Hello everyone!
Like my father before me, I sailed merchant ships as an Engineering Officer, and have always loved square riggers. After eight years living aboard ship, seawater still flows in my veins twenty-five years later. I built several plastic ones as a boy, and now am returning to the hobby decades later, this time with experience in medieval weapon and armour smithing, carpentry, machining and other trade skills. A decision had to be made as to which era of sailing ship to choose.
The 17th century royal great ships peaked my interest because of their embellishment and style, set apart from the advanced, refined warships of the Lord Admiral Nelson's time. So, the first ship, what I consider my training vessel, is La Couronne c. 1636. It's an ambitious ship for a novice such as myself. EJ's La Couronne build on the Nautical Research Guild was an inspiration, and his build log serves me well as a guide, since plans alone are not sufficient for a first time project. I also purchased Deagostini's Sovereign of the Seas, all packages, and am saving that for building closer to retirement in 10-13 years. The challenge of the small scale of 1:100 of La Couronne is rather high, trying to include the level of detail I desire, plus the addition of either full or battle sails. Silkspan is the material that is planned to used for the sails. I hope I don't tear them to ribbons in the process! A ship isn't complete without sails, no matter that they block some of the view of the deck equipment.
Special note: Thanks to our administrator Donnie for help in construction this build log. The log originally started half way through construction, and the beginning steps were added over a year after the ship was finished. The posts for those steps were inserted at the beginning of the log, starting with the one below, in order to present the build steps in chronological order. Some of the dates for the posts may not be correct as a result, but now the build log is complete!
3/21/18 - The build begins
Right out of the box, it was apparent that the number of guns needed to be increased to 72, but this meant a complete rearrangement of the gun ports. Another builder of this model also added more gun ports, and his drawing of where he moved them was used as guidance for where I placed the gun ports as shown below. Since I had no idea how the frames of a 17th century ship would be spaced, I left the original kit's frame locations as is and placed guns around them.
The beginning of the build started like most kit builds. The upper gun deck was left flat, and it was decided that the lower gun deck would be installed and contain full cannon carriages instead of those silly half-barrels that Paul likes so much.
Per the instructions, 4mm x 0.5mm tanganyika strips were cut for deck planks and glued to the false deck. I was especially careful doing this because it was my first time. However, staining all four edges of each plank with a Sharpie pen turned out to create lines between planks that were too dark and thick to represent a deck on this scale of 1:100. In the next build, only one long side of each plank was thus stained, creating a more realistic appearance.
The deck is partially planked using a 5 plank shift pattern. Note the keel vise I made from ash wood in my shop. It will come in very handy later when you need to lean the masts toward you or tip the bow or stern up or down, since it is adjustable. The made the many hours of ratline tying much easier on my arms.
Like my father before me, I sailed merchant ships as an Engineering Officer, and have always loved square riggers. After eight years living aboard ship, seawater still flows in my veins twenty-five years later. I built several plastic ones as a boy, and now am returning to the hobby decades later, this time with experience in medieval weapon and armour smithing, carpentry, machining and other trade skills. A decision had to be made as to which era of sailing ship to choose.
The 17th century royal great ships peaked my interest because of their embellishment and style, set apart from the advanced, refined warships of the Lord Admiral Nelson's time. So, the first ship, what I consider my training vessel, is La Couronne c. 1636. It's an ambitious ship for a novice such as myself. EJ's La Couronne build on the Nautical Research Guild was an inspiration, and his build log serves me well as a guide, since plans alone are not sufficient for a first time project. I also purchased Deagostini's Sovereign of the Seas, all packages, and am saving that for building closer to retirement in 10-13 years. The challenge of the small scale of 1:100 of La Couronne is rather high, trying to include the level of detail I desire, plus the addition of either full or battle sails. Silkspan is the material that is planned to used for the sails. I hope I don't tear them to ribbons in the process! A ship isn't complete without sails, no matter that they block some of the view of the deck equipment.
Special note: Thanks to our administrator Donnie for help in construction this build log. The log originally started half way through construction, and the beginning steps were added over a year after the ship was finished. The posts for those steps were inserted at the beginning of the log, starting with the one below, in order to present the build steps in chronological order. Some of the dates for the posts may not be correct as a result, but now the build log is complete!
3/21/18 - The build begins
Right out of the box, it was apparent that the number of guns needed to be increased to 72, but this meant a complete rearrangement of the gun ports. Another builder of this model also added more gun ports, and his drawing of where he moved them was used as guidance for where I placed the gun ports as shown below. Since I had no idea how the frames of a 17th century ship would be spaced, I left the original kit's frame locations as is and placed guns around them.
The beginning of the build started like most kit builds. The upper gun deck was left flat, and it was decided that the lower gun deck would be installed and contain full cannon carriages instead of those silly half-barrels that Paul likes so much.
Per the instructions, 4mm x 0.5mm tanganyika strips were cut for deck planks and glued to the false deck. I was especially careful doing this because it was my first time. However, staining all four edges of each plank with a Sharpie pen turned out to create lines between planks that were too dark and thick to represent a deck on this scale of 1:100. In the next build, only one long side of each plank was thus stained, creating a more realistic appearance.
The deck is partially planked using a 5 plank shift pattern. Note the keel vise I made from ash wood in my shop. It will come in very handy later when you need to lean the masts toward you or tip the bow or stern up or down, since it is adjustable. The made the many hours of ratline tying much easier on my arms.
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