Usgecko
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Is there any documentation of the Captain’s Quarters in its 1812 configuration. What I am curious about is paint colors, if there was any covering on the floor etc. Thanks Stuart -
As I am building the Constitution as depicted in Corné's painting I had to do something about the Revell kits window panes. The model has simple 2 * 4 panes in each window frame, Corné clearly shows 3 *2. To remedy this I cut out the horizontal bars in the kit widows leaving only the vertical bar in the window. I then gently open up the height of each window frame at the top and bottom, while avoiding damaging the vertical bar. Two thin plastic strips were then glued across the back of each window frame, and to give more depth to the newly added bars 4 pieces of the same size of strip were cut and glued to the outside of the added bars. Pictures below of inside view (partial only to show haw the added bars are glued to the inside), and outside view.
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Well, after something of a break, and with colder weather I have resurrected my building efforts. Wanted to get my head back into it by working on something fairly small so I decided to scratch build the Brodie stove. Somewhat pointless maybe because I will never really see it when it's installed!
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Minicraft 1:350 Plastic, Centennial Titanic kit.
Usgecko replied to S.Coleman's topic in Plastic model kits
The quality of the moldings isn't great. But it is the most accurate starting point if you want to go nuts with photo etch and some scratch building. Grimes suggestion theTRMA website is an excellent one there is a wealth of information there. -
Thanks Markus - work is held up by a move - will get back to the serious matter of building as soon as I can
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Another vote for Tamiya
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Looking real good!
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Finally got the scribing of the spar deck completed. As with the gun deck this one got of to a false start - hence the white lines - Tamiya filler.... Thought about adding joggling of the planks but decided against it. Not sure how obvious it will be anyway. Thanks for looking. Stuart
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Completed thickening the bulwarks on the starboard side And the gun deck will sit snugly under that - will be closer fit once glued
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Thank you Lukas Started work on the hull. Closed off the gun port at the bow (will be modelling the Connie at the time of it's victory over HMS Guerriere, as depicted in the Corne paintings) Work on thickening the bulwarks, starting first with framing in the gun ports. Next step will be add a layer of plastic on the inside over this framing. The horizontal lengths of plastic are to provide additional support for placing the gun deck. Thanks for looking, Stuart
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Dave, There may be easier ways! I went to the local hobby store and wanted to get some photo-etch grill to use. No luck. I ended up getting the thinnest strip plastic I could find (0.25mm * 0.5mm) and made the grating from that. Sounds more laborious than it was, I laid out strips side by side on some tape, then I removed every second one and then placed more strips perpendicular to the rows on the tape and carefully glued them. Stuart
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Finished the scratch built 34 foot launch. Not exactly as I had wanted - the hull is deeper than I had intended - it I'm happy enough with it. Also finished off the Commodore's barge - this was the one I had lengthened from the Revel supplied launch. [/url] That's the two cutters, the Commodore's barge, and the 34 ft launch completed now. After spending this time on these I guess I had better get started to the hull of the Constitution itself! Thanks for looking - all comments welcome. Stuart
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Grimmer, David, thanks for your comments. I am planning on painting the decks and then trying a brow/gray oil wash for the caulk. I'll see how that goes!
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Having been working on the commodore's barge I was thinking of trying to get another Revell 30 foot barge and using that as a basis and extending it for the 34 foot launch. Not having any success I decided to start work on building it from scratch. Here's the progress so far. I started with cutting the shapes of the keel, gunwale, and transom out of sheet plastic and assembling them together as a frame to start attaching the planking and framing to. Here's a work in progress so far: Thanks for looking
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Small update. After procrastinating for a while on how to do the decking I decided to scribe it rather than add plastic or wood veneer planks. Part of the reason was the fact that I thought Force9 build looked great with scribed deck and partly because I didn't see the value of buying the veneer or plastic strips for decking. Will not be painting for a while but here is the nekkid scribed plastic. Ignore the white lines - those are scribed lines with filler - some my mistakes, and some because of the method I used and the need to try and represent the interlocking planks that were on the gun deck. The tools I used for the scribing are in the picture below. The method I used was to very carefully mark one line from bow to stern uninterrupted by gratings etc. I then scribed that line as a pilot line for the rest of the fore and aft lines. I then used the small pin vise on the left of the picture into which I had placed the tips of two sewing needles. The pilot line was used to one needle tip down, with the second creating a scribed line parallel to the first. This process was continued until the deck was scribed all over. After that I gently deepened each line using the scribing took and the back of a #11 blade where the tip had been broken off. The bumps either side of each line were then carefully removed with the chisel blade. I went for a repeating pattern every 5 lines of planks. The interlocking planks I basically made up - no idea if that is what they actually would have looked like but they are interlocking! Tools used: Here's the end result: This last picture shows the way I have attempted to represent the interlocked planks. Thanks for looking!
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Real good improvement there - how did you fabricate the wheels - cut from rod, if so may I ask what diameter. Thanks - Stuart
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Thank you all for the kind comments it's much appreciated! Moflea - that deck does look great, and I keep going back and forth on whether to use wood planks, plastic planks, or scribing as Evan has done very successfully on his build. The simplicity of scribing and lack of additional cost is appealing, as I think there are some of Dafi's Victory photo etch parts I may get (generic hooks and rings) that may suck up my spare modelling cash, plus some decent belaying pins. Thanks again guys, Stuart
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I started my Connie build log last month. Was really interested to see the use of fiber optics. I am partway through a build of Minicraft's 350 scales Titanic with fiber optics in it. I think it's well worth the effort - your work is another source of inspiration! stuart
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Evan, Thanks for the words of support! I had been thinking of using real wood veneer for planking. I am now heading more toward plastic strip, painted in randon, but similar tones. I need to experiment a bit with this but I suspect that's where I'll end up. You're right on the fittings for masts - I had meant to do that but forgot on the cutters - thanks for pointing it out! .Stuart
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I decided to use the 30 foor launch as a basis for the commodore's barge - also decided it was a little too short. Cut a line using a scriber: Then seperated the two parts and added some plastic to expand the length:
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Here is the 30 ft cutter completed: And the 30 ft cutter with the 28 ft one completed earlier: Are the outside of these cutters painted green (assuming i'm building the Constitution at the time shown in the Corne painting) and the inside red?
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An update on progress so far. Looking at the gun carriages for the gun deck I think I need to make a further adjustment to the shape of them. From looking at photographs there seems to be an arc shape cut out betwwen the wheels of the gun carriage. On to progress. I decided that the smaller ships boats were not to great in terms of detail so I decided to attempt to improve them. I started with the 28 ft cutter (as it is described in Revell's instructions). I found a couple of sources on the internet with plans and scratch built wood versions which is what I have attempted to replicate. Here are the work in progress pictures as I tackled the work: And here are some shots of the finished article: I'm happy with the end result but I have created a lot of extra work for myself to do the other boats in a similar way. I'm also not sure what to do at this stage about the pinnace (long boat) and the lack of it in the Revell kit. I may have a go at scratch building it out of plastic. All comments welcome! Stuart
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I'm inclined to go for the pale yellow stripe when I get to that stage on my build. Good luck with the cannons - I started on them first to get them out the way. The plastic on my kit had a sort of "soapy waxy" texture that made clean up of them more difficult - same for the carriages. It would have been easier had the plastic been of a harder texture. Your build is excellent and definitely a source of inspiration for me as I am starting on my build. Is that interlocking planking only on the gun deck, or spar deck also? Stuart
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