_SalD_

Thanks for the advice druxey.  My daughter uses 'Tacky Glue' for her craft projects maybe I'll give that a try.

Update
 
I`m planing to make and mount two awning-canvas-cloths on the bridge between wheelhouse and wing cabs. ( at least try to do it). Therefore each two rails with fastening eyes will be mounted. The wheelhouse ceiling is at the sametime also the planked monkey deck floor with the anchor bolt eyes for the front funnel stays. The railing to the monkey deck will be fitted later.
Also there are now some short access ladders to the mid hold areas on the welldecks.
 
Nils

 

monkey deck platform

rails with fastening eyes

rails with fastening eyes for the awning boltropes

short access- ladders to the mid hold areas
 
 
 

A ship in a bottle I made over 50 years ago was mentioned in another thread, but I could not provide a picture because it's whereabouts was unknown.  'Seems it survived a couple moves with my Mom, and then was somewhere in my brother's house ... and he finally found it and I received it back when visiting yesterday (Christmas Eve).  I didn't know much about proper rigging at the time, but its not bad for a first exercise.  A better version is on my 'bucket list' now.  I'll have to find 'just the right' bottle - high and narrow on its side - and this is another thing to look for in the many antique sellers to be found in SE Pennsylvania.  
 

 
  The wavy glass distorts things a bit (typical), and next time I should have 3 masts (barque rigged) - like the GF or Big T in her later years.  Notes to self;  have the back stays go to the masts (not the yards ... although that made it easier to untwist the masts once in the bottle, as those lines pass over the deck to the corresponding hole in the opposite bulwark ), add fine ratlines by gluing, paint hull,  rig braces to beads on the forestays.
 
  The masts were not hinged, but just fit into shallow holes in deck.  Several dabs of slow curing epoxy were put on the inside of the bottle, and the collapsed vessel maneuvered with long tweezers to that place and allowed to completely cure.  Then a dab of epoxy was placed in the holes for the masts (with a long wire as an applicator).  The forestays attached to the fore mast had long ends at that time and came out the neck of the bottle.  Long tweezers helped grip the base of the for mast as the stay lines were pulled to stand the masts up - the 2nd mast just following the first.  The tweezers pushed the mast bottoms into the shallow holes and they were allowed to completely cure.
 
  The fore stays did not go through holes in the bowsprit, so each one (in turn, from back to front) was positioned on the bowsprit with tweezers - and another tweezer end applied a dab of  '3 minute' epoxy  where the line was held on the underside of the bowsprit.  After setting, another line was done (the line ends still coming out of the bottle) until all were done.  Then after curing, a long X-Acto trimmed the lines at the bowsprit.  Then a cork was jammed into the bottle neck.
 
  Additional notes to self -  work out making the masts hinged, because that will be less harrowing that 'planting' the mast ends into holes like I did (I recall that it was difficult to manage).  I've seen hinges used on other ship-in-bottle MSW threads.  Also, having the fore-most stays passing through holes in the bowsprit will be much easier to glue later.
 

 
  Merry Christmas (or Festivus) and a Happy New Year in you shipyards, mates !                Johnny
 

No pics this time, as I'm prepping a lot of little parts.  The decision was made to use Revell 1:96 internally stropped blocks for the larger ones needed, as they are close to scale (just a little over).  I could work with 4 1/2 mm wood blocks (smaller ones give me trouble) but 1.) they are too much out of scale at 1:100, and 2.) they are externally stropped.  The 3 1/2 mm Revell blocks are from a kit I happen to have on hand, but they can be found in several kits still available on Ebay or elsewhere.  The bunt blocks will still be beads.  
 
  The plastic blocks must be completely painted.  Also, I'm pre-painting the railing stanchions white.  'Soon time for Christmas break and lots of family obligations.

thank you very much Ras,
I`ve just completed the nav-lights....
 
Nils

 
 

Thanks for the advice druxey.  My daughter uses 'Tacky Glue' for her craft projects maybe I'll give that a try.

Main topmast stays:
For the two main topmast stays instead of just tying the stays from one mast to the other I tried a ‘modified’ super detail as mentioned in the manual.  The stays were tied to the main mast, then reeved through blocks on the foremast and then brought down to the deck.  The modification came in the way I anchored the stays to the deck.  Instead of belaying these lines to the forward bitts I decided to secure them with deadeyes and lanyards.  To make it clearer thought I would show you the finished product and then explain how I did it.
 
