Thank you for your kind words Andre. I enjoy your build log as well! Your careful approach is paying off big-time. As for me - I'm working on trying to make dummy guns look less dumb...we'll see...
Vasa - 1:65 DeAgostini [COMPLETED BUILD]
- Thread starter dockattner
- Start date
- Watchers 148
Early this week I set out to see what I could do to improve the dummy cannons that the kit calls for on the upper and lower gun decks. I tried a couple of things I saw on other builds but I could not replicate what others were doing - at least everything I tried was so fragile that it fell apart. After some (considerable) trial and error I ended up with the following...
Allow me to walk you through my approach. First I made the component parts:
Then I assembled the 'carriages' (I found that the longer bed gave me more gluing surface for the gun barrel which will be more clear in a moment).
Next, I added some simulated hardware...
And then cemented the barrels to the carriages:
I now give you what I have come to refer to as: Kurt from Minnesota Tribute Dummy Cannons (a bit of an inside joke - @DARIVS ARCHITECTVS is no fan of dummy guns
):
I've seen better but I am not disappointed. Making real carriages would have been the way to go but by the time I figured out that I was going to add some small enhancements to the kit it was too late for that.
I do appreciate that you stop by on occasion to see what I have been up to. Your interest in my build is quite motivating. Indeed, these dummy cannons are a direct product of this forum. I believe I would have just done normal dummy guns if I wasn't posting things on the SOS website. Thanks for motivating me to up my game!
Allow me to walk you through my approach. First I made the component parts:
Then I assembled the 'carriages' (I found that the longer bed gave me more gluing surface for the gun barrel which will be more clear in a moment).
Next, I added some simulated hardware...
And then cemented the barrels to the carriages:
I now give you what I have come to refer to as: Kurt from Minnesota Tribute Dummy Cannons (a bit of an inside joke - @DARIVS ARCHITECTVS is no fan of dummy guns
):I've seen better but I am not disappointed. Making real carriages would have been the way to go but by the time I figured out that I was going to add some small enhancements to the kit it was too late for that.
I do appreciate that you stop by on occasion to see what I have been up to. Your interest in my build is quite motivating. Indeed, these dummy cannons are a direct product of this forum. I believe I would have just done normal dummy guns if I wasn't posting things on the SOS website. Thanks for motivating me to up my game!
I now give you what I have come to refer to as: Kurt from Minnesota Tribute Dummy Cannons (a bit of an inside joke - @DARIVS ARCHITECTVS is no fan of dummy guns
I've seen better but I am not disappointed. Making real carriages would have been the way to go but by the time I figured out that I was going to add some small enhancements to the kit it was too late for that.
I do appreciate that you stop by on occasion to see what I have been up to. Your interest in my build is quite motivating. Indeed, these dummy cannons are a direct product of this forum. I believe I would have just done normal dummy guns if I wasn't posting things on the SOS website. Thanks for motivating me to up my game!
LALALALALALAH-Not Listening!
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Excellent Paul! I now wish I had allowed for a offset into the hull for faux carriages. I could have easily done it had I been thinking and not so intimidated at the time. Question, should those carriages be black like the deck canon ones or maybe the detail would fade off in the shadows without contrast??Early this week I set out to see what I could do to improve the dummy cannons that the kit calls for on the upper and lower gun decks. I tried a couple of things I saw on other builds but I could not replicate what others were doing - at least everything I tried was so fragile that it fell apart. After some (considerable) trial and error I ended up with the following...
Allow me to walk you through my approach. First I made the component parts:
View attachment 255703
Then I assembled the 'carriages' (I found that the longer bed gave me more gluing surface for the gun barrel which will be more clear in a moment).
View attachment 255704
Next, I added some simulated hardware...
View attachment 255706
View attachment 255705
And then cemented the barrels to the carriages:
View attachment 255707
I now give you what I have come to refer to as: Kurt from Minnesota Tribute Dummy Cannons (a bit of an inside joke - @DARIVS ARCHITECTVS is no fan of dummy guns
View attachment 255708
View attachment 255709
View attachment 255710
I've seen better but I am not disappointed. Making real carriages would have been the way to go but by the time I figured out that I was going to add some small enhancements to the kit it was too late for that.
I do appreciate that you stop by on occasion to see what I have been up to. Your interest in my build is quite motivating. Indeed, these dummy cannons are a direct product of this forum. I believe I would have just done normal dummy guns if I wasn't posting things on the SOS website. Thanks for motivating me to up my game!
You are correct Daniel. As you know the research at the museum indicates the carriages should be black (lampblack). I painted one of the extra ones black and it disappeared almost completely into the void so I opted to show these guns the way they are reconstructed at the museum (natural). That's quite a paradox isn't it? The museum people know the carriages were black - but they show them as unpainted in the exhibits...
Having said all that - nothing has been cemented into place so things could still change.
