Martin W

Its been an interesting couple of days. I managed to get one roof sanded to shape and then I added the tiles. The first row of tiles overhangs the roof slightly and touches the molding below. Other than the last tile at the end of each row, I did not reduce the tile widths. With each row, I set the the tops of the tiles to touch each other and then angled them as needed to align into a staggered pattern with the row below. Each row was sanded paper thin at the top and reduced to about a 1/64" at the bottom. Then the next row was added. I also added the molding that sits on top. The molding has the added benefit of cleaning up the edge of that last row of tiles. I will be painting the roof black and applying some weathering powder to tone down the color.

Mike

Mike,
You should have the possibility to change the white ballance in your camera as well. Set it to "incandescent" and, if it is necessary, furthrer tweak the ballance in post prod - if you shoot in RAW.
Also, if you can set your camera to aperture priority mode, select the smallest f. stop, for example f.22 and your camera will automatically choose appropriate exposure time . This might be some long time, a few seconds or so, but you said, you are using a tripod, so who cares, you are not chased anywhere and can wait... This small aperture will give you deep depth of focus, everything from close by to most distant details will be sharp (well,... almost, for in order to truly get EVERYTHING razor sharp, you have to use a technique called "focus stacking". But, I am sure you know about it already...)
Also, I found out that the best light for photographing models is using daytime light, outside, but in a cloudy day, not direct sunlight.
Admiring your modeling skills!!!   :-)
Thomas

Thank you very much for the kind words!
 
I do enjoy the photography side of the build. Originally, I was shooting the photos against a beige painted wall in my apartment under 2500k incandescent. I never liked the lack of separation between the model and the background. While shopping for paint at the local Michaels store I found a 30x40 white stretched canvas. I tried using it as the background. It helped a lot especially after moving the shots to the workroom which has 3000k LEDs.
 
Mike

You're right, Peter, it was a long drive.  And even though it's technically the same country, Connecticut and Oklahoma are pretty different from one another.  I haven't checked out any of the wine you mentioned, but I have had some local beer, and it's definitely potable.
 
I'm itching to get back to work.
 
Cheers,
 
Martin

Hi Martin
 
Yes, I do hope to cover all sorts of mistakes with rigging and sails - and hope to make no new ones there...
 
And you are of course right with the x. The c doesn't make any sense in any language including mathematics.
 
Despite the boatyard being still under construction I hope you feel already a bit at home at your new location.  It's probably easier to relocate far away but still in the US than moving the same distance over here - I would have to start living in Casablanca or Moscow to travel as many miles as you and this would be a completely different world.
 
Cheers
Peter

I haven't posted in a while but I have been working on my Rattlesnake.
Along with that I've been home teleworking and I'm more busy now that ever. But, I do enjoy not spending gas money on my daily commute to the sunroom.
Some cleats installed:

 

Also see the kevels in the above photos. I made 6, 2 were backwards and 1 split. I was surprised how quickly I cut the 3 new ones. I guess I was in a groove.
I made a gig to build the chainplates:

I've installed the chainplates but haven't taken photos; somehow I skipped that but will make up for it.
I put together the rails with the deck buckets. I couldn't find too many models with the deck buckets but I did add them:

 

Also the front rail:

Then the hand rails to the deck buckets:

Next I installed the rudder and tiller:


That's it for now.  With afternoon temperatures around 94 - 97 and heat indexes between 105 - 110 here on the Gulf coast, I'll spend more time in the indoor shipyard.
Comments welcome.
Take care and stay safe - Kenneth

I have been working on my Rattlesnake:
Finished the anchors
 

Finished other deck additions

Painting cleats for later installation:
 

Comments Welcome
 
Kenneth
 

Hey Peter -- I see what you mean about the height of the cutter's floor, but doubt I would have noticed if I hadn't been looking.  Once you get all the rigging done, that detail will probably disappear behind all the other details to look at.
 
Your yards etc look pretty good to my eye.  That flattened area (hecadexagonal -- with the x instead o c, maybe?  it makes sense in Greek) in the center is always a teaser.  I tried out a few yards before my move up here and threw them all away for much the same reason you stated -- they were either too thin or uneven in the flattened areas.
 
Anyway, it's nice to follow your progress, since I am still a way off from getting my boatyard established.
 
Cheers,
 
Martin

18 foot cutter

One special feature - and probable inaccuracy - which was disturbing me with the launch made even more problems with this small cutter: The false floor is too high above the keel. With the 1mm thick floorboards the launch's floor is quite high up.

With the cutter that problem is severely aggravated. To gain some space below the thwarts they were placed as high up as possible. I also used 0,5 mm thick deck planks, cut to a width of 2mm to plank the floor which gained me another half mm (I was really desperately looking for some space). Even so the cutter looks somehow flattened. By filling much of it with equipment I hope to mask the missing depth.

For the wales and the cappings of the sides I took only 1x1mm strips instead of 2x1. That way the proportions seemed more harmonious for such a small boat.

The cutter was placed in the launch and both boats equipped with the kit's oars, boathooks and grapnels. Additionally both got a rudder with a tiller and also the removed thwarts and a water barrel were placed within the launch.


