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jlheureux

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Everything posted by jlheureux

  1. I'll try that only next build. The metal is prebent, but bent wrong for what it wants me to do so it's a battle. But it worked ok. As I get better my keels will line up more perfectly and it will be easier. This is only my second build so I'm still learning
  2. Fast forward a couple days and I got the bow done and got the cannons and most of the deck furniture installed. Yes, it was a little tricky to place those couple cannons which are underneath those walkways, but it was not impossible by any means. Just took some clever tweezer work. I did my own thing with the cannon rigging. I'm not ready to tackle 'fully rigged' cannons, but I wanted to get them secured and I also added a rope going around the cannons to simulate securing the barrel to the carriage. I've seen that on some real cannons before. I'll tell you the line in this kit is already WAY easier to work with than the cheaper AL kits. A few of the cannons protrude out a little bit more than others. I may address it but it doesn't bother me a whole lot today. I'm going to want and see how I feel in the morning. I also prepared the gunport lids. That's an adventure. Those little metal hinges HATE gluing properly to the wood. But we should be in pretty good shape. Night folks!
  3. Worked on the rudder. I hate doing rudders. It's such a bear. Not truly happy with how it came out, but I am happier with how it came out than I was on my San Francisco so that's good. I also went ahead and put a coat of stain and 2 coats of poly on just the lower hull. I'm pretty much done with that part and that thin mahogony is sooo brittle I got tired of it chipping on me. It's much more sold now.
  4. Been a few days.....I've kept busy, but at the end of the night I've been too tired to update the build log! So I worked on the cannons. Cleaned up the paint and put in some blocks to level them out. Also got the gunport lining on the inside of the bulwarks here this day.
  5. Well the really nice thing is most stuff can be fixed and staining covers up all manner of errors. Also since it's my ship I can modify it however I like!
  6. I picked up some wood. I think it's spruce and boxwood. Whatever I do on those galleries I'm going to face with the extra strips I have from the deck and hull. So we will see how this whole thing goes. I got a couple backup plans anyhow. It's frustrating how the stock these kits. This is the second AL kit that does not have enough of a particular piece of wood to do what they want me to do. This leads to some creative workarounds but they could afford to give me an extra stick or two.
  7. I found the pic of your quarter galleries and I can tell they are fabricated quite nicely. Any suggestions on how to go about that so I can get it to fit the curve of the hull? Part of me wants to omit them altogether and just move on, but that seems like an easy way out. Unsure what I'd have to use wood wise. I may need to pick up some balsa for the windows and such but I think I have extra mahogony strips I could use leftover from the hull lining.
  8. Question: The little coupulas that come with the kit (the metal pieces for the stern simulating the aft cabin space) are pretty crummy. These solid hunks of brass are not quite shaped correctly to fit onto the hull. Also, they would require painting and I'm planning on doing a natural stain and poly coat on this ship and think they would look a little awkward. Any suggestions? I know I could try to fabricate something with extra wood, but I'm also considering using the aft windows and just leaving off the side pieces as they don't quite look the right to me anyhow. See this version for what I mean: http://premiershipmodels.com.au/372-thickbox_default/uss-constellation-model-boat-superior-range.jpg
  9. Been a busy week of work but got some good time in last night and this afternoon on the ship. It's the little things sometimes with these projects. Didn't make huge visual headway, but what I did was pretty time consuming. Got the strakes on the sides and decided to put pins in running along. I like how that looks. Added the sides to the interior gunports and drilled out and installed the eyehooks for all the cannon riggings. I got on the railings and forward got the catheads and such made. I enjoyed fabricating the stuff up on the bow, it was a challenge.
  10. Thank you so much! I need to remember that it's ok to take it slow. I built the whole San Fran in 5 weeks flat....I like focusing and going hard. The plank bending in this one wasn't to bad. On San Fran being single planked 2cm mahogony I had to steam bend the hell out of every plank. This kits first layer was much easier to work with and the hull was a pretty easy slope. The splintering with the thin strips was mostly along the grain as I was gluing and sanding. It's just really dry and not the best but I made it work.
  11. It's been a bit, but I've been working!! Got the first layer of planking done, second layer of planking done, bulwarks on and planked...and the portholes cut and keep put on. Pros: First layer of planking was pretty easy, kind of nice not having to worry about what it looks like. Cons: The bulwarks weren't pre-measured or cut and I hda to cut all the portholes by hand. Thank goodness for dremel. Second layer of planking as a pain in the butt. That mahogony does not like to cooperate no matter what thickness it is. The super thin strip used to do the second layer of planking was finiky on gluing, tended to splinter, and when sanding in several spots I sanded right through and had to execute some repairs. Keel also didn't fit quite perfectly and had to do a lot of sanding to ofset a few little gaps. Overall I think it's coming along though. Worried about getting the rudder on. That part was a little tricky on my last build as well.
