airfix Royal Sovriegn

It's a grand old kit - though an old one. My only two real criticisms: there's no detail on the inside of the bulwarks, and the guns below the weather decks are "dummies" that plug into those shallow square depressions. I'd suggest gluing the gunports closed.

The potential definitely is there for a fine model.

My plan is to drill out the gun ports on one side(they would only do a broad side on one side) then make a false deck and guns for those decks, that's the plan anyway

One thing that's always puzzled me about that kit is the name. The ship was commissioned in 1637 with the name Sovereign of the Seas. She had a long, active career, and two name changes: she was renamed Sovereign in 1651 and Royal Sovereign in 1685 (on the eave of the Glorious Revolution). She underwent a major rebuild in the 1660s, emerging from it with the official label "ship of the line." Not a whole lot seems to be known about her in the way of details, but there are several contemporary paintings of her at various points in her career. It's pretty clear that during that 1660s refit the bow structure was extensively redesigned and rebuilt; she came out of the refit looking quite different than she had originally. And that was twenty years or so before she was renamed Royal Sovereign.

I'm no expert on seventeenth-century English warships, but it certainly looks to me like the Airfix kit represents the ship as she was built. So it seems to me that the model ought to be labeled Sovereign of the Seas.

Arthur Ward's The Boy's Book of Airfix (I really don't like that title) says it was one of Airfix's first two sailing ships (the other being the Endeavour). Both, according to Mr. Ward, were originally released in 1963. Considering its age, it's a mighty nice kit.

You Know ;

      I have that kit and some others in my stash . I was always intrigued by the moldings compared to what we have today .

     It seems that many have been called but few have served . Engravers I mean . Can you imagine being the guy or team of guys engraving that mold ?

   I can't be helped being impressed . My Foster dad was a tool and die maker and his work was incredible even back in the fifties . Imagine how I felt when he showed me how to make a mold to create a sand casting .

    Then he explained the whole process on " Bring Your Children " day at the plant . His office was a shrine to detail that always stuck with me .

   These ships keep bringing back those memories to me . They can look grand even being " OLD " in terms of when they were new and fabulous .       Tanker - Builder

I chalk that up to marketing .

    Even today the folks in marketing haven't a clue about what they are doing . Never did .

Yes machine skills are a memory now. I was just reading Burns' forward to his book "The War". He was describing Waterbury CT as the brass capital of the world. Everyone employed there could work at 0.0001", and quite a few at "zero" tolerance if needed.

Well we arrived safely in Egypt.  

I know what you mean, it's not as if all they had to do was recreate the mouldings they had to.work out how to do it in such a way as to get it out of the injection process as well, I don't think we have the skills as good today as we had then, without computers nowadays they would be lost.

There is one detail about that kit that I really appreciate.  There are no wood or plank engravings on the exterior hull.  I have often found that plastic kit manufacturers overstate the planking on sailing ships when these details should actually be minimized, especially in the small scales of the kits.  I know that when I observe real sailing ships like the Charles Morgan in Mystic, I hardly see the hull planking, and I certainly do not see the wood grain on those planks. Therefore, I tend to sand my hulls down to minimize the effect.

This observation has helped me in building the Le Superbe and Le Glorieux by Heller, which molded on the wood grain but no planks. The Sovereign of the Seas/Royal Sovereign by Airfix, to me, got it right.

Bill Morrison

Hi all well back off hols and made a tentative start on this one

http://i.imgur.com/B5WyJd5.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/rJabqtM.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Mv2SATH.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/WCtvjF6.jpg

The kit comes with stubby half cannons for the lower decks( I may live to regret this but Ive decided to open up the gun ports and make some whole guns to put behind them, since they are below decks and you wont see much of them they wont need to be too detailed or accurate, and I am only doing one side as they would never do a broadside on both sides, I mean what admiral in his right mind would choose to take the risk of a broadside on both sides at the same time) also it means I've only got to make 30 guns and carriages. I also have to make part decks for one side.

http://i.imgur.com/ASzuhCp.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/HTF40ha.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/34NWDqI.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/AoMynZ7.jpg

Great looking, nuts. I suggest you paint the glazing gloss black, I think it might look a little more real. Looking forward to this, good work.

Hi all here is tonight update

hi all here is what ive done now

Oh I would say it really is. Having the ship black makes it subtle, I think it helps.

Hi all decided to guild this side before I put the top guns in as it will be harder when they are poking out.

Hi all did a bit on the gold on this side

my goodness ., wow!!!!

Hi all here is an update on this one

I really admire your painting skills.  My only question is whether the ship was painted black.  What is your source?

Bill

Lots of stuff on the net about her plus the instructions say so

I'm pretty sure the black is correct - though I'm not sure how far down it extended. Bjorn Landstrom's painting of her in his masterpiece The Ship shows the black, if I remember right (questionable) serving as a ground for the gold decorations, with natural wood (probably oiled) from the lowest gold rail downward. But I don't think anybody can say for certain that the entire hull above the waterline wasn't black.

That idea of black as a background color for ornamentation seems to have been standard English practice for a long time. Most of the "Board Room models," if painted at all, seem to have that scheme - though blue sometimes turns up.

This is shaping up into a fine model. Good luck.

This one is moulded in brown personally I like the French habit of blue and gold, that is a superb colour combo imho

You've an excellent memory, John. Landstrom on pages 152-153 shows brown below the wale that's above the middle gun deck, with the wales a darker sort of chocolate color.

That's as I have always seen models and paintings of her, black background for the gold ornamentation, and natural wood with chocolate brown wales.  I have seen models of her with a white hull below the waterline, but I doubt that scheme.  Anyway, this is why I asked the question.  By the way, I mean no criticism of the excellent job kpnuts is doing.

Bill

Bill I have to say the instructions call for gloss white below the waterline, which I have to say I thought a bit odd, I can't see gloss of any kind staying gloss for long in salt water, but what colour if not white would it have been, as for the chocolate brown below the gun Wales I could see that as being how she would have been and am perfectly happy to change that, by the way my mates call me ken

I should mention, Ken, I'm no expert but was inclined to answer John's question, and I do like Landstrom. He shows white as either a bootstripe (not likely) or the below the waterline color (likely and flat). It's a painting of the ship in the water after all. The lower gun port lids are red on the inside, the middle deck lids white with a red cross squarely on them. Very smart.

Following this  with admiration.

The instructions say nothing about the inside of the gun ports but I see that as being right as when I built the hms prince that was red inside the gun ports, I have also managed to get the Airfix wasa, which apparently the colours are all wrong on, that is going to need lots of research.

Thanks Ken,

We are now opening another can of worms . . . the white hull below the waterline.  As John can testify, the Wasa has been shown to have not been painted below the waterline, that she might have had a pitch coating or that she could have had bare wood.  I have seen illustrations showing the Sovereign of the Seas the same way. Other coatings could have been a mixture of tar and horsehair (very dark) to a tallow color (a yellowish-white color).  She may have even been painted white. John is more well-versed in this than I, and I hope that he weighs in on this.

Bill

Hi all here is another update.

Hi all I've decided to do something different with this and it involves this

It flickers just like a real candle and the other one is kaput so I developed a cunning plan so, off with the transom

can you guess where this is going
drilled out the windows

then removed the rest of the window
yes thats right I'm going to RC it, only joking, lighting up the state cabins.