HMS Sophie - part V

Finally I am done.... (well almost.. ;) - read on)

I decided for now to skip the horisontal ratlines.. It is a lot of fiddling and I have just over two weeks to do 3 more ships so this kind of detail will have to wait. 

Adding sails - unfortunately I didn't think before adding the sails to the main mast. As you can see there is more or less NO wind in the sails..  It went better with the foremast.

It pays off to make sure the sails stay where they are supposed to be while the PVA glue dries ;)

I have no clue as to what the fore sails are named.. and I only added one since I had made an error in placing the lower part of the rigging too low on the mast. Instead I opted for securing it with a line to the spar.

Another mistake I made here (and which can be seen in the picture above) is that I glued the line to the fore sail with super glue.. and now I have a semi see through part of the sail.. DOH!! That's what you get for being impatient!

All sails done. I should have made the sail above the quarterdeck more bent as well, but I figure I can correct that on the next ships.

Starboard view with all the sails glued in place.

Even with the fore sail not made correctly (or at least as Mark made his) I am quite satisfied with the overall look.

Port view of the ship. Again you can easily see the aft sail looking a bit too flat.. 

Ready to hoist the anchor.. 

And what about the "almost done".. Well - I need to touch up a few places with fresh paint and most importantly I need to figure out how I do the flags. I will probably see what I can find on the net and then print something.. if I can get it to line up properly on both sides.

Next up is the speedbuilding of three more ships.. :) I hope you have enjoyed it so far.. I know I have.... 

HMS Sophie - part IV

Lots of progress over the last few days, inclusive a minor color change as well. It took a few tests to get a color I was happy with, but the one seen below was what I ended up with. 

First shot of the first attempt at getting the yellow on the ship. The original Sophie didn't have the ekstra sides added (the two black stripes along the hull) and with the above scheme I was going for a checkerboard kind of style, where the open gunports and cannons would appear as black squares amongst the yellow line.

 Sadly the overall impression was that the entire ship looked a bit bland so I decided to paint it up black again and then paint the sidebars yellow instead. it also fit better with the bow that had the two yellow bars added.

Freehand attempt at stern decoration. It turned out fairly well I think.. even though my hands are shaking ;)

Masts being painted and a view of the deck. You can also see the first real glimpse of the new sidebards in yellow.. It gives much more "sparkle" to the ship. 

Handheld spotlight (yeah - doesn't work that well)

Handheld flash on the port side (still doesn't work well)

Sideview with a test fitting of the masts and a better view of the yellow sidebars.

Topview where the brownish paint of the deck can be seen. I painted up a skylight at the quarterdeck though I am not sure there was one.. But it breaks up all the brown ;)

Stern view with the masts glued in.. hoping I was really done with it all.

Onwards to rigging. As per Mark Burgess instructions I took 3 lines of thread and bound them around the main mast just above the spar. Then I spread them out a little and glued a piece of card on to hold them in place.

A better view of the card that holds the line in place. (I need to remember to paint that up as well ;))

All the rigging has been done, and heres a few shots from different angles. After all the lines had been added, I painted them all with PVA glue to keep them in place and lend some strength to them as well. I might touch them up with a little bit of black though. I am stille considering adding a few horisontal lines to the current ratline setup, but I am afraid it will be a tad to fiddly to attempt.. Thick, shaking fingers and all.

After touching up the rigging with black, the next step is adding sails. I have still to decide if she should have full sails or just fighting sails.. 

HMS Sophie - part III

So... new masts have been added.. And the entire ship is primed and ready for painting.. 

Demasted....

New masts fitted

Ekstra mast stuff added to the main mast (no naval knowledge at all so haven't got a clue what they are called ;))

Bow view

Starbord bow

Waterview of the bow

Seagull view of painted ship.

Starboard view of painted ship.

Next step is to find the right yellow/buff/ochre that fitted a British ship of war. And figure out exactly where to put what colors.

As always... comments, critque, suggestions etc are most welcome!

HMS Sophie - part II(a)

Riiiiight..... total mast failure.. sigh... so here goes the sccond post tonight....

First of all, the spars are sitting way too close to each other because I made the lower and middle section of the masts too short... I decided to glue the spars on anyway... just because I could... But I really have to make new masts.. So I was thinking about the mast thickness as it felt a little too thin to me.

Here you can see the current masts, approximately 2,5mm thick and between the masts a bambus skewer I happend to find in my wood box (I know Mark wrote bambus skewer as well on his blog, but I didn't think the grill sticks I had was too far off.. And to justify my self a little, Mark didn't write how thick the skewer was supposed to be :)) The new bambus skewer is 3mm thick and that half mm makes a world of difference in this scale. I really should replace the bowsprit base with one of the bambus skewer thickness, but I will skip that for Sophie. Once I move on to the next ships I will use the bambus instead.

So, no more for today I think.. I will begin working on a new set of masts.. (another sideeffect will be that there might actually be enough thickness for me to drill holes for the backward pointing spars.. ).

Captain Paludan signing off for tonight..... 

HMS Sophie - part II

Ok, besides finishing a few 15mm Teutonic Knights and prepping for the last two stands of their mounted sergeants I have been working on HMS Sophie as well. 

Even though she looks terrible up close... step back some 20-30 centimeters and the illusion holds up... YAY!

Above she has been fitted with all 18 guns and I have begun some detailing on the quaterdeck.

More detailing (and the Teutonic sergeants in the background as well). 

A better look of the stern - it is clear that almost nothing is properly aligned ;)

Forecastle and quarterdeck detailing done. Also some details have been added to the bow - not sure what these things are called.

Stern view.

Another shot of the port side.

Starboard side with all the detailing.

Close up of the bowsprit. Besides wood glue to hold it together I have used paper strips dipped in thinned down wood glue.. when it dries up it should be pretty solid.

 Another view of the bowsprit. It seems pretty huge, but I think it will be ok one the masts gets put in place as well.

Bow view - it looks fairly impressive (even for a sloop of war).

Initial work on the masts have begun.. Unfortunately I have to wait for everything to dry before I can continue :)

I am seriously considering getting some guns and crew from Rod Langton just to see how it would look (it sorta goes against the whole "cheap" idea.. but hey.. real guns and real crew would look SO cool... )