_SalD_

Very impressive Nils, great work as usual.  I love the figures.

Very impressive Nils, great work as usual.  I love the figures.

Very impressive Nils, great work as usual.  I love the figures.

'Have done a couple things on the GF - I'll have to finalize what's done on the bowsprit at some time, so started with  what appear to be jackstays on either side for a certain distance.  My guess is that they might offer some foot purchase until a cadet could get a hands on the stay cables.  There will be a long cable on either side going from the point of the bowsprit to the hull, and the ship has netting suspended from these cables going entirely under the bowsprit as a safety net - a wise precaution.
 
  Drilling for eyes and threading 22w gauge brass wire through before gluing is good practice for the jackstays that will go on all the yards.  Note that a pair of small turnbuckles are fixed by eyes on the fore deck, that will be for the 'split' lower forestay.  The breaker shield (already built) has yet to be glued.

 
  The larger turnbuckles are mounted in tow places (so far) on the port side.  'Found I had to bend hardened quilters pins into eyes, and the ends were forced into the hull as the original builder did.  The soft eyes (ship findings) kept bending  when I tried to force them in - so harder pins were resorted to - just that the eyes are irregular, but trying completely round tapered needle nosed pliers makes for better eyes ... I have no intention on pulling these out, as I prefer to go FORWARD (not back) - unless absolutely necessary.  Small holes were drilled for belaying pins (not installed yet), and the drill bit did mark the deck below (my bad) ... a touch of shellac will blend those marks.

 
  I think I'll have to pre-attach line to at least some of the belaying pins, since there will be 'tight spots' in certain areas - like when the stairs so in with railings.  'Lots of though still on which order to do stuff in.

 
  As usual, the ship yard is by no means my only interest.  And lately I thought it would be nice to look for a used telescope to at least look at the moon as the phases change - lots of shadows and craters seen clearly wherever the 'terminator' (lunar day-night zone), plus whatever planets might be available.  And I found one locally - an old Criterion RV6 - 6" f8 Newtonian on a motorized German Equitorial mount.  The scope itself was only $375 (assembly and tweaking required - like modifying a spare pinion to fix the focuser).  Another $125 bough some decent eyepieces and a Barlow.  The optical tube is lying on my wheeled project table.

 
  'Still some additional assembly needed for the mount pictured below.
 
 

 
 

Boring update here - prep work for painting.  The first step was using modeling clay to fill in a bunch of the gaps and then brushing a layer of Gesso over everything.  I left more visible cracks under the main channel of water for a bit of contrast.  We'll see how that looks when I paint the rocks their final gray. 
 
For the sides and back of the wall, I covered the areas with a thin layer of modeling clay and textured/contoured it a bit.  The idea was to make it look like a cross-section of a large rock wall without all the cracks and sharp edges that the exposed face has.

Update
 
The crew and a passenger have boarded, the flags are set and two lockers (1 each Stb. and port) for lifevests and signal equipment are placed at the aft end of the boatsdeck. the lantern are set, The compass on the monkey island will be attached this week.
I shall post a set of final pictures to round up this 8 month project and for the appropriate album in the next days
 
Nils
three crew members on the forecastle deck, sorry for the not so good quality (taken without flash)

capt. looking out from the bridge, first officer on monkey island and donkey-man on front deck winch platform

the blonde young lady on the front Stb. boatsdeck is miss Elsa Keller, the only passenger, (aka Lana Turner in the movie)

The nationality flag ( my wife did in no way allow me set the historic correct flag)

Hamburg is port of registration, and aft toplamp

flag of destination country (Sydney harbour), top of foremast and toplamps and lookout in crow`s nest

lockers for lifevests and signal equipment

 

taillamp
 
 
 

Completion
 
Fini!  Well, except for a stern lantern.  The britannia metal one in the kit was about as sad as the quarter gallery parts, so had to be replaced.  Found one the right style and size from Caldercraft and it's winging it's way from the UK so it'll get fitted (along with some cat head lions) when it gets here. 
 
I have not made this a detailed log so I've missed a lot of specific comments on this kit, so I'll try to summarize here.  All in all an enjoyable kit to build for me.  I'd say there were a number of design issues and plan mismatches (none too big) and some part quality (metal) issues that made it necessary to bash and scratch a little bit.  There were a few places where you'd expect a recently designed kit to have some parts laser cut at least a starter but expected you to make from stock.  Not a big deal, but if you expect a lot of hand holding and perfect detail in instructions you could get a bit frustrated.  Not a beginner project!   One nice thing is that where some parts might be a challenge to finish there were ample spares laser cut, and plenty of extra strip stock left over.  I strayed a bit in places like not doing the hammock netting (I hate those things).  Maybe not as accurate, at least not according to plan, but it pleases me.  I also didn't do the ship's boat, but the kit includes one.  It has it hanging from the stern davits, but I didn't like the look of it there, obscuring the stern works.
 
