1/700 Spanish 1st Rate Purísima Concepción

This one is another of Simon Mann's excellent Mann O'War 3D resin hulls. A sister ship to the San Jose, with slight differences, 'he' (all Spanish SOLs were referred to in the masculine) was built in Ferrol and launched the 24th of December 1779. The ship was commisioned in 1780. 

The length at the gundeck was 213 burgos feet when built but shortened later to 220'6" (201'6" Imperial) during a rebuild in 1796. The beam was 58'4" (53'0" Imperial). Depth of hold was 28'9" (25'8" Imperial). The displacement was 2,771 Tons BM. The crew compliment was 800 to 1,000 men and boys. The armament consisted of 112 to 120 guns. Lower gun deck: 32 x 36 pounder long guns. Middle gun deck: 32 x 24 pounder long guns. Upper gun deck 30 x 12 pounder long guns. Quarter deck and Forecastle: 18 x 8 pounder long guns. The broadside weight amounted to 1268.904 lbs. 

After commissioning in 1780, Purísima Concepción was attached to the 3rd Franco Spanish fleet for the 1st English Channel campaign. On August 9, 1780 the ship took part in the capture of a British convoy of 53 ships. In 1772 the Purísima Concepción supported the action during the Great Siege of Gibraltar. He was one of the 38 Spanish ships of the line at the Battle of Cape Spartel, but saw no action that day. Purísima Concepción joined the Siege of TOulon with six other Spanish SOLs on October 21, 1793. on February 14, 1797 Purísima Concepción was the flagship for the second squadron under Lt General Francisco Javier Morales de los Rios and Flag Captain and Brigadier Jose Esceno. The ship suffered 8 dead and 21 wounded during the battle. In 1800 the ship took part in the second English Channel campaign. Later in the same year he was blockaded at Brest by British Rear Admiral John Colpoys until1 801. On March 6, 1810 Purísima Concepción was anchored in Cadiz when a big storm swept the harbor. On the following day the ship lost anchors and ran ashore on the French occupied Spanish coast. By August 8, the ship and crew were under heavy fire from the French warships and land forces. On the 9th the ship was burned by French troops and sunk off the coast. Along with Purísima Concepción, two other Spanish SOLs the Montanes and San Ramon, a Spanish frigate Paz, a Portuguese warship, a British brigantine and 20 merchant ships were similarly lost as a result of the storm and susequent French attacks. 

The hull of this model is resin, the small towed boats are 3D PLA prints. All of the rest is scratch built.

Here I layed out all saills, but later decided to only use the top sails and furl the rest.

Here I am tying on the spars and spars with furled sails attached.

I think my next ship will be another of Simons' excellent hulls, a French Temeraire class.

1/700 Scale 80-Gun Navio Argonauta

Yesterday I posted my catch-up news. Today I am posting the ship that has been in the works since early March. This is a Simon Mann Montanes class design PLA print. It was painted last March and then set on a shelf with several other hulls I painted then. During the summer I scratch built the masts for all of them. Spending a bit of time here and there, it took a good month to get the sails and spars made and mounted. And then another couple of weeks to accomplish the rigging. So here are the few photos I took during the process and pics of the results. Hope you like!

The scratch built masts for the 12 hulls I painted in March

Masts painted and mounted

Cutting out the sails traced on a piece of printer paper. Note the molded furled course sails at the top.

Primed yards

Yards tied and glued

Mizzen sails tied on with leech and bunt lines in place.

All sails attached

My first use of the 3D ratline jig I printed

1st half of the standard rigging installed with staysails tied in. After this stage the ratlines go on and the rest of the standing rigging gets done. Then rest of the fore & jib staysails and the running rigging gets done. Sorry I didn't take anymore pics of this process. 

The completed ship:

I should probably work on the rest of the hulls I painted before starting any of the newer hulls I printed. But I know myself better than that. I may get the urge to build one of the smaller schooners or sloops or maybe a xebec. And I want to get the printer working again too. After all, Simon has put out two new Spanish ships and Henry has a done new ship as well. Plus David Manley has a several new ACW ships out now.........

First New Post Since April

 Hello to all of my blogger friends! So sorry to have abandoned you and my blog for so long. After getting my 3D printer at the end of last March, I spent several days tuning it up. Then I went crazy printing ships in 1/700 and 1/1200 scales! I even printed a few 1/1000 and 1/300 scale ships. The ships were mostly Napoleonic, but I also printed some ACW ironclads and some 1/2400 ancient ships I scaled up to 1/1200. I now have boxes of them. Here are just a few of the prints that I took pictures of:

This is how I mark them so I know for later

The 1/700 scale ships I've printed

Now here are the 1/1200 scale:

Ironclads

Brits

French

Spaniards

Swedes, Danes & Russians

And the ancients:

Carthaginians and Romans

 

This is what they look like painted 

Then something strange started happening. The quality of the prints began to diminish. The PLA feed was restricted for some reason and in addition, the prints were breaking away from the plate no matter how much I ensured the level. after replacing nearly everything, I gave up. But it is ok because I printed enough for two life times! The only time I grit my teeth is when one of the two main designers puts out another new ship that I don't have twenty of! 

About the time the print quality was deteriorating, the weather started getting nice. So I have been working outdoors pretty steady since the middle of May. The exception was when we had the record heat wave the end of June. But I still didn't get much hobby time in. Since then we have moved my youngest daughter out to her first apartment and nearly got evacuated due to a nearby fire that burned over 18,000 acres and got within 3 miles of the house. That was Monday night the 16th, and the whole week was stressful wondering if they were going to get it contained. Fortunately the weather cooled off and we got a little rain, which helped tremendously.

All summer though, occasionally I would work on something in the evening. It might be 15 minutes, maybe 20, whenever the mood would strike. one of the projects I completed was scratch building all of the masts for the 1/700 printed hulls I painted in March, before I got the printer. 

Seven 3rd rate sets & five 1st rate sets

So that pretty much catches us up to the present. 

Last night I finished the Argonauta but wanted to get this catch-up post done first before I post it.

Thanks for looking.