Littlebob

Thanks Jay, for those who are building or about to build this kit fair warning the ply wood is very soft you will need to add filler between most of the bulkheads to stiffen the structure.

Completed the fore deck fixtures.
 
I assembled the fore deck companionway, painted the vent pipe and made the wire guard, painted the anchor, made two more bollards, made the davit from the wire of a paper clip, installed handles (used 28 gage wire) on the winch bits and then painted it, and made another mast coat for the fore mast similar to the one made for the main mast.
 
 

 
The positions of all these pieces were located on the fore deck from the plans and the appropriate size holes were drilled in the deck.  All the parts were then glued in place.  Note that there is another eye bolt that appears to be needed near the fore fife rail that is not mentioned in the practicum until later in the rigging chapters.
 
 

 
 
According to the Chuck’s practicum I am now officially half way complete with my ship.  
I must admit I do feel a sense of accomplished in the progress I've made to this point.  I've enjoyed each task preformed so far, although some less than others.  Coppering the hull is pretty far down on the list.  I would also like to take this time to thank Mr. Chuck Passaro for his excellent practicum.  If it wasn't for his guidance through his practicum I would have never been able to complete all this.  It’s always easier to enhance things that someone has already designed.  I hope that the second half of this build goes as well (knock on wood) as the first.  With Chuck’s guide I’m sure it will.  Since I’m thanking people; I would like to thank everyone for their words of encouragement and help and for all the ‘likes’ so far.
 
 

I spent the last week building breech ropes for the carronades & cannon. I think now that I'm done the ropes on the carronades are too long. Here is a picture of my little serving machine. It was a freebee from Model Expo about 30 some years ago.
 
I was playing with the bowsprit & noticed it didn't sit on the deck. After close examination, I found that the ceiling planks at the bow came too far forward. After trimming them, the bowsprit was perfect. Now I have to rebuild the bowsprit bitts. The crosspiece sits way too high.
 
I'll sure be glad to be done with the armament. It sure is tedious.

Thanks Guys for looking in. Here are a few more photos.  


I used my little sanding boot and got good results. Next I'm going to add the ring bolts for the gun the lies half under the forecastle deck because it will be impossible to get to it once the deck is on. Rigging the gun later shouldn't be too hard with small tools. Or am I kidding myself? I've seen other builds where the entire set of guns is set and rigged but the sanding really makes a mess.
Ideas are welcome.

Shot of my one lone deadeye prototype placed in the rail against the paneling;  hopefully most imperfections will be drowned out when all these little fellows are installed.  (Along with belaying pins, rigging, etc. etc.
 
Topgallent rail has yet to be installed.

Time for an update.
 
I was able to salvage the false keel, I had to use a lot of 3/4 by 3/4 stock and dowels to get it straight and remove the warp, I also added the kit filler blocks at the bow and stern.
 
I think I may add another set of filler blocks between the first and last bulkheads to ease the planking process. All comments welcome.

Still working on the yards some. Added some cleats & rigging the footropes & stirrups. Seizing is difficult & slow with all this nerve damage but I always seem to find a way to get it done. I did find this fabric glue made for sewing. It is clear & thin like water. It soaks in the thread & holds the seizing well  & dries perfectly clear. Almost done with the foreyard. Still need to add a few more blocks & then move on to the other yards.
 

Я готовлю для изготовления канатов такелажных.
Природный решение и, следовательно, естественную текстуру и цвет

hi all
some progress has been made with the rigging.just got the boom and driver to rig,ratlines( left these almost till last),cannons to rig , falconets to install and a few other bits and pieces.final item will be one of chucks lanterns for the transom.
upto date photos enclosed.
 
cheers.....mick

Time for an update.
 
I was able to salvage the false keel, I had to use a lot of 3/4 by 3/4 stock and dowels to get it straight and remove the warp, I also added the kit filler blocks at the bow and stern.
 
I think I may add another set of filler blocks between the first and last bulkheads to ease the planking process. All comments welcome.

Well guys and gals it's time for the final update of this build. I posted plenty of pics so check them out and feel free to leave any comments you like. I would like to thank everyone on the forum for all the views and comments I got a lot more than I thought I would.
 
I will start a new build and in a few days with pics of course.

Well, I've finished the second planking
 

 
Cut out the bulkhead stubs...
 

 
Planked the false deck...
 

 
And then broken with the order of the instructions, because I wanted at least one coat of paint on before I started the coppering... I figured it might help me to end up with a neat line at the waterline... as it turns out, it just makes marking the waterline on a nightmare (pencil won't work on black paint!)... and all I had was a huge silver marker... anyway... it's done now. Waterline marked, and coppering complete:
 

 
I'm really quite pleased with it... the planking isn't completely smooth, but I like the way it allows you to see the planking underneath. 
 