 
While working on the boat  also finished the poop and quarterdeck barricades with hammock nettings and the sand buckets.


 



 



the small cutter with its rudder


 



the skipper checks the completeness of the equipment


 



the launch with equipment


 



poop deck barricade


 



quarter deck barricade (I see that the top of the hammock nettings need some reworking.)


 



the launch on the beams


 



an overview of the work done in this chapter

Surprisingly (but I should've known by now) the making of the 3 yards, boom and gaff was more time demanding than  the mast itself. I did deviate from the kit instructions a few times, mostly when making the crossjack.
 
First of all making the crossjack with a 8mm dowel was grossly out of proportion. I tock a 6mm one. Making the centre part 16 squared turned out to be rather difficult. Finally I made 16 battens with a cross section of 0,5x1,1mm from leftover deck planks and glued them on. Battens were usually held with iron rings. Those were simulated with stripes of cartridge paper. After all that work the centre section looked more round than hexadecagonal. (I'm not sure if that word really exists in English - I'll have to ask Sheldon Cooper or another authority on complicated words.)
The spritsail yard, which is even smaller and also should be 16 squared in the centre, will probably have to be content with a round centre.
 
Another change I made, was to replace all stirrups for the footropes by 0,5mm black thread. A eye splice was simulated at the end by threading the rope back through itself twice and hardening that small sling with glue to keep it stable. The upper end was glued onto the yard with three round turns. This looks less orderly than the usual etched metal stirrups on models but I like it and think it's a bit closer to the prototype.
 
The rest of the work was done according to plans and instructions except that I left off those strange 4 battens on the topsail yard. If ever it should have 8 and only when the yard is made from 2 pieces. Mine is one straight piece of wood with the usual octagonal centre part.
 
 

the 3 yards
 

boom and gaff
 

crossjack
 

centre part of crossjack- supposed to be 16-sided
 

stirrup
 

topsail yard
 

topgallant yard
 

boom
 
 


gaff
 
 
 
 

Thanks so much Rusty and the "likes". Always appreciated.
 
Bob

Looking good Bob and it's great to see you back at it!

After completing the planking, the first thing I did was to remove the hull from the base brackets and then remove the brackets themselves. My preferred method for permanent mounting of a model is to use brass rod drilled and glued through the keel. The rod is inserted into brass tubing drilled and glued into the base. Rather than use a cradle, I chose to install the rods now and insert them into tubing drilled into the construction base board. It is strong and stable, and the hull is easily removable, if required.
 
After this mounting, I moved on to the transom. After marking and sanding, it was glued into place.The windows were all test fitted, but only the gallery windows were permanently installed, with their laser cut "glass" and their backing pieces with theft sides painted black. I then did the upper counter planking, including the thickening planking on the fore sideThe final work was to add the capping pieces to the top of the transom.
 
Quarter galleries next.
 
Bob

Thanks so much Chuck, Rusty, Thomas and the "likes".
 
Chuck, while it may be hot for golf, it beats staying in the house all day.
 
Rusty, I can only hope that my quarter galleries turn out anywhere near as good as yours.
 
Bob

Wonderful model, Bob! I am looking forward to following your build log!
 
Thomas

Hi Bob,
I'm glad to see that you are back at it. The hull planking looks good. We all have times where we are not "happy"
with how a portion of a build looks but then again we are way to hard on ourselves. I too hit periods of less
enthusiasm than others and I make sure not to "force" myself to work on a build. Time off can be a good thing.
I look forward to seeing how you approach the quarter galleries. They are interesting and fun.   

That looks very good Bob.   Glad to see you back at it.  Plus its too hot to play golf anyway!!!!
 
Chuck

It seems like an eternity since I last posted any progress -- in fact, it has been five months. Multiple factors combined to bring this about. First, I was unhappy with the way that the lower planking was progressing and couldn't decide how to proceed, so I just stopped. Then came the virus situation. You would have thought that being trapped at home for months would have spurred a surge of modeling work, but it had the exact opposite result. A sort of malaise settled in, where I didn't want to do much other than binge watch numerous TV series that I had never seen before. At first, I thought that I was alone in feeling like that, but it seems to me now that there have been numerous other MSW members whose modeling and posting have similarly dropped off in recent months. This might provide an interesting discussion topic on the site.
 
In any event, this has been a long way to say that I have just finished the lower hull planking after a recent surge in modeling desire and activity. The good news is that it is done and doesn't look too bad if you don't look too closely. The bad news is that it doesn't stand up to close scrutiny, and I'm still no happier with it than I was five months ago.
 
I'm now ready to move on to the next phase of the project with the hope that my new burst of enthusiasm will continue. Bring on the stern and quarter galleries.
 
Bob
 
 

One part of the stern quarter trim that really does not fit well is the decoration running down to the wale.  It must overlap the wale but that is a mm higher than the hull.  Several of the blogs show how other builders have overcome this problem.  A very complicated way is to make a piece running from the bottom of the stern window piece to the wale.  It is composed of a double curve and it never seems to come out looking smooth due to the use of a lot of filler to get the curves and blend it in.  My idea was to simply take a piece of the walnut hull planking and fill in the space so it is on the same level as the wale.  Then once the trim piece is in place carefully carve back to the trim.  While it may not be perfect it does seem to look as the original plan sheet shows.

