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Larry Van Es

Gone, but not forgotten
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Everything posted by Larry Van Es

  1. I used a carpenters pencil from the hardware store. The lead is very heavy about 3/16" wide by 1/16 thick.
  2. They were on my build site before the crash. I'll try to find the old photo's and repost them. As I recall I cut a piece of the wood that I used for my filler blocks and cut it to fit within the width of the deck at the narrowest point where the the mast holes were to be drilled. Then glued strips of wood at each end to allow for the curve or the deck. At this point I don't recall if I had the capability to chuck it up in a drill press and drill the hole to the correct angle. I may have filed the strips on each end of the block to achive the correct angle. Either method would work, and a few test drills on an old 2x4 would allow you to verify its acuracy.
  3. Before you proceed you might give thought to how you will you will mount your masts. Chuck’s method for the masts is not for everyone. I made a drill guide that had the correct angel for the masts and drilled a pilot hole at this point Also you may want to think about how you will mount your model to it’s base. These are two things that are a lot easier now than after its planked.
  4. Trust me when I say don't start on the little boat start on the big one. Just because it's little doesn't mean that it's easy.
  5. There's a scripture in the Bible that says "The first shall be last and the last shall be first". This is how you approach loading the pictures. Think of stacking the photos on a desk. The one on the top will be the last one added to the stack. Your doing great. It's more fun from here on as the stack of wood begins to become a ship.
  6. I'm one those guys who rarely buy anything for myself. My wife buys me two pairs of Levis and my sister-in-law buys me underwear for Christmas and I buy hotrod t-shirts whenever I see one that I like. Don't get me wrong, my wife buys a few clothes to dress me up in when we go out, but they're not necessary in my book. When I first saw the Byrnes saw I decided that I didn't really need it and I was right. One day I was looking for a hanger and went to my wife's closet when I didn't find one in mine. By the way hers is a lot, and I mean a lot bigger than mine. Since the kids have all gone, she actually has her clothes in three of the four former bedrooms. The forth is only half filled with mine. Then it struck me - She didn't "need" that may dresses. The next day I ordered both the thickness sander and the table saw. I still don't "need" either but boy is it more fun with them. And now that other half of the closet is filled with equipment because I decided that I also didn't "need" a Sherline lathe and mill.
  7. I had the same problem. I finally used the pre-conditioner and the 20/80 mixture, and after sanding down and re-applying about 5 times it evened out nicely. It wasn't really that much trouble because a lot of those sand-downs were to fix boo boos. It seems to take a lot of applications of the stain mixture to soak in enough for an even finish.
  8. I use my right hand for the X & Y adjustment on the front and right side of the bed and my left hand for the Z adjustment at the top. I'm right handed but I would have to do it this way even if I was left handed. I think you have to become somewhat ambidextrous to use a mill no matter what. It's not a large learning curve though. You just practice a little on something to get used to it.
  9. Just happened to be on the Victory yesterday and took a few pictures of the anchor buoys for you guys. Don't know if this helps with the original discussion., but there are probably going to be a lot of people like me watching. I don't know what's inside, but it's covered with what looks like a tarred canvas bag. Probably the same stuff that they made the rain coat out of. Chuck for his Syren made his out of painted sculpey and made a pretty good representation.
  10. Welcome aboard. You'll love this model.
  11. One more thing. Now is also a good time to think about how you are going to mount your ship to a display stand. If you are going to use the brass pedestals like I did, you have to buy two different heights and even then you have to file out the width of the groove of both and the height of at least one to get a level waterline. The screws that they give you with the pedestals are like dry wall screws. After I started to do this I was advised to drill the holes thru the keel for a machine screw and install a nut on the inside of the ship in the future. Too late after you've planked.
  12. As I progressed I can't really say that I got any better at building ship models, but I can say that based on the vast number of mistakes that I made, I have become somewhat of an expert in covering them up. Like you said I've seen how painful it is later if you don't take the time to lay a proper foundation. Also at this time you might want to look forward to the stepping of the masts. If you aren't confident in Chuck's method (which I wasn't ), You might want to drill the holes for the masts at this time. They don't have to be the right diameter. I would start out with holes for small dowels . Just to get them straight and with the right angle fore and aft. That way if you're not right the first time, you can try again with a larger drill. I actually made a drill guide out of a block of wood with shims on both sides to allow for the curve of the deck. I then calculated the angle and drilled it on a drill press. Worked well but would have been much easier if I had done it before planking the deck.
  13. Your care in making the filler blocks is something that all future builders should pay attention to. When I was at this stage I didn't have a clue what I was doing, but I did have a degree in mathematics. My knowledge of geometry told me that if I made the filler blocks square and exact in width then the whole keel would have to be straight. This is one of the few things that I did right on my build. My posts on this in MSW 1.0 have been lost so I'm glad to see you post this.
  14. I Have the Model Shipways Syren and have tried every method mentioned here with no success. I have even tried some not mentioned here (urine). Other people with the same model have had no problem. I recently decided that the problem was that my copper has some kind of protective film on it and I didn't steal wool the plates after I stamped them to simulate nails. I made some more test strips and steel woolled the crap out of them. This allowed some very uneven oxidation but it looked horrible. I've decided to leave it alone. After a couple of years it's started to darken a little. They warn you not to leave finger prints on the plate. Heck every plate has my fingers all over them with no effect.
