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jonny.amy

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Everything posted by jonny.amy

  1. jonny.amy
    I feel so much better having done that, she looks fighting fit again! This weekend will see a few changes (hopefully), but I'm not far from finishing now! That Captain's is so tantalisingly close to being opened! Cheers for the kind words guys, your advice and help throughout has been greatly appreciated!
  2. jonny.amy
    Well today has been interesting, my replacement bowsprit/jibboom Rowling came through the post today from Jokita! So I've done Convulsion justice again, and I've given her a bit of a face lift! I've cut out that temporary fix to the jibboom, cut out the existing block on the sprit, drilled out a socket for the new jibboom using the last few ounces of power from the drill (completely forgot to charge the damn thing), and then superglued the new jibboom in place! Finally I tied off the Forestay block and glued that bad boy in place, tensioning the forestay correctly! Job done, and she looks sweet! Cheers, Jonny
  3. jonny.amy
    Yeah I think so too, there's no need to over complicate it! Anyway, I've got one more yard to fit to Convulsion tonight, and all my new kit will be added this weekend! I should have the kit finished in 2 to 4 weeks time!
  4. jonny.amy
    I agree with you guys, MDF or Basswood would be more suitable, but I'll probably do it on a limited budget (probably no more than £75.00). I have looked at Cornwall Model Boats, and I've seen a kit, sub £75.00 that I'll probably buy. My friend doesn't really know much about ships and ship building, so has requested a model that "looks pretty, but doesn't have the gun's and gubbins on it"!!! I was thinking about making it as an interesting Scratch build for myself, but if I used MDF or Basswood, I would need to buy a jigsaw, and I'm a bit skint after buying Lucy's anniverary gifts... This month is going to be a quiet one! I might have to reconsider the scratch build? http://www.cornwallmodelboats.co.uk/acatalog/soclaine-le-rigel.html In other news, Jokita have got back to me, and they're sending a new 3mm dowl! And CMB are sending my parcel (including a replacement 3mm dowl) tomorrow after the 1801-1864 White Ensign turns up! So looks like I'll have a fun filled weekend! Cheers, Jonny
  5. jonny.amy
    Eamonn, I'll be interested in joining in with you guys on that! But first I may be taking on a small scratch build of a 12 metre long (40 foot) Oyster Smack? I've been asked to build this particular boat by a friend. I have a load of Balsa sat around at home, and have about 1500mm of square cut pine that I can use for the keel. I'm thinking about ease of the build and I'll building it POB, making the bulkheads from the balsa? It's just a thought at the moment, but I've got the materials lying around, so why not use them? At a scale 1:48, that makes the hull just under 270mm in length or at 1:32, it would be just under 400mm. I have still lots to think about on this one, but might be a side line project until I'm ready to start Sherbourne! Oh, and the bottle of Captain will be opened on the day Convulsion is christened! Cheers
  6. jonny.amy
    I forgot to mention the 1.5 litre bottle of my favourite social lubricant!
  7. jonny.amy
    Morning Chaps, Today is the day is the day the Admiral and I celebrate our happy little life together, and all I can say is that the Admiral has spoilt me rotten! I am now the prod owner of a little Cutter called Sherbourne!!!!!! I've been one hell of a year, and I couldn't be happier, but the Admiral has told me that the build of Sherbourne has to wait until Convulsion has left the dry dock! I'll post a picture shortly!
  8. jonny.amy
    Yes, I was lumping furniture round at 7am yesterday morning, but the Admiral was pleased with my efforts. Although she said the clothes I tried packing to prove my point about carry on luggage for our flight were deemed inadequate for a weeks holiday in the sun! Too many skimpy dresses apparently! Monday is our anniversary, so I'm taking her shopping and then off to the dockyards for me! Win win!!
