La Belle 1684 - Caf Model 1:48 by Gennaro [COMPLETED BUILD]

[Gennaro]

Good evening fellow modellers!

Back in May, I ordered CAF's
La Belle 1684, always wanted to build (assemble) her, but
baroque carvings are not my cup of tea - just cannot carve.
Carvings in the kit are extraordinary. Wood quality - alright,
cherry, not my favorite type of wood. The model is TINY even in
1:48 scale (that's 2oz shot glass next to it) Framing is very
light and since frame floors are single, not double, layered, I
managed to break half a dozen of them.

Keel/stem/stern post are of incorrect thickness - no problem there,
if you want to plank her from the wales up. Since I intend
to fully plank one side, I had to built stem/stern post.
Keel provided in the kit was sandwiched between two 1/32"
strips matching the thickness of stem and stern posts.

Here she is fully framed. Until later, happy modelling.

 

[Gennaro]

Oops, same image twice! Try again.

 

[Uwek]

Looking very good - I hope to see much more photos of the work - and very important: Much more often - Please

 

[Gennaro]

Looking very good - I hope to see much more photos of the work - and very important: Much more often - Please

I hear you, Uwe. Well, I forgot to include couple of images of earlier construction. Thanks for all the likes. Much appreciated!

 

[Maarten]

Very neat work on that bow frame section, excellent work. Guess the carvings are in boxwood?

 

[Dematosdg]

Gennaro, I love the work done so far. As said, very neat. I always find the hull assembly being one of the difficulties of POF builts. Yours looks amazing. Do you have pictures of that early phase. Is always nice to see how it was done to learn

Cheers
Daniel

 

[Bryian]

Thats beautiful.

.

 

[Gennaro]

Very neat work on that bow frame section, excellent work. Guess the carvings are in boxwood?

Thanks Maarten! Carvings seem to be in boxwood, I ordered 2.0 version. I was surprised myself how easy it was to build hawse pieces - ingenious jig! Made then in a first attempt. Here's the picture of carvings and jig.

 

[Gennaro]

Thank you Daniel, much appreciated. Unfortunately, those four pictures are the only ones I took, not much of a picture taking person. I didn't think anybody would be interested in frame assembly. Jig/building berth was very useful, except for stern framing - it provides support not only for counter timbers, but also for two smaller timbers sitting on top of outer counter timbers, which made it impossible to take her out of the jig, at least for me. So I ended up cutting off that part of the jig in order to release the model, which unfortunately resulted in unsightly scratch on the stern post.

 

[Gennaro]

Thats beautiful.

.

Thanks Brian, much appreciated.

 

[Dematosdg]

Thank you Daniel, much appreciated. Unfortunately, those four pictures are the only ones I took, not much of a picture taking person. I didn't think anybody would be interested in frame assembly. Jig/building berth was very useful, except for stern framing - it provides support not only for counter timbers, but also for two smaller timbers sitting on top of outer counter timbers, which made it impossible to take her out of the jig, at least for me. So I ended up cutting off that part of the jig in order to release the model, which unfortunately resulted in unsightly scratch on the stern post.

Thank you for the detailed answer and for explaining what happened to you. Something to have into account if I built this ship in the future.

Thank you !!!
Daniel

 

[Gennaro]

Good evening! Managed to install wales, without too much trouble. Hull is now much sturdier. Now I have to decide what to do next: planking first, then deck beams or vice versa. I'm more inclined to tackle deck first. We'll see. Here are few pictures of the current state of the model. Thanks for all the comments and likes.

 

[Dematosdg]

Nice !!! But that armored soldier will scare the Shipyard workers.

 

[Gennaro]

Nice !!! But that armored soldier will scare the Shipyard workers.

That's La Salle making sure nobody is screwing around the shipyard.

 

[Maarten]

Wonderfull work, the black is that replaced by ebony or did you colour with ink or paint?

 

[Gennaro]

Wonderfull work, the black is that replaced by ebony or did you colour with ink or paint?

Thanks Maarten. It's somewhat embarrassing - I used sharpie black marker. Planks were cut and bent to shape, painted and glued in place.

 

[Maarten]

Thanks Maarten. It's somewhat embarrassing - I used sharpie black marker. Planks were cut and bent to shape, painted and glued in place.

Why imbarrasing? A sharpy is also ink, its all about the result and that is great.

 

[Gennaro]

Why imbarrasing? A sharpy is also ink, its all about the result and that is great.

I don't know, I guess when I see what some of you masters do with ebony, black horbeam, india ink etc., it felt like cheating. But in the end, you are right - who cares what's used as long as the end result is acceptable. That being said, there is something that bothers me regarding deck framing and I'm not sure how to handle it at this point. La Belle's deck clamps have dovetail groves which hold beams in place. Since I omitted that rather complex feature, my beams at the moment are held by gravity and nothing else. How am I going to find the line of carlings? That's beautiful feature in french ships and really makes or breaks the model. I've been considering spot gluing, not sure. Any advice would be more than appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Maarten]

A simple way to solve it is to add a small strip of wood in thickness of the deck clamp on top of the deck clamps between the deck beams, in this way you block the beams from moving in ships length.

 

[Dematosdg]

Guys.... I am lost on this issue and I would like to understand it so I can learn. Can you kindly show a picture or a drawing of what are you talking about. I am sorry for asking this due to my level of ignorance on marin/ship vocabulary. Nevertheless, I want to understad the issue.

Thank you !!
Daniel