Finished ships

I kinda slipped up posting the progress pics, so here's the finished(-ish) reveal!

I picked up the idea of using paintbrush bristles for rigging from a thread on TMP, and boy does it make life a million times easier.

You'll notice a lack of gunports, and that's because I'm just not a good enough painter for that, and I opted not to model them on, this batch. So as in painting miniature people and forgoing eyes by saying "they all blinked when I took the picture", in this case, the ports were never supposed to be different colours, to hide their number from the Frogs!

Also notable is a lack of "deck furniture", or detail on the decks at all. Again, I'm not that good to have it look like anything other than lumps, and since I (foolishly) build at 1/600, there's nothing much to buy. As much as I like building everything myself, cannon and deck detail would be something I'd happily buy.

The nameplates aren't actually affixed yet because I'm not happy with them. The text would be a lot more legible in yellow, I suspect. They're actually made out of cut pieces of faux wood blinds. Handy little shortcut.

Overall, I'm very happy with this batch. I learned a lot, my painting skills improved, I kept notes on what worked and what didn't, and most of all, I had fun!

Make sail

Sails done.

Form line of battle!

Painting

Started painting. First came many, many thin coats of watered-down PVA glue, and then a couple thin coats of the colour.

Since these ships are all "weird" - ie., an experiment, two captures, and Canadian-built - I'm going to be a little more creative with the painting in the next step. A yellow stripe for Electryone, green for Luna (because the model of the Elvin has such a stripe), an orange stripe for Flare to reflect her Dutch upbringing, and probably Nelson Chequer for Puffin.

Yarrrrrrr-d me mateys

Yards done.

The bases are siding samples with a couple quick coats of gloss varnish.

Spring in the dockyards

The icy grip of Winter has lifted, and Admiral Duncan puts the men to work preparing a squadron of ships for duty in the North Sea.

That is, I've finally gotten back to working on my 1/600 scale scratchbuilt Napoleonics. I had intended to do lots of detail work over the winter, leaving the messy business of gluing and sanding hulls for the summer, but painting Star Wars and, well, laziness (and work!) kept me from it. But no more!

The masts have been sent up on His Majesty's Ships Electryone, Luna, Flare, and Puffin. Not much of a squadron anyone would want to command, I grant you. Three brigs and a sixth-rate? I mean, just look at some of these ships!

You've got Puffin, a foreign, colonial-built 18-gun brig out of Halifax:

Luna, a captured Danish brig about whose stern the less said the better (though she mounts 18 canon as well):

Flare, another 18-gun capture, but this time Dutch-built (pray she holds together, lads!):

And the so-called "flagship" of the group, the experiment otherwise known as Electryone, 32:

Just look at that deadrise! What were they thinking? All-in-all, an overgunned, questionably-built bunch of hulks. Well, maybe the next pile of oak on the stocks will amount to something more fitting of the Royal Navy. HMS Vigourous, Brilliance, and Lambent should be ready any day now.

Flaring back to life

Progress on Electryone: holes for masts, and railings attached.

And a new ship started! This is taking the place of Luna as my Dutch brig. Completely scratch-building this one, no plans.

She'll be called Flare.

Developing Civily

Finally back at the ships. I've more-or-less decided not to paint Essence, the gunports are just too much of a mess, but Expeditious is going to be my painting guinea pig, probably tomorrow. In the meantime, I've started work rigging Essence.

And with that drying, I set myself polishing up Electryone's lines a little bit.

The bow still needs a little work, but I'm much happier with her overall shape.

After that, I wondered what I could make of the first, failed Electryone, and just started sanding and sanding until I had a pleasing shape.

Say hello to HM sloop Civil, late the French flute Civelle. As I said, I just sanded and sanded away, and then took the measurements, did the scale, and went looking for a real ship with matching measurements. I came across the French Dromadarie class transport. But, several of them did serve as warships, either as sloops or frigates. Initially armed with 20 French 6pdrs, the Royal Navy have rearmed her with 18 24pdr carronades.

Now, the shape is not exact, since I haven't found plans for the class yet. But it's close enough that with quarter galleries and maybe a little more work on her lines, I'm not too concerned.

