HMS Victory and Le Redoutable at Trafalgar (1/300)

[Martocticvs]

That makes more sense; they look far too fiddly to have to assemble each one!

I thought the Royal Navy had eliminated the stool bed by this time, and just used the bed bolt instead?

[Milan Kuliffay]

Marijn excellent work.
A really good example of how to do it without the original construction kit.

[Silenoz]

Nice work and beautiful castings... enjoy cleaning and assembling.

[marijn van gils]

Many thanks guys!

Milan, maybe we meet again this weekend?

That makes more sense; they look far too fiddly to have to assemble each one!

Yep, but now they are quite fiddly to clean up... The sides are 0,3 to 0,5mm, and I have to take it slow to prevent crushing them. But at least this way, they are all exactly identical. If I would have to assemble them, there could be some minor misalignement issues.

I thought the Royal Navy had eliminated the stool bed by this time, and just used the bed bolt instead?

No idea to be honest! I'm just copying the plans in Anatomy of the ship, and photo's of the reconstructions on the real Vic.
What does a bed bolt look like? It is a hard term to google...

[Martocticvs]

Sorry, I was mis-remembering. I blame them for not using sufficiently distinct terminology!

Older carriages had a bed, which was basically a base plate that the sides (called brackets) where mounted on. This was done away with by about 1725. The carriage then retained the same basic form and features until sometime in the naval artillery dark ages of the 1820s-1840s, when they became much more complex (but there are no decent reference books covering that period).

The bed bolt is the iron bar that runs across the carriage, a little behind the middle. And then you are quite right to be using the stool bed, which is a board that was notched under the front to sit over the bed bolt, and at the rear rest on the rear axle tree. And then on top of that were placed the quoins for elevation.

[Milan Kuliffay]

Milan, maybe we meet again this weekend?

Marijn, we see.
We'll be there with Jan on Sunday morning. Will you show the unfinished HMS Victory?

[aaron_at_midway]

It was an honor seeng your ship dioramas personally at Moson, Marijn! Victory and Le Redoutable were also fantastic, I'm lookng forward the progress on those little beauties!

�ron

[marijn van gils]

Thanks Martocticvs!

Many thanks Milan and Aaron! That was a great weekend...

And now Le Redoutable as she looked last weekend, with the basic structure of the bow and stern added:

The bow is starting simple:


The stern is a bit more complex than Victory, as it had an open stern gallery. I first made the deck for that stern gallery. Then I added the bulkhead with openings for windows and doors. Following this, I also added decks/supports for the quarter galleries.


The parts above are firmly glued in place. The large decks inside the ship remain removable though. The poop deck rests on top of the bulkhead of the stern gallery, doubling as the roof of the stern gallery.


The face of the stern was cut in one piece. This will remain detachable to ease painting of the stern gallery and the inside of the quarter galleries.


A lot of details still have to follow, but the main structure is there!
The outer two windows on each side of the upper gun deck will be closed again later, as they were mock windows on the real ship.


I also added the whales:


Cheers,

Marijn

[marijn van gils]

Time has come to add details to the hull.

I have always found the beakhead bows of man �o war extremely aesthetically pleasing, so that is where I started. It is also one of the most complex parts of the ship�

I started by adding the cheeks. The two main pieces on each side were cut, carved and sanded from plastic sheet. When glued in place, two grooves were cut. In these, twisted copper was glued. These were flanked by two lengths of stretched sprue. Finally, hawse holes were drilled in the hull, and slots for the head timbers were cut in the top of the cheeks.




Next, the head timbers and main rail were cut and carved from plastic sheet and installed. This was probably the most critical phase for getting all proportions and shapes to end up correct and symmetrical. The cross pieces were added in between the two main rails from stock square plastic rod.




Now the lower and middle rails could be added, completing the lower part of the beakhead. At the top, carlings were added in between the cross pieces.




Gratings were now added, cut from a generic PE sheet. Also the cathead and their supports were installed.




Finally, the last details were added: ladders, seats of ease, false rails (ridged pieces on top of main rails), knightheads, hinges on the doors and bowchase ports, �




And as a reminder of the scale of this model:



Of course, the figurehead still needs to be added, but I'll first detail the stern and get 'back into' sculpting on that area first.

Cheers,

Marijn

[GewoonWouter]

That's just superimpressive mate! Well done!

[EJFoeth]

Great progress! Didn't notice the putty at the flanks of the twisted wire at first (phone screen not very good). I think I like the cut-to-size PE most

[Dan K]

Outstanding work, Marijn!

[kurusu]

Remarkable work.

[Silenoz]

stunning work on that bow... I think you've heard it a million times yet, but incredible craftmanship... I know, carefull preparation and basic skills like cutting and sanding, but masterly done...

[marijn van gils]

Many thanks everyone!

Didn't notice the putty at the flanks of the twisted wire at first (phone screen not very good).

That isn't putty, but (gray) stretched sprue.
But to be fair, there is Magic Sculp visible nearby, filling the gaps around the cheeks and the head timbers, and it looks exactly the same...

And this little addition (decorative carving) is Magic Sculpt too:


Cheers,

Marijn

[EJFoeth]

That is very cute (I looked at some pics of the "real thing" (other models) but they don't show this floral woodwork?)

[marijn van gils]

This is not Victory, but Le Redoutable, the French 74-gun ship. The exact decoration of it is not known, so I mostly follow the plans of Boudriot in 'the 74 gun ship'. But the few existing period plans of French 74's of that period do show some kind of floral decoration in that location.

This is a beautiful 1/72 scale model according to the same plans by Jacques Fichant. You can just make out the carving.


Cheers,

Marijn

[EJFoeth]

Thanks for that image; makes the streched sprue more clear as well.

[marijn van gils]

[wefalck]

What is actually your preferred method to smooth down styrene - diamond files, sandpaper, steel-wool, ... ?