napoleonicfrigates

This section took a lot of time. You are supposed to build all the ships guns here and there are a lot of them. For the barrels I painted them black in sections - i.e front, top half then back top half then turned them and did front and back. This is to stop the paint gettings stuck on whatever the cannon is resting on.

Once the black was dry I used a thick B5 pencil to add some graphite around the raised edges and the cannon mouth. I then spray varnished before varnishing again with a painted on gloss varnish to provide some 'shine'. Made a small mistake here that again reminds against rushing. I gloss varnished the entire cannon holding onto one  of the trunnions and then left the guns to dry on the carriages (as they existed at that time) this caused soe of the paint to get ripped off when I removed the barels t continue work on the carriages.

I also split the guns into 3 sections quite early on to avoid tedium. Also this has the advantage of doing the guns that will be less viewed first - the gun deck ones. Mistakes on those can then be avoided with the more visible carronades and 9 1b's.

Another trick is to remember which of the gun deck guns would be more visible. I ranked each of the 28lbs according to whether it was good, okay or bad. The bad guns and carriages will go where only the barrel would be visible whilst the good combinations would got in the open waist section where theyh could be viewed with the average fitting in between.

I was pleased with the barrels effect. The carriages were fiddly but not terribly difficult though I decided to use a 5mm drill for the eyeltet holes on the 9lbs as the 7mm seemed slightly to large to me. Next time I would reduce the number done at any one time to three group of 10,9 and 9 as doing the lot in one go re-introduced the - must get this done sloppiness that I want to avoid

I then painted my 28 valiant carriages red also doing either side of the wheels (whilst still attached to the template). When eventually atempting to attach the wheels to the axles I decided to next time make a small attempt to file the glued axles before painting red as it was difficult with the eyelets and everything attached.

Another small tip is to use super glue gel to attach the firing mechanisms as normal super glue is to runny and hence prevents an easy fit and the gel provides a small degree of stability enabling the triggers to keep upright.

Next Up Rigging some Cannons