Stays tied off with deadeyes and lanyards abaft of the fore mast.

Lower main topmast stay reeved through a block hooked to the eyebolt on the foremast cap.

Upper main topmast stay reeved through block seized to the fore topmast.

 
Now for the how-to.  Instead of trying to run the stays from the main topmast through the blocks and then down to the deck and try to lace the lanyards through the deadeyes, I did it in reverse.  First, one deadeye (2.5mm) was placed into an expanded eye of an eyebolt and set with some ca glue. Next, another deadeye (2.5mm) was seized around the end of the stay.  Using a third hand the two deadeyes were held a certain distance apart so the lanyard could be threaded through them and tied off.  The distance was arbitrary; I just used something that I thought looked good.

My next challenge was to drill holes in the deck in order to insert the ends of the eyebolts into.  My solution was to use a 1/8” diameter dowel with a drill bit glued into a hole drilled in the center of the dowel.  I ended up tapering the end of the dowel a little bit to get it closer in to the pilot house.  This worked out okay you just need to be patience getting the bit in the correct location.

After the holes were drilled the eyebolts were inserted by holding them with tweezers and then glued in with a drop of ca glue.  After waiting for the glue to dry the lines were then run up through the blocks and tied off to the main topmast.
 
Completed standing rigging.

Some progress made on this model today.  The guts of the inside of the cello are really taking shape and the neck was joined with the body today.  I am glueing as I go here too, with a diluted mixture of Titebond wood glue.  The instructions don't call for it but I'm doing it anyway.  I also started playing around with brushing on acrylic clear and using some thinned oil paints as stain.
 

Great progress, Sal.  Nice solution to making and installing the stay tackle. I'd caution you about using CA on rigging, though. Eventually it make the lines brittle and they will fail. Use either PVA (white glue) or acrylic matt medium.

Main topmast stays:
For the two main topmast stays instead of just tying the stays from one mast to the other I tried a ‘modified’ super detail as mentioned in the manual.  The stays were tied to the main mast, then reeved through blocks on the foremast and then brought down to the deck.  The modification came in the way I anchored the stays to the deck.  Instead of belaying these lines to the forward bitts I decided to secure them with deadeyes and lanyards.  To make it clearer thought I would show you the finished product and then explain how I did it.
 
Stays tied off with deadeyes and lanyards abaft of the fore mast.

Lower main topmast stay reeved through a block hooked to the eyebolt on the foremast cap.

Upper main topmast stay reeved through block seized to the fore topmast.

 
Now for the how-to.  Instead of trying to run the stays from the main topmast through the blocks and then down to the deck and try to lace the lanyards through the deadeyes, I did it in reverse.  First, one deadeye (2.5mm) was placed into an expanded eye of an eyebolt and set with some ca glue. Next, another deadeye (2.5mm) was seized around the end of the stay.  Using a third hand the two deadeyes were held a certain distance apart so the lanyard could be threaded through them and tied off.  The distance was arbitrary; I just used something that I thought looked good.

My next challenge was to drill holes in the deck in order to insert the ends of the eyebolts into.  My solution was to use a 1/8” diameter dowel with a drill bit glued into a hole drilled in the center of the dowel.  I ended up tapering the end of the dowel a little bit to get it closer in to the pilot house.  This worked out okay you just need to be patience getting the bit in the correct location.

After the holes were drilled the eyebolts were inserted by holding them with tweezers and then glued in with a drop of ca glue.  After waiting for the glue to dry the lines were then run up through the blocks and tied off to the main topmast.
 
Completed standing rigging.

Update
 
starting with the bridge wing-cabs today, (here card template) with those typical "Ergenstrasse-outcuts". Also the flagpost, the bollards, the Panama fairleads, the mast riggings and the radio short-wave antenna and the stairs are mounted
 
Nils

Stb. side card dummy bridge wing-cab

Bollards and Panama fairleads

 

forecastle stairways

access stairways to aft midship island ( via windless-plattform)
 

The radio antenna
 
 

Here’s how the whole operation transpired:

Step 1 – Insert the hull assembly.  I made some red Sharpie markings on the bottle to help me figure out where to dab the epoxy on the water.  Then I slid the hull assembly inside, straightened it out, and lined it up on top of the epoxy.  The main concern was getting the 2 hulls squarely aligned.  No real difficulty encountered with this step.