  12. Thanks so much. I will keep posting. I found tons of build logs for the SF on here but no one seems to have posted much in this kit anywhere which is a shame. But I'm pushing ahead. I'm sure I can do it.
  13. I've noticed several tricky parts. With this kit it's much less clear perfect placement of the holes for the masts and that main mast going through multiple decks will be wonky. I also notice that cutting those lower deck gun ports is going to be tricky. I will be going through veneer, the pine and them there is an airspace before I cut into the inner wall. That's going to be interesting. I believe my multi speed dremel will be my best friend on this model. Will have to be pretty exact with my measurements to cut those gun ports as well... :/
  14. Can someone suggest a good way to bring out the recesses on the deck planking? I have experimented with pencil and with weathering powder (which worked horribly) but I can't quite get happy with picking out the shadows between planks without excessively staining the whole deck. I need something like the opposite of dry brushing to just get the recesses. I think a watered down ink wash would just soak in as well so I'm at a loss.
  15. A good first nights work overall. I got the false keel and the bulkheads off of the frames. This is harder to do on this kit as being a larger scale there were more of them and the wood is thicker so it was tricky. I got the bulkheads onto the keel. It was tricky figuring out which order they go in, I've noticed the pictures in the instructions are not as good as my last AL kit and they are in black and white which makes it a little harder to interpret. I then prepped and sanded the lower decks and got them planked and attached to the hull. Not a bad nights work all in all. I also like how this kit came with a little stand for the ship. This has already come in handy.
  16. I just got the kit in. I feel the need to give the disclaimer that yes: I've read a little bit about the controversy regarding the versions of the real ship, the restoration, the historical inaccuracies with the model kit itself.....I'm just building this kit because I'm enjoying the hobby and I thought it looked neat. The components and detail are a definite upgrade from the San Francisco so I'm already looking forward to the increased challenge. I can already tell that I'm glad this isn't my first ship. The instructions are a little harder to follow and having a working knowledge is going to be very helpful. This ship is bigger than I thought it was gonna be. That's a good thing, it just never looks the same in pictures I guess. It looks like I have a better quality of cannon and cast pieces with the exception of the rear windows and the always metal cast lifeboat both of which may need to be reworked. I was impressed to see some little metal crew included in this kit. I have been looking EVERYWHERE online for period cast miniatures to bring some life into my San Francisco model. The rigging line also appears to be a higher quality than my last AL kit. Overall I was pretty happy while I unboxed and organized.
  17. Here we go with project two. I finished my San Francisco II model and really enjoyed it. Very quickly I found myself bored watching TV in the evenings without something else to keep my hands busy. One thing led to another and the postman had a package for me today. With a couple kits under my belt I'm feeling more confident in my modeling. I will post more as I go along so I can get some feedback.
  18. So now I'm finishing up. I'm working on getting the last of the rigging in-between the masts done. I just have to do the funky lines attached to the middle of the sails, get the flags on, and finish doing my faux-rope coils for the pin-racks. Can anyone tell me what the ropes in the middle of the sails on the sides are? They're not shroud lines...It's the last step of the rigging blueprint. Anyhow, I know all my pictures are pretty crummy. I just shot as I went with my iphone. I will finish up this model and post some 'finished display' pictures so you guys can get a good look at it. At this point I need some feedback on anything else anyone saw that I missed to improve upon for next time and what my next project should be! I paid $150 bucks for this San Francisco model and am ready for something in that ball-park or more, but I just can't swing a grand for a museum quality Victory yet....I do want something nice so what might folks suggest. I know the Syren is popular right now. Thanks in advance!!
  19. In running the lines: I found that if i pulled out the pin and stuck the line through the hole, then stuck the pin back it made giving tension to the lines 10000 times easier. I then made little rope coils and used my tweezers to stick them over the pins. I know this isn't 'authentic' cause in real life the sailors figure 8 the line onto the pinrack and then coil the extra line in a specific way, but this model is just too small and I didn't care enough (being my first ever model) to do it. I plan on practicing this skill in the future on my next project. As I said a drawback of the button thread I used is it doesn't handle tension super well so making coils and doing wraps on pins was super difficult with this thread. Notice my ships bell? I added that as well!