  9. jonny.amy
    Hi guys, No progress on the model today so far, as I've been doing trips to refuge centers to dump sofas, tidying up, laundry, organising flowers/flower delivery for Lucyon Monday (a lot harder then it sounds), and trying to pack 7 days of ladies clothes in to my sailing bag, 45 litre bag (like most women its at least 14 days worth of clothes) so I can save nearly £200 on flight tickets for our holiday in July. So I spoke with Cornwall Model Boats today, and they told me that postage of my package has been delayed until Monday because the White ensign wasn't in stock! Damn it! Any way, I'll get going soon on the model! Cheers Jonny
  10. jonny.amy
    Ken, I'll look after my back, I've got a sack truck I'll be using to shift the sofa's on, and Lucy has asked her uncle to help as extra muscle! He also has a big van we can chuck them in! Thanks for the advice guys, I'll definitely try the card method for spacings. Clove hitches are second nature to me (having a knowledge of sailing and boat building has really helped me), but I'll have to practice getting them really neat and tidy at this scale. As for the glue, my intention was to use the PVA/water mixture as I tried tying ratlines on President before and found the CA glue made the thread very brittle. Jason, I love your idea!! That was very smart thinking!! FYI - I'm going to Portsmouth Dockyards on Monday for the day, going to get aboard Victory and maybe Warrior if we get time. In my school days I spent two weeks in Technical Drawing Office at the Naval Dockyard, and got to go on Victory for a private tour (access to all the roped off areas), including Nelson's Day Cabin, and had a poke around in his Cabin. It was an incredible guided tour by the Curator at the time, and myself and the Designer I was working with measured up the QM's cabin for a ring-main installation! Really cool stuff! I've not been back since, so it will be great to walk around knowing I've been "behind the guilded ropes"! I'll be taking along my camera, so if anyone wants any pictures, just let me know! Cheers Jonny
  11. jonny.amy
    Hi All, Sorry if I put across the wrong impression with the mini rant, I am very greatful with all your help and suggestions. I've just placed an order with Cornwall Model Boats, for 3mm Dowel, 6mm lime square stock, swivel guns, eight ships boat, two carronades, and a white ensign. So I have plenty of stuff coming through the post in the 24, to 48 hours! Wooo!! There will be no work on Convulsion tonight, as I'm having two new sofa's delivered, so I've got lots of furniture to hump about! Apart from fixing the bowsprit, the only remaining jobs are to finish off rigging the spars and yards, and tying the ratlines. Does anybody know of a good way of tying the ratlines so they are all even? Also, when gluing them in place, is it better to use fast drying CA, or using watered down PVA? I'll update you all on progress when it happens! Cheers
  12. jonny.amy
    Hi Smudge, I found that President was a very difficult kit to start off Model Ship Building with. The instructions are lacking some serious content that you really need to understand and appreciate before taking on the build. For example, cutting in a bearding line for the first layer of planking, isn't included in the build instructions. Certainly the plans provided are lacking. They give you a general overview of the build process, and thats about it. I used the resources available on MSW as much as possible to build this model to a quality that I felt I could achieve. The quality of the materials provided in the kit is questionable (carronades are useless - I replaced mine straight away), and although the model is advertised for beginners, I would certainly suggest from my experience, it is not!!! I've not given up on my President build, it's on hold, until I have the required skillsets with rigging and fitting out. I am currently building the Caldercraft HM Mortar Vessel Convulsion, and there are 7 sets of drawings and 70+ page of instructions that cover the build, fitting out, and rigging processes in great detail. It can not be faulted. President is a pretty kit, it is advertised as a "Light Frigate" suitable for beginners, but I was truely stumped and regretted buying the kit after I finished the hull build. I would suggest that if you want to build President, then take it very slow, read around, and plan your build in an order that you think is right, not the way the plans/instructions tell you to build it. My opinion is that having been in the same boat as you (new to the hobby, and intruiged by the price and look of the kit), is that Caldercraft kit, something like HM Cutter Sherbourne, HM Yacht Chatham, HM Schooner Ballahoo, HM Schooner Pickle, or HM Mortar Vessel Convulsion would be a suitable first time build, purely on the quality of the kit, instructions, and finished product. I've added a link to Cornwall Model Boats website below so you can get a feel for the Caldercraft kits. They are hugely popular on here because the kits are fantastic quality and value for money! Apart from my big ball's up by breaking the bowsprit on Convulsion, I have had no problems what so ever! http://www.cornwallmodelboats.co.uk/acatalog/caldercraft_nelsons_navy.html http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/8593-hm-mortor-vessel-convulsion-by-jonnyamy/ Cheers, I hope this feedback helps! Jonny
  13. jonny.amy
    Jason - I was waiting til payday (friday) before I spent money with Cornwall Model Boats!!!!!! I bought my kit from them and they are fantastic at sending things through in one piece! I've got an order saved on their website at the moment (waiting until I can justify the cost), so I'll just say sod it! and place the order and add 3mm dowel on top! It's only money!! Hahaha John - it's very much the same here, with our stores, it just kills off the local community. Unfortunately, proper "model making" is very much a dying art, and kids and young people don't do it anymore (I say that, I'm 22 years old and I'm hooked on it). Unless you grew up making models, and didn't have your brained turned to mush by TV and videos games, young people these days will loose these skills (I sound like an old man now)! I spent my childhood building boats with my Dad, I spent weekends either sailing, rowing, or just being on the water, and playing guitar and bass guitar. It means I have a skill set that allows me to build models like this with relative accruacy, and it keeps my mind ticking over. I love to sit down with a beer, cut away at some wood, sand and shape something that I can be proud of. Not many young people my age can say they've built something that they're proud of. The ethos might be different out in the States, but certainly here, these traditions are being lost! Sorry for the mini rant! Jonny
