Nicely done Robin,
On a personal note, I don't see any problem using some plastic, I know these are "wooden ships", but I have yet to see a POB ship constructed entirely from wood, if another material can give as good or better result, then go for it, as long as the majority of the build is wood, I think that counts.
Regards
Alan

Hi there Kev and Alan.

I was thinking of doing just that Kev, at first I was going to attach a small white plastic label to the heart with a length of thin wire but it was a little too tight to fit it down the hatch!
I will do out a little paper roll I think and slide that down inside with the heart, with that gun port box that fell inside during the build she's really starting to rattle now!!
Alan!
Those are some really great artifacts, definately top of the range! I think putting something like this inside a model build is almost like putting a 'soul' into the model and really does make them special. (Alan I want to see your DelPrado balanced on that copper rivet for it's base!! )
Glad you liked the idea and thanks again.

Robin

Thanks to all for those kind words, I've now added the roll of paper with the words for posterity (hopefully! if some rotter's going to be stripping my baby down to her 'undies' in the distant future, I don't want to be there to see it!! )

This post is the first part of the up-grading of the DelPrado figurehead, you'll see why it's the first part below!
I had hoped that this little job would be simply giving it the best paint job I could manage, unfortunately the quality of the casting meant considerably more work was required than that!
The supplied figure head comes in three parts, the main central heraldic device and two 'Cherub with scrolls' for the side supports. The main casting wasn't too bad to be honest with one exception, there is supposed to be a scroll which wraps around the shield with the words "HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE", a Royal motto which reads 'Shame to him who evil thinks'. All I had on the casting was a series of curved ridges where the flat scroll should have been which meant I couldn't even attempt to paint the words in.
I decided to add the scroll over those ridges by cutting a thin strip of the self adhesive DecraLed which I had used on the cannon and rudder hinges. I say self adhesive, but my supply of this material is well over 20 years old now so it's just a bit tacky rather than sticky which actually works out really well here, it will stay in position for measuring and cutting but can be removed for painting and superglued back again!
The first photo below shows these strips 'tacked' on in place with the first stages of painting underway. On the right is an even thinner strip of the lead which has been twisted to form a 'Rope edge' to replace the non-descript edge of the casting. The 'rope' was painted with Citidel Paints "Shining Gold" and left to one side until needed.
Photo 2 is fairly self explanitory, I decided to try and create a decal for the Latin scroll with my Corel Print house and a sheet of Inkjet decal paper. On the first attempt I made two straight decals which was a mistake, they just wouldn't curve around the lead strip, even with Decal cote 1 and 2. The second try is pictured top left, this time I found out how to curve the original design on the PC and made a second pair. These did fit the scroll but I just wasn't happy with the result, it looked too artificial and didn't fit in with the rest of the effect so it was time for Plan C - try and paint the damned things by hand!
The centre pic shows the first attempt on a new length of strip and I must admit it went pretty well, that Citidel paint is specially designed for figure painting and flows really well on a tiny 000 paintbrush tip. It was only when I had completed this first half that I realised what I had done - I'd painted the flaming words upside down, they were supposed to be following the opposite curve! DOH! I thought there was no way that the lead would bend the other way without distorting the lettering so that piece was discarded and I switched to Plan D! Instead of making new strips and gluing them over the ones already on the casting I'd try and paint the words in situ. This I duly did, becoming quite light headed and seeing double at one point but the result was perfectly ledgible and not too bad at all (thank God!, I was running out of plans by this point) The result can be seen in the final photo with a complete rundown of the various stages followed.
The last two pics in the second photo show the reason why this is a two part exercise - the Cherubs (should be Cherubim I think). The starboard side one is a lovely little casting and will only require a careful paint job, as for his brother though JEEZ! Where the first Cherub has a dainty little arm and hand to hold the shield, the other casting is the complete opposite. The head and arm are just the top of an ugly thick pad of metal which is going to take a lot of grinding and filing to get it right. I've made a start with a rotary tool disc but it's a slow job which I will probably go back to just to break the monotony of other jobs and tasks so more of this part in the future.
The final photo, as I said, shows the completed Figurehead with it's added scrolls and rope edging, the painted Latin inscription can just be made out together with the ET MON part of the lower scroll, getting that to match up with the DIEU and DROIT parts which are on the Cherub scrolls will be another 'fun' task I expect!

Hope you will find this useful and keep those 000 brushes clean!!

Robin

PS After it was all completed I tried bending that strip with the upside down lettering on - it bent into the correct shape with no trouble at all, the words remained perfectly OK !

Robin, true masterclass and a fantastic read..... The detail you have now shown is simply superb..... .. Very very well done there.....

Regards

Alan

Greatly appreciated to the Alans and Hans.!

