usedtosail

Looks great Bill. You are a real inspiration for us Connie builders.

Captain Al, The way I have made square holes in a model is to drill a round hole, then use the tip of a large nail, which is cut in four faces, to press into the round holes, forming a square hole of sorts.

Captain, I have tried leaving them on as a strip, but had trouble keeping the offsets looking right from one row to the next. With the individual plates, I can compensate a little with each plate. Bill, yes this is the same copper tape as the stain glass folks use. It is what Model Expo supplies with the kit. I have used this in the past and as long as the hull is well prepared and the strips are burnished as they are placed, they hold extremely well with just the adhesive on the back. I prime the hull under the plates to get a nice smooth surface for the plates, and use a popcycle stick that I filed to an angle to burnish the plates down with. This will be a little more challenging on this one because I don't want to burnish the nail heads away, so I have to be a bit more careful during that process. I have used this method on almost all my models and the tape is still stuck after 8 years. How archival this is I don't know, but I am not too worried about that. It would be interesting to hear if anyone has had problems over the long run with the tape as is.

Thanks Captain. Yes, I take a strip of tape and score the individual plates but don't cut through the backing. Then I peel them off the backing as I apply them to the hull. This makes it much easier to get the backing off then if you cut them into individual plates first.

I gave the hull a few coats of gesso as a primer. I masked off the gun port openings and tried airbrushing this on, but was having too much trouble getting the right consistency, so I brushed on three coats of thinned gesso, sanded the hull down with fine sandpaper, then filled in a few more spots that showed up with the primer. I cleaned up the hull and gave it one more coat of the thinned gesso. The thinned coats smoothed out nicely, so I am pleased with the brushing. I did order a new airbrush that should handle larger areas better, so I will try that with the black paint for the top sides. I am also going to get some nicer brushes. I have a few large ones but they are not as high quality as the smaller brushes I have. I already know I will have to do some brush painting on the topsides, especially around the gun ports, so if I end up doing it all by brush, that will be OK too. I started experimenting with the copper tape for the copper plates. I have used this before, but I always put it on smooth. For this model, I wanted to add nail heads, so I had a cheap ponce wheel which I tried running down the edge of some left over copper tape from the back side. The nail heads looked just OK, but were not too pronounced. I modified the ponce wheel by using a cutter disk on the Dremel and cutting into each slot, then used a triangular file to sharpen the teeth. The nail heads are now much more pronounced as you can see in these images. I then made a jig to hold the copper tape while I make these nail heads and also when I score the individual plates from the tape, which I do with an X-Acto knife from the front side. There are two long pieces of wood on a base that are set to the width of the copper tape, which in this case is 1/4". I then marked 5/8" lengths on the bottom side of the jig and ran the jig through the table saw to make the slots at 5/8" intervals. I can now place the tape in the jig upside down and score the nail heads for the ends of the plates. For the sides, I can place a 3/16" piece of wood in the slot and run the ponce wheel along it to get a nice straight line of nail heads. I can then turn the tape right side up, offset it a little bit and score the individual plates using the knife in the slots to get straight ends. We will see how this works out when I get to the coppering.

Yes, Captain Steve has what I meant to say. Just sand in the curve after everything is glued up.

I remember how those "birds" were flying around in the movie when they came undone in the storm. Pretty scary. Do you think that was realistic, though?

Yes Rich they do. Whether it is exactly 45 degrees I am not sure.

Hi Cathead, Nice build so far. Bending the planks laterally would be really hard, I think, but they are thick enough that you can sand the curve into them when sanding the hull. In your case, you would have to touch up the stain on those sanded planks.

Welcome back Jay. And you too Geoff. You guys were my inspiration for my build. I have learned a lot from you guys.

Thanks a great milestone to meet, Theo. Congratulations! She is looking terrific.

Denis, how much lead do you need? I have a roll of lead sheathing that is around 1/16" thick. I could cut off a piece and mail it to you if its not too big.

Thanks George. I really like a cradle for the same reason. The case for this beast is going to be fun to design and build. I like RobnBill's design for a hinged back as the top will be too large to lift off, not to mention the space needed to clear the masts.