I'm going to take a short breather and build a plastic model of my Miata that I scored at a club raffle, then plow back in with the Shipways Mayflower.  That will be a different sort of challenge as I will rig it, but then I'll escape back into hull model world with the USF Confederacy.
 
Thanks all for the looks, likes, and comments!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Update
 
Ergenstrasse is almost complete,
New are : Bridge awnings bothsides and frontpannels with stiffening out brackets, mokeydeck railings and front funnelstays, and several bracket supports for the  bridge and its wing cabs .....
Also mounted lifesavers with ropes in 8 places
Nils

sun protection awning

bridge wing pannels with supporting brackets and monkey deck railing

 

 
 
 

Work begins on the real waterfall.  I bought some foam blocks for floral arrangements, glued a couple together, and cut them to fit my base.  I affixed a couple of bamboo skewers to the base which will pierce the foam giving it some extra stability when I load it up with rocks.
 
 
 
The next step was cutting the foam to the basic shape of the waterfall's wall.  You can also see my large assortment of rocks to choose from as I build the wall.  

 
 
I started affixing rocks at the top with the rock heating/foam melting process I used for my test. 
 
Unfortunately, I got off to a rocky start (sorry about that  😁) with the very first piece.  It was a bigger than my test pieces so I decided to use a propane torch instead of the butane torch I used for the test.  Bad move!  When I heated up the rock and placed it on top of the foam, it started sizzling and sinking really fast.  I realized it was about to cause a mini China Syndrome and melt all the way thru my carefully shaped foam, so I grabbed it quickly and went back to the butane torch.

 
 
More progress...

 
 
And here's the face of the wall complete.  At least for now anyway.  It's got some ridges that are more noticeable in person than picture, but I'll let it sit overnight and take another look in the morning to see if I want to make them more prominent.  I also tried to visualize the flow of the water down the rocks as I was piecing it together, but I found that's a lot harder than I thought.  Hard to see the forest when you're working on each tree.  So again, I need to step back, let my brain refocus, and look at it with fresh eyes.

 
 
Viewing from the top, you can see I left 2 small channels on each side of the main channel in the middle.  I might have a couple of small ribbons trickling down paths from there.  Maybe.

 
 
 
 

Day 2
the boiler colour was to light and now i have gone too dark, but will stay this way now, after all would not be a Kevin build if i kept to the correct colours
 
chassis, made up of wood, MDF, castings and PE

 
Tender
wheels need the most cleaning up, from the tabs

just a test fit of the wheels, these are still to be made up, boiler in her new colour, and matt black 

 

started yesterday 28 December
the make up of the boiler was simple enough, as were the forward and after modules, all the MDF is covered in PE

here is the link to the wikki page
Adler (locomotive) - Wikipedia
 
i needed a short break from the Indefatigable so thought i would do a OOB kit 
 
here is a quick review of the contents
all the last cut material is quite good, in a few places the cut has not gone all the way through, so 9/10
the PE is chunky, and has been etched, and quite well detailed 9/10,
instructions, seam ok 10/10
casting need cleaning up to rid the seam lines 8/10
 
 
 

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and got to spend a lot of time with family and friends.
 
I've been watching a bunch of youtube videos trying to figure out how to approach the second half of this project, which is making the rock wall and waterfall.  In between videos, I decided to go ahead and make the base so I could at least feel like I was getting something done.  Nothing too elaborate.  It's 14" wide by 9" deep with the front beveled for a nameplate.  I added a 3/16" rim around the perimeter which will hold in the epoxy resin that makes up the waterfall pool.

 
 
On to the rock wall.  From the youtube videos, I got several ideas for how to make the wall, like stacking polystyrene and scoring with a knife, wadding up newspaper and covering with plaster of paris, making rock molds and casting rocks, or even buying plastic rocks and pushing them into modeling clay.  I did some trial and error on a few of these methods which ended up being a lot more error than trial.  I just could not get anything to look like I wanted.  
 
The video using cast rocks from rock molds seemed to give the best look for my purposes.  I was about to pursue that route when I thought why not use real rocks instead of fake ones?  There are places at my ranch that have these thin, flat reddish rocks with good texture (no idea what kind of rocks they actually are).  So on my next trip out there, I gathered up a few handfuls to try them out.  I decided to use some packing foam for the basic shape of my rock wall.  I took a small piece of foam and a few rocks to test things out.  

