Montanes by OcCre built by Mallacoota

[mallacoota]

Starting this after the hull partly completed because the early stuff is a bit repetitive and boring. Going OK... My own personal opinion is that the parts quality is a little below Amati but I am sure they would disagree. The ladder components poorly cut, and some of the complex bow supports just simply dont fit as intended no matter what you do with them. So a little kit bashing needed during progress but pretty good kit really so far. Main shortcoming certainly that the real ship was coppered at Trafalgar but there is no copper in the kit or even mention of it. The only planking is 2mm x 5mm mahogany which is nice looking wood but very brittle and a challenge to bend the stern particularly.I bought roll of 6mm adhesive copper tape from Artesania Latina ( ansolutely excellent) and their rivet imprinting tool ( absolutely useless IMHO).

 

[sevish]

Nicely done.
the bow indeed little bit tricky,but wait for the stern gallery

 

[Jack Sparrow]

very well done. congratulations

 

[mallacoota]

 

[Swiftie]

Really nice ship, great job

 

[Magic Mike]

Nicely done and great detail. Magic Mike

 

[Stuart Little]

Good work, shipmate. The wood in my kit was pretty good, but the metal bits were awful & I had two of the same hand of the stern gallery bases. OcCre sent me 'dog-bones' as replacement part! I couldn't be bothered to try again so I made a pair from pearwood, & replaced the tops with same. As for those metal gunport frames & lids - they're residing still on a shelf - apart from being almost impossible to drill , I discarded the frames & made the lids from wood. I also re-made the head rails etc from solid wood as I did on several other inappropriate metal 'bits'.

 

[mallacoota]

Thanks for the encouragement Stuart. Really appreciate it. I must say with no preconceived bias I am strongly of the view that OcCre kits are very much inferior to Amati Victory series ...having built 3 x Amati and 2 X OcCre..I think the OcCre kits are very average quality.
I made a major stuff up on Montanes in that i got the gunport setting up all wrong and as a result cant do the realistic hingeing that Wolfgang Zinn has done so beautifully ( see Youtube) I am really really pissed at myself for this but as they say in the classics ...s**t happens. I will cover it up a bit by fixing the gunport lids open and adding ropes. What can you say..??
Still, notwirhstanding the above I think the model will be just fine, the problem is that I really set out to make every one better than the last and of course that becomes increasingly difficult by definition....and the last one..(Amati Pegasus) looks really good so I have set a bar a bit higher than I can handle...LOL

 

[mallacoota]

 

[mallacoota]

The guns are a bit disappointing...cast metal carraiges which really dont allow for anything more than a basic breech rope. Just confirming my view that OcCre have an inflated view of the quality of this expensive kit. It will be OK on the night...




These are the gunport lids I stuffed up...they are glued in place rather than on hinges. My problem entirely.




ooops...a runaway cannon ball

 

[Stuart Little]

The guns are a bit disappointing...cast metal carraiges which really dont allow for anything more than a basic breech rope. Just confirming my view that OcCre have an inflated view of the quality of this expensive kit. It will be OK on the night...

View attachment 518542


These are the gunport lids I stuffed up...they are glued in place rather than on hinges. My problem entirely.

View attachment 518543


ooops...a runaway cannon ball

I guess that's better than a loose cannon!
The first things I did was discard those metal gun port frames & lids & made wooden lids, the same with the gun carriages, for which I made wooden ones.

 

[mallacoota]

Yep....good decision

 

[mallacoota]

balustrading done , plus capstans and a bit of other minor stuff like flag lockers

 

[mallacoota]

There are no brass strops provided for the lower shroud deadeyes, the kit suggests just stropping them with thread. Yeah well I guess thats what I will have to do. Becoming inceasingly disillusioned by this kit which when bought direct from OcCre cost me $1600 aud landed here...I would value it at half that. I should have learned from the previous OcCre kit ( Endurance) which I was disappointed in. Personally I will never touch another OcCre kit under any circumstances. Thats not to say others may have another equally valid view.