  14. jonny.amy
    Hi John, I've not updated my location on here since I've moved house. I now live about 50 miles from Southampton, so I'm a lot closer to work (reduced distance from 52.4 miles to 0.8 miles door to door). My local hobby shops are small indepedant stores that carry limitied stock. I looked in my local DIY shop last on my home, and the smallest stock of doweling is 8mm Diameter, and the smallest square stock is 12mm SQR. Here in the UK, all the small Ironmongers / local DIY stores have all but gone. In my (new) town, the indepenant DIY store couldn't compete with the large DIY Megastore, and has now been turned in to an internet cafe. The local shops are being forced to close or reduce their hours due to the lack of trade compared to the DIY megastores, purely because of price. At B&Q, Wickes, or Homebase, you can buy a set of 20 Stanly Blades for say £2.99, but these items are bought in a bulk load, often millions of items at a time, and the indepedant store which will sell the same product, is buying limited stock, thus selling it at a higher price and still loosing money because their profit margin is so slim. So these stores simply shut down after time. I live and work in the town centre and all I can see if I step outside is Megastore conglomerites, and the occasional struggling indepedant store. I will give Jokita until tonight to reply to my email, and if they don't get back to me, I'll head to Hobby Craft. I know where it is, and I will be visiting Southampton and Portsmouth on Monday (going to the Historic Dockyards for the day), so I can pop in for that. Maybe Lucy will get herself a new Cross Stitch from there too? Thanks for the advice on shaping the square stock. I've built full length masts for various dinghy projects my Dad and I have worked on in the past, but he's always had the stock rounded off at the local riggers yard, so I've never seen it done, or done it myself!
  15. jonny.amy
    Hi John, I could do that, but the model shops near me don't sell square stock in anything other than balsa, so I think I'd had to wait for Jokita to get back to me. O could try my local DIY shop to see if they've got any square stock, but I doubt they would have anything under 5 x 5mm. And if that's the case I taking off tonnes of scarp. Also I'd have to build or buy a lathe... Cheers Jonny
  16. jonny.amy
    Update..... I have emailed Jokita asking for a replacement dowel, am now waiting on a responce. Fingers crossed I'll heare back from them shortly. Cheers Jonny
  17. jonny.amy
    Hi Nick, thanks for the responce! I grew up in Southampton, sailing on the Solent and in the Channel, but moved away from the area a few months back to be closer to work. I also agree with Jason, it's my intention to fix it properly, but I spent Saturday morning trawling through my local model shops and found nothing! None of the shops had suitable 3mm DIA dowel. I'll contact Jokita today and hopefully they can supply me with some? I've had a think about how to do it, and I'm going to cut out the repair, cut off the existing bowsprit, and drill through the existing boken bowsprit section to make a plug at the bowsprit partner. Then it should be as easy as slotting in a nex bowsprit. Fingers crossed it will be a fairly straight forward fix, but when it happened, I didn't think about a long term fix. Until the ball is rolling with Jokita, I'll have to put the build on hold. I'll be contacting them shortly. Hopefully I can have replacement bowsprit in by friday! Cheers, Jonny
  18. jonny.amy
    Hi Guys, Photos of the incident: Like I've said, this is far from an elegant fix, but it will do for now. If I can get some quality 3mm DIA dowel tomorrow then I will attempt a fix. But I'll have to be 100% sure I can make it good before trying anything. I'm sorry I don't have a photo of the broken bowsprit as I acted immediately once the break happened. I have drawn up a sketch on the plans to show my fix. Cheers for the feedback
  19. jonny.amy
    Hi Guys, Eventually I will end up replacing the bowsprit. Or I will devise a method of drilling out the existing bowsprit piece and fitting a new one, but for now I'm just going to keep calm and carry on. It's a war wound for Convulsion, and until I can think of a way to fix properly, that's the way it will stay! Cheers for the kind words and sympathy!! Jonny
  20. jonny.amy
    After 3 or 4 months of carefully building Convulsion, with minor mistakes and accidents (all patched up nicely), the worst thing has happened to me and Convulsion today. So, I put convulsion down so I could do the washing up after dinner.... And when I came back to pick up where I left off, Convulsion slipped out my hand and landed BOWSPRIT DOWN on the dining room chair. As you can imagine, the bowsprit snapped in two and lots of swearing commenced. In a quick ditch effort to fix it, I glued it back in place. But after 30 minutes drying time, it was still very flimsy. So I came up with a solution to fix it. I've glued some excess 1mm THK walnut to the top and bottom of the bowsprit, and glued that to the bowsprit partner (the block between both spars), and then lashed the walnut strips in place with some excess 1mm DIA black thread. It's far from pretty, I'm pretty f*cked off, and it's forever going to bug the hell out of me, but it is fixed. The show must go on! I'll post photos tomorrow. Cheers
  21. jonny.amy
    I'm going to have a think about it later on today, but in theory if I rig all the blocks with the running rigging, and then elevate each yard(tension taken up on the running rigging) I can then secure the throat parrel (I think that's the right terminology) of the yard to mast. My main concern I guess is making sure the yards aren't fixed too high up the rig....
