LA BELLE-POULE is an well known old Shipyard kit scaled to 1/96 of this classic French 12-pounder frigat BELLE POULE 1765 showing in her appearance from 1771 on.The modelkit get's 460mm long and does fit to my desk very well. Yesterday night I found the First time to dir in the Kirchen me and my wife listening to some Audiobook listening; she in research Journey for a new carpet to the Floor and me dealing with the ironclad PREVENEZ of 1864 and as her Work did gobvery Well Mine entered the Stage of a nightmare as the middle section didn't fit the bow end after parts. I decided Not to document this Horror by Pictures and thrown away the LCset. My weekend's tests on the cladding of the removal boxes sides with the copies of the lines plan of SAINT PHILIPPE 1693 went into a disaster, too. As the paper got like waves the cardboard of the boxes isn't good for the lateral parts If you want to get a decent result to half of the millimeter. So I wasn't happy at all.
My attempts on the boats of SIXTUS V. went also in some wrong directions I couldn't Deal with as my "tiny workshop" in the children's room is now temporarely the safe residence of my twenty year old so'n living with us till some week. So my Level of frustration was high and I looked around for something challaging - not to end in a desaster as the tiny Russian iron cladin 1:200 with it's wrongly constructed skeleton and weak cardboard selected for the laser cutting.
So due to these two and a half downfalls I was highly frustrated and went to my cardboard model stash - and found LA BELLE-POULE as a compromise between the new "mobile model shipyard" and my ambishions to build every day half an hour to two hours to get something I could declare to some kind of real modelbuilding progress not feaking my self by an undercomplex model.
So I decided to take the plastic box with Ancre Monography, laser cut frames set and the kit's handbook to the kitchen starting to cut out the frames...
...and arranging them for you....
...so it gives you some impression how tiny These pices are cut.
My wife was first time in our relationship really interested in the shape of the frames even before plugt them together. As a graphic Designer she knows a plenty about paper, Card board and it's abilitys and weakesses - so I did find a real Well informed consultant in my admirality...
I do hope the GPM Laser cut set fits hopefully much better into each other and in material's quality than the catastrophe I had before with a Orel kit I did bin this night.
Certainly the figure head of the Lion isn't in the kit the very same
as in a wooden model twice it's size.
So I do plan the fregat in an other way - in 1/96 so I can add a plenty of details from the monography by J. Bodriout published by Ancre/Nice a book I have got in my shelf.
Here from the Ancre website the marvellous model gives
a plenty of details to me.
And so I can now start her as a build to get a classical hull model -
with mast stumps and stairs leading downwards gratings and hopefully a good helmsman's wheel.
The used material will not purely paper and card - it must be mixed from card, wood and plastic to get an optimal result. It is a pitty but I cannot affort anything else.
So I suddenly became again a fregat modeller as I thought 10 years ago by buying the RENOMMÉE monography to start with an eight pounder fregat. Now the circle ended as I found the kit of BELLE POULE in her appearance between 1771-1799 and so I do look into the monography to get more details out of the kit.
Dealing with the drawings in the monography means dealing in 1/108 due to a card model kit in 1/96 - so it feels quite similar.
My point of view is the question how the hull modell will look like
(I forgot to photograph the CenterLine backbone pice of the LCset).
- what openings I can show open at all
and how to arrange this on the kit's given structure.
So I have to think If these ideas of changes are being realistic to be incorporated onto/into this kit.
And what I realized from yesterday night is the sceptical view onto the laser cut frames that were critical for the hole project.
So I may open the hatch to the officers' accomodation on the quarter deck so there is a View into the darkness of the hull possible. The Bank seems to be a later added Item.
When "Walking" over the deck
I so realized some trouble source there and looked at several Models of BELLE-POULE in the web.
So the guns are Not really easy to recoginze - I May put one extra beside the hull or I may keep away the boats to give an easier optical access to the guns of the main battery as only in this place they are fully exposed to the eye of the spectator. And due to this at this stage of planing the hole question of "If I should show her with guns or without?" - was decided for me before I could even ask her! :-D
Otherwise only the smaller only six pounder gunnery in the quarter deck
is in the center of intrest. This would givd a completly wrong impressionen of the ships force and firepower - so the view into the hull and onto the Main twelve pounder battery is an essential Feature of the model - perhaps I should enlarge this by removeing one of the gratings, too?
One great detail I felt in love to is the anchor storage and
the pure size of the item itself realizing how big it is
compared to a figure so I do think about a scale figure somewhere beside, in or viewable in the model...
So let's getting started!
P.S. is it usual to add the anchor to a hullmodel with it's complete rigging? I do ask as the shrouds are missing and I do have got No Idea how to handle this - or are the anchors to be neglected at all and the cable, too?
What are the classical rules for ancors on hull models?
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so this will be the easiest part the plan set has to be reduced to 75% of it's original size this will be quite expensive...
