Building a Revell 1/96 Spanish Galleon.

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.

Gene..here is the old B/W of my Revell Galleon..built in 1975~6

Rob

I'm having a picture issue thingy right now...I'll try to work it out.

I'm currently working on the shrouds and foot ropes(for each mast)of my scratch built 1/128 scale extreme clipper Great Republic.

Rob

Rob, your picture didn't come thru, can you send it again, I would really like to see it? I made those chevron decals as the ones I got were no good. I had some clear decal film & painted it with Tamiya red lacquer. It worked fine, that is a first for me on that. 

    I made patterns for each place & put them over the decal & cut them with a new single edge razor & it worked fine. What are you building now? 

Fantastic model Gene.  Love the colors and detail.

I first built this large model back in 1976...when I wasn't that good and painting.  the chevrons were hard..no decals or stencils.

Here is an old B/W I took of it then.

Rob

Yes Jim, they are kit blocks. They are bigger than the 1/96 Kearsarge. They are sized good for the Galleon. Here are the rest of these pictures.

   I was thrilled with rigging on the furled sail as there is less & not at all haed to do

The Pictures are here and they are terrific.  You Furled'em good.

Not using the kit sails was a good idea. Ashame you had to expend all that time to fix things.  It was worth it though.  The color looks good too.  Thanks for the updates.

Are those Kit-supplied blocks? They look correctly sized for that scale.

Jim.

 I have 9 new pictures of the Gallion with furled sails & please let me know if the first 2 come thru. Thanks,,, Gene

Jim, I know I have told you about my sails & put a post on Marks Galleon thread, but I wanted to put it here. I Had my sails all cut out & mixed a special sail color & painted them & then airbrushed a thin raw umber wash& glued & sewed them on my spars. The masts & spars were predrilled for a heavy brass wire to anchor them to the masts. I had the big decals on & even coated them with 2 coats of Microscale Decal film. I had all the deadeyes on the spars & even rigged to the ship. Thank goodness I only had the foresail rigged all the way, when I looked at them & didn't like what they did to the ship.

    They were also very hard for my ancient eyes to see to rig behind them, so I cut them all off & cleaned & repainted the spars & have added furled sails made from Kleenex, my favorite furled sail material. They are at least 75 % easier to rig.I have the fore & Main masts rigged & it looks good & shows the ship a lot more. I had done a good job painting & decaling the sails ,but I jus did not like them. I will have some pictures soon & hopefully don't screw up the posting again.

Great Job Gene!

That Revell galleon can be some tough but very fruitful work.

Time for a Cat-nap.

I have some email coming your way.

     Jim.

 I am pre rigging the spars & sewing the sails on now. Prerigging everything you can really is the easiest way to go. I forgot to prerig the masts & had to do them standing up & it is 3 times as hard.

I forgot to show Lucy resting, she is so ladylike.

My mountains at sunset.

  That's all folks....

Thank you Mike, & here are some more.

The regular Airfix tool & my butted & splinted tool. 

More pictures below.

Gene,

Pictures came through on your last post. You fixed it.

Now let's see the others .

As usual, you're doing fine, clean work. A pleasure to view.

I will try 2 more to see if I fixed it.

Please let me know if they came thru,  Thanks,  Gene

none of them came through mate .

Here are some pictures of the rigging tool, by Airfix, that I modified for the longer shroud. This is as big as you can do with it. On the left is the regular Airfix tool & on the right is the modified tool with it butted together & styrene splints added.

 The tool rght after I pulled the main mast shroud off it & the kit shroud, which were nice too.

If anyone wants to know, I will explain more on this. I will try to take more pictures of the rigging more clear. I have the sails painted & will sew them on after I put the big decals on the 2 lower fron sails. It has come along nice.

I am adding some pictures of the Galleon with the masts, shrouds & standing rigging added. I have some work still on the standing rigging & am ready to decal the sails .

I will add more below.

Bill, thanks & it's good to hear from you. It has been a fun build & I learned some new things too. How is your Alabama? What are you doing on it now? 

  I will take some pictures of mine soon & put them on. My son is gone for a week & hasn;t done my base yet. It is a 2' piece of 1x6 & is really heavy. I have been using 1x4, mostly 16 or 18" long, a lot lighter.

   The Galleon has really started to look a lot better than I thought it would. I have been putting aluminum tubes in the spars because tthey are really long & flimsy. It really does a good job on both the spars & masts.

    I built my house 27 years ago after I had my heart sugery & I only put 2 bedroms in 2200' because I wanted a big train room & model room too. I know what is important. I sure love it here.

