinges and I decided to use them. The decision resulted in looking at the gun ports already attached to the hull, where the top is very well visible and therefore this kind of element should improve realism. 
 
I then browned them too and I began to prepare them for installation by cutting them into pieces of appropriate length. 
 
In the first image we see the wooden gun ports ready to start work, pre-drilled to accommodate a group of ring bolts and also the ring bolts burnished.
 
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Below we see the gun ports "finished", that is, ready to be bonded on the hull and then go to the following processes: ropes to open the ports, for their closing and the half-barrel of the gun. 
 
I forgot: after the operation a thin coat of matt transparent paint to even out the color and hide the spots of glue.
 
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That's all for today, but tomorrow I'll continue with the same activities of today. I hope to finish all the gun ports according to picture 03. 
Regards, Jack.

Continuation. . 
 
Now even the starboard side has been "decorated" with the gunports. Here, unlike the left side, the hinges are already present on the ports, or rather the bits of burnished copper that simulate them. I think the aesthetic is much better. Obviously I will have to mount the same details on other gunports on the left side. 
 
Now all gunports are positioned and well bonded. The next step in equipping the ropes to close them. To do this, I'll have to tie a rope on the internal ringbolt, drill the hull inside the port window in proper position, place the head of the rope through the hole and secure it with a some glue. This for sixty times. .  
 
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To break the monotony at the same time I'm preparing the structure supporting the boats that you can see (only positioned) in the next photo. The work is still in progress. .
 
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Cheers, Jack.Aubrey

Thursday, May 1, 2014
 
This afternoon was quite fruitful, at least considering my way of working, notoriously rather slow. 
As a diversion about working around the gunports lids, I focused on the preparation of the support structures for the boats. 
In the following picture the structure coloured in red was already partially ready, I limited myself to prepare cradles with the shape of the boats hull, fix them and stain in mahogany. Finally some eye bolts to band the boats to the structure with ropes. 
The other two in the image, left natural wood, are the ones that will be placed on the basement of the display case and that will support the two larger boats.
 
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Below the boats as they will when installed. They are almost all finished, there are only a few details (oars, rudder, etc.) to add on the "green" boat.
 
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Finally I tried the final fixing of a boat, just to see the final effect. It is one of the two launches which will be fixed on the basement.
 
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That's all for today, tomorrow I should have the afternoon available, maybe I'll continue . . Regards, Jack.Aubrey

Stunning work Jack, really enjoying your build...

Regards

Alan

Jack

It gets better and better.

Really lovely paint finishes you have there.

And you are so lucky to have a large work area in which to build.

Looking forward to seeing more of your stunning build.

Happy modelling

Tony

First of all I need to thank a lot all of you that made the previous, incredibly positive, comments: I really appreciated your sentences and they make me even more interested to continue posting . . thanks again, Jack.


Sunday, May 11, 2014
 
Not a very productive week. Apart the short time dedicated to the model, most of the work done on it was to work around the gunport lids to fix the ropes used to close them. Nothing significantly for taking a photo. In the interval between these boring activities I have finished the fourth lauch, the "green" one, and I fixed it to its support together with the "blue" launch. 
 
The two pictures here below show the two boats on its basement . . .
 
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. . . while the remaining two images show the boats on board of the vessel. They are only positioned, not fixed, because I do not think it is the right time to definitely bond them in place. I'm thinking about a fixing method that uses pins instead of glue so it can be removed if necessary for access to the details installed on the deck . . . 
 
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I hope next time I'll be able to show something more interesting. Sincerely, Jack.Aubrey.