Hi guys here is my next build the Halifax.
 
I saw this kit on ebay for a very good price, it was new and still sealed so I could not resist. I have a few other reasons for choosing this kit, below.
 
1. I wanted a ship from the mid to late 1700 period.
2. I wanted a ship with a few more cannons than the Virginia.
3. I wanted a kit that would be a little more detailed.
4. More important than the first 3 reasons, I wanted more rigging.
 
I have checked the kit everything looks good all accounted for and no damage except a warped false keel. I already like this kit better than the Latina kit, the wood looks pretty good, the instruction appear to be a little better and more important most but not all of the fittings are wood.
 
I could only post a pick of the box as in the process of correcting the warped keel I snapped it in half oops! to bad I almost had it straight, it has been glued and clamped but I want it to dry over night.
When it dries I will add some ply wood along the break for strength. All comments welcome.

I been able to get a few more steps done.  
 
Catheads.  Weird the instructions only had a single layer for the catheads.  Every picture and the plans had these double thick so I had to freehand cut out 2 more then drill the sheave holes in them.  They seem to have come out fairly well.
 

 
Caprails to cover the frame ends.
 

 

 
Railing supports.  These were pretty hard to fit as the pre-drilled/milled holes they fit into in the cap rail were way too small. I didn't notice this until the cap rails were already installed.  This made opening them up very difficult.  After a bunch of micro scalpel work they sit in pretty well.
 

 
Railings.  These were 2 layers.  The first layer had holes in it to attach to the posts.  A top finish layer was then glued on top of it to make a smooth run down the rail.
 

 
Here is the state of the build with a few pieces of deck furniture dry fitted on.
 

Thanks Bob and Sam. I appreciate the encouragement. My apologies for posting in tiny increments, but here's the forward companionway with a coaming. Next comes a pair of doors on the other side. Thanks for looking.
 
Steve

Currently building an AVS.  Here is my progress so far.  The cannons are just sitting on the deck.  I'm working on the rigging right now.  I even added a skylight to the cabin roof!
 
Dave

I finished putting the reinforcements, soon I will spend the first planking.
Mauro

I think your work is great, and your attention to detail is amazing. Ah 6 sided bolts at that scale, lol, but if you really want to add them plastruct makes hex rod in many small sizes, good luck.

I had a semi productive day today.  I say "semi" because I was really struggling with the parts I was making in the afternoon but I'll get to that in a minute.
 
Remember that I lost a door pivot arm yesterday?  That was actually a blessing in disguise because the new ones I made this morning came out much better, not perfect yet but better.  They still need some more dressing.  I added a rounded area around the hole for the actuator shaft.  This may or may not be necessary but I like the looks of it  I can always file them away if need be.
I'm thinking about how to connect the botton of the arm to the actuator shaft.  That's one of the reasons why I may not need it.  Still pondering on it.
 
Okay, I made two arms, two small parts of a copper tube to act as nuts and two pivot pins to make two complete assemblies to act as the door hinge pin and door actuator.  
To solder all three parts together I made a crude solder jig from a piece of pine, drilled a hole in it to receive the hinge pin and then place the arm and a piece of copper tube on the pin, acting as a nut.  Yesterday I mentioned that that little copper tube is 1 mm, well it's actually 0.5 mm.  Soldering this was a breeze. 
 
I found out that I had to add a spacer between the arm and the outside pintel bushing.  So I made two of them of about 1 mm.  This gives me a little space between the arm and the tube flange to accommodate the actuator attaching hardware, which I'm still pondering over.
 
I also drilled holes in the small copper hinge tubes on the doors so that I can eventually either solder or CA cement them to the hinge pins.
 
Okay, time for lunch and looking at my mail.  Then off back to the shipyard for the next project while I'm pondering the door actuator issue.
I thought of making the door actuator shoe bracket as shown on the original photo and the actuator cylinder.   This proved to be a real can of worms.  I went though a few bad ones till I had two brackets I was happy with.  Next came trying to solder them to the torp tubes and that's where I started to have a struggle.
 
I tinned bot the torp tube and the shoe brackets but being careful not to apply too much heat as not to desolder other parts on the torp tubes.  By that time it was 1730 hours and a little irritated and thought it was better to call it quits.  There is always another day and in my case perhaps Sunday or Monday.
 
Tomorrow is out because I have to get my second BCGI treatment and that'll throw me for a loop.  I have some correspondence to do anyway so I can stay close to the "tinkeltarium."    
 
Here are few pics of the torpedo tube door hinge / pivot arm project.
 

