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Michael G

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About Michael G

  • Birthday 03/23/1981

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  • Location
    McKinney, TX

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  1. For anybody following this, I am giving another update. My ship build has been on hiatus due to personal/family circumstances. My office space has been completely taken over (that's where I'm building it). It looks at me every day wondering when I will get back to it, and the answer is soon enough, but I still am at a point where I can't do much. So the build has not been forgotten and it has not been scrapped. I hate that I've been on hold for so long. I often wondered how people's build logs could have such huge gaps in them....now I know! Thanks for following, and see you soon!
  2. I feel like an update is in order. I'm still here! My wife started a new job, school started back up, and things have just been nuts. The only thing I've managed in the past 2 months is getting the spar deck pieces cemented together and painted. That was following the completion of the lights in the cabin and along the gun deck. I need to find a pedestal to mount to before going much further. Anyway, I haven't given up or anything. I'll be back!
  3. It looks like the weights I put on this overnight actually helped a little bit. I had heated it up with a hairdryer and then set them on top of it. Here's some pictures though, as it appears to still have a bit of a twist to it. It may not be a big deal now, but I am also may try the very hot water approach.
  4. Has anybody dealt with plastic pieces that are slightly warped? I'm wanting to move onto the spar deck, but the front of the 3 pieces has a slight twist to it. It's frustrating me, and I'm concerned about it. I've currently got some weights sitting on it, and I ran a hair dryer over it quite a bit, trying to straighten it, but I'm not sure it's working. Any tips?
  5. I did! Any cool ideas? Keep in mind this is my first project of this nature (other than the smaller Revell USS United States), and I am not yet terribly handy if I compare to some of the other pretty amazing builds I've seen.
  6. The lighting is installed! The pictures are not great, but you get the point. I still need to determine what I'll do for dampening the lights. Thank you for the suggestions. Most of them are fine, but a few are placed in a manner in which they are too obvious, like in the cabin. The other thing I need to do before I go further is a base. Any thoughts on that? What have others done? A block of wood at Home Depot (I don't have any fancy saws or cutting tools)? I thought maybe I could find a decorative base and drill up through the bottom. Any input welcome.
  7. The lights are coming along nicely (sorry no pics yet...soon). I am gluing them up against the bulwarks right underneath where the spar deck will go. I do have a question though! The only problem area I see is that when I look through a gun port hole, I will have bright spots from the lights up against the other side from the actual led's. Any ideas for damping down the brightness of the bulbs? I was thinking maybe my clear gloss or something would dampen it a bit without affecting it too much. I don't want to hurt the lights of course or create a burn hazard.
  8. That is likely what I'll do. I haven't started on it yet other than pushing the wire up through the spaces, but just about any other way I do it would create bright spots as you look in through the ports.
  9. Wow...Dave, your model build is stunning! I'm at a crossroads of despair and motivation after seeing it My next step, following securing the lighting, is the spar deck. It's another piece I have put off and agonized over because I want to lessen the seams, and I want my wood grain to look good, yet I don't yet have the skill or experience to come close to what you did! One day...
  10. Eureka! The opening where the rudder enters the underside of the cabin wall is just enough to fit the strand through! It will of course have a little wire coming out the back, but I can run that to whichever side of the rudder makes the most sense when I finally display it. Now I need to figure out how to carefully attach and secure the lights, but at least I have made it to that point. I have been agonizing over this for weeks! The last photo is me holding the pieces in place with the light on to show the effect.
  11. So many helpful comments - thanks for all the input! I'm slow going on this light thing because I need to block off a good chunk of time to carefully work through my options. Very hopeful that I can get up through the hull. In the very beginning, I did enclose the nuts in the bottom of the hull in preparation for eventually mounting this, but it looks like I will need to fully flesh that out now if I want to make the lighting work. I'm hoping to be able to focus on this in the next week and a half or so - screwing with this thing upside down at this point is not ideal because my fingerprints show all over the copper part to the point I will probably have to repaint it, and I've got to be very careful with the port covers and just in general not to break anything. Meaning I need to probably get out into the garage rather than in my office to do this. Thanks all, and stay tuned!
  12. I got it on Amazon, 2 of them for $7! I'll put the link at the bottom of this post. The battery pack is 2"x1" by some really thin thickness, and the switch is on it's head (on the thin side). If I had planned a little further ahead, I would have run it through the hull, but I'm not sure that will be doable at this point without some damage. I may try though. I like that option best if I can make it work. Other than the battery pack the thickest parts are the actual lights, and they're maybe 1/8" (they're kind of a weird lopsided teardrop shape) If I just needed the switch, I'd hide it under the spar deck, but when I need to change the batteries that wouldn't work (I don't think). Where you mentioned was actually my first thought, but as I look at it more, I just don't think it will work once all of the rigging is up - I'm afraid it will be too difficult to reach in and maneuver it without breaking something. I also thought maybe I'll put it there where I can just reach the switch, then leave it off unless I am showing it off, and hope the batteries last forever...but I don't like that risk. As I've been typing, I've decided I want to try and get in through the hull. It's a bit risky, but since the gun deck is not glued in place, maybe I can make it work. I think I'll try to go up through the space for the screws. If that does not work, I'll probably try to go out the back of the cabin, and down towards the rudder. Not ideal, but I think the tradeoff of having a light in the cabin and potentially throughout the gun deck is worth it. Thanks for the input! Here's the link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VFMC5GE/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
  13. I am hoping I can elicit an opinion or two here. I found a string of tiny lights powered by a small battery pack. I could put it in there and let it go, but when the batteries die that will be it. I am trying to come up with a way to have access to the battery pack when the ship is complete. My options are to have the battery pack hang out one side of the ship, which would ideally be the "back" side when it is eventually displayed, or to run the string through one of the gun ports in the front or back, or to run it through the cabin. If I do any of these the battery pack will just hang out, but I'm hoping not terribly visibly. One other option is to somehow hide it on the deck, perhaps in a canoe. However, doing that it will be smack in the middle of the ship somewhere. I would just have to disguise it the best I could. I don't know that that's a realistic option once I have all the rigging up.
  14. It's a tamiya white putty. Never used anything like this before. Not sure how much of the log you've read, but this is only my second venture into model ships, my first being much simpler in the 1/150 scale uss United States. All of my experience so far comes from advice from people like you! In hindsight I think I should have immediately wiped all the putty from the surface, but I've already messed that up, taking some texture off with the mineral spirits and allowing too much putty to dry on the surface. I will soon test the paint. I wanted to see if I could figure out a lighting solution before I go much further though (see my previous post). Amyway, thanks for the tips, and I'll keep you posted with my results.
  15. I have a couple guys prepared for the cabin (see pics), and I'm considering placement, and I realize there is just about zero light once the spar deck is installed. I want to illuminate the cabin. I've seen some other pretty advanced set up's with people putting LED light strips throughout the gun deck, but I don't know that I have the skill to pull off what I have seen. Any ideas or tips on illuminating the cabin? That's really all I'm concerned about is being able to see something when I look in the back window. I was hoping to find something like a single wireless LED dot or something like that.
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