La Couronne Corel/scratch 1:100 First build [COMPLETED BUILD]

[DARIVS ARCHITECTVS]

Work on the handrails has begun. The rails were profiled with a Artesania Latina scraper before cutting and fitting them into place. Three rails were installed today. They add a lot to the appearance. More rails will be added, except for the poop deck, which needs planking, fittings, and stern lanterns first.

 

[DARIVS ARCHITECTVS]

Some of the railings were added to the gunwales and decks on the rear end of the ship. Some care was taken to sand the ends of each pillar so that they appear vertical relative to the sheer of the gunwale railings and the camber of the deck for the deck railings. The decorative metal castings were added. Two of the smaller castings will not be used on the forecastle railing as shown in the instructions, and appear better on the railings of the quarterdeck. The corners of the forecastle railings will feature gold fleur-de-lis.

 

[DARIVS ARCHITECTVS]

A few deck fittings were installed. The shape of the staghorn bitts were adjusted with a round needle file and finished with a sanding block. Then they were installed in six positions on the bulwarks. A bitt was fashioned and fastened to the deck in front of the mizzen mast using a peg for reinforcement. A topsail bitt was fashioned for the foremast. The belaying pins from the kit were discarded in favor of more properly scaled 9mm pins made by Falkonet in Russia. They also make the best blocks too.

One of the biggest problems with this kit is that the small scale (1:100) makes it difficult to fashion micro-sized parts to achieve a decent level of detail, such as the gun tackles and the belaying pins. I'm going to have to be extra careful not to break off the belaying pins. They are not glued in place, so they can be easily replaced if broken. An Archimedes drill was used to drill the holes in the topsail bitt rail, and the bitt was attached to the deck using glue and wooden pins for reinforcement.

 

[DARIVS ARCHITECTVS]

Catheads and their support knees were fabricated and installed today. Instead of having the cathead beams lay atop the forecastle deck in the diagonal style found occasionally on ships from this period, the catheads were installed just under the deck, simulating the more common style. Slots were cut into the ends of the cathead beams with a coping saw, and the ends were filling in with small pieces of wood. More small pieces of wood were inserted into the centers of each slot to simulated the pulleys. This way, the lines will lie naturally, and the surface of the line over the "pulleys" will not be above the top surface of the cathead beam.

Instead of the simple timber supports EJ used on his ship model, small knee brackets were cut from some spare 3 mm plywood, and some shape and details were added using needle files to give them a little more detail before they were fitted to the hull, taking care to cut a slot so they fit over the wale. The angle of the cathead was estimated at 45 degrees and the knees were filed and fitted so that the cathead beams are are the correct angle when installed.

After the cathead pulley ends were completed, the beams were cut to length at the correct angle in preparation to being attached to the hull. An extension of wood at the top surface of the joint was left to fill in a gap between the knee and the trim along the top of the forecastle. Instead of leaving the ends of the catheads plain as you see them now, metal castings of lion heads were ordered from Cornwall Model Boats in the UK, the ones made by Caldercraft. They will be added later and paint gold. Then, these will truly live up to their name. The block and tackle for the catheads will be made the same as EJ made on his model... because it's cool.

 

[DARIVS ARCHITECTVS]

Two of the four anchors were assembled. The Corel anchors were not used because of flaws and lack of detail in the castings. Amati makes better anchor kits. Next are the gun port covers. The plywood ones provided with the Corel kit are a bit thick and will not be used. Instead, new ones will be fabricated from scratch. Maple or walnut strips were glued onto a base of mahogany in a long strip. The width of the strip was cut to 10mm high using the band saw, then the strip was cut into 12mm wide gun port covers. The hinges provided in the kit were blackened and glued to each cover with CA glue. Blackened and bent brass pins will be used as hinge pins. A jig will have to be made to make the holes drilled in the hull consistent with regard to position. But, before the port covers are installed, a few other steps will probably be completed. first.

 

[DARIVS ARCHITECTVS]

, I've been waiting for this part for a long time. After attaching all the hinges to the remaining 44 gun port covers, I started work in the poop deck. The deck was planked with tanganika planks like the other decks. Nothing new there.

