_SalD_

To finish up chapter nine I installed the stern decorative carving and quarter badges.  Prior to installing these pieces they were cleaned, primed and painted.  As a guide I used a nice painting tutorial written by ChrisLinden here on MSW. http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/8417-painting-tutorial-ornaments-cast-metal-parts/?p=249680
 
The pieces were mounted on pill bottle caps using two sided tape which made it easy to maneuver each piece while painting.
 
Primed
 

 
 
Painted
 

 
 
Installed
 


 
 
 

 
 

Safe trip Augie, enjoy

Have a safe and exciting trip Augie. We'll be expecting lots of pictures.   

Thanks Nils,  what my post doesn't show is that it took four or five attempts to get the painting technique down and another four or five attempts to get the colors right but I think it was worth it in the long run.

Hi Jeff, thanks for looking in.  For the simulated butt end joints, after the spacing was determined I very careful scored the plank with a #11 x-acto blade using a small drafting triangle for a straight edge to keep the score mark perpendicular to the planking.  After the plank was scored I used a mechanical pencil with a very sharp point (not too sharp that the point breaks) to darken in the score line, also using the triangle to keep the line straight.  Hope that helps, let me know if you have anymore questions.

Nicely done Tom, and I like the combination clothespin-toothpick clamping device.

Safe trip Augie, enjoy

wow Augie.....
 
Update and vacation....
 
We keep the light burning for you !!!!  
 

 
Have fun way North.....
 
Sjors

One final update before we close the shipyard for our vacation.
 
The twin binnacles have been completed and mounted.  With this, the 'command and control center' area is completed.
 

 
I'll be around and checking in on all of you for a few days.  Then it's off to Alaska in search of a King Salmon with my name on it.  Been over 25 years since we visited the North country so it will be interesting to see the changes.  Be 'off the grid' for about 3 weeks.
 
Stay the course and keep a lamp burning in the stern gallery so we can find our way back.
 
 
 
 

Thanks Steve and George, and for the likes, too.
 
I finished up the gun deck last night, for real this time, unless I mess it up with the work going on above it. I made new coaming sides for the bigger stove, stained them and glued them in. I added more to the front of the stove, painted it black and glued it into the coaming, them glued the riding bitts back in. One side of the bitts kept coming up from the deck, so I came up with an on the spot clamping technique that worked a treat.
 

 
So here is the new stove arrangement with the chimney the right distance from the fore mast, so the spar deck hatch will be in the right place.
 

 
And for completeness, the pump area with the ammo scuttle covers in place.
 

 
I then started on the spar deck beams that will go over this whole area. My first attempt was to cut out a single beam, using the old beams that I cut out over a year ago as a template. I traced it onto a piece of 3/16" basswood sheet, then cut it out with the scroll saw. I sanded the top to final shape, then attempted to use the thickness sander to get the underside to its final shape. I found that because the piece is curved, any little movement up and down caused the thickness to change, so it was coming out too thin is places. I decided that since i just got the thickness sander I am going to need more practice with flat strips before I attempt curved ones. So plan B was to roughly cut out all the beams on the scroll saw and lightly glue them together side by side.
 

 
When that was dry, I sanded the tops together using the belt sander, and the undersides using a large sanding disk in the drill press.
 

 
I then soaked the block in alcohol for about an hour and separated the beams. On a couple I had to wedge an X-Acto knife blade into the ends to get them started. As you can see, they were still a little rough.
 

 
I then cut them to length, using the old beams as templates. Here are the old beams, and the beam extensions that I left on the bulwarks to hold up the new beams.
 

 

 

 
I cut these a little long so I could sand them into a good fit. I don't want to have to do a lot of sanding of the beams once they are in place because I don't know how to keep the dust from getting onto the gun deck, so I am trying to fair them as much as possible off the model before attaching them. I still did not like the way the undersides looked, so I took some sandpaper and placed it on top of one of the old beams and clamped them into a vice, then sanded the underside of each beam. This worked pretty well and the beams looked much better. The next picture has a new beam on top of the sandpaper being sanded.
 

 

 
Here are some of the beams in place before I sanded the ends.
 

 
Still more work to do but they are getting there.