 
 
As you can see, it was kind of like putting a puzzle together.  But the next question was how to adhere to the rocks to the foam.  Because some of the best looking rocks did not have a real flat or smooth surface, I did not think gluing them on would be very secure.  So I decided to try something a little different - melting them on.  I took a small butane torch, heated the back of the rock, then pressed it into the foam.  This actually worked great because it allowed me to push rocks into the foam at different depths so I could make the outer surface as smooth or blocky as necessary.

 
 
I tested the melting method on one of the rocks and it adhered to the foam quite securely.  So I continued with melting the rest of the rocks onto my test piece.  Next, I mixed up a small amount of plaster and filled in the gaps.  After that, I put a thin layer of gesso over the whole thing to seal it for painting.  And finally, I mixed up some gray and white paint with plenty of water to make a thin wash.  I covered the rocks with the wash, then added some darker grays in places for shading.  Here's how the final test piece came out.  The second pic is the basic color and rock texture I was trying to match.


 
I think my coloring is not too bad.  But I think I need to have a few more sharp edges on areas of the wall to give it more of a blocky look like in the picture.  For a test run, however, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.
 
  

Update
 
made and mounted the bridge awnings .....
 
Nils
 

card template fur cutting the cloth

outcut for the access-ladder

 

awning fixed in place
 
 

 

 

 
 

Safe travels! Your footropes and stirrups look very neat.

I decided to revisit the lower and topsail yards to make their center portion octagon-shaped.  For the octagon shape section I used some dimensional lumber from Midwest Products that I had purchased a while back.  I had to remove the jackstays and a couple of eyebolts to fit the battens. (sorry for getting my finger in the way)

Battens glued and tied.  Once the glue was dried the battens were stained and the eyebolts were reinstalled.

For the footropes and their stirrups I decided to use 30 gauge florist wire (blackened).

The stirrups were made by wrapping the wire around the yards a couple of times and then forming a small eyelet at its end. 

The footropes were then laced through the stirrups and the ends were wrapped around the yards.  I had to keep the jackstays off until all the stirrups and footropes were put on.

Completed yards.

This will be my last post in this build for a while because the wife and I will be heading back to Florida for the winter.  And since the ship is at a point that it can’t be easily transported it will have to wait until next spring to be finished. 😪
 
I would like to thank all those who have been following along with my build, for all the kind words and for all the likes.
 
Have a Happy New Year and see you in the spring.

I decided to revisit the lower and topsail yards to make their center portion octagon-shaped.  For the octagon shape section I used some dimensional lumber from Midwest Products that I had purchased a while back.  I had to remove the jackstays and a couple of eyebolts to fit the battens. (sorry for getting my finger in the way)

Battens glued and tied.  Once the glue was dried the battens were stained and the eyebolts were reinstalled.

For the footropes and their stirrups I decided to use 30 gauge florist wire (blackened).

The stirrups were made by wrapping the wire around the yards a couple of times and then forming a small eyelet at its end. 

The footropes were then laced through the stirrups and the ends were wrapped around the yards.  I had to keep the jackstays off until all the stirrups and footropes were put on.

Completed yards.

This will be my last post in this build for a while because the wife and I will be heading back to Florida for the winter.  And since the ship is at a point that it can’t be easily transported it will have to wait until next spring to be finished. 😪
 
I would like to thank all those who have been following along with my build, for all the kind words and for all the likes.
 
Have a Happy New Year and see you in the spring.

I decided to revisit the lower and topsail yards to make their center portion octagon-shaped.  For the octagon shape section I used some dimensional lumber from Midwest Products that I had purchased a while back.  I had to remove the jackstays and a couple of eyebolts to fit the battens. (sorry for getting my finger in the way)

Battens glued and tied.  Once the glue was dried the battens were stained and the eyebolts were reinstalled.

For the footropes and their stirrups I decided to use 30 gauge florist wire (blackened).

The stirrups were made by wrapping the wire around the yards a couple of times and then forming a small eyelet at its end. 

The footropes were then laced through the stirrups and the ends were wrapped around the yards.  I had to keep the jackstays off until all the stirrups and footropes were put on.

Completed yards.

This will be my last post in this build for a while because the wife and I will be heading back to Florida for the winter.  And since the ship is at a point that it can’t be easily transported it will have to wait until next spring to be finished. 😪
 
I would like to thank all those who have been following along with my build, for all the kind words and for all the likes.
 
Have a Happy New Year and see you in the spring.

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.