Then came the fun part, attaching the stern lanterns I assemble previously, and wiring them in to the Arduino Uno card. The card is programmed to flicker all lights for the ship in six separate circuits, each with its own random flicker. The last two circuits were reserved for the main stern lantern, and the set of two smaller stern lanterns. The fine hair-like wires of the lanterns were extremely delicate, and they feed voltage to the two nano-LED's in the main lantern and one nano-LED in each small lantern.

The deck was test fitted loose onto the poop deck for some long awaited pictures of the completed electrical lighting system. It's fantastic how the flicker of the LED's adds to the overall effect of lighting. Next step is to glue the poop deck down and finish making the bulwark planks and railings, and make the flag staff for the stern.

 

[Maarten]

Beautiful lanterns, however I would recommend to try to dim the lighting. Original these were candles creating a very dim light.

 

[DARIVS ARCHITECTVS]

Beautiful lanterns, however I would recommend to try to dim the lighting. Original these were candles creating a very dim light.

My cell phone makes the lanterns look like phosphorous flares. This photo is most accurate to what they look like. You can still look at them without being blinded.

 

[DARIVS ARCHITECTVS]

Lots of details were added today. The poop deck was glued to the hull. Trim and ladders leading up to the poop deck were made, and the railings were fabricated and installed, as was the flag staff. The last decoration for the stern was also glued in place, completing the stern. The railings for the forecastle are next. Things are truly looking better.

 

[DARIVS ARCHITECTVS]

The railings on the forecastle were completed. This time, the entire upper rail assembly was assembled, then glued as one piece to the forecastle. Taking good measurements and careful angle and positioning of the pillars allowed everything to line up. Sanding the ends of the pillars at slight angles to allow for the curvature of the transverse rails resulted in all the pillars being vertical when the railing was installed.

More ornamentation based on the engraving below was added. Fleur-de-lis were added to all the ends and corners of the railings as shown in the engraving. First these fleur-de-lis had to be made. I bought about 50 stamped tiny brass fleur-de-lis from Etsy.com. That site has tons of small items useful for modelling. Figuring a way to attach them to the railings was an interesting problem. The thinnest 7mm brass pins I had were used to attach each fleur-de-lis to the railings. The head of the pin was smashed flat with a pliers, forming a "T" shape. The pin is glued to one fluer-de-lis half, then the other half is glue on. Squeezing the halves together with a strong pliers forms the metal to fit around the shaft of the pin. The CA glue dries quickly, and the pin is now integral with the fluer-de-lis. The pin is then cut leaving 3mm sticking out of the bottom. An Archimedes drill is used to drill 0.5mm hole in the railing, and the decoration is glued with CA glue. The pins make the fleur-de-lis attachments pretty strong.

 

[Jimsky]

She is getting dressed nicely using fleur-de-lis, obviously with a great job of yours!!

 

[JArthurD]

Wonderful work for first time, you are no novice. Don

I concur. Makes me wonder what you did before modeling. I wish my first attempt looked half that nice.

 

[DARIVS ARCHITECTVS]

I concur. Makes me wonder what you did before modeling. I wish my first attempt looked half that nice.

Thanks to everyone for your kind remarks.

As Midshipman, we were all trained in naval architecture, marine engineering, machining, welding, and technical drafting. I sailed for 8 years on cargo vessels as a licensed Marine Engineer, mostly in the Far East. When I was 16 (I'm 56 now), I built a few square riggers, USS Constitution, Spanish galleon, Santa Maria, in plastic. Never stopped loving the sea. I trained as a medieval armourer in my 20's, and crafted all sorts of things from medieval weapons, armour, crossbows, and even a full size Greek ballista. The machine shop training at the Academy has served me all my life. Revisiting ship model building was inevitable. The skills are the same, just eeny weeny tiny. You just have to have patience and check the alignment and quality of everything you do. The costs in tools, Corel kit, accessories, wood, and other stuff is now $1568.22. That a lot more than expected, but well worth it. Then I saw Doris Obručová's HMS Sovereign of the Seas, and crapped my pants. If I build my SotS HALF as nice as hers, I'll be happy.

