Building a Revell 1/96 Spanish Galleon.

  Fright, Thank you a lot. Even tho he was 65 , he was there to help us.

My condolenses to the  family and friends for his loss. Gene was one of the first people that helped me with advice and encouragemnt when I started building model ships. I'm so sorry for Gen's loss. Here is to remembering the good that is in us all!

For those members who follow Gene Fosters (gene1) activity on this forum, Gene's family has suffered a loss.  I was asked to provide some details to those who faithfully follow his recent Posts.

Hey Gene ;

 No problem Big Guy ! I have had a plate full too . Between the Rail museum and the LEGO group and our LEGO Convention I am tuckered . 

 The " A " got a metal"Pill" with tube ( Soldered ) that goes in the crank-case . Gotta be able to check the oil ! Fenders polished and chassis in building jig .

Hi Tank, I am sorry I haven't answered, but I have been overloaded with fixing things in the house. My lav faucett went out & that was a big job for an old man. Crawling under the sink for hours was too much for an old man.

  I will try to get some plans to send you as soon as I can figure the best way.

Gene1;

 Hey you better git ! There's a sea monster comong up from under to get the ship ! LOL. Very Nice work my friend .

My Gosh ! 

 I do believe that looks like the IMAI Spanish galleon Kit . By the way Imai's kit plastic was made of something sensitive to styrene glue but reacted well to wood stains !

Gene1 and Don .

    Hey guys , don't waste your money on P.E. rails for those boats . Preiser and others make some very nice railings and wrought iron to decorate these with . You bet I would love a set of plans ! 

Hey Gene1;

 Wassup , da pichures dint come thru !

Yes, Alan Bates was his name. He lived in Louisville & we stopped by to see him and his train/ boat layout. He also built a very large model of the boat they found in the Missouri River for a museum up there. He said everything was like new & even the lamb was still good, but putrified as soon as air hit it. He said the trade shirts were still folded& dry. It was like the Cairo & covered right away with mud & it sealed it.

   We had been up to Marion Ohio several times to see everything riverboat & I called Alan & asked if he had a plan of the Betsy Ann & he gave me the name of a lady in Marion who had a son, an architect in CA., who drew a complete set of plans for the Betsy. He and I got together & he sent me a free set of plans & I built the Betsy from them. I could have built the real boat from them. He also sent me a bunch of pictures & info. He was a fighter pilot in Viet Nam. Real nice guy.  I need to finish it soon.

  Also the architect's grandfather owned & ran the Betsy, Neat,huh. Have you ever been to Little Big Horn, it is really spooky there in a way & gives you a feeling unlike a lot of places.  Oh, I also have some riverboat plans by Alan Bates that you or Tanker might want. Let me know.                       Gene

gene1

  Don, wasn't the far west the one that Custer was on? At first I thought it was the one that sunk in the Missouri river up by Iowa. I knew the man, & I can't think of his name, that wrote the book on building model riverboats. He was also the architect that designed the big Mississippi river boats. I used to go see his train layout ,with riverboats, & he also told me an architect that drew the Betsy Ann.  He is where I got the plans for it. 

  Don, if you read, I had the Betsy plans blown from 1/96 to 1/87 so I could use all HO windows & details on it. If you have any idea where I could get PE railings made for my Betsy, I could finish it. Let's see pictures of your boat.

 

 

Yes, the Far West accompanied the Custer expeditition, and set a record time returning from the Big Horn back to fort after picking up remnants of the expedition!

For the book author, do you mean Alan Bates?  My plans are by a well-known source of steamship plans, but my name memory is like yours.  I'll look at them later today.

I know Tom's Modelworks has 1:72 railings, but I have not been impressed with PE railings at that big a size. 

  Don, wasn't the far west the one that Custer was on? At first I thought it was the one that sunk in the Missouri river up by Iowa. I knew the man, & I can't think of his name, that wrote the book on building model riverboats. He was also the architect that designed the big Mississippi river boats. I used to go see his train layout ,with riverboats, & he also told me an architect that drew the Betsy Ann.  He is where I got the plans for it. 

  Don, if you read, I had the Betsy plans blown from 1/96 to 1/87 so I could use all HO windows & details on it. If you have any idea where I could get PE railings made for my Betsy, I could finish it. Let's see pictures of your boat.

    I have the hull on the Aurora Wanderer about done & will do a post on it pretty quick. I have the whaleboats just sitting on the davits & it looks good. The whaleboats are the ones I did the post on. I also got the Lantina Morgan whaleboat on ebay last night. I wanted to do the Model Shipways kit but it is 24" long & expensive. The Lantina is only 12" long. 

gene1

You got all the rigging lines on & even furled sails too. How old were you then? Your new build sounds great, & I used to do a lot of scratch building. Especially on my train layouts. I am real happy with my plastic sailboats. They are fun . 

    My last scratch is or was my Betsy Ann river boat. I never have gotten the PE for the railings & smoke stack top. I had my plans blown up to 1/87 so I could use HO details. I wanted to send you pictures of that.

