Heller Royal Louis a very nice kit

Nice work, attention to detail very apparent in both.

[quote user="goldhammer"]

Nice work, attention to detail very apparent in both.

Ditto! And I'll throw in a WOW!

Jim  

Really impressive work.

Happy Modeling   Crackers    

I'll double the wow and raise you a god damn.

This, and the rest of Gene's small-scale sailing ships, illustrate the high level of modeling that can be achieved in plastic!  Bless you, Gene!

Bill

Gene1;

    I love the way the deck is done .Now I have to tell you .I bought 24 tins of Humbrol " Deck Bleached Teak some years Before they stopped offering it .It has that Greenish Tan that Holystoned Teak has .

 Then the washes tone the planks . I still have twenty tins left .( I thin it till it is useless for anything but a wash ) Wish they still made it . T.B.    P.S. Don't do anything by half measures do you ? All is awesome . 

Thank you, all you guys. That is nice. I have been screwed up all of December, & haven't been able to build as much as I want. 

I really don't spend as much time as I want ever. Tank that deck color sounds great. Was it a full paint & you made it a wash, & what did you put it over ? What color. I used my old drafting pencils that take a full size lead & I sharpen them in my electric sharpener & darken the deck grooves with HB lead after I paint the deck. Then wash with raw umber & then burnt umber. 

   I do like MM acrylic, but that scum that forms on it in the bottle is a pain. It does brush beautifully tho. I still like Tamiya best for the long haul & it doesn't get old near as quick as MM. I have got to dullcote the Louis yet & hide my glue & bad spots.

   Thanks again to you all, this is a super forum, with the best model builders I have seen.  I told Bill this, I went to the doctor the other day for my worsening shaky right hand. He said it was just my shaky condition getting older , but then said, cross my heart, that a drink at night might help. After I kissed him, I told him I was way ahead of him. My wife was laughing all the way home. I have been going to him for over 20 years. Now he is a forever doctor.

Very nice!  You say that is a Heller kit?  What scale?

You are an inspiration to me.  I am 78, and notice some deterioration of eyesight and manual skills (tweezer skills and such).  Glad to see someone older still doing such work!

Gene,

Love to see you posting all you work, espeically the RR stuff.  So much talent.  You are right, the Royal Louis kit is a nice kit, if you can stomach all those little cannons.  I built it a number of years ago and the weak upper masts and spars made it challenge to rig, but when done, it looks impressive.  I really like your colors, very vibrant. 

Scott

Don & Scott, Thanks. This my favorite forum ever, gun sites included. I do love the PPK forum.  I bought pre war PPK's back in the 1950's for $35. 

   Don, I didn't know you were that old. I want to see more of your work. Have you had your cataracs out ? I did last year & my sight is good, but I have used Optivisor's for over 40 years. They are a big help. The shaky hand , I just hold my wrist on the edge of the desk & do my fine painting.  Holding a cup of coffee is another story.

   Scott, the Louis is 1/200 & I have mastered the rigging tool & love what it does for this size model. I am beyond tieing ratlines. Here is my first full shrouds with the tool on the Heller Sirene.

   Those are my Kleenex furled sails. The kit sails were too bad to use, so I did these that I had just done on 2 masts before. Soft tissue is the best for doing this. I spray a couple coats of hairspray on it & then cut it to size & stuff a little extra in the center 1/3 & fold it up  & tie it on to the spar & work it with my finger nails. I do spray a color on it before i put it on the spar. I haven't done the running riggig yet.

Usually furled sails on a sailing vessel are lowered on their spars to the position as shown on the above picture. Otherwise, the model looks great. Good work !

Happy modeling   Crackers,     

Hi Crackers, Explain that to me, is the spar itself lowered or are you saying that the sail is dropped on the spar. I knew this abour lowered furled sails, but never knew how much. Your picture doesn't look any different than my model, or what am I not seeing.

   My problem is even with my 75 years of building, There is a lot about some things I don't know & ships are my weakest point.  When I was building big wood models I never put on sails or furled sails. Glad you pointed it out.

When the sails are furled, the topsail and topgallant yards are lowered so they sit on the caps (the rectangular pieces that hold the mast sections together). The only yards that don't slide up and und down are the lowest ones. 

Also remember that, until about the middle of the nineteenth century, there was no sail on the crossjack yard (the lowest yard on the mizzenmast). 

Hope that helps.

Beautiful work on the ships and trains and great to see you're still going strong there at 86!

 John, thanks, & that is sort of what I thought because the picture Crackers put on does show the lower sail not moved. In the future if I drop the 2 top ones how far do they come down? You said to the caps & the crosstrees ? I guess I did know a lot of the terms in sailing ships, but it has been 35 years since I built my wood ones.

   Thanks again to everyone for the kind remarks, it is still a lot of fun for me to build models.

Generally, an eighteenth-century mast is made up of three pieces: lower mast, topmastes, and topgallant mast. They overlaps are called doublings. The heels of topmast and topgallant  masts sit on heavy timbers called trestletrees, which are fastened to the side of the mast below, several feet below the the top of that mast. The cap is a simple, rectangular chunk of wood with two holes in it. One slips down over extreme upper end of the lower mast. The upper section of mast slips down through the other hole in the cap until it's locked between the trestletrees. When the saiis are furled, yards are lowered till they rest on the caps. 

Is that clearer?

Yes John, it is clear so even I can understand it. The cap is the little piece with the 2 holes in it that the masts fit thru & the spars should be lowered to that if I furl the sails. Hows that for learning fast from a Professor. You could write a book,  Ship Modeling For Dummies.

    It took me forever to find out what to call a shroud table. Thanks.