Unfortunately it's not so much the patience of a Saint, more the spending power of a Hermit!
It was reading your diary Sparks which gave me the idea of trying to make the decals, the problem was, at such a small scale the inkjet printing isn't that good, the other thing I probably did wrong was to use an acrylic matt varnish to seal the decals - looks fine until the decal goes into the water to release it and then the varnish picks up white streaks along the brush lines which don't dry out and vanish! If I'd used a spirit based varnish it might have been fine although trying to get even the curved decal to conform to a compound curve was a nightmare (and I didn't have the 'patience' to try different shapes until I got it right) I think the hand painted method worked out best in the end but for flat details I may well experiment with the decal approach again (I'm thinking about the thin coloured stripes on the ship's boats in the distant future!)
I think the next job will be to finally get the hawse holes put into the bows before I forget them completely.

Thanks again and see you soon.

Robin

Hey! I just noticed I've been promoted!! (One more Vice on my long list!! )

[quote=Plymouth57]Greatly appreciated to the Alans and Hans.!

Unfortunately it's not so much the patience of a Saint, more the spending power of a Hermit!
It was reading your diary Sparks which gave me the idea of trying to make the decals, the problem was, at such a small scale the inkjet printing isn't that good.


For future reference Robin, I use a DTP programme called Pageplus, Its free to download the basic version, I get great results reducing text and images to very small sizes and printing on an inkjet. (if you havn't already, look at decals of the GR & crown cyphers on my fire buckets, or this name tag on one of my 1/16 German tank crew)



I think it is because it is a "line vector" programme that it reduces at good quality, so I guess any line vector software will do, I think Coral Draw is another one.

Regards
Alan

Hi All! As promised last time, I've finally got the anchor rope hawse holes fitted in, not quite as straight forward as it might have been but here's how it went!

The first thing to remember about the hawse holes is that they are NOT gunports! I don't mean they shouldn't have guns sticking out of them, (If the crew could get a barrel out there it'd be a hell of a surprise for the enemy! ) What I mean is, the gunports are cut through the hull at right angles to fire the guns out of but the hawse holes are more like torpedo tubes, they follow the centre line of the ship so essentially point straight ahead. (In actual fact there is a slight angling to outboard but not very noticeable in model scale) This means that unlike the gun ports we can't drill into the hull at 90 degrees although this is the easiest angle to drill at. The hole has to go into the hull from almost dead ahead. The drills and tool I used are shown in the first photo, beginning with the pin vice and a 0.7mm bit.
I first cut a piece of thin card to fit over the reinforcing panel between the decorative yellow stripes/bars and using the ref books worked out the correct positions of the centre of the two holes. After drilling into the bow using the marks, the card template was then turned around and repeated on the opposite side of the bow.
With all four tiny holes in place I then moved up to the 1.3mm bit held in the universal chuck (this is almost as easy to use by hand as the pin vice). The larger holes then allowed the use of the power tool with the 3mm cutting ball to 'grind' back into the hull at the correct angle. Finally I finished off the holes with the 4mm drill bit used by hand. It might have been possible to use the 4mm in the power drill but the risk of splitting the whole bow area was not something I wanted to test out! The holes are going in through multiple layers of thin wood, the reinforcement panel, the second planking veneer, first planking strakes and possibly a couple of the plywood ribs as well.
Photos 2 and 3 shows the finished 4mm holes, a little rough inside but I hoped that a few coats of Admiralty red ochre with some light sanding in between would even it out.
In the event, the painting and sanding worked out fine for three out of the four holes. Photo 5 shows the naughty one (inner port) which was left with an obvious gap in the wood layers, this was filled in with wood filler and once dried, sanded smooth and repainted. The preceeding Photo 5 is either the holes filled and painted with the red ochre, or else shows a direct hit from the French Redoutable's infamous Paintball Carronades!
Photo 6 shows the third cable protector being test fitted to the hawse holes. The protectors were made from the soft wood strakes from the DelPrado kit and were pre-bent into curves with the Amati plank bender pliers. The reason for that protector being the third is shown in Photo 7, I made the mistake of sanding off the rounded edge by rubbing the complete piece of wood over the sand paper, forgetting that the filed out semi circles would drastically weaken the length of wood - SNAP! On the replacement I used a lollipop stick with glued on sand paper and rubbed that against the wood instead of the other way around!
The final result is shown in the last Photo, not too bad overall, and just waiting for the anchor cable in the far future! (shiver!)

Back soon.

Robin

As usual a brilliant job with a brilliant tutorial. Well done.

Hi to All and thanks again for the kind comments, I'm glad you are finding some useful bits in amongst my 'experiments'!

At the moment I'm working on the Bowsprit. I only really wanted to make the actual Bowsprit (the first section that runs from the bow bulkhead to the cap (the vertical joint at the tip of the bowsprit itself). I need to get this part installed so that I can rig in the gammoning ropes and finish the Marine's Walk but the design of the whole of the Bowsprit means that it would be more difficult to build the Jib Boom and the Flying Jib Boom once the Bowsprit is in position than it would to do it all in one go, but leaving the two Jibs to glue in later. (I could do the whole thing now, but that's a hell of a long piece of 'snappy off' wood to have poking out when I will be needing to swing the whole hull around to work on each side of her!!)
I've nearly completed it now but still have to put the diary photos together so here's a couple of 'pretty pictures' (just for Hans) to illustrate the main points. 'Proper' pics to follow shortly!

(I just like putting graphics together really! )

Robin