Jack12477

When I started airbrushing plastic models several decades back, I purchased a middle of the line Badger single-action airbrush and several cans of compressed air. As I got better at painting with the Badger I bought an inexpensive small hobby style compressor. I still have the Badger (haven't used it in quite a while now) but the small hobby style compressor burned out from overuse (by my son) and now I use a 3 gallon Sears brand compressor. I never had any problems using the single-action brush, as opposed to a double-action brush. I'm not sure I could master the double-action. I painted over 40-45 1/35 scale model armor vehicles including elaborate camouflage patterns with the Badger and it worked like a charm. Mine took an external cup or jar of paint, had two tips for coarse and fine work. So as a starter brush I would recommend the Badge. The secret to any brush is thoroughly cleaning it after each use.

Ryland, Floyd, Divarty, thanks for the likes. Updates: Painting of cap rail and interior completed; I stained the interior and exterior hull with Minwax Natural, while the floorboards are stained slightly darker with Miniwax Golden Oak. The lighting doesn't bring out the color too well. Using the flash at this close distant totally washes out the photos. Gluing the floorboards in place:

Nicely done ratlines, Rich.

Update: Bow stem repaired. Temporary braces removed, Cap rail installed and sanded. Red tape applied to mask off areas to be painted. I'm going to paint the cap rail, inside and stern red as the others. Interior I think I will stain (not sure which color yet). Have not decided whether I will paint the lower hull white or leave it "natural". The red "masking" tape I'm using is Great Planes brand 1/8" EZ-Mask Flexible Masking tape. I started using it when I was building the plastic Tamiya armor kits. It's very flexible, low tack and applies easily.

Michael, very impressive work !

Now that's a machine ! Impressive ! Would be super nice to have that one in my garage. Haven't kept up with my home town companies since I left there in 1968 even tho I still have family there - Dad, 2 brothers and 1 sister. Dad is 99 and going strong. He's very knowledge about Gleason's history. He told me once that Gleason was the only American company that was NOT affected by the Great Depression of 1929-1930. Gleason offered me a job as a programmer when I got out of the Army but I didn't accept it because I took a more challenging programming job with "Big Blue" down here in the Hudson Valley and stayed for 40 years. We used to say we were on the "bleeding edge" of technology advances. My only experience with machine shop was as a college freshman I was required to take a two semester Machine Shop course where our project was to machine a working micrometer from scratch. I still have the micrometer tho I don't use it much. I'm really enjoying the engine build.

What !? You don't have a Gleason Gear Cutting Machine in your garage, Michael ! (Just kidding of course). Many (and I do mean many) years ago, I was shopping in a department store in my home town of Rochester NY where Gleason is located and on the main shopping floor Gleason had set up one of the smaller gear cutting machines and was giving a demonstration. The machine was cutting the beveled ring gear for a Sears Sewing machine. When the machinist finished cutting the gear he gave it to me. I have it on my key ring - well worn. It was interesting to see exactly how the machine worked - it did not cut each slot sequentially but rather stepped about 15 degrees (or so) and cut another slot then another step of about 15 degrees and another slot; when it finally finished cutting the final slot was adjacent to the first slot cut. Photo attached below: I am really impressed and envious of your machining skills. The engine is magnificent !

Nice job, Rich. I like the "tablet paper" as a template/guide !

Thank you everyone for all the Likes. I appreciate them. I took a few days off from the shipyard to travel to Mystic Seaport with some friends for their annual Lantern Light Tours. Of course, the night we had booked for our tour (Saturday) just happened to be the day the East Coast got hit with an all-day heavy rain storm and the Seaport does not cancel their tours due to inclement weather. So we donned the foul-weather gear and shouldered on. Our tour departed at 8:15 PM, lasted a little over 45 minutes and is literally conducted via lantern (oil lamp), making it difficult to dodge the puddles. We also took a side trip to Newport RI to tour the Mansions - the Elms, Marble House, and Breakers - the latter two belonging to the Vanderbilts (of New York Central RR fame amongst other industries). They said that at his death Cornelius Vanderbilt ("The Commodore") was worth in today's US dollars over $180 Billion (USD) making him the richest man who ever lived. The Mansion of Newport were their Summer "Cottages". Here's a piece of history trivia: All of the ships at Mystic Seaport, including the Charles W Morgan, had a small Christmas tree strapped to the very top of the Foremast. Does anyone know what this maritime tradition signifies? Answer on my next post. Well, it's back to the shipyard to continue the build. More postings will come shortly.

Okay, I'm finally back to square one. The "restoration" is complete. Planks didn't fit as nicely into the rabbet at the bow as originally but it's passable. In the process I broke off the top of the bow stem, so I have to either fabricate a new piece or use the "spare" stem that comes with the kit to graft a new top piece onto the existing but broken stem. I'll work on that next week. And I have to remove the frame braces I installed to protect the frames while I was trying to reattach the planks. For now, here's the results: Ryan: The Admiral gladly contributed the sponge to the shipyards tool chest

Me too, Rich

Superlative job of machining, Mike. Looks really good. I'm really enjoying your build.

