I'm referring to the Artesiana Latina kit Of 'San Francisco II' (San Francisco De Florencia).
I decided to build this more accurately and in more detail than the kit supplied. I'm not an experienced wooden ship modeller, but I am a mechanical design engineer... is that enough? Anyway, totally undetermined by the fact that I assembled the keel and 'false' bulwarks, main decks etc, years ago, I (stupidly?) decided to add all of the lower decks, cannon, barrels... ooh. I even thought about making lanterns lit by LEDs... enough of the fairy tales.
It wasn't even enough to learn that some of the false bulwarks would clash with cannon. I may have to accept compromises, but I'm trying to get a ship with the gun ports open, so that I can look through the ship and see roughly what should be there... that's the engineer speaking.
My first step is to add whipstaff steering that works. Got that. It'll work. I've then got to open up the lower decks whilst retaining the strength of the model. I intend to do this in stages.... one deck/compartment at a time. Here's step 1 in the photo... or step 'a few', maybe.
I intend to reinforce the structure with the decks, one at a time. I'll add cross-wise beams that aren't seen through the gun ports to strengthen the model beam-wise. The decks will strengthen it keel-wise. Doing it a bit at a time, I'll end up with a structure stronger than the original.... it just takes a bit of work.
I'm not so naive that I believe that I can make the interior exactly authentic, but strength and practicality win the day. My goal is to make her 'reasonably realistic' and much more detailed.
I'll post more of this if it's of interest to anybody.
I decided to build this more accurately and in more detail than the kit supplied. I'm not an experienced wooden ship modeller, but I am a mechanical design engineer... is that enough? Anyway, totally undetermined by the fact that I assembled the keel and 'false' bulwarks, main decks etc, years ago, I (stupidly?) decided to add all of the lower decks, cannon, barrels... ooh. I even thought about making lanterns lit by LEDs... enough of the fairy tales.
It wasn't even enough to learn that some of the false bulwarks would clash with cannon. I may have to accept compromises, but I'm trying to get a ship with the gun ports open, so that I can look through the ship and see roughly what should be there... that's the engineer speaking.
My first step is to add whipstaff steering that works. Got that. It'll work. I've then got to open up the lower decks whilst retaining the strength of the model. I intend to do this in stages.... one deck/compartment at a time. Here's step 1 in the photo... or step 'a few', maybe.
I intend to reinforce the structure with the decks, one at a time. I'll add cross-wise beams that aren't seen through the gun ports to strengthen the model beam-wise. The decks will strengthen it keel-wise. Doing it a bit at a time, I'll end up with a structure stronger than the original.... it just takes a bit of work.
I'm not so naive that I believe that I can make the interior exactly authentic, but strength and practicality win the day. My goal is to make her 'reasonably realistic' and much more detailed.
I'll post more of this if it's of interest to anybody.