To finish up from yesterday's post, here is the completed cradle, just not with any finish yet. I'll wait to do that later. There are two brass rods in each support, going from the legs through the small support base pieces and into the large base board. I used CA to glue in the brass rods and wood glue under the feet and base boards. Everything is nice and tight so should be good without any additional support, I think. I can always add support bars between the supports, but I would rather not. I had bought that base board for a previous model but didn't use it. It made a good base for the cradle. I'll probably add some felt to the arms where they contact the hull, too. And here it is supporting the hull. I once had thoughts of carving the ends with the same billet head scroll as on the model, but the walnut seems too brittle to carve well. I may try adding some scrolls on the sides of the walnut, but we'll see. I gave the hull a final sanding in preparation for priming it. There is one last step to do before that though which is to add the boards that will cover the gap between the outer planking and inner planking across the open bulwarks section. These are sort of vestiges on the existing ship, as shown on the plans. They have a groove in the outer edges so to make that I ground a profile into an old razor blade with a Dremel cutting disk. The new profile is the deep one on the right. You can see some old ones that I used for other models with very unsatisfactory results. This one I made very deep so the tool won't wonder as I pull it across the edge, which was the problem with the old profiles. And here is the result. This strip is just laying in the opening. I need to prime and paint it before gluing it in, as it is right up against the green plank sheer on the inside. I am really happy with how the groove came out, especially since this is basswood which doesn't like to hold a nice edge. I used a very small file to increase the bevel on the inside edges of the groove and also to clean up the bottom of it. I rounded the outside edges with some sandpaper. I will start masking the hull tonight in preparation for spraying the primer. I am going to prime all the way down to the keel because I think it makes a good base for the adhesive copper tape. I have not had any problems with adhesion on previous models when I have primed the hull first. Plus, it will show areas that may still need some filler and/or sanding.

Looks great, Rich, I like how the stand matches the colors of the hull.

Thanks guys. Rich - I have been following your log, so I saw your cradle too. This is the first one I have made from scratch, but I had bought the contour gauge last year to prepare for it. When I read about you using wire, I was going to suggest it, but Augie beat me to it. I really like your plastic one, however, as the one I bought is metal, which is why I didn't want to wait until the hull was coppered to use it. I think your cradle is sweet too.

Thanks Patrick, Tim, and George, and for the likes. I finished painting the inner bulwarks. This is five coats of thinned blue/green paint. After these pictures were taken, I touched up the black paint in the spar deck gun ports and the off white paint on the gun deck bulwarks where I slipped with the brush slightly when painting the green. The simulated rivet heads just show under the paint, which I like. Between painting sessions, I made up the rest of the tackles for the gun deck cannons. I also figured it was a good time to make the cradle so I could test the supports before the copper plating was installed. I used a contour gauge to get the shape of the hull at two points, then transferred those shapes to paper and scanned it into a drawing program. I developed the shape of the supports in the drawing program, doing one side then flipping it over to get the other side, so they would be symmetrical. I printed them out on paper and cut them out to test fit on the hull, thinking I might need to make some adjustments. But, they fit really well, so I tacked the shapes to a piece of 1/4" thick walnut and cut them out roughly on the scroll saw. I then used the 1" belt sander and the drill press with a Dremel sanding drum to get down to the final shapes: I then hand sanded the edges and the faces. the walnut tended to have chips along the edges, so I used the Dremel tool with a sanding drum to sand a bevel into the edges to remove the chips. I clamped the supports between two wood strips on the workbench to test fit the supports to the hull: I'll have more pictures of the assembled cradle later. I am now going to make the wood strips that fit across the outside of the hull across the open waist.

Those are some great shots of the interior Nigel.

Looks terrific John. I will certainly be referring back to this wonderful log when I start my Half Moon build in a year or two.

Sal, that is a nice planking plan. I use something similar though it is not as visually appealing as yours. Your planking looks great too.

Looks great, Pat. I have two of those destructors in the house and so far they have been really good.

Wow, I just realized that I am starting the second year of this build today. Where does the time go?

I got to spend some time in the shipyard this weekend, so was able to fix up the area around the bowsprit hole. The outer hull planking was pretty straight forward and I cut the plank sections to fit around the bowsprit. Here they are before sanding: And here is the bow after sanding: On the inside, I decided to take the bowsprit out and plank over the edges of the hole, then file the hole out later. Here are the four planks that are cut by the bowsprit: The next plank up is partially cut by the bowsprit, so I added it as a full plank to be filed later. None of these planks are glued in yet, as I still have to add the rivet heads to them after they are bent: I added the rivet heads and glued these planks in, then used a rat tail file to enlarge the hole, filing slowly and easily so as not to dislodge the plank ends. I then bent the top plank which is a narrow plank, added the rivet heads, glued it in, then sanded it down to make it flush with the rest of the bulkhead: And here is the inner bow with the bowsprit dry fit: And the outer bow with the bowsprit: I will add a little filler around the outer hole when the bowsprit is permanently added much later. You may also see a small piece of wood on the stem, which is there to fill a gap between the bowsprit and the stem. I sanded out the sides of the two openings to the head, then gave all the spar deck gun ports a final sanding with a square sanding stick and some fine sandpaper. I used a tack cloth to clean out the gun ports, than painted the insides of them black. I also touched up the black paint around the gun deck gun ports, especially the insides of the rabbets. I will now mix up the green paint for the inner bulwarks. I mixed up a batch last night but it looked too green this morning.

Andy, that is a great way to display both models.

Thanks Guys. Tim, you are exactly right. If I were build this again, I would put supports across the bow and especially between bulkheads A and B, to get those curves better.