 
Step 2 – Add the deck.  After the step 1 epoxy was set and the hull assembly securely in place, I put a touch of epoxy on the hull assembly’s connecting ribs and dropped the deck on top.  Very easy.

 
Step 3 – Insert the 2 mast/sail assemblies and drop them in their respective mast steps.  This is where things got a bit tricky because of a small blunder.  Since my original plan was to insert the deck and masts as 1 piece, I had put a hinge near the bottom of each mast.  And that became problematic.  I got the aft mast/sail inside the bottle ok.  But when I tried to insert the base of the mast into its mast step hole, the hinge kept folding on me.  Once folded, the angle made it dang near impossible to get enough leverage to push it down firmly into the hole.  At one point, I even considered trying to pull the mast/sail back out of the bottle, but fortunately I came to my senses and abandoned that dodo idea.  After maybe 45 minutes of frustration, I finally got that dang thing in place.  

 

Now it was a matter of orienting the mast/sail properly and securing it in place.  I angled the sail forward at maybe 50 degrees (similar to some of the paintings), made sure the mast was vertical, then worked up a brass wire jig to hold the mast/sail in place while the epoxy dried.   

 
 
The last step was tying off the rigging.  My standing rigging consisted of 2 shrouds on each side of each mast.  The running rigging was simply a line on the starboard side attached to a loop of thread tied to the curved spar. All lines were tied off to the small spindles or studs protruding along the gunwale.  This was a tedious process, but not very difficult.  The pic below shows the aft mast/sail with all the rigging tied off and threads cut.  

 
Here’s the completed wa’a kualua fully assembled inside its new home.


 
And with that, the easy part of this project is over.  Now it’s time to figure out how to build a Hawaiian waterfall.  YIKES!!
 

Update
 
not much for today,
the forward- and aft mast-stays as well as the aft funnel stays are mounted. The stairs from the boats deck to the bridge in dryfit, a little brass waterbucket hanging attached to the superstructure, and the lashing device for the aft lifeboat strap
 
Nils

stair to the bridge

frontmast stay attachment

aft attachment

Waterbucket

aft stay arrangement

boats strap with lashing device

front attachment
 
mast attachment for forward stays
 
 

It was a cold, dreary, rainy day here in central Texas yesterday which was a good excuse to get a lot of work done.  Although I have no doubt the Canadians like @Knocklouder and @Ian_Grant and probably even @Keith Black would laugh at what I consider cold.
 
Time to pull the leaves out of their bath and make the pe'a's (sails).  I laid them all out on a paper towel to let them dry and then cut them into shape.  The fore pe'a is the larger of the two.  As I was cutting them, it became obvious that the plumeria leaves were too too fragile (the 4 darker leaves on the left in the pic below).  The pineapple leaves have harder fibers running vertically which you can kinda see.  It gives them more strength to withstand the thread loops I'll use to attach them.  Plus, I like the lighter color.

 
I ran a thin coat of fabric glue along the edges where I planned to punch thru with the needle and thread.  You can see the narrow shiny strip along the 2 vertical edges.  I'm hoping this ensures I don't rip the thread out of the leaves when they get folded, spindled and mutilated during the insertion process.

 
Here's what the kia (mast) assembly looks like dry-fitted into the pola (deck).

 
And now, the whole wa'a kualua put together (dry-fit again) with the exception of the rigging.

And now the rigging.  The paintings of wa'a kaulua's show minimal rigging, thankfully.  The stays are called kaula iha's and I'm going with 2 on each side.  There is 1 piece of what I guess you would call running rigging, the kaula o'pe'a.  It ties to a loop attached at 2 points to the o'pe'a (upwardly curved spar).  I've got all the rigging with long threads that will extend out of the bottle.  Once the boat is inside the bottle, I will manipulate the masts and sails into their proper places, tie the threads off to the little protrusions pointing outward from the hulls, and them cut them off.  In theory anyway!!  😳
    
 
 
 
  
 
 

Looks great despite its best efforts to thwart you Glen.  Hopefully still enough room in the neck to get your masterpiece inserted?
 
cheers
 
Pat

Funny (and almost not funny) that you should mention that, Pat.  The thought that my little river of water running thru the neck would reduce my available space for ship insertion never occurred to me until after the epoxy resin was set and I turned my attention back to the ship.  My heart blood pressure and heart rate were skyrocketing until I was able to confirm that there was still plenty of room!  If the hulls were U or V shaped instead of flat, I would have had a serious problem (and meltdown)!!