Wow, that looks beautiful, very nice job!

Just because I've been rather silent, doesn't mean I haven't been working.  I'm amazed it's been 10 months since my last post.  With the free time afforded by COVID I have been working away, albeit a bit slowly.  Most of the hull construction is finished.  A few challenges faced and met.  Some of the coppering needs a bit of recleaning but close to time to start thinking about masts, spars and some rigging.  I have gotten a lot of help from the Build Logs on line - without those this would be infinitely harder.  Thanks to all those who have "gone before".  Stay well.
 

Hello Everybody, and Happy New Year!
 
Checking the log I keep for myself in the boatyard, I see that it was 3 October that I started work on the Figurehead.  I proceeded in a somewhat methodical fashion, but suffered several setbacks that made this little project longer and more involved than I'd expected, even for such a slow worker like me.
 
One setback is that the Coolpix I've had for only about 9 years, and that replaced the old Nikkormat I bought in 1971 stopped working with any reliability.  My sister and wife pressured me last summer into buying a smart phone, and I have just this morning figured out how to upload pictures from it to my laptop.  Pictures of the steps in carving and the mishaps don't exist, I'm afraid, so I'll rely on verbal narrative.
 
I began by working out a clay model that helped me understand the basic design issues.  Setback #1 came when I wanted to study that model for some detail, and found it completely squished under the glue bottle.  By that point, I was committed to the carving, so I didn't bother with resurrecting the flattened clay version.
 
I decided to try carving in cherry rather than my usual boxwood (castello), just for a switch.  One consequence is that the grain of the cherry is more obvious in the final carving than the boxwood's would have been, and it made the overall piece more fragile.  I oriented the grain lengthwise, but still suffered two major breaks.  The first was when the entire right arm (on the starboard side) broke at the shoulder.  That was early enough that I could glue it back into place, and then follow the Roman technique of supporting the thin piece of the arm through connections with the body, one at the shoulder, of course, and one at the wrist.
 
The second break came with the foot on the same side, because the back-bent angle of the legs meant that the calves and ankles were cross-grained.  I left the feet outlined only as "boots" since any more detail would have led to more breaks.  And when I glued the foot back on, it broke again almost immediately, so I've left it off until I put the figurehead permanently into place.
 
So here are some views from different angles:
 

 
The pointing arm on the port side, I carved separately, and then pinned on.  It's a bit larger than the right arm, because I had to allow room for the hand and fingers.
 

 

 
And here, by way of contrast, is the kit-supplied figurehead:
 

 
Oddly, this version looks decidedly feminine, in contrast to the masculine Mercury figure of the plans (and in FFM).  Her arm -- and the one on the plans -- is raised more vertically than mine.  And in the plans (and FFM) Mercury is pointing a single finger upward.  That struck me as slightly offensive, so I had my Mercury pointing the way Onward.
 
I'll add a few coats of wipe-on poly, then store it away, with the detached foot, until the whole ship is done.
 
I'm unsure what to do next, since I don't really want to add any fragile details for a while.  Mrs W & I plan on pulling up stakes here on the prairie and establishing our retirement home in some cooler region.  I have no idea how to move a ship model, and have already begun to dread the damage I'll inflict on this one and my other two.
 
Cheers,
 
Martin

Hi Martin
 
When checking on CT, I noticed that you will not get completely rid of the cows but you will have some decent vineyards nearby. Being in a nice rural landscape but only 2 hours from NY and BOS looks just great.
 
I wish you save travel and a very happy landing at your new home.
Peter

Thanks everybody! 
 
Chris, 38 moves tops just about everyone I know.  My parents were with an oil company and moved 32 times -- I settled down somewhere around the 25th, and REALLY hope this will be the last.
 
Spy, it's great to hear from you.  There was a time when the Swan class builds were all over the place, different, and exciting.  I still hope that when I finish this Fly I can take on a scratch-build of a Swan at 1/4 scale, which will be much easier on the eyes.
 
Ron, we're leaving town next week, and right now from the perspective of non-stop packing it seems both like an infinitude and much too soon.
 
Jason, we will be almost neighbors -- I'll be in Winchester.  When I get my wits about me again, and if CT doesn't enter a second shutdown, we'll have to get together to talk ships.
 
Mike, I have gone around in circles about taking these two ships.  I gave the Prince away, just because 3 of these crates wouldn't leave any room for the other things I have to squeeze into the cab of my truck.  I reminded myself of Bob Fine's motto of one ship in, one out, and decided that someone else might enjoy looking at a model and maybe even get inspired to try their hand at it.
 
Thanks for checking in, Toni, and thanks again for the suggestion about the peg board -- aren't you also about to make a big move?  Florida?  Santa Fe?  They're both pretty warm.
 
Cheers to all until I get to Litchfield County!
 
Martin
 
 

Congrats on the house sale and have a safe move.