Moonbug

Really dig the hatchway! - Bug

Thanks Sam, I appreciate it. I Continued to work on the Head Timbers this weekend. And wow - what a giant pain in the keister! Obviously, the bow of the ship is not perfectly symmetrical, but I figured if I used the supplied paper templates, I could get close with the timbers and then make some minor adjustments. Not so much. Basically - it came down to just trial and error trying to get them to fit on either side of the head rail. Here are my scraps of cutting, sanding, fitting, and failing. I'm not completely satisfied with the outcome here, so I'm going to feel out the middle rail and see how it looks, along with exploring options with filling in the little gaps to make everything nice and snug. If that doesn't pan out, maybe I'll just scrap it all, and try again. We shall see.

Wellp... Got first place at the County Fair. In all fairness (no pun intended), there weren't that many entries. - Bug

Thanks Ir3 and Mark, much appreciated. I took a Friday off and decided to hang in the shipyard most of the day, so got a fair amount done. First, I duplicated the cheeks and trailboards and finished the Starboard side. I then got to work on the main head rails. A couple challenges here - obviously the port and starboard sides of the bow aren't exact, so I needed to measure the head rails to fit, rather than specific measurements. In order to accomplish this, I installed the head beam first, so I had something to give me a frame of reference. After thinning the head rails and tapering them as instructed, I encountered a problem at the fore deck of the ship along the rails. A gap. Now, I wasn't sure if I should taper the head rail, or if I should taper the ship. My solution, was to add a little bit of filler, then sand it to fit nicely. Once each head rail was glued to the foredeck, I then glued it to the main beam. Finally, having those in place gave me a chance to shape and bend it slightly before gluing it to the out near my mascot.

Thanks for the likes and comments everyone, much appreciated. Popeye - Critique or not, it's all welcome comments. :-) That's what MSW is for as far as I'm concerned! I did in fact go down that route a bit, but didn't have a ton of luck with it. I tried sanding down the trailboards as much as possible, and the bolster is already about 1/16 - and any thinner just looked a bit unrealistic. In the end, it worked - but was not as "clean" as using the single layer. Could've been my stubby fingers. I probably would have had better luck there using boxwood instead of the basswood though, as obviously it thins out much nicer. But then I'd have been faced with differing shades of wood and etching, etc. I think - were I to do it again - I would probably do a combination of making the cheeks themselves a little thicker than what came with the kit, then the trailboards and bolster thinner as well. - Bug

Very nice! I concur with keeping them all the same obviously - it's going to be a nice little fleet of launches. - Bug

Great work Mark. Thanks for narrowing the learning curve for everyone else. - Bug

Thanks Zoltan and B.E. - I appreciate it. As it turns out - my three darling daughters have convinced me to enter the Santa Maria into this year's County Fair. hehe, so we'll see - maybe she'll be "An Award Winning Ship". - Bug

Very tidy & patient work Mark. -Bug

Thanks for the looks and likes everyone, it's much appreciated, sincerely. I've got another trip this weekend. So, knowing I wouldn't really get any 'days off' over the weekend, I decided to procrastinate some of my work during the week and head down to the shipyard and get some things done. Next up, the cheeks, hawse holes and trailboards. Before I got started I did some fitting and measure, and prepping the figurehead etc. The first problem I ran into was paint color. The rear decorations and etchings of the ship were done is straight "wood" color from Testor's Model Master line. Although it looked good, it is considerably darker than the natural stained color of the hull, etc. I liked this very much, as it made the details on the transom really pop. However, when we get to the bow of the ship and painting those etchings and even the figure head that dark - it just didn't look right. After some experimenting, I was able to come up with a pretty good color with about a 60/40 mixture of "House Cream" and "English Oak". Of course that meant repainting all the etching and window frames and details on the transom. I was NOT looking forward to this... but necessary is necessary and I spend three days with a size 0 brush while my eyes crossed and my fingers cramped. ;p As a side note - I had to add a good coat of primer to the figurehead to get it to take the paint. Remember, we swapped out the metal figurehead with the plastic molded one. Next up, the cheeks. Very light sanding to get rid of the char, then a bit of reshaping to get them to fit to the bow snuggly. No alternatives for the photo etched carved strips, so they required some careful painting. I fitted them first to get an idea of what part of the bow needed to painted black, then did more painting. The instructions call for some etching along the cheeks my gauging out lines on the sides, then smoothing them out. But I found this little tool in my stash and thought it'd look pretty cool. Overall, I like the way it came out with the etching attached. Same process for the upper cheeks. Some delicate sanding to get everything to look pretty seemless. And I dry fitted the figure head to make it all work out. You'll notice here that the gap between the figurehead's foot and the lower cheek extension is a bit too wide, so I redid the lower piece to get it closer. That took some fiddling with the metal etch carving pieces, etc. My next problem occurred when I dry fitted the hawseholes and trailboards. The directions call for four pieces shaped to fit the bow of the ship. But, after only three, I was running out of room quickly. And bear in mind, I BARELY sanded the backsides of the cheeks. Just enough to get rid of the char and adjust the "roundness" to fit the bow ok. Oy. This wasn't going to do. So i stuck with three, and fitted the bolster. NO CHANCE any of this was going to fit. My first solution was to create and inset in which the bolster would fit. After a number of different attempts, this failed miserably. So, my final solution was to just have ONE layer of the trailboards and fit the bolster and drill out the hawseholes. Overall, I think it's definitely passable. All of the basswood is treated the same as the rest of the trip with a layer of wood conditioner, stain in Miniwax "Natural" then I'll add a layer of lacquer. Ultimately, this as made the etching and wood pretty close to the same color.

