Thanks Wouter!
Here is the next installment!
Besides the guns, I have been working to get the Redoutable started for some time already. Since there is no kit in this scale, it will be fully scratchbuilt.
Since the gun ports will be open, I need a hollow hull. I opted for vacuum forming two hull halves, in between which I can fit decks etc. For this, a mould needs to be made.
This started with plans, which I took from Boudriot’s magnificent ‘the 74 gun ship’.
These were scaled to 1/300, and printed multiple times. Ribs were cut out according to all the station lines.
But since the mould will be on the inside of the vacuum formed plastic, the thickness of the plastic needs to be subtracted from them. The thickest part of the hull, at the lower gun ports, is 1,5mm in 1/300, so I cut the ribs 1,5mm smaller than each station line.
But of course, the hull is not of equal thickness from top to bottom: the hull sides are thinner near the weather decks. So I make the mould for the outside of the vacform parts to be correct, and I will later sand the inside thinner towards the top.
These paper templates were transferred to plastic sheet, cut out and glued together. I kept both hull halves separate.
Next, the space in between the ribs was mostly filled with scrap plastic sheet.
And the final voids were filled with Magic Sculp epoxy putty.
This was carefully sanded, using the ribs as a guide.
Now, both hull halves were attached to a thick baseplate. This leaves some space near the bottom, in case webbing is created by the vacforming.
The space in between the hull halves is filled so the vacformed parts will smoothly continue over the top of the hull instead of sharply bending downwards. Again, first plastic sheet was used for most of the volume…
… followed by Magic Sculp and sanding.
Next, the surface was smoothed further by spraying it with Motib spray filler, sanding, spraying more filler, sanding, etc.
And finally, a coat of primer was applied to reveal any imperfections, and the mould was ready. Making this mould was not really difficult, but I have to admit it was more time-consuming than I anticipated.
Now, the same friend who will cast the guns, took the mould and vacformed the basic hull parts for me. He did a fantastic job! Perfectly formed, and no webbing at all.
Now I can start the laborious task of cutting out correctly both hull halves and opening up all the gun ports…
Cheers,
Marijn
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