jwvolz

...Sherbourne.

Six down, three zones (or 10 strakes) to go.  Man-oh-man, am I ever ready for this stage of the build to be over!
 
I found some clamps at Amazon that, with a small modification (grinding flat the curved portion that is not visible in the photograph below), works well in the tight spaces I have left.   (See last photo in today's batch)
 
1. That clamp in action:

 
On to the build.
First, work-side up:

 

 

 

 
Then for a change of pace, right side up.

 

 
The clamp ad at Amazon:  Note, I tried gluing a wooden shim on the inside face at the bottom of the clamp as pictured below, but it didn't stick very well. In the end I simply ground off that lip using my belt sander, which made short work of it.  
 

Yo!  It's my Philly suburbs upbringing.

Finished much of the bulwarks and various railings. Used my new Mini Dremel on the pin rails, great tool! I was amazed at how accurate it is, very little vibration, made the task easy. Putting in the gangway was more challenging than expected, plans were somewhat hard to interpret. But it adds a nice detail.

I was struggling with the shade of "green color paint" to use on the bulwarks and deck structures. Fortunately, Tom Lauria shared some helpful information on mix ratio's he used for his 1/4" scale build (you can find Tom's build on YouTube). I use only enamel or out of production Floquil paints and after some trial and error feel I have a decent period color representation.

As I progress with the build and anticipating next steps, I have found the kit plans are lacking in detail. I am continually reviewing the plans from New Bedford Whaling Museum as well as the two books noted in my initial post. Interestingly, both sets of plans were drawn by E A. Ronnberg Jr.
whaling historian.

My next step will be coppering the hull. I plan to use a "checkerboard" appearance. It is a tedious process involving attaching individual plates. First the copper is heated to produce variations in color, "yellow metal". The term used to describe the color of the copper plates during that period. This will be my second attempt using this process, my first was 25 years ago, Model Shipways Eagle. It's nice to have something to compare with and note area's "needing improvement". I'll add more background about this process in my next post.

Thank you Jason,  enjoy your Pinnace, it's a great little kit.
 
Post One Hundred and Sixty-one.
 
Building the 32’ Pinnace (Part four)
At this point I couldn’t resist the urge to see how the Pinnace would look onboard ‘Indy’.

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4112
Temporarily placed in the suggested position on the skid beams.

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4117
The kit provides a set of oars in laser cut Pear.
These benefit from a little fettlin’ beyond char removal.
The blades should be thinned down toward the outer end, and the shank rounded a little at the bottom third leaving the upper two thirds square to represent the loom.

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I think a spot of woolding is up next.
 
B.E.
26/03/2024
 

Little update here:
 
I didn't had a lot of time to work on the Sphinx because I was renovating my garden these last few weeks, season is beginning and needed to do quite some work.
But these last few days I could do here and there some work on the ship  .
I have glued the large pear sidepanels onto the hull. Not super difficult, but some concentration is needed to get a good fit. Especcially the lower front pieces I found the most challenging. I do have a small gap here and there between the upper and lower parts, but overall i'm happy with the fit. Those seams are going to be covered anyway so it's not really a problem. The most important thing for me was that I got all the right curves of the hull and the pieces were glued firm against the underlying patterns.
 
I advise to have a sound clamping plan before you begin  it takes away a bit of the stress when you apply the diluted pva and the pattern begins to curl a bit.
So dry-fitting first helps with this.
 


 

 
 
 
After that I sanded all the gunports flush with the inner MDF frames and began a test fit with the gunport linings. Used 0.5 pear for this and are quite happy with the first results. They are not too much in your face but distinctive enough to notice. Also the 3 ports with the lids need some extra work, because the underlying pattern didn't lay flush with the MDF inner frames. So I need to fill up or sand down here and there. It's a bit different for each gunport, a little bit of extra work...but that's part of the fun  
2 done....18 more to go!
 

 

 
 
 

Last week I started with the lower foremast.This week the foremast was painted yellow. I added the bibbs (instruction call them bibbs but I have seen the spelling bibs at MSW) and glued together lower mast top and gun wales. Cross and trestle trees are glued together and painted. All dry fitted for the photo. I have also done the woolding but not the banding.

Best regards
 
Henrik
 

I was hoping to get more done this weekend after the dowels for the masts arrived. In the end I decided to go with basswood dowels twice stained with cherry wood oils. Still just a tad too bright for my liking but they will have to work for now. As ist happened I must have lost some of the photo-etched parts needed for the rigging so I have contacted Chris at Vanguard Models to see if I can get replacements.

Vanguard Models Saucy Jack in the background waiting for some paint.