Looking great! Always love the inventiveness. - Bug

Good looking evolution. Nice work! - Bug

Man, that is a fatty! (Don't tell her I said so) - Bug

Ship's Wheels - Reboot Although I was quite happy with the ship's wheels that I'd created by hand SEEN HERE, when I got a look at the new ship wheel kit created by Chuck, I knew I had to get them for the Confederacy. Chuck's instructions for the wheel can be found HERE, so I won't go into full detail. But, the kit comes with 29 laser cut pieces that eventually come together to form the wheel, along with small "jig" used to help in the construction and measurements. First, the two sides of the halves of the jig are glued together to form slots that are precisely spaced. Small laser cut blocks are detached and sanded. However, as Chuck insists, the sides must remain precisely measured; so only the top and bottom are slightly sanded to get rid of the laster cut char and fit into the jig snug but not tightly. Once the blocks are fitted in the jig, they outer portion of the wheel is glued into place. This creates gaps in which the spokes will fit. Next up, the spokes - which are the most delicate part. Each spoke is laser cut with square edges. To round the edges, the spoke is mounted in my Dremel, which is in turn mounted vertically in a vise. Each spoke is just an inch or so tall and tapered from about a millimeter thick. The Dremel serves as a lathe, and the spoke is shaped and ultimately detailed. I decided to get a little creative and documented the process in this YouTube video. The spokes are place and glued around the center core of the wheel, placed in the jig with the square portion of each spoke fitted in the slots created by the blocks. Finally, the entire wheel is sanded and smoothed with 600 - 4000 grit sandpaper, then stained. Because the char lines and creases created by each piece made visible lines in the wheel, I chose a darker mahogany stain to cover that up as much as possible and make it less visible to the naked eye. Because the wheels were now more ornate, I decided to give the base for the wheels a different treatment as well. Using a scrap of wood left over from a penholder I acquired some time ago, I cut and sanded down two pieces of framing to whole the new wheels. I'm not entire sure what kind of wood this is, but it's very dense and very hard, so although tedious it made for precision carving and sanding, and ultimately I believe looked pretty good as a complete assembly.

Hey Sjors! Thanks for the look-in, I hope all is well on your side of the world. I'm not entirely sure, and I can't remember where I may have read this, but as I understand it - the roundhouse was a private privy for the midshipmen, and hung over the edge of the beakhead to provide open air disposal. As I said - I'm not sure, maybe someone with a bit more nautical knowledge than I can confirm? - Bug

Wait... wait... wait. You went and started the SotS while I wasn't paying attention! Well, I'm paying attention now. ;-) - Bug

Ok Grant... if I'm being completely honest here, this build seriously bums me out. It totally makes me want to go back, take apart my Cirs Craft and completely re-do it. *Laff*! Beautiful work my friend, love the added value elements. - Bug

Hello Nick! Welcome aboard the Confederacy train! I'm eager to follow the build. I found that I actually rather enjoyed the char, as it ensure that I touched every piece properly to ensure fit. A little bit of s "doubecheck" if you will. Also, great choice on Chuck's wheel, I JUST finished putting it together and it turned out beautifully. -Bug

Hey friend, so glad I'm getting a chance to catch up. What beautiful work. I'm really, really digging the shape of that hull and bow. That's awesome stuff. - Bug

Holy crap! Look at all that progress since I last popped in. Beautiful work! And those nets are phenomenal. Pass on our admiration to Anja! - Bug

Beautiful work on the Cannons Jesse, I really dig it. Nicely done, I need to check back in more often - I'm missing too much. - Bug

Mark, Just catching up a bit after a far-to-long absence from the forum. Lovely work as always. I greatly admire your patience to be sure. And the plaque is a great touch. I also kinda dig the Admiral's enthusiasm, mine is a bit burnt out on ships all over the house I fear. - Bug

The Roundhouses The Roundhouses seemed to be pretty straightforward, however Augie had written in his notes that he was intending to use the Swiss Pear instead. I really liked this idea, as it would surely set off a bit of color on the bow of the ship. It really didn't change how I approached the Roundhouses initially, but soon after I discovered the slightly thicker Swiss Pear was going to involve a little more intricate bit of beveling than the stock parts. In addition to mitering the edge, I also sanded the inside of the strips with a round file to try and match the shape of the guides. Then I marked the inside seams with a sharpie to simulate the caulking between the planks. Chuck's instructions call for a bit of 28 gauge wire glued under the overhang, which is a very nice touch. Instead - for me to pull in a little bit of the natural color of the bow, I used the original light colored overhang, sanded it down, then covered it with the swiss pear roof. Finally, I dug up in the "extra pieces" bin, some small circular brass rings with a lip that came from who know's where, and I used those to bring out some detail int he ventilation scuttle. Ultimately, Augie nailed it with his approach (as he always did), and I really love the way the swiss pear looks on the bow.

Thanks for the looks and likes everyone! Sam - a little of both. The size of the strips of sandpaper and the size of the triangle file were my essentially my marks. For instance, I made the notches on the base the length of the file down from the stem. That kept them consisted for me. -Bug

So here's a little preview... Although I was quite happy with my home-made ships wheels HERE: and they took a pretty ridiculous amount of time and patience to build, once I saw Chuck's laser cut wheel kit HERE, I pretty much fell in love right away. So, I have one wheel done, and I'm working on the second. But before I post that mini build and progress, I decided to have a little bit of fun, and I created a video of how I spindled the spokes. I followed Chuck's Instructions and mounted the spoke in a dremel attached vertically to my desk with a vice. Then I laid out the process here in THIS VIDEO. It's only about two minutes, but if you're looking to build the wheel it may be helpful. As I said, I'll post the entire process soon. In the meantime, Thanks Chuck! The wheel is awesome!