Hi Jeff, thanks for looking in.  For the simulated butt end joints, after the spacing was determined I very careful scored the plank with a #11 x-acto blade using a small drafting triangle for a straight edge to keep the score mark perpendicular to the planking.  After the plank was scored I used a mechanical pencil with a very sharp point (not too sharp that the point breaks) to darken in the score line, also using the triangle to keep the line straight.  Hope that helps, let me know if you have anymore questions.

I will PM you a copy

To finish up chapter nine I installed the stern decorative carving and quarter badges.  Prior to installing these pieces they were cleaned, primed and painted.  As a guide I used a nice painting tutorial written by ChrisLinden here on MSW. http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/8417-painting-tutorial-ornaments-cast-metal-parts/?p=249680
 
The pieces were mounted on pill bottle caps using two sided tape which made it easy to maneuver each piece while painting.
 
Primed
 

 
 
Painted
 

 
 
Installed
 


 
 
 

 
 

Things are moving right along now and I think I see the light at the end of chapter nine’s tunnel (or maybe it’s the headlights of oncoming traffic    ).  For the letters making up the ship’s name I decided, since there was more than one photo-etched set, to double them up to make the letters a little thicker.  This was done by removing one whole set of letters and gluing it on top of another set.  I also liked the spacing of the letters so I removed them as a whole.   The letters were given three coats of paint and allowed to dry thoroughly.
 

 
 
To apply the letters to the hull, first I wrapped a 1/16” square wood strip, about 1” long, with painter’s tape sticky side out.  I then pressed this strip to the painted side of the letters.  Next, using a nice little flush cut nipper that I recently purchased, I carefully cut the letters loose from the part of the photo-etched sheet that was holding them together.
 

 
To affix the letters to the ship I sprayed the back side of the letters with a spray-on-adhesive and then pressed them into position.  After a minute or two I carefully removed the wooden strip. In the long run I don’t know if all that effort was really required to set the letters but the name appears to have come out okay.
 

 
After the name was applied I installed the stern gun port lids.  Please note that I installed these ports with the ship upside down and the picture has been rotated 180 degrees hence the gravity defying lid ropes.
 

It seems like this is a never ending chapter.  Actually there is just a lot of prep work that needs to be done for all the pieces, i.e., eye bolts, split rings, hinges, staining, painting, etc., and there are a lot of pieces.  But the ship is starting to come together.
 
After assembling all the parts of the gun port lids they were installed on each side of the ship.
 

 
The boarding ladder steps were made from two pieces of 1/32” thick strips cut to a rough shape and then sanded to the correct size.  To help with installing these steps on the hull a piece of tape was placed on the hull corresponding to one edge of the steps.  To get an even spacing of the steps I placed four marks on the tape, prior to placing it on the hull, dividing it into five equal spaces.  The steps were then glued to the hull at their corresponding mark on the tape.
 
 
 
 
The fenders were also cut to fit between the cap rail and top wale, stained, painted and glued into position.
 

Continuing on with chapter 9, I decided to take another page out of Dirk’s playbook by lining my scuppers with some copper tubing.  Using some 1/16” diameter tubing, one end was reamed out and then cut into 3/32” long pieces.  These pieces were blackened and inserted into the holes drilled in the outboard planking and inboard waterway.
 



 
 
Next I started working on the aft gun and forward bridle port lids.  I decided to make the lids using two plies of wood instead of the one as shown in the instructions.  The outboard side of the lid was made from 1/16” x 1/8” wide strips and the inboard side was made using 1/32” x 5/32” wide strips.  The two plies were run 90 degrees to each other and the inboard strips were sanded down to create the rabbet around the door. For the lid's inboard and outboard handles I tried my hand at making some small split rings that were attached to the provided eyebolts. The split rings were made by first winding some 28 gauge brass wire around the shank of a 1mm diameter drill bit.  Little sections of the coil were then cut off to form the rings.  After placing the rings on the eyebolts the ends were flatten to close the ring.  These pieces along with the photo-etched hinges were blackened.  After staining and painting the lids the handles were added and then glued into their appropriate gun port.  The hinges were added last to finish the lids.   It wasn’t until I was attaching the bridle port hinges that I noticed that they were not as long as shown in the manual.  At that point I decided to use what was provided although I noticed afterwards that I could have easily made longer ones by using some of the excess material that’s on the photo-etched sheet.
 
