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jlheureux

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About jlheureux

  • Birthday 10/31/1981

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Grand Rapids, MI
  • Interests
    Motorcycles
    Model building
    Guitar
    Homebrew
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  1. I hated the line I used on the ratlines for my San Fran. Actually hte line on the kit really stunk in general! I've found other kits to be much better. It was also my first kit so it was a real learning curve getting used to it. Thread would be really easy to work with, but might be a smidgen too small. I would at least use button thread if you're gonna go that route cause the gauge is a little higher, but button thread doesn't tie well. Didn't you purchase some after market line? I bet you could find something you would be happy with. COlor was also a big debate for me. Some would say greenish (wash of the sea) or brown (faded with time) or black (tared heavily) I guess it depends on your taste.
  2. Test fit the cannons. I'm happy with how they look. My next conundrum is that this kit doesn't make allowances for tackle to secure the cannons to the rail. I'm going back and forth on if I wanna bother or not. At this scale space is kind of tight. I'm going to sleep on it and decide what I think I wanna do about that. I do think they look nice all lined up on deck.
  3. Next was cannon day. I painted all the wheels and the carriages. I went back and forth on painting the barrels black or leaving them brass and decided to leave them. Since this kit was old and I got it second hand I felt they already had a little bit of patina on them and I liked how they looked.
  4. Did the fore and midship rails and painted them. I went back and forth on black or red for them, but I went with black to sort of offset the middle of the ship with all that golden wood. I also drilled out the pinholes on the aft rails and such. Will make the rest of the pin-rails in a little bit.
  5. I did the little bow-piece. This wasn't quite litke the diagram and I may play with it a little more. This is a lazy bit, so I admit that, but I'm still happy with the result.
  6. Got the rudder done. I like this style rudder which is more of a tiller than a ships wheel. It's got some character to it and was a fun little craft. The rudder came out ok, I think it will be better once stained. I found that I wasn't happy with it the first time around so I took it apart and re-did it which left a few small splotchy bits. I think that they will even out once I get it varnished though.
  7. Got a ot to update, so here we go. It's hard to find time to work on a project in between work, life, and especially a tiny one year old. But it's good stress relief when I find an hour or two here and there. It's definitely helping the project to drag out a bit. I'm expecting it to slow down even further when I get to the rigging.... So next, I decided to do a little color on this one. Using the typical Syren paint scheme as a base I did some red inner bullwarks and some black trim for the rails which are now installed. Somewhere in here I also realized I miscounted my gunports and cut a couple more.
  8. That's looking amazing! I'm sorry I didn't see your message earlier, but I sent you back some info. IDK what I could possibly do to help you however your work is looking incredible! So much better than mine! (This was my first build) Great work! Have fun living in Ratline land for the next 3 months!
  9. Some folks scratch build one through fabricated plank on frame. What I did (esp since this was my first model) is I used my extra stock to do a layer of the thin hull strips on the outside and then lay some planks over the metal and stain it. I sort of used the metal as the template and just pasted over it. You could certainly scratchbuild one!!! Model Expo sells small lifeboat kits too if you wanna throw more money at the problem.
  10. True. It really does make a big statement. It's also probably the number one feature on models folks ask about.
  11. Dude. You are crushing this. I loved this kit, it was so much fun. Memory lane reviewing your log. LOTS of rigging on this puppy and you're doing such a good job. WAY better than I did man. Keep it up. Also.....have fun on the ratlines and once you hit 1000 tiny knots or so please be sure to share your fleeting thoughts of destruction with the group
  12. This makes me so happy!!!!! This was my first kit and I just loved it. It's such a sharp looking ship! You're doing a spectacular job. I recall the bow grate being one of my least favorite parts. Figuring how to cut a triangle off of a square grid of grate was really tricky. Worst case scenario to cover up I'd suggest a coil of rope or two. That's an easy and believable way to cover up quite a number of small mistakes My log from my build still should be on here and definitely take it slow once you get to the rigging! But you're crushing it so it shouldn't be an issue. Also: Thank you for your service.
  13. Gunports and Stern: Fabricated the sternpiece and got that on there. I really need to figure out what I wanna do for the windows. I'm not a huge fan of the big heavy brass Brittana style pieces that they provide for these. They just don't look right to me.. For the most part the model looks great, but those pieces look like what they are: Hunks of not quite right metal glued onto a wooden ship. I also cut some small pieces to line the gunports before I paint and add the strakes and rails to the top of the Bull. I'm looking forward to that as it will then hide the small warp I have on it. I've also decided to do a little painting on this one. My last 2 were just all natural and while I love the wood and want to keep it mostly natural I think I'm going to do the inner bullwark and cannon carriages red, yards black, strakes black, and maybe a few other details just to give it some pop. (Thoughts?) Well. That's what I did tonight. So I'm caught up. I was nervous to post this log knowing it might be a disaster with my limited depth perception. But I'm far enough in now (about 3 weeks into build) that I figured I could go ahead and catch you guys up. I truly loved being on this community and there were so many supportive people so hopefully I can reconnect a little and someone will enjoy this project with me as I go. Goodnight all.
  14. Outer Hull: Planked the second layer. I love second layer planking so much more because they are nice and thin and bend and cut so easily. A little brittle, I hear a humidor works wonders. SO I ran the second layer of planking on both sides and up the bullwark and sanded the crap out of it. The last 4-6 planks are kind of tricky to really trim right. I'm still getting a hang of that bit. (Any suggestions welcome.) I also had a couple deadspots where the first layer wasn't quit even which gave me some trouble on layer 2, but I made it work. I also snagged some finer sandpaper and gave it another couple passes and got most of the glue smear off now. Again, my experience has been once I stain and varnish it all evens out. It's amazing what a layer or two of clearcoat does to some wood.
  15. Bullwark and Deck Planking: So on this kit there isn't laser cut bullwark plates. They are built up by hand with the first layer of planking and spanned across the section of mid-ship where I cut off the protruding bulkheads. This part was a little tricky as stuff warped a little it and it was hard to glue the planks to themselves without a great deal of structure to attach them too. A great deal of sanding however got them looking fair. Gunports: I then cut the gunports and lined the inner sides of the bullwarks, aft cabin, and bow piece. I added some extra beams around the gunports as well. (I sanded it a bit further after taking these pictures) Deckplanking: Lastly, I laid the deckplanking here. I marked them with a sharpie to make the seams stand out a bit and used a pencil to poke some faux trennels in them. I did something similar on my constellation and once I stained and varnished it I felt like it looked pretty good.
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