  15. A little late for this one, but next time you might consider pre-painting the whales, fashion pieces, cap rail, etc. and other black pieces of wood prior to gluing into place with black India ink. You can reapply ink to areas that you sand easily and then you don't need to worry about bleed off etc. Black India ink allows the grain of the wood to show thru and it almost looks like you used ebony.
  16. Before and after. If I remember correctly there is a laser burned line on each bulkhead that shows the approximate amount to bevel each bulkhead. I removed most of that with a knife and then after installing all the bulkheads, I sanded the rest while constantly checking across three bulkheads with a plank. Make sure you get all the bulkheads facing the right way. I used soft pine for the filler blocks. I do most everything with a digital calipers and made each of my filler blocks within a few thousandths of an inch of the ideal space between each bulkhead by sawing with a good table saw and then sanding to fit. I didn't have a table saw at the time so I asked a friend to saw them for me making twice as many of each size just in case. I had to buy a 6' piece of wood anyway. Each of the filler blocks was a press fit between the bulkheads. When all were in place, it was as if all of the bulkheads were glued in place. However if a couple of the filler blocks were tapped out, a bulkhead could be removed. This arrangement straightened out the warp in my former and assured each bulkhead was perpendicular to the former. I taught geometry at one time so I had faith in this method. At the time I hadn't discovered the idea of a building table to assure a straight keel and perpendicular bulkheads. See the problems that Shaz had with a warped former and bulkheads that were off. http://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/4239-us-brig-syren-by-shaz-model-shipways/page-7 Other Syren build sites show the building table method. It's important that this is done right since everything that follows will depend on it.
  17. There's a stuff called "Weather It" which is used to give wood a weathered look. It can be used in conjunction with other stains. I got mine at a model train shop. I tested it with basswood and liked the look but then switched to holly when I made the deck. Holly makes a real nice deck but it is real white and doesn't take stain well. The rest of the model had a "lived in look" shall we say from all the mistakes that I had to try to cover up. I tried to use stain and Weather It to get the same look with the holly with limited success. At least it doesn't look pristine and out of place.
  18. Like I said I applied it after everything was done with the exception of perhaps the quarter badges and head rails. I'm not even sure about those. It's not like I intended to do it like that. I just didn't know any better. After I heard about wipe-on poly, I thought that I would just do the deck. That worked so nice that I did the insides of the bulwarks, spilled some on the cap rail, and it just kept going from there. Like I said, when it dried it was unnoticeable but left a hard surface. If I had it to do over, I would do it just like that.
  19. I put it over the MS black paint and everything else. t he only thing that hadn't been installed were the head rails and the quarter badges. The flat poly just seemed to disappear when dry but leaves a hard surface. When looking at it afterward I really couldn't tell that it had been applied other than it flattened out some of the shine from glue residue etc.
  20. I finally found some time to take some pictures of my longboat. The longboat was the first thing in the kit that I tried to build. I figured that I would build the little boat first and then I would surely know how to build the big one. Boy was I stupid. I numbered each of the layers as I removed them. Then when they were all removed, I brushed them off the work bench onto the floor. That's when I realized that I had placed the numbers on the wood that I had cut them from and not the parts themselves. I tried to stack them in the proper order but it was evident later after gluing and carving them out that it was wrong. Not only was there was a big hole on one side but the keel was off center. I filled the hole with wood filler, but it was going to look like crap. I put it aside and started on the big one. Later after planking the hull of he big one I came back to it and decided to try to fix it. By that time I had learned that MS would probably send me a new one free of charge if I just explained what had happened. I wasn't ready at that time to admit to anybody how dumb I was. The keel was off center so I decided to saw a grove half way thru and glue in a new keel where it should go. That led to more sawing bow and stern for the head and stern post. Ok – It was starting to look a little better. I figure what the heck why don't I just plank it like I did the big one. I went to the model train shop and bought some scale lumber that looked about the right size. It said that it was basswood but it seemed to be much better stuff than what came with the kit. Now it looked like a real boat from the outside so I took the dremel and ground out almost everything that wasn't planking or keel on the inside. I used the same train stuff for the ribs. By now I had received some boxwood from a club member and used that for the rest of the boat. It came out looking pretty good but it would have been easier if I had scratch built it from the start.
  21. We recently returned from Europe where I took a lot of pictures of ship models. ( I've posted some of the ones from Greenwich in the Gallery of Contemporary Models from Museums section ) We went to see the HMS Victory in Portsmouth, the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, and the Musee National de la Marine in Paris. We had a lot of catching up to do with all the kids and grand kids so I haven't gotten much done. Paris was the last stop. I was busy taking thousands of pictures again when my wife came up and said something. I was so involved I just said “yeah, yeah, whatever”. I figured that she said something like “I'm going to the bathroom.” The next thing that I knew the place was closing. When I went up front to turn in my headphones I told the guy at the counter that I hadn't even used them because I was so busy taking pictures of the great models. He said that there was a woman there hours ago who said that her husband was busy taking pictures so she was going to go spend all of his money. Can't wait to get that American Express bill.
  22. Wait till you're all done is what I would recommend. While working on the sweeps covers, port lids, etc., you can and probably will scratch the planks at some time. It's a lot easier to sand and touch up without the wipe on poly. I must have sanded and touched up a half dozen times. Once was a major gouge that required a lot of sanding over a wide area to smooth it out. When I was all finished I wiped on the poly over everything hinges and all.
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