Wow, I think you've added some very fine detail with your cannon effort.
Jan
Jan
No Heinrich. They are pot metal castings that I tried to ’bronze’.
It was King Gustav’s dream to build this ship with identical armament throughout. This was a novel idea at the time but you can imagine the efficiencies onboard and in the supply chain if he could do it. Well, he couldn’t because of the amount of time it was taking to cast his new lighter weight 24 pounder cannons. In the end there were forty six 24 pounders on board and these went to the upper and lower gun decks. The weather deck was armed with a motley collection of old style 24 pounders (heavy and long) and some 3 pounders. I have tried to represent this collection of guns as best I could.
At the end of the day she ended up missing the King’s goal of 72 identical guns but her broadside was still 753 tons making her the baddest b**** on the sea at the time. Her cannons were worth more than the ship itself and eventually all but three of the barrels were salvaged.
It was King Gustav’s dream to build this ship with identical armament throughout. This was a novel idea at the time but you can imagine the efficiencies onboard and in the supply chain if he could do it. Well, he couldn’t because of the amount of time it was taking to cast his new lighter weight 24 pounder cannons. In the end there were forty six 24 pounders on board and these went to the upper and lower gun decks. The weather deck was armed with a motley collection of old style 24 pounders (heavy and long) and some 3 pounders. I have tried to represent this collection of guns as best I could.
At the end of the day she ended up missing the King’s goal of 72 identical guns but her broadside was still 753 tons making her the baddest b**** on the sea at the time. Her cannons were worth more than the ship itself and eventually all but three of the barrels were salvaged.
Nice history, but she never got to fire a single cannon!
The ship sunk in a matter of minutes on her maiden voyage, if I remember correctly?One question I have, is why the museum presents the ship unpainted, when every model I see is painted?
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Correct Dean. They were only moving her to another part of Stockholm Harbor when she rolled over.
She went down much as the Mary Rose did while Henry VIII watched helplessly from shore. Don’t leave your gun ports open unless you plan to use them right away!
I hope you don’t mind Paul if I jump in here to address Dean’s question.
The ship, once sunk, and besides numerous follow-up attempts to raise her (mainly with grappling equipment which did a lot of damage), was beneath the waters of Stockholm Harbour for over 300 years!! The evidence of paint and the poor quality of paint pigments then available, has led to considerable forensic research and study. For many years the belief and evidence suggested she had a blue topside colour. Only more recently was she determined to be a ‘Royal Red’ in keeping with the king’s extravagant style and wanting to indicate his status.
The many sculptures which adorn her flanks have long been known to have had elaborate and decorative paint. The sculptures on display in the museum have many painted replicas but the intact originals still attached to the ship are largely in the same degraded state they were when she was raised.
The low oxygen component of the Baltic Sea assisted significantly in the excellent condition that the Vasa was found, however, with the quality of the paint pigments and the time involved, the Vasa was still in remarkable condition, albeit without much visible evidence of her paintwork. The museum has always opted to retain the ship in an unrestored form for research and for history.
PeterG
The ship, once sunk, and besides numerous follow-up attempts to raise her (mainly with grappling equipment which did a lot of damage), was beneath the waters of Stockholm Harbour for over 300 years!! The evidence of paint and the poor quality of paint pigments then available, has led to considerable forensic research and study. For many years the belief and evidence suggested she had a blue topside colour. Only more recently was she determined to be a ‘Royal Red’ in keeping with the king’s extravagant style and wanting to indicate his status.
The many sculptures which adorn her flanks have long been known to have had elaborate and decorative paint. The sculptures on display in the museum have many painted replicas but the intact originals still attached to the ship are largely in the same degraded state they were when she was raised.
The low oxygen component of the Baltic Sea assisted significantly in the excellent condition that the Vasa was found, however, with the quality of the paint pigments and the time involved, the Vasa was still in remarkable condition, albeit without much visible evidence of her paintwork. The museum has always opted to retain the ship in an unrestored form for research and for history.
PeterG
Thanks Peter.
I can understand the research reasoning on the paint. But as you know, typically wood subjected to the elements was painted or clear coated to help preserve it. I think it would look a lot better painted, verses the current state. And it would help preserve the wood. But maybe their research work is not done, and therefore it’s more beneficial to leave it unpainted?
Dean,
There is an interesting paper “The use of colours on the seventeenth century royal warship Vasa” by Peter Tångeberg which details much of the research and in particular the colours which were used.
I think this paper was available as a PDF but if you can’t find it, let me know.
As it says on the museum’s website:
“Painted in bright colours and with several hundred sculptures, Vasa was a colossal work of art that would make the rest of Europe admire and fear King Gustav II Adolf. An advertising campaign from seventeenth-century Sweden with an enormous budget.