All the advice you all have provided in the forums, mostly in the form of historical information, tips and build logs, was the basis for making this first build possible. It's you guys I credit for making this model possible, because 90% of the work is really reading, studying other models, studying build logs collecting thousands of pictures you guys provide for reference. Making the individual parts is easy. Without guidance, planking a hull would have turned into quite a mess.

Thanks guys & gals!

Kurt Suleski

 

[DARIVS ARCHITECTVS]

Belaying pin rails were made and installed today on the upper deck. This pins are so tiny! Hope I don't break too many of them when rigging starts.

 

[DARIVS ARCHITECTVS]

Attachment of wales to the upper hull was begun. Their locations were taken off the kit drawings.


Final planking was started on the upper stern. This planking was provided in the kit. The blue stained wood is especially nice.


Final planking was done on the forecastle.


Stern decorations were glued to the transom.


The gun ports were opened through the final planking and wales on the quarterdeck. The wales were cut farther away from the openings to make room for the wreath decorations.


The two rearmost guns on the quarterdeck were forgotten. They were supposed to be installed before the bridge deck was laid over the top of them. So, dummy guns were fabricated and will be inserted and glued in place later. Please don't tell Paul!


Finished cutting the after quarterdeck gun ports.


Marking where the wales go between the gun decks.


Progress so far....

 

[DARIVS ARCHITECTVS]

Not much done lately. Caldercraft make the perfectly sized cathead ornaments, so I attached those after painting them gold. The pin rail for the beakshead was fabricated from walnut and installed with 9mm belaying pins from Falkonet. It just occurred to me that the hull is missing hundreds of nail heads. I have to buy some semi-gloss black enamel paint and use a thin 7mm brass pin to paint little nail heads on the hull by dabbing tiny dots of paint onto the wood. This will take a very long time, but it has to be done before the channels are made and attached.

 

[DARIVS ARCHITECTVS]

I've been debating how to add the iron nail heads to the hull planking for some time. Earlier, a few hundred tiny black pins were purchased just for that purpose. However, small as they were, they appeared to large and obvious even for the larger nails holding the wales on a 1:100 scale ship such as La Couronne. So it was decided to paint them with glossy black enamel paint, from a Testor's model paint set I've had since age 16! I can't believe the paint lasted this long without drying out, but it did. It's 39 years old! Taking a couple thin brass pins and sticking them into a piece of 4mm wood dowel, the heads could be used to make dots simulating the nail heads. Since the pin heads made dots too large, the head was cut off one of the new tools leaving only the shank of the pin, which was nipped off with some side cutters and sanded to recover the round shape of the end. It worked perfectly. What I thought would take weeks of time pushing hundreds of black pins now took less than an hour, and the results were pretty close to scale. Any dots that got smeared in the process by fumbling fingers were lightly sanded off and replaced with fresh paint. Nails were added to the wales, bulwark trim, and some major members of the beakshead. The work stopped there, so the hull didn't end up looking too riddled with black dots.

 

[DARIVS ARCHITECTVS]

A piece of wood dowel from the kit was selected by the closest matching diameter to the plans and cut to the specified length with and additional 20mm for the drill or lathe chuck to hold onto. To support the free end, the dowel was clamped into the lathe, and the center spindle on the back rest was used to dent the wood and mark the center. Then a small drill bit was used to deepen the hole to 1.5mm. A small spindle was clamped into the drill press vice and positioned under the drill press. The dowel was supported between that spindle and the drill press chuck. A sanding block with 80 grit sandpaper was used to rough out the taper of the mast, checking the diameter frequently with digital calipers. After shaping with 80 grit, 120 grit sandpaper was used, then the part was removed from the drill and sanded by hand to remove circumferential scratches, then polished with 1000 grit paper to a smooth finish. For the square portions of the masts that form the mastheads, the round areas were filed square with the dowel laying horizontal in a small vice. The vice jaws were set to control the amount of material removed. The part was rotated 90 degrees in the vice jaws and filed again and again, until the square masthead was formed and within the proper dimensions.