Chuck, Thanks so much for the kind words.

Chuck, Thank you and best of luck with your build.  Will you be doing a build log?  If so I'll be interested in seeing how you modify her armament.
Also, if you have any question don't hesitate to ask.

Ratlines:
I decided to tie the ratlines onto the shrouds instead of gluing them because I had glued them on one of my other ships and wasn’t happy with the way they looked.  I used a 14” (scaled) spacing on the guideline card that I printed out and clipped it to the shrouds to hold it in place.  I started with a simple overhand knot on the first shroud followed by clove hitch knots on the remaining shrouds.  Once the ratline was in its final position I put a small drop of ca glue on the knots to hold them in place. 

When all the knots were tied and glued I went over them with a bit of black paint to knock the shine off from the ca glue.
I don’t mind a little sag in the lines because imo it gives it a more realistic look. 

There is one new thing I learnt while doing these.  I normally listen to music while working on my ships and change the style of music by how I feel that day.  Well I happened to be in the mood for some classical music the day I was working on the ratlines and I can tell you now do not try and tie ratlines to Korsakov’s  "Flight of the Bumblebee", unless you want to finish them in about ten minutes.🐝
 
New toy I bought for myself for for my birthday.  Can't wait to try it out.

 
 

After funneling the epoxy resin into the bottle, it's usually time to relax for a couple of days waiting for it to dry.  Before I got to relax though, I needed to clean up the usual horrible mess I'd made with the epoxy resin.  It was then that I suddenly remembered that I needed to show water flowing thru the neck of the bottle and into the body for my illusion of the waterfall filling up the bottle with water.  I had about an ounce of leftover epoxy resin still in the pouring container which would be plenty.
 
But how to do it was the question.  I could not just pour it in because that would require tilting the bottle and would cause the main body of epoxy resin to slide up the back side of the bottle and leave residue when leveled off again.  So I decided to wait for the leftover epoxy resin to solidify, but not harden..........Cue 3 1/2 hours of Jeopardy music..........Once the epoxy resin got to what I thought was the proper thickness, I took a bamboo skewer and pasted a thin layer of epoxy resin on the bottle's neck. 
 
That was the easy part.  The hard part was getting epoxy resin affixed to the dropoff from the neck of the bottle to the main body of water and making it look like a smooth flow.  So I swirled a large blob onto the skewer and prepared to try and get it in place without making a huge mess - see below.
     
By this time, the epoxy resin was getting pretty solid and difficult to work with.  I ended up scraping the blob against the top of the dropoff,  where to my horror, it just stood straight out like a diving board (no picture unfortunately).  My hope was that even though the epoxy resin was stiff enough to stick straight out, it wasn't stiff enough to overcome gravity.  Sure enough, after about 15 minutes, I could see it starting to droop.  After an hour, it had fallen perfectly into place!  WHEW!!
 
    
Fast forward to today and the epoxy resin was set.  I added some slight texturing of the water with Woodland Scenics Water Ripples.  I did not want to go overboard with the stuff thinking that there should not be much turbulence with a small flow of water filling the bottle.  No whitecaps either.  

 
Closeup below of the water coming in from the bottle's neck and hitting the textured water.  After the boat is in the bottle, I'll probably add a little froth to where the little waterfall hits the main body of water, but I'm thinking it will be pretty subtle.
 
 
     

I got a Bridge City mini block plane with depth skids (HP-8).  It looks scrupled; the best part is that the sides can be adjusted to set the height of the plane.  The plane is about 4” (100 mm) long, with a working width of 1.25” (33 mm).
 

Recently, I was running out of 1 mm thick material for steps.  I had 1.5 mm material so I set the mini plane to 1 mm height (using some 1 mm material) and planed the 1.5 mm material –  it works fine.  And it looks cool.
 

 

This is to pass on my special thanks to all fellow builders with their kind recommendations for  scaled wire ropes for rigging purposes.
 
I have own good experience with using steel rope like the (meantime not any more common) remote wire control for model power planes.
This steel "Diamantlitze" is either  total 0,5 mm OD, 19 strand x 0,1 wire .....or total OD 0,25 mm 7, strand  x 0,1 mm. Both are galvanic tin coated.
 