Vasa was not just a warship; it was also intended to be a grand display window for Sweden and King Gustav II Adolf. There were over 700 sculptures and decorations on the ship. The splendour aimed at impressing spectators, but also carried a clear message.”
PeterG
There is an interesting paper “The use of colours on the seventeenth century royal warship Vasa” by Peter Tångeberg which details much of the research and in particular the colours which were used.
I think this paper was available as a PDF but if you can’t find it, let me know.
As it says on the museum’s website:
“Painted in bright colours and with several hundred sculptures, Vasa was a colossal work of art that would make the rest of Europe admire and fear King Gustav II Adolf. An advertising campaign from seventeenth-century Sweden with an enormous budget.
Vasa was not just a warship; it was also intended to be a grand display window for Sweden and King Gustav II Adolf. There were over 700 sculptures and decorations on the ship. The splendour aimed at impressing spectators, but also carried a clear message.”
PeterG
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Things have been quiet on the SOS forum today so I thought I would post a progress report to see if anyone is out there.
Deciding what to do next has been difficult for me. I have been reluctant to install fragile things hoping to save the more vulnerable components for later in the build. But installing the cannons on the weather deck has irrevocably made my ship fragile so I thought I would just proceed with installing the cannons on the gun decks along with the gun port covers. I am confident I will regret this decision in the future but so be it.
Veterans of this build log might recall that I prefabricated the gun port covers festooned with lion heads months ago. At that time I chose to fabricate faux hinges and strapping from copper wire and predrill attachment points above each gun port:
This week I installed all 52 Kurt from Minnesota Tribute Dummy Guns (including the two rearward facing guns on the stern) along with the gun port covers.
My prefabrication of the covers was a partial failure. The tolerances I allowed for installation were more than my technique could bear and I either intentionally or unintentionally snapped off 'hinges' on about half of the covers. This was an easy fix but frustrating nonetheless.
I chose to present the gun port covers fully open. I realize this was unlikely in real life but I wanted to display the lion heads in all their ferocious glory (and the 1:10 model at the Vasamuseet shows them this way as well).
Here are the results after many, many hours of fiddly work:
Note to self: resist the urge to build a First Rate Ship of the Line in the future (136 guns on the Santisima Trinidad!!!).
This was a tedious undertaking with only 52 cannons and covers. Respect to those who choose to take on these big ships!
Going forward my tentative plan right now is to try to fabricate the upper railings - but I should have done something different when I made the head rails so now I have increased the level of fabrication challenge. Not sure how this next bit will turn out but the attempt must be made.
As always, I am humbled that you would take the time away from your own builds to visit.
Deciding what to do next has been difficult for me. I have been reluctant to install fragile things hoping to save the more vulnerable components for later in the build. But installing the cannons on the weather deck has irrevocably made my ship fragile so I thought I would just proceed with installing the cannons on the gun decks along with the gun port covers. I am confident I will regret this decision in the future but so be it.
Veterans of this build log might recall that I prefabricated the gun port covers festooned with lion heads months ago. At that time I chose to fabricate faux hinges and strapping from copper wire and predrill attachment points above each gun port:
This week I installed all 52 Kurt from Minnesota Tribute Dummy Guns (including the two rearward facing guns on the stern) along with the gun port covers.
My prefabrication of the covers was a partial failure. The tolerances I allowed for installation were more than my technique could bear and I either intentionally or unintentionally snapped off 'hinges' on about half of the covers. This was an easy fix but frustrating nonetheless.
I chose to present the gun port covers fully open. I realize this was unlikely in real life but I wanted to display the lion heads in all their ferocious glory (and the 1:10 model at the Vasamuseet shows them this way as well).
Here are the results after many, many hours of fiddly work:
Note to self: resist the urge to build a First Rate Ship of the Line in the future (136 guns on the Santisima Trinidad!!!).
This was a tedious undertaking with only 52 cannons and covers. Respect to those who choose to take on these big ships!
Going forward my tentative plan right now is to try to fabricate the upper railings - but I should have done something different when I made the head rails so now I have increased the level of fabrication challenge. Not sure how this next bit will turn out but the attempt must be made.
As always, I am humbled that you would take the time away from your own builds to visit.
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Hi Paul
Great progress and beautiful lion heads on the gun ports.
Fantastic job as usual
Great progress and beautiful lion heads on the gun ports.
Fantastic job as usual
Your log is such an enjoyable read Paul and with the quality of your work it continues to inspire.
As to the open gun port covers I have to agree, after all that minuscule painting, the lions should be proudly displayed.
As to the open gun port covers I have to agree, after all that minuscule painting, the lions should be proudly displayed.
Paul that looks fantastic! There is no way I would not display the lions heads after the work you put into them! This ship is really going to be beautiful, and I’m sure a nice stand and case are in order!
Ps - the Norske Love has 72 cannons…so I have that to look forward to!
Inspiring!