Smaller mast parts and yards are done using the same method except using the metal lathe. The tail stock does a great job supporting the end of the dowel, and even 2mm diameter parts can be sanded to shape. On the thinner parts, it's recommended to pinch the part with two hands between two pieces of sandpaper. This supports both sides of the part and prevents you from breaking it because of too much force it the transverse direction. For both lathe and drill, set the speed fairly high and apply sandpaper with a light touch. The ball on the masthead for the main mast was shaped with careful application of a triangular metal file, using light strokes while the part is spinning. You will be surprise how small in diameter you can make the parts without breaking them, if they are supported properly, and you sand from both sides at the same time.

For the mainmast, the main, top, and topgallant masts were completed today, and for the foremast, the main and top masts were shaped. The jib boom and the mainmast mainsail yard were also shaped. Tackling mast and yard construction had made me nervous, but making a few parts today was hugely confidence building, and they were made much faster than anticipated.

Pressing the center spindle into the end grain of the wood while the lathe is spinning will allow you to make a perfectly centered conical depression in the dowel. The wood fibers are simply crushed to make the depression. Do not push the center in too deep or the wood will split. This depression is used to support the end of the dowel while sanding.


A drill press with a center spindle supporting the bottom end of the dowel can also be used to taper masts and yards using two opposing sanding blocks.


The center spindle is held in a bench vise, and the dowel is held firmly between the center and the chuck above.


Only one sanding block is shown here. I use two on opposite sides of the dowel with the dowel pressed between them.


Completed, tapered bowsprit.


Mainmast with masthead squared off using hand files.


More mast parts.


Flag staff with the ball end shaped using long easy, low pressure cuts with a needle file while spinning in the lathe. The part of the dowel on the that the center spindle supported will be cut off, and the top of the ball shaped by hand sanding.


Flag staff after forming the ball.

 

[DARIVS ARCHITECTVS]

It occurred to me that before I start working on the masts and rigging, I should review all the details that other modelers have used on the hull of La Couronne, and use many of them before things get too crowded above deck. One of those I originally planned on making, but forgot, was the ship's bell. The bell I selected was purchased separately, and was in the box waiting to be installed. The design and position of the bell was chosen as the one Karl Faendrich used on his scratch built model. Taking some spare walnut, a Dremel power jig saw was used to cut out the top arch piece. Artesania Latina micro shaper was used to give it some shape, and it took a while to scrape the walnut into shape due to the hardness of American walnut and the unusual shape of the arch. The vertical and horizontal members of the bell assembly were also detailed using the micro shaper. You could spend all day adding details to each piece of this model and still only get one or two parts completed. The bell too 3 hours.

To install the bell assembly, The deck rail was carefully cut using a micro hand saw, and one of the rail pillars was removed to make room. Some Krylon matt spray varnish was applied to the assembly, before and after installation, to darken the wood and bring out the grain. It also does a great job of hiding any CA glue that wasn't scraped off while removing a portion of the rail. The final effect looks as if the bell was installed when it should have been installed 3 months ago.

 

[DARIVS ARCHITECTVS]

Another day making masts and yardarms. Using the metal lathe, two sanding blocks with 80 grit paper, facing one another and sandwiching each dowel, were used to taper the masts and yards in the South Bend metal lathe. For finer sanding, a 120 grit piece of sand paper was carefully folded over the part, and light pressure was used to remove the rough sanding marks. if a mast head needed to be formed at the top of a topmast, a triangular mill file was used to sharpen the inside edge where the masthead and mast meet. Very light strokes were used to prevent breaking the part, with was only 2mm in diameter at he base of the masthead. Then the file was applied edge on to cut into the wood to start forming the top of the ball shape of the mast head. The cut was part way through the wood so that it will not break off. The spindle of the lathe did a great job supporting the end of the mast at the masthead. After the topmasts were remove from the lathe, the excess wood was sawed off the masthead, and the final shape of the ball was sanded by hand. All the pieces were sanded longitudinally with 1000 grit sandpaper to polish them up.

Today the following parts were made. For the mizzen mast, the mizzen topmast, and mizzen yardarm were made. For the foremast, the main yardarm (not the yard for the main mast as shown in the photo), top mast and topgallant mast were made. For the spritsail mast, the spritsail topmasts were made. Some more yardarms remain to be made.