  20. This left me with finishing up the rope rigging. The last 2 steps of the rigging blueprints are the hardest. Doing the ropework in between the masts is the most difficult. Things are starting to get filled up and there are ropes everywhere which makes it easier to tangle stuff up. Just go slow. Oh yea, I had some extra wire left so I added one more thing not in the plans. I put footropes on all of the yards. You can see the extra black line on the yards. I don't know if it was just British ships that used these and since it's supposed to be a Spanish ship...whatever. I think they look cool and it was a fun thing to add. I think I read once that the french didn't use footropes and just shimmied out onto the yards. I also learned a trick with the sails: These sails with this kit come pre-sewn which is super nice, but a little frumpy. I found if you use a heavy spray starch and an ion you can get a little more spring into the sails and they look a bit more like they have actual wind in them.
  21. Following this success it was a flurry of sail hanging as I threaded and rigged the main and top sails. I also forgot to mention that I HATED the stupid looking metal crows nests provided with the kit. Some folks on the forum re-fabricated them form wood to look the same as the metal ones. Other older versions of the kit came with 'bucket nests' I opted to fabricate my own out of wood, but made platforms instead of nests. I like how they came out. Note: The mastcaps have important lines going through them used to haul up the yards which I didn't get at first on the blueprint, but when I looked at other peoples builds it made a lot more sense. Note on blueprints: Yes, they are a little confusing. Go slow, really look at them, find other photos of this and other ships. Look at the photos and plans provided with the kit. They do not explain every line very well, this is the hardest part of the kit. However, just take it one rope at a time and think about: What is this rope for? Where does it start and where does it end. That's what I did and really it wasn't too hard to figure out once I got used to reading the blueprints. The blueprint will label the 'end' of the rope, then you just gotta look at the schematic of the pin-racks to see where to tie it off. I also added wooden steps onto the ratlines. I've seen them on ships before. Not sure what they are called and the instructions didn't call for them but I think they look cool.
  22. So now it was time to get out my tools and do some rigging. I started with the bowsprit. Then I did the jib boom. I know this is a little backwards, but I wanted to start with what would be the easiest to rip out and do over. Now on this step the green thread supplied was NOT going to work for me with the supplied blocks. Drilling out the blocks only caused them to break so I needed to get creative. Instead I went with a button thread that was the same shade as the supplied green. The pros is it was easy to work with, matched, threaded easily, and doesn't get all hairy like the supplied thread. The down side is it doesn't hold tension very well and can be difficult to tie. Overall, I'm glad I used it on this model. It was my first model and I didn't want to fight with the rigging so much I ended up hating the model. My hope is that on a higher quality kit the supplied blocks and line will be a higher quality.
  23. SO. Now I proceeded to hate my life for several days. Tying knot after knot doing those ratlines was a ton of work. I really couldn't find a lot of help online with technique on here and it's a real learned skill to get it right. I used some tweezers and the green thread provided. My first shroud is pretty bad, and I thought about re-doing it. Now that the whole ship is done I chalk it up to experience as you really can't tell and the rest of my lines were much better. It's just hard getting the technique down of evenly spaced, tight knots, level, and moving up. Some people use templates to get them even, but for me the big problem was getting each foot line tight enough so it wasn't too lose. "Hey-why is this rope green?" I asked the same thing. It simulates the impact of salt and sea on white rope as it ages. Remembering these models are designed to be looked at from a table top distance it actually looks pretty good when done. I wouldn't get too caught up in rope color as really outside of the shoud lines which were tarred (but which slowly wore off revealing the brownness to the rope underneight) on a working ship there wasn't a lot of bright bleached white.
  24. I went ahead and rigged the cannons. I did it a little bit differently than the instructions in terms of how they are roped onto the deck but i like how I did it. It's not historically accurate, but this was my first ship and I didn't have the parts or the scale to fully tackle the cannons. I also found some black beads at Hobby Lobby that worked for cannon balls and I made little cannon ball boxes for the deck. Heck, may also not be historically accurate but I think it added a nice look. Then I rigged the shroud lines. Instructions are pretty good on this too, but look at the pictures. I will say be careful because you only have so much of the mid-length line and it's important to get it right. I passed the line through the masts and back around rigging the lines in pairs like a real ship. Some good posts on here somewhere helped me a lot with this step too. Really measure where and how those deadeyes go. The blueprint tells you the path of the rope. I didn't have a 'serving machine' and doing it on my own didn't work at all. Fortunately my wife has nimble fingers and she helped me serve the deadeyes on the shourds by having me holding them and then she wound some black thread around and around to get the look right. A little glue and bam, we're in god shape. Make sure you work at getting the deadeyes level and straight. It took me a little while to get it and while my very first should is pretty crappy, as I went on I started getting better. Again, make sure your deadeyes and shouds don't overlap anything important like cannon ports!
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