 

[kuba91nt]

There are no brass strops provided for the lower shroud deadeyes, the kit suggests just stropping them with thread. Yeah well I guess thats what I will have to do. Becoming inceasingly disillusioned by this kit which when bought direct from OcCre cost me $1600 aud landed here...I would value it at half that. I should have learned from the previous OcCre kit ( Endurance) which I was disappointed in. Personally I will never touch another OcCre kit under any circumstances. Thats not to say others may have another equally valid view.

Good topic. Each set is the same, no matter how much it is not worth its price. For price of this set you would easily buy a monograph from ANCRE and 2 good tools for work, question is whether you want a ready model or you want to struggle with the project from scratch. Another option is to buy a model for complete modification, e.g. my Santa Ana where i completely replace everything, and that was purpose of this purchase because there are no plans for this vessel. Personally, i will not buy any ready-made set anymore, unless it is phenomenal. Others on market are pure money scams.

 

[mallacoota]

Good topic. Each set is the same, no matter how much it is not worth its price. For price of this set you would easily buy a monograph from ANCRE and 2 good tools for work, question is whether you want a ready model or you want to struggle with the project from scratch. Another option is to buy a model for complete modification, e.g. my Santa Ana where i completely replace everything, and that was purpose of this purchase because there are no plans for this vessel. Personally, i will not buy any ready-made set anymore, unless it is phenomenal. Others on market are pure money scams.

well i wouyld have disagreed a year ago but not now

 

[mallacoota]

Some more progress




I had a bit of troublke installing the chainplates where I went from the plans and they clearly required 70 chainplates...35 per side. I can do much but I can count. There were insufficient fittings... so I thought..why not..? and emailed OcCre. They respondede promptly to agree the plan I was looking at was wrong and I needed to look at a different plan where they had combined two shrouds onto one chainplate ( twice) reducing the requirement for brass fittings... Okaaaayyyy!!!

I am determined to produce a decent static model out of this notwithstanding the little obstacles I have met. If anyone wants to see this model built by a master look up Wolfgang Zinn build on Youtube. He is really really good, and unlike me, doesnt whinge about the kit.

One comment I would make is that while no copper is supplied, the ship was definitely coppered...I did it with adhesive backed 6mm copper tape and used the Artesania imprinting tool. The roll of copper tape wa excellent, sticks well, very easy, looks good. The imprinting tool I could not get a satisfactory result with and ended up binning it. But the 50M roll of tape for about $20 was excellent....it was fro Artesania too... dont know why I stuffed up the rolling imprint tool but I couldnt get it to do the job. In fact it really doesnt matter much unless you look really closely.

My Caldercraft Victory just arrived after moths waiting... will be great to work on a quality kit again.

 

[mallacoota]

Masts well underway

 

[mallacoota]

Hint...Lacing shroud lanyards.
I have found that sometimes when you tension your shroud lanyards the completed setting doesnt sit square as you would like it and tends to rotate. I was having this problem with the top shrouds of Montanes and I determined to beat it... the thread from OcCre tends to twist to the left when you tension it.... so the solution is to put ONLY the first hole through ( aft/top/inboard) and if you pull down on it it will spin left. Hold it and do the next threading as usual in the "held" position and from then on just continue. When you tension the lanyard at the end it will sit straight.

Another interesting but slightly OTT detail I uncovered is that the shroud tails are always bent up and fastened on the aft side of the standing shroud on Port...and fwd side of the shroud on Starboard. Really..?. some of the pointless things that became standard practise beggar belief. The beginning of the lanyard reeving is always from inboard, but always on the opposite side of the shroud seized standing end. So on Port the lanyards begin upper/inboard/forward and thus on starboard, the reeving starts upper/inboard/aft...in each case opposite to the seized shroud tail.
I suspect this is a case of...who the heck cares..?. but sometime in the 15th century someone read in the tea leaves that this was how it should be done.

see.. The Anatomy of Nelsons Ships DR C Longridge.