I still prefer the more oval shape of the 'originals', although the strop groove is more accurate on the CNC version. Take your pick!

I've had to pause on the Erycina for a short while as I managed to loose some photo-etched parts. An additional etched parts fret was ordered last week Monday and it arrived here in Germany today, which was excellent considering it went though customs and all. Great service by Mr. Watton of Vanguard Models.
However, in the mean time I painted the hull of my second Vanguard Models project, the Saucy Jack. So this update is more about her.

Log #72: Tying Off Lines
Thank you to everyone for stopping by and for all the likes.
 
First off I would like to show off the new tool I made. I discovered that machine sewing needles are better than hand ones for splicing as the hole is closer to the point. So I just made some handles out of spare wood I had lying around. I used standard needles in sizes 70 and 90. The hole on the 70 is not big enough to get whole ropes though, but once you split apart the strands it works better as it is about 0.25mm thinner than the size 90 one. The size 90 one is pictured below.

With all the principal lines in place for the boom and gaff, the next step is to tie them all off. I started with the boom tackle as this one was obvious and has no impact on other lines. I decided to leave a bunch of extra rope in a loose coil after tying it off on the cleat. So step one was to cut the line short and super glue the end to the deck.

I then separately made the coil. I am still playing with the method for making these and will probably give a more detailed explanation of what I do when I am confident I like my process.

For the backstays I belayed them to cleats on the rail and then wrapped extra rope around the base of the block.

I continue to play around with the best way to secure hooks to blocks and I have a new method I am trying out. I arrange the line similar to the previous way of doing it, but I splice the ends into each other and secure it in place with fabric glue.

You can see the end result below seems to look less bulky than my previous attempts.

For the boom toping lift, Goodwin indicates this should be belayed to a pair of single blocks hooked on to the starboard channel. I did a bunch of thinking at this point as I am planning on including the topgalant stays and so wanted to make sure that they would have a place to belay to. In the end I secured the fall to base of the lower block, but then hung the extra on the nearest shroud cleat.

You can see how I used the eyebolt inbetween the last shroud and the standing backstay to leave the sternmost one for the topgallant backstay. My rope coil was not the best, but it looked close enough that I decided to chalk it up as a learning experience. Also being behind the shrouds it is not really that visible.
And that brings us up to date. Next I need to secure the inner and outer ties for the gaff and then I will move on to setting up the topgallant.

Log #68: Master & Commander
Thank you to everyone who has stopped by for the comments and encouragement. I continue to slowly work on the rat lines, but decided to take a bit of a break to do something a bit more fun.
 
As I have previously shown I ordered a figure from vanguard models which I plan to include on Alert to demonstrate scale. To start things I cut it off of the base and primed it in black before doing a zenithal highlight with white ink.

The zenithal highlight does two things. First it helps me to get a feel for the model and second it highlights the areas that will be brighter giving me less work later.
 
The next step was to base coat the colours and start work on the face. As a general rule I like to paint inside out. Starting with the hardest to reach areas and then moving on to the easier ones. My go to for painting white skin is the following tutorial.
 
You can see below the state of affairs after the base costs and the skin done. Note at this point I mistakenly thought he was wearing boots, this was corrected later.

Next up was the pants and socks. After difficult to reach, my next priority is to paint the hard colours, the ones that don't cover very well. The paints I used for the pants can be seen below.

Then I painted the coat and here are the paints used for it.

You may be wondering why I have red on a blue coat. The reason is that I find for making shadows I like to mix in a colour from the other side of the colour wheel. In this case I went with red as I wanted a warm purple for the shadows.
 
And then finally the gold details. I did this in a non-metalic metal style using the following paints.

And here was the final result. Not the smoothest gradients I have ever done, but good enough. Particularly when you are looking at it from normal viewing distances it holds up well enough.

I simply used two brass rods through the keel. It is plenty strong enough and I think it looks good. 

I simply used two brass rods through the keel. It is plenty strong enough and I think it looks good. 

I simply used two brass rods through the keel. It is plenty strong enough and I think it looks good. 

I simply used two brass rods through the keel. It is plenty strong enough and I think it looks good. 

A quick update.
I’ve spent the last few days making hanks and tidying the deck.
I have used the method of wrapping rope around pins arranged in an elipse but have always had difficulty making the hanks hang realistically, especially thinner ropes.

I now prefer the method published by @carlo_l How I make rope hanks, fast and easy technique - My JIG - Model Tips and Tricks and Making Jigs - Model Ship World™ although I change it slightly by tying off the hank and then making the loop.



The coils are made in the normal way by laying rope down on the sticky side of masking tape and fixing with dilute pva.
 