The shipyard at the moment.

The line is starting to form.

ElectryNONE (or; A Place in the Sun)

Some overzealous hands (me) using some new-fangled tools (bench sander) caused irreparable damage to Electryone even before her framing (general shape) was done.

My idea of using wood glue to patch split wood was a poor one, it seems. It was too annoying to sand it by hand, so I tried electricity and, well, that was a bit much.

Fortunately in this era of experimentation under First Lord Spencer, there was such enthusiasm for this project that another keel was laid the same day as the damage. This time, more traditional methods were put to her, and Electryone began to take shape once again.

The spirit of wakefulness, in her element.

Just hand-sanded, this time, with much more care to get the lines right. Or, if not right, since this is, again, merely an inspired ship rather than an historic reproduction, than pleasing.

And the Admiralty (me) is so far very pleased.

Electrifying Developments

Though Expeditious and Essence still be on the stocks, a new keel has been laid.

I've learned a lot working on the other two ships. Most importantly what I enjoy and what I'm not very good at. I always intended to build a third ship (at least). I had wanted to make a Dutch one (a captured Dutch ship, that is) but the plans I was set on using were not very good, and became too much of a hassle to scale properly. So I fell back on what was my very tenuous plan for a fourth ship, and am combining some plans into a mostly-original design.

The Electryone is based primarily upon Gambier's Triton.

An odd little 32 built in that great era of experimentation from 1796-1801, she's curious, and, to me, quite beautiful.

The Admiralty was not overly pleased with some of the odd developments Gambier built into her, though he loved her, and she didn't have much of a career. Fortunately in the land of fiction, that is easily mended.

However, for this to be a proper frankenship or kitbash, we need some more plans!

Enter the fastest ship in the west, Endymion.

Rather more traditional, wouldn't you say? And also, apparently the fastest frigate there was, and so good that it remained the standard for decades.

Simply taking the decks I like from each wouldn't work, they're too different. What I've done instead is modify Triton's plans based on what I liked from Endymion's. Endymion for example has a longer quarterdeck, when viewed from above. So now so does Triton - or rather Electryone.

There are going to be many more differences that appear as I work on the hull. At the moment, it's rather goopy with glue, since the middle deck split rather badly when I was cutting it, and one of Triton's defining features was straight or sheer sides, so I wanted to build that form back up. (Without cutting a whole new piece.) Because I'm doing Electryone as more "inspired" than "based on" any given ship, I'm not going to be too wholly devoted to making sure her lines match Triton, or Endymion, though she will take more after Triton, obviously.

One of the little "background" details for Electryone I've decided upon, though, is that she'll be oak, whereas Triton was fir. White oak, to be needlessly specific. Part of the reason is that I wanted a stouter ship, and also, 18pdrs. Not a lot of them, it's true, but still. With any luck she'll be a fast, weatherly (and dry!) ship with a nasty bite. Oh, and of course, the 32pdr carronades on her quarterdeck won't hurt, either.

Well they will hurt, but, oh, you know what I mean.

As to her name, it's a relic of an older idea.

I had got it in my head to build a companion of sorts for Endymion, and so the first name I thought of using was Selene, but then I decided that competitor was more interesting. Looking into Greek mythology, I found Electryone (there are various spellings) was sometimes attributed with being the spirit of wakefulness, whereas Endymion was, essentially, sleepiness. Perfect.

But for a ship based on Triton, I thought perhaps one of Triton's children (and not the Disney ones!) Pallas would have been perfect, but was already used extensively. Athena was Triton's foster daughter, but oddly the Royal Navy never named a ship that, and while I've always been a fan of Athena, I feel she deserves a rather larger ship. Kalliste might have done, had she not been born from a lump of dirt and turned into an island (hardly what you want of a warship), and Tritea, as possibly a handmaiden or priestess of Athena, also could have been good, but simply felt too close to Triton for my liking.

So then I found some unsubstantiated blog post that mentioned Athena as having been a sun deity at some point and figured, hey, that's close enough to wakefulness, might as well just go back to Electryone. And here we are.