Gene,

That is a beautiful house in a great setting!  You are also doing a terrific job on your galleon!  I know that John Tilley always criticised this kit as being designed by Hollywood, and that he felt that the model was highly inaccurate, but yours looks great.  It doesn't look misproportioned at all.  Great job!

Bill

Barron, Mark & Mike,,  Thanks a lot. 

 Mark, It is Floquil blue. I will get you which one. I have a bunch of Floquil from when I painted all my brass engines. It is over 30 years old & still fine. I used Scalcoat & Floquil back then. MM has a nice French Blue, but I have stayed away from MM mostly because it peels when you mask it. Tamiya does not peel, but is short on a lot of colors.

   I used Tamiya Wooden Deck Tan & 1/5 Red brown for the hull colors & a lightened Yellow mix. The deck was Tamiya Deck Tan (gray) & MM laq. to seal & oil Raw Umber wash & seal with MM Laquer. Don't touch the wash after you do it. Let it dry good & seal it with laq. I have the masts up & all the shrouds done & up. I made the lower ones with a modified Airfix rigging tool. It really looks great too. That's called patting my back. 

Indeed those colors do pop!!, almost flourescent like. Very nice work

Michael D.

Looking good Gene! That is the most vivid blue I've ever seen! What color is it and who makes it if you don't mind me asking? I just started on my Galleon you've given me great ideas!

Hello Gene: from a new kid on the block: your galleon is absolutely super! Got this one & the Revell Elizabethan Galleon in my own shop stash-need to start building up hulls & decks & shipping guns myself! Great job so far-can't wait to see the finished product!

 Jm, I can't semaphor him where he is, because he checked out 7 years ago at 85. We were together for most of my 80 years with him. He was in Houston for 9 years & the Navy in WW2 for 3. He was on the Battleship Indiana thru 7 invasions & the surrender in Tokyo Bay with the MO. I did get a lot of model info from him.

    He loved it up here as much as me. You guys bring your own cookies. I put the masts on today & taped the kit shrouds on to see how they look. They look good.  They fit perfect. I do have the main mast shrouds done that I made & will see how they work before I decide. 

    They are easy to do once you learn some tricks. I will post a longer article on them when I put pictures on. I do use CA 10 to 15 second glue & touch each threaad joint with glue & hit them with the fast dry stuff.  The Heller Rigging tool I have is a one piece unit that can't be expanded. Airfix are 2 piece & you can do more with them.

I would be pleased to supply the Cookies.  Maybe Dale can bring the milk?

That's at least 2 "kids" who would go for the tour.

 Steve,

  If you travel all the way to Gene's Mountain " Resort", I'll see to it you are first in line for the tour and refreshments.  What kinda cookies do you like?

Gene, I've seen a bunch of your photo's around the house and yard, but these pictures of the mountains sure take the breath away. Great Shots, terrific inspiration.

 So, did you ever semapore your brother when the power went out?

    Jim.

Jim & Steve, It wouldn't work because we have no kids around in our neighborhood & I ate all the cookies, but here is where I live,

Out the kitchen window at the deer.

From the porch at the mountains at sunset.

Across the valley & my brother lived in the furthest house.

  Now you all come & see me & we have a room. No milk or cookies tho.

what a lovely idea nino , would love to do it , with gene's permission of course .

Hi Gene!

    I believe we are all curious so please post some pictures of your rigging tool for the shrouds and rat lines, with the "extended tool" version. I have several of the Heller kits and they all come with their own rigging tool. Looks easy, but not many modelers admit to using it.

     Once you get this latest Galleon completed and displayed you will have an Armada.   It will be 430 years this year that the Spanish Ships Sailed, Succumbed to the Sea, and Sank. I still think a tour of your home with a short History lesson, (and cookies and milk), would be a terrific idea for the kids in your neck of the woods.

Thank you for all the Pictures and tell Mary she should be proud to have the most Ship-Shape home ever!

   Jim.

Jim,EJ & Robert, Thanks for the nice words. I have the masts made & painted & wil do some drilling in them & tie some deadeyes & go on the standing rigging.

I took the 2 parts of the rigging tool & put splints on each side to extend it to the maximum & have the main mast shroud all rigged with 2 sizes of thread, large & small. It does look good, but I will have to figure how best to install them. They are long The kit shrouds are the best,along with Imai, that I have seen. They even have a rope twist engraved in them. They would look good too.

I will post some pictures of my rigging tool shroud, with the extended tool. That is the best  & easiest way to make shrouds if you don't want to, or can't tie them.  I have tied a bunch in the past on my wood models.

Gene - looks like you got another keeper with this one! She is looking great. I've been out of commission since August of '17 but it's good to be back and see that your talents haven't changed. I'm gere for the big finish. Take care