David
 

advancing steadily.
For the blue I used AK Imperial Blue, I liked the name, not really convinced about the color or maybe I have to get used to it. 
 
 

Jason,
Great idea leaving a lip for their capping strip on the channel so it all flows smoothly once that is in place, particularly with the rounded edges. Subtle but, makes a difference. 

Log #71: Raising the Boom
Next up is the boom.
 
I rigged the block for the boom topping lift in much the same way the other blocks seized to the mast head were done. The main difference is I used a 3.5mm block instead of the 3mm ones. I had wanted to use a 4mm one, but as I have previously discussed, when I went to buy them they were no longer available and so I had to settle for 3.5mm.

I also have been experimenting a bunch with the fake splices and I am slowly getting better at them, though at the same time they are slowly getting closer to a real splice.

According to steel the topping lift should be 4.5 inches cir, this works out to .57mm, but as I didn’t have any 0.6mm rope I instead used 0.5mm.

Counteracting the topping lift we have the sheet tackle. For this I used 0.45mm line copying BE’s arrangement.

For the sheet line I used 0.35mm line. Steel seems to indicate this should be 3 in cir which works out to 0.38 so close enough. I am still having a bit of trouble with the different names between the alert book, steel and the kit instructions, but as there are so many mistakes at this point I am mostly just making sure it makes logical sense and roughly corresponds to steel / the alert book.

And here is the current state of her. Now that all these counteracting lines are in place I need to tie them all off to get rid of the clutter. You can also see I am still working on the tackle for the boom topping lift as the block is spliced onto the line, but is waiting for the glue to dry before I cut off the ends.

Thanks to everyone who has stopped by for the encouragement, she is really starting to look like a sailing ship now.

Great work so far, especially all the metal work. I like what you did with the siene boat and the dory as well.
 
Mine is long finished but I never did complete my log, including finished pictures. maybe you've inspired me to do so...

Sometimes when you don't post for several weeks, it doesn't mean you were not working on your model. In my case, it was several weeks of mistakes and figuring out how to do things. I decided to scrap several plans of rigging the futtock and bentinck shrouds on my Conny. After doing lots of research and viewing the pictures from the above posts by GSGerson I decided to go a different way. My main plan was to rig as much as I could off the model. When you view the photos on the real Constitution, the area of rigging under the fighting tops looks like a big spiderweb. Then if you figure in all the seizings it just looked clunky. 
 
I made all the metal parts using 28 gauge black annealed wire. My main tool was my needle nose pliers The end of my pliers was the diameter of my ring. There was a little learning curve, but it all went well. I even tried to simulate the serving on these parts with line. But, it was beyond my pay grade. I feel this gave me a less cluttered look and it looks more realistic. The real trick was to get these parts made and make them look close to scale. Please realize I have some paint touch up on the rings and metal parts. 
 
This is part one of the subassembly 

I have been mulling around how to make and install the beatnik shrouds on my Conny. I want to rig as much as possible off the model to make it easier. So far I have made the staves for the lower fore and main mast and placed them on the rigging. Now to make the hooks and rings and then rig them. I know this is gong to be harder than it looks. 

I finished up the ratlines on the lower shrouds. I am glad this part is over. I learned a lot on rigging the ratlines. First, make sure you use long lines to make the knot trying easier. Second, I used my rigging card as a sort of backstop when I tied my ratline. Third, I used diluted white glue to set my knots. This worked out well for making adjustments. Just wet the line to unglue them, make your adjustment and then set the ratlines with the diluted white glue. Fourth, I alternated from port to starboard to keep the tension on the shrouds equal. Fifth, if you have some slack in the shrouds, just wet them with water and will tighten up a bit taking the slack out. Sixth, when you put your eyebolts on the channels for your shifters, pay attention to where they go. My mainmast swifter eyebolts were to close to the shrouds, My foremast and mizzen mast swifter's were at the proper distance. Seventh, I made sure my tweezers were sharp and easy to help tie my lines. Overall, I learned as I went along and I am sure the next section of shrouds will go easier. 

I am making some progress on my shroud and ratline rigging. To keep everything equal, I am tieing the ratlines on both sides as I progress up the foremast. There are lots and lots of knots. I think I am getting a system with the clove hitch. The tweezers really help out a lot. One thing I found is that it is better to have a long line of thread to tie the knots. The short thread seems mohave mind go its own and goes where ever It wants. I usually go about five rows of ratlines and then double check them with my card and then set the knots with diluted white glue. (Elmer's). I also use just water with brush to help take some slack out of the lines. That is why I am doing both sides of the shrouds to make sure I don't get too much tension on the masts. So are it seems to be working.