Thanks for the nice comments Karl, and the doffed hat
Regards
Alan

Thanks for you comments Robin,
Looking closer at the photos I think they get their downward curve from the stays attached to the hull, but don't think my little replica's will take the strain of that
So I'm in agreement with you to leave them be, in fact I've just given them a first coat of paint.
I am turning my attention to the gun port lids now
Regards
Alan

Thanks Alan
Regards
Alan

Hi all,
A small interim post concerning the gun port lids.
Again, after studying photos and plans I made a little template from brass sheet that can be placed into the gun port opening and the holes for the lid ropes drilled into the hull.



I noticed that not all the ropes exited the hull at the same height above the openings and a couple were closer to the centre than the others, hence the various holes in the template (also the need to clear some mouldings).

The ropes themselves were guided through the hull inside lead pipes, and on the outside of the hull was a leather gaiter to help keep the hole water tight.



To try to replicate this I am using small lengths of black heat shrink sleeving. My first idea was to fix the heat shrink into the hull, unshrunk, as it were, with the rope attached and then apply the heat so that it shrunk around the rope creating the cone effect in the photo above, but the smallest size I could find (1mm), looked too large, so the plan is to thread the rope through, shrink it around the rope, then glue the rope into it, all before fitting into the hull.







As for the port lids themselves, I am using the ones supplied with the Del Prado kit. I have searched for others but the sizes are not quite right. I have painted them black on the outside and red ochre on the inside, and used the small PE eyebolts to enhance them. I decided long ago not to use the supplied hinge pieces as they did not look accurate, and fitted brass rain drips of the correct shape over the gun port openings. The lids will just be glued into the gun port in an open or closed position. Below is a photo of a "test run" to see how it looked.
I will probably reduce the amount that the sleeving sticks out.



To prevent going crazy, I will do these in stages and only fit the port lids in place where it may be awkward later, like under the channels etc. to prevent snapping them off when handling the ship.
After doing the test run, I thought of another enhancement to drive me bonkers
I made some small brass washers to tidy up the hole and hopefully give the look (when painted black) of the gaiters on the real ship seen in the photo above. Below is a dry fit in the hull.



These little blighters started life as the rings on some PE hooks, I had to drill out the hole to enlarge it then file up the edges once it was cut from the hook. Now that I have found enough to do the lot, I will paint them first and glue them to the sleeving before fitting into the hull, I can then use it as a sort of depth gauge to keep them all the same.
Well, that turned out to be a longer post than I thought
Next update when I get some fitted to the ship.
Regards
Alan

Lovely work on the gun port lids Sparks, think it looks fab....

Regards

Alan

Thanks for you nice comments Alan.
Regards
Alan

Wow stunning work Alan Rgd Martyn

Thanks Martyn and Foz for you comments.
Well, here we go with another little update, not strictly the gun port lids as promised, but related.
While I was checking drawings etc relating to the gun ports, I was reminded (again) that I had not done anything about the sick bay windows on the middle gun deck at the bows.



These windows are a bit smaller than the gun ports, with side opening doors, there seems to be a removable board blocking the bottom half of the opening, I can only think this was to prevent too much wind and spray getting to the sick seamen.
Most kits I have seen depict these windows as closed, either moulded into the hull or a separate moulded part to fix to the hull, unless of course you are Del Prado, in which case, you don't bother to depict it at all Mind you, they didn't even get the amount of actual gun ports right, so I suppose that was a bit too much to expect
They did supply a set of moulded closed doors for the quarter deck gun port, and I considered cutting off the rain drip part and using them, but they were still too large. So me being me, decided to go for it.
I knew the hull construction was very thick in that area, that's why I had avoided doing anything before, but throwing caution to the wind, I marked out the openings and with Dremel in one hand and file in the other, got stuck in



Using the aforementioned tools and a small chisel, I rebated a 7mm square X 7mm deep (or there about) opening in the hull on each side.
After cleaning up the edges and touching up the paintwork I made the "removable" boards by cutting aftermarket gun port lids, (more about those later) in half and filing off all the detail, then fixing a couple of pieces of 0.5mm X 0.25mm Evergreen strip down the sides.



These were then painted red ochre, and after painting the rear of the openings matt black,
they were fixed it place, along with the brass rain drips used on the other gun ports. There seems to be a lot more room in this area on the real ship than on my model, from looking at the photo's it seems the blue and yellow striped carving goes up at a steeper angle than I have done mine, leaving it all a bit cramped.
For all my fellow "rivet counters", notice I had a go at Dremeling the little hand grips in the board

Now onto the doors themselves.
I mentioned in the previous post about aftermarket gun ports. While looking for something different to use instead of the Del Prado supplied lids, I purchased a few sample packs of these and thought I might as well make use of some of them. The smallest ones I have are, by coincidence about 7mm square
I cut these roughly in half with a Dremel fine cut disc and as the hinge part on these was not right, that had to come off too, and I glued small pieces of 1mm X 0.75mm Evergreen strip to represent the hinges.
Below is a photo of the three stages prior to painting.



After painting, the obligatory small eyelets were fixed in place, and the assembly fixed to the hull.





While I was in "side opening door mode" I made the doors for the quarter deck gun ports in the same way, but using slightly larger lids, these ones had about the right sort of hinge so I just had to file off the little pegs.



Again, after painting and fitting of eyelets they were fixed in place.





I know that in both cases, the doors are a bit bigger then the openings, but by reducing the height, the hinge detail would have been very close, or right on the edge which would not have looked right, so, as the doors won't be closing, and at a normal viewing distance its less noticeable, I think I can live with it
I will try to start an assembly line for the main gun port lids parts over the week end, but as it is my birthday tomorrow, I may be forced into an evening off
Bye for now.
Regards
Alan

Nice work on the windows, looking good
Steve