 

 

 

Very nice!  I am working on the Far West.  Had a setback a couple of years ago.  Removed the upper decks to redo with better windows.  That is proving to be a lot of work.

Love your doors and windows.  Makes me glad I decided to improve those.  What you have sure looks a lot better than gloss black paint.

Leave the pictures Mark, they look good there. I was real happy with my painted deck here as I screwed it up the first time I painted it & used Purple Power to take the paint right off & did it again. This time I coated the Tamiya Deck Tan with a coat of mixed Dull & gloss coat & then put my raw umber stain on & didn't touch it till it dried & coated it again with the laquer mix & it did take real good & I really liked the color now. It does show the grain good.

    Laquer coating between coats really works good.

Thanks Gene,I so much look forward to your next project.I was really admiring your "tissue" sails,would never thought of that! Yes I sprayed the deck with tan and used burnt umber artist oil and added Liquin so it would dry overnight.As you said you can't really highlight the cracks but I didn't want to fork out the bucks for a realistic one because I already paid $80.00+ for the sails.I tried getting these pictures off your post and put them on mine but couldn't get them off of here?

Beautiful Mark, really a great job. After seeing yours, these kits are going to start selling like crazy. Keep the pictures coming. You stained the wood deck, didn't you?

Hi gene,great job on this Ship! Some pictures didn't come through but some did and it looks great. I think putting those sail decals on would be hard and I'm glad you gave some feedback on it. I am working on mine and am in the process of trying to get the pictures on here with much help from forum members.Whats your next project? These are the pictures before rigging and sails.  

Even with so many bad reports on this kit I really liked building it . I even learned some new things. Painting clear decals with Tamiya red lacquer & making the chevrons, The deck painting gave me some problems , but turned out way better than I thought it would. All the grain shows up good & gives it a nice color.

  After I had decaled & mounted the kit sails, I didn't like what they did to the ship & rigging & I took them off. The running rigging was pretty easy after I had taken the sails off. I cheat a lot on rigging to get a decent job, but at going on 88 that's ok & permisable. From start to finish this ship took me 2 month's & 5 days. It is not David K' or Steve 5's work but it makes me happy & thats what it is all about.. Those guys are artists. 

    I love the paper flags way better than amai's cloth flags, because I can shape them. I cut them out & check both side's for white showing & recut after I glue them with a piece of thread in them to tie with, & then I curl them on a small alum handle & touch up the edges with paint or magic marker. Then I put a coiple coats of Gorilla glue thined way down with water. That is the same as I do with my furled sails.

Here are some more of my final pictures of the Revell 1/96 Spanish Galleon.

 You are always there for me Jim, Thanks. I thought you were in Peru. I think Mary disapeared & she is a sneaky old gal, better check your luggage. I will put some more on now.

As of  12:30 Pm, all 4 Pictures are here and look " Smashingly Good"!

So now you actually have your own version of the Spanish Armada with all the other Galleons in your collection.

Well Done!

   Jim.

P.S.  The barrels and coiled rope on the deck add a lot of interest- great idea.

I finally finished this Spanish Galleon last night & now I will send somefinished pictures. I will just send a few to see if they come thru & please let me know. They come thru fine elsewhere so it must be here is the problem.

Please let me know if they made it.  Thanks

You got me beat Rob, It was around Dec 7 1941 when I started. You can't have too many hobbies, I have had a bunch, back in the 1950's I collected Civil War cap & ball revolvers of all types & cap & ball carbines. Sold them all in the 60's for a 1/10 of now. Models have always been my tops.

    You have a reputation as a great builder from everyone Rob. I forgot to say that I sent nino my pictures of reworked whaleboats from the Aurora Wanderer kit & I will do a thread on them next now that I know they came thru ok. I love them & will build the ship next as soon as I do alittle more to finish the Revell Spanish Galleon. 

I built my first ship model when I was eight.....

Rob

During this time and shortly after I built all the WW2 Navy aircraft I could find as well as all the WW2 Battleships that were manufactured...It wasn't untill I finished the scratch Cutty Sark that I settled on my favorite ships of all...the Clipper.   Then my interests diverted added model N, HO scale railroading.  Oh I forgot to mention, all the while I was into building refractor telescopes too......which culminated in the building of my two large 6"f/15 and 10"f/15 refractors.   I have far to many hobbies to be a sane person.....

Rob

beautiful work rob , I started this hobby way too late . it's very interesting listening to you two compare note's .

Rob, At 13 you were already an artist . Your clipper is beautiful, how did you do the railings & masts?  I did mine with a drill & a sanding block.

   At my 13, it was WW2 & I was building fighter planes.That was about all we thought about then, nearly.

I was around 13 when I built this...I was also building the Revell Kearsage and my first scrath built Cutty Sark.  Here both are sean in a similar old B/W image taken at the same time.  Your riverboat is amazing......

Rob

really nice workmanship gene , you are a very talented man my friend .