This shows how I cut the 0.5 mm pieces from the 1.5 mm copper tube.  Just eyeball how much you need or measure, set your razor blade on it and start rolling while holding downward pressure on the razor blade.  The 0.6 mm brass rod keeps the small part from flying off.
 

This shows the remade pivot arm with the 0.5 mm copper tube and the 0.6 mm brass rod for the hinge pin.  
 

This is my crude solder jig for the hinge pin and actuator arm assemble.  I drilled a 0.6 mm hole in the wood to a depth shy of the length of the pin so I could put the arm and the piece of tubing on it and solder it.
 

This shows the pivot arm / door hinge assembly all soldered up.
 

Here I am holding the completed assembly.
 

This shows both pivot arm assemblies installed on the launcher.  It'll most likely needs some adjusting on the spacers because I don't want them to stick out too far.
 

I have annotated the manufacturer's drawing to show what I'm working on and struggling with.  It's that actuator shoe bracket that's my nemesis.  But so help me it will not get the best of me and it will be soldered to the torp tubes.
 
Cheers, 

Thanks guys, now I have to choose which I will build next, lol.

Great work, everything looks neat and clean.

Hey everyone,  
 
Been finding a bit of time to build lately but I have been kind of all over the place with what I have been working on.  I got the chain plates and cap rail fixtures installed, have completed building the deck houses, and have been working on a plan of action to tackle the sails and rigging for this ship even though 1) I'm not there yet and 2) this model is not typically displayed with sails.  
 
Before I get into pictures I want to welcome Wayne back to the log, glad to hear from you again man.  
Also Sal, who is building a beautiful rendition of this model over in his build log and where I am drawing a lot of my inspiration. I got the chain plate technique from him and will likely be stealing another little trick he used on his Phantom, the lining around the sunken cockpit.
 
Now for progress and pictures!
 
Last time, I left you with the blackened chain plates and they are now installed.  When hammering in the nails, some of the blackening agent came off of both the chain plates and the heads of the nails, the one pictured here is one of the better looking ones but some lost quite a bit of their finish as shown in the second picture.
 

 
I'm not sure yet if I will just paint them black or leave them because it really doesn't look terrible, maybe it adds a little character?  I'll have to see what the admiral thinks.  Also, if you guys have any opinions on whether to paint them, leave them, or some other idea, let me know in your responses.
 

 
Here is a picture of the hull in pretty much its current state with the chain plates, eye bolts, and belaying pins installed on the cap rail.  Also, you can see the cleats are painted black and the deck has been wiped down with some wipe on satin poly.
 

 
Next, I have been working on the deck fixtures.  I built most of them a while back, before MSW 1.0 went down into the deep abyss, but there were still some details needing to be finished.  
 
Here is the progression of the companion ways' hatches.  This first picture shows the rails and the front and back of each hatch.
 

 
Once the hatch frames were assembled, I realized I needed to thin some more boxwood strips for the hatch roofing planks.  This is a simple jig I made which works quite well.  It is just a couple strips of brass which are the desired thickness (in this case 1/64"), the strip is placed between them, secured with thumb tacks, and sanded until the strip is flush with the brass strips.
 

 
Here are a couple pictures of the hatches .
 

 

 
I was really surprised to see the difference between the raw wood and the wood with the wipe on poly finish so here is a good comparison picture.
 

 
When installing the hatches to the companion ways, one of the hatches was not very square and did not sit flush so I clamped it down and let it dry.  The clamps made a great tripod for the photo :lol:
 

 
Last, a picture of the deck fixtures as they stand right now.  You can see the companion way doors are also installed in this picture, they are each two pieces of box wood with little notches cut out and filled with pencil lead for handles.  I think I will do some touch up painting before installing them and the wheel definitely needs a new paint job.  
 

 
I have made a little bit more progress but forgot to take pictures so I will do that when I get home but I made and installed the traveler and the cockpit coaming is done and has its own cap rail installed on it.  I am also really excited about the sails, I have bought some material and have been trying different techniques for the stitching and other details.
 
Hope you all enjoyed,

Well guys and gals it's time for the final update of this build. I posted plenty of pics so check them out and feel free to leave any comments you like. I would like to thank everyone on the forum for all the views and comments I got a lot more than I thought I would.
 
I will start a new build and in a few days with pics of course.

Well guys and gals it's time for the final update of this build. I posted plenty of pics so check them out and feel free to leave any comments you like. I would like to thank everyone on the forum for all the views and comments I got a lot more than I thought I would.
 
I will start a new build and in a few days with pics of course.

Once the aft deck was dryfitted I did the same with the front part.






Once I was sure of the fit I then glued the decks down.


So far so good.
David B