80 Gun 'Guillaume Tell'

I've made a start on the French Langton miniatures. This is the first ship for my 'Battle of the Nile' project - unfortunately the British fleet was made up of 74 gun Common ships, so I will need to start that from scratch. 

I thought I would show you some of the process of putting the ships together. I use Langton's 'Painting and Rigging Guide' which I thoroughly recommend, although after doing a few of the ships I've rejigged it a bit to suit me.

First, the parts are washed to remove the release agent that the modellers use to get the parts from the moulds. I also drill the holes for the later rigging at this stage with the Pin Vice, which is a bit earlier than the guide suggests but I find otherwise it scratches the paintwork.

I then glue the sails to the masts, and the stern to the hull. I use two types of superglue for the models, with a resin-type glue for the sails/masts and stern, as well attaching the masts to the hull. I use a very thin superglue for the rigging.

The parts are then sprayed with a primer (I use grey for these ships), and the sails and masts are painted. The masts are different for the French ships to the British ones I've made before as they tended to be black, and the models came with the topgallant sails furled as well.

The deck and hull are also painted. I've used a darker colour for the French decks as they weren't scrubbed quite so religiously as the British ships which therefore had paler decks, while I also wanted the fleets to look a bit different from a stylistic point of view. The 'Guillaume Tell' had hull colours of a light yellow with a black strake so that part should be historically correct.

The masts are then attached to the hull. Blutack is good for keeping them upright while the glue dries.

Next, we come on to rigging. Quite fiddly but fun. Having the right tools is important. The bendy tweezers are really handy to help tie the knots, while I dap the glue on with the bamboo stick, which I find more sturdy than a cocktail stick. The glue is a very thin runny glue, I dab more of that on than the Guide suggests, but so far it is the only way I've found to keep the thread taut. The thread is the thread Rod Langtom recommends on his website.

Rigging complete.

Next, I prime the base and the ratlines.

I then paint the ratlines before cutting them out and sticking them with the resin glue.

The base gets a coat of navy blue, a very thin wash with the navy blue mixed with some black before I then paint on the navy again on the tops of the waves while the base is still wet. When dry I drybrush it with a turquoise blue and a sea grey.

Finally, I attach the flags (hardened and creased with the thin superglue) and glue the ship to the base with the resin glue. A final touch up of the paint and a finished ship of the line!