I applied this very suitable material (50 Meters on the spool) for soldering for the stays and shrouds of my tallship-models Pamir and Gorch Fock, as those would be spanned and confrontrated with considerable pull-forces caused by the working bottleneck screws
 
Nils

 

'Noticed that camera flash makes the belaying pins look shinier than they are just looking at them ...  the growing patina seems a mild brown, like other brass I've had laying around for a long time.  Now the jewelry wire used for the grab bars (and also will be used for railings) is 'protected' by some kind of coating ... so will remain relatively bright for a long time.  The grab bars were painted white with some Testor's model enamel, and it adhered well to whatever coating was on the wire.  The plan is to paint the lower third of the stanchions white before fitting, then after the railings is worked out and installed, the remaining brass will be painted white everywhere - as seen on the original ship.
 
  I figure that some 'kit supplied' belaying pins look 'stubby', is that if they had the appearance (proportion) of actual pins they'd be prone to breakage.  So turned brass seems the best in looks and resistance to breakage - thus they are worth the cost of ordering as an upgrade.
 
  'Still thinking about rigging and belay locations, and have a rough drawing.  So I'll make a 'cleaner' version using my LED light table recently acquired.
 
    4 boomkins were just made using a bamboo skewer as follows:  a.) measure to select drill size, then drill about 1/2" deep into the hull where needed.  ('Could have used a piece of tape in lieu of a drill stop - This means the boomkin shaft that won't be seen will be marked as to where it must go on the hull e.g. SF = Starboard Fore.)  b.)  insert skewer, and mark 5/8" out from hull.  ( There will be 4 eyes inserted at 1/8" intervals, plus an eye on the end ... that should be enough, as I'm not sure exactly how many will be needed.  )   c.) place in mini lathe, taper the end and cut off at the mark.  d.) fit, mark and hand drill holes for eyes with a finger drill chuck.  d.) insert eyes, trim, bend and  CA in place.  This (and also the belaying pin assy.) is an application for the 'thin' CA, and a little bit applied with a dental tool will 'wick' where it has to go.
 
  The boomkin shown did split a little on the end (mishandling - but the others are intact), so I got the idea to mount the reinforcing chain (to be pinned to the hull at a later time) with a ring over the end of the boomkin ... actually, any blocks or lines to be fastened to the boomkins will go on once I paint the boomkin white - but the boomkins themselves will go in later so they they don't get snapped in the interim - perhaps they don't even need gluing in as the rigging will retain them just as the rigging will retain the masts without gluing.  So it is a good thing each will be marked where it needs to go later.
 

Glen, your preservation with glycerin is/was a technique used by model railroaders to preserve the weeds and lichen used as the flora on old model railroad scenery. those plants should last.
 
Been lurking here; you really have an intriguing subject. 👍 Of note for any sci/fi fans, the opening credits of Star Trek: Enterprise has one shot of a Polynesian vessel. They were some remarkable navigators, crossing the Pacific like they did.

Time to dive into the sails or pe'a's as they wee called.  Each pe'a is shaped like an upside down triangle with the upper section curved downward like the letter U.  According to https://www.hemakeewaa.org, "the U in the sail serves as kind of a safety valve allowing wind to escape over the top of the sail thus reducing the force that could capsize a canoe."
 
As far a construction of the pe'a, it was made from the leaves of the hala tree.  The leaves (lauhala) were cut into very narrow strips, maybe 1/4" wide, then woven together to form mats about a foot and a half square.  Finally, the mats were sewn together to create the full pe'a.  
 
So far, I've been trying to make as much of my wa'a kaulua as possible with native Hawaiian materials.  There are no hala trees around here in central Texas, but I do have a pineapple plant and a plumeria tree which I am going to try and make the pe's's from.  I took a couple of dead leaves from each because I need a brownish/yellowish color.  Obviously, they were pretty crunchy, so I need a way to make them pliable again.  Hmmmm.  Several years ago, I killed a few small rattlesnakes and a couple of copper heads at my ranch.  I preserved the skins by soaking them in a glycerin/water solution and to this day they are still soft. 

 
Would that same method work for leaves?  There are people in the googleverse that say it will, so I'm giving it a try.  The first pic shows the leaves from my pineapple plant and the second is from the plumeria.  The plumeria is a little darker than I want, but I like the prominent veins that could maybe pass as sewing seams.  We'll see how everything looks in a couple of days when they are done soaking.
     

 
While the leaves are relaxing in their glycerin bath, I decided to get the water in the bottle.  I went with more of a turquoise color instead of the deep sea dark blue I usually use.  I also wanted it to be a little more transparent to indicate shallower water like you would find at the base of a waterfall.