  22. jonny.amy
    Morning Everyone, Unfortunately I had to work very late last night, which meant I didn't get home until 9pm (or there abouts), so I didn't get any blocks tied on to the yards. But my efforts last night have meant I can duck out earlier today, so I should be able to get going on the block and tackle arrangements tonight. All I managed to do last night was touch up the paint work on all the yards, so it should be plain siling tonight! I've never got this far on a model ship (President was such an awful quality kit that I wouldn't be able to get this far), so are there any tips or pointers anyone can give me so I can rig the yards properly? Cheers Jonny
  23. jonny.amy
    Morning Chaps, Progress was slow last night as I ended up working later than I wanted to, but I still managed to get the wire from my local DIY store to build and rig the footrope partners (the main vertical supports). I'll hopefully be home at a reasonable time tonight so I can start adding rigging blocks and finish painting the yards. Here are the photo's of the Main Yard, and the 0.5mm 15A fuse wire, all ready for block and tackle. I've had the realisation about the ships boat, and the swivel guns, that my monthly budget won't stretch that far on pay day, as I have to pay my excess on my private medical care, buy plane tickets for our summer holiday, and most importantly buy the Admiral an anniversary present..... She wants a handbag or purse, and the cheapest Ted Baker handbag (of course, other fashion designers are available) is £129.00, and that's not even the style she likes..... God help me! Trawling through eBay hasn't helped much either because all the bags are either used, or are too cheaply price to be real!! I might just have to buy her a model kit instead!!!! On the plus side, I have a feeling that I might be getting HM Cutter Sherbourne as a present... finger crossed!! Cheers Jonny
  24. jonny.amy
    Ken, I'm not sure if there are any model train shops near me. It's something I can do a quick internet search on though. I think your ciphering of dimensions is correct, but I've been bought up on the "new money" metric system so I'd have to check! The local DIy store sells soft fuse wire, which is more than likely too thin (0.2mm to 0.5mm), but will do the job. I was also thinking about doing the footropes on the yards in wire as well. That way, they'll keep their shape nicely. It's a little bit of a cheat, but it should look good. Hahaha, I know that feeling! I worked in a Structural Engineering Drawing Office (Offshore Oil & Gas Industry - Lifeboat retrofitting on rigs) with a group of 25 or 30 designers and engineers (all blokes, all late 30's to 50's), and the first time I walked in wearing glasses, my boss stood next to my desk and shouted out "Who is this Specky Tw@t sat in Jon's chair?!". They were only teasing me, but I had the last laugh when my boss had to borrow my glasses to read notes on a drawing!!
  25. jonny.amy
    Hi guys, A brief update on last nights build in the "boatyard" (new term for the dining room table). The Admiral was out seeing her mother last night, so I used this opportunity to make some sawdust and remove the excess material on the yards, crossjacks, gaffs and booms. I've paired all the spars down to the required thinknesses, and glued each cleat to the spar. Lots of sticky finger fun (sounds dirty)! Finally painting 3 out of the 8 spars matt black as required. The plans call for 1mm brass wire to be used for the footrope supports, but I've run out of the kit-supplied wire. So on the main yard, I tried using a 0.5mm DIA plastic "wire" to replace this, but I found that although with a little coaxing from a lighter and CA glue, it was far too brittle for this. So it's back to the drawing board on this one. I may have to bite the bullet and buy some more 1mm DIA wire? Ken - I sit in front of a PC screen all day as part of my job, and I noticed after 5 years or so, that I couldn't see a damn thing after 45 minutes looking at the screen. And ever since then I've needed glasses to work with. As I'm now going down the rigging route with Convulsion, I've found I need to wear them more but still the light in my light is poor at night. Lucy has no problem doing her Cross Stitch (don't laugh, we're both old farts at heart), but I really struggle to see. I'll look in to a solution tonight. Eamonn - Thanks for the tip, I'll check out Lidl too..... But next time please use real money, not any of that Euro Zone play money! Haha Cheers Jonny

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