 




 
 
The sixteen remaining lower gun port lids were built similar to the aft lid except for the half circle cutout.  The circular cutout was done by using an 1/8” diameter, 240 grit, sanding drum on my dremel and then cleaned up with a circular needle file.  They were stained and painted and the inboard handles added.  I still need to add the hinges before installing these lids.
 
 
 
 

Starting chapter 9 – Hull Details
I decided not to try my hand at carving the stern decorative pieces or the quarter badges but to use the castings provided.  I cleaned them up a bit by removing the flash and mold lines then primed them.  I’m in the process of trying out different paint colors before painting the actual pieces.
 

 
While experimenting with paint colors I continued by making up and installing the split rings aft of the quarter badges.  I used the eye bolts and split rings that came with the kit and not knowing how much force would be applied to these rings I decided to solder them together.  After soldering the pieces were cleaned and blackened.
 
 

 
Still trying different colors for the badges so I went on to make the sweep port lids.  After reading the instructions for making these lids I discovered that I made the openings in the planking a little too big.  The instructions say to use a 1/8” wide strip for the lids but my ports are closer to 3/16” square.  In my defense however when making these ports back in chapter 5, the ports were to be 1/8” square plus no more than 1/32” all around for the lip, which would give you 3/16”.  No big deal though, so I used a 3/16” wide strip for the lids that fit the port fine.  I also chamfered the edges on the back of the lids, similar to how Dirk did his, which made them fit better.
 
 
 
The ‘U’ shaped hinges I used as provided and did not thin them down like some others had done with theirs.  I thought the thicker hinge would look better on the bigger lids.  I also decided not to remove the little tab on the front of the hinge that’s used to hold it in place on the photo etched sheet.  (There’s probably a proper name for those little pieces but I don’t know it). I bent the little tab down to use it like a nail to help secure the hinge to the lid.  The hinges were blackened and then installed.  I will try cutting tiny pieces of wire for the ends of the hinges but I’m not sure how I’m going to cut pieces that small yet.
 
 

Thanks Jim, see you at the next meeting.

I will PM you a copy

Thanks Nils,  what my post doesn't show is that it took four or five attempts to get the painting technique down and another four or five attempts to get the colors right but I think it was worth it in the long run.

Hi Jeff, thanks for looking in.  For the simulated butt end joints, after the spacing was determined I very careful scored the plank with a #11 x-acto blade using a small drafting triangle for a straight edge to keep the score mark perpendicular to the planking.  After the plank was scored I used a mechanical pencil with a very sharp point (not too sharp that the point breaks) to darken in the score line, also using the triangle to keep the line straight.  Hope that helps, let me know if you have anymore questions.

Thanks Thomas, and I do need to confess that the color scheme for my quarter badges was inspired by your superb carvings of yours, so thank you for that also.

Thanks George, it's amazing what a coat of paint will do.

Not a big update today. I installed the rudder pretty much as outlined in the instructions.  I did add some simulated nails which were sewing pins with very fine shafts cut to length. Next time I think I won't use so many.  And in case you’re wondering why the nail heads are dark and not copper in color it’s because this shipyard used bronze nails instead of copper.  The bronze being a little stronger than the copper brings me to a question.  Would the actual pintles and gudgeons really be made from copper or would they have used bronze?  Copper just seems to soft a material to use for parts that would take such a pounding from the constant movement of the ship.
 
 

Richard thanks for the advice, you saved me from breaking some drill bits.  I did break one because I guess I wasn't going slow enough, though I thought I was.  What I finally did was when lowering the drill bit I would barely touch the surface with the bit until it bit into the copper then very slowly advanced the bit.  I found also that even though I scribed a mark at each hole location the bit would still wander somewhat.   I used plenty of 3 in 1 oil too.  Now I just need to find some tiny nails.
 
 
Drilled and all cleaned up                                                         Pre-bent the gudgeons to fit the hull.
         
 
 
I would like the thank everyone for all the 'likes' also.