In addition ship modeling, I also do woodcarving so I have a variety of knives and chisels/gouges that I must keep sharpened.. The picture below shows the assortment of sharpening "stones" and strops which I use: On the left, in the bench-hook, is a ceramic stone which I use for 90% of my sharpening. I find the ceramic stone does a better and faster job of sharpening that do the various Arkansas stones I have. Most of the time I simply hone the blade/chisel/gouge using the leather strop stick shown to the left of the ceramic stone. This is a piece of scrap leather I picked up from a leather-goods maker, hot-glued to a stick, and whittled a handle on it. This is used 90% of the time. At the top center (in the leather pouch) are ceramic sticks in 4 geometric shapes; below that to the left (also sitting atop a leather pouch) is a smaller two-sided ceramic (coarse/fine) stick; to the right is the Flex-cut brand honing tool. The strop on the far right can be fastened to the workbench. The White "chalk" on the "swiss-cheese cutter" sanding mesh is the sharpening powder I prefer to use. I use the "cheese cutter" mesh to grate some powder onto the leather strop on the far left and simply home the knife blade (or chisel/gouge) before I begin my woodcarving and then about once an hour after that. I'm not too keen on the yellow sharpening powder which comes with the Flex-cut strop. I find that the ceramic stones get used very infrequently, usually when I've nicked the edge and have to fully re-sharpen the tool.

You can also use the cardboard from a paper tablet (the real tablet not the computer type) to hone a knife blade. Works even better with some sharpening compound dusted onto the cardboard.

Floyd, thanks for the encouragement. Yes, I was pretty tempted to just pitch the thing in the trash can. But slow progress is being made. As I said in an earlier post, I took one of my admiral's cosmetic sponges and cut it into narrow strips of varying lengths. I then soak then in water and lay them along the length of the plank(s) I need to re-bend and re-attach, let then soak for hours before attempting to bend them back into place. The attached photos show the current progress: First set re-attached and held by clamps After removing the clamps: Now soaking the remaining planks: The last plank on the left side in photo will be either re-attached (I saved it) or a new one fashioned to fill the gap. Then I can hopefully pick up where I left off without any more stupid mistakes. Happy Thanksgiving to all my American modellers. It's time to get out of the shipyard and go "get stuffed"

Gil, just got to see your latest post. Magnificent workmanship ! Absolutely beautiful model.

Mike, I have to echo the sentiments of all the others. Truely impressive machining.

Per, thanks for stopping by. I'm afraid it is more than just the 3rd plank, it's half the hull on both sides. The water bath dissolved the glue and they all popped loose. Then when the planks all dried they became very stiff and unbending. Apparently this particular brand of Elmers is not waterproof and can be unglued with water. I've switched over to their Titebond II brand. I'm now alternating between Slow CA (10-15 sec) and Titebond II to reattach them. I've cut small strips of sponge, soaked them in water, and then lay the sponge along the planks to "soften" them, then putting a small drop of CA on every third bulkhead and Titebond on the others and slowly press the planks back in place, pushing them back into alighnment with my fingers. I'm finding my fingers are a better clamp than any of my mechanical clamps. It's a very slooooow process but it seems to be working. I have to leave the sponges on the planks for hours before the water softens them even to rebend them into place.. I'll post some pictures when I get a little further along with the salvage process.

Port side then starboard side or starboard side then port side - which ever way you start you want to alternate sides. I generally start with either the stern-most deadeye and work toward the bow alternating port-starboard. Or I start at the bow-most deadeye and work towards the stern, Do this for each mast. I generally start with the foremast and work my way aft. Each shroud overlaps the previous shroud at the trestle-tree. Sorry I don't have a diagram or way to draw it here.

Ryan, thanks for taking the time to post your photos. I'll have to recheck my garboard plank measurements and compare them to your photos.Your planking looks much better than mine. Right now I'm on hold waiting for a response from Model Expo on my email request for parts replacement. While I'm waiting, I am looking at alternative solutions. Trying to disassemble this mess will probably break the false keel and/or frames. I've already had to completely reattach the stern and get all the planks reattached to it. I installed cross-braces between each frame to keep the frames from breaking but in the process broke the tip off the bow stem (the bow filler block delaminated and in reclamping it broke the stem tip). There is a "spare" bow stem included in the kit so I can use that but I'm afraid unglueing the installed one will totally destroy it. I may do a cut/paste splice from the spare to the attached one. One solution I'm going to try is to take some cut up strips of sponge (from wife's make-up kit) and soak them in water and them lay them on the planks to see if I can "soften" the planks and get them reattached. Or maybe I can just detach the planks entirely and install new ones. If not I guess I'll have to start over. I'm trying to use the CA as little as possible and stick with the Carpenters yellow wood glue, which is my preferred glue. Either way I'm going to be in the shipyard for a while figuring out a solution. Here's photos of the "mess": Thanks for your advice, it is much appreciated.

Yes, it's a mess ! Can't reprint here what I was calling myself for that blunder but you all can imagine I did see BobF's tutorial in his build log and tried to use it (unsuccessfully) as a guide . Couldn't figure out how to use the "diminishing line grid" or more explicitly where to place the first tick strip on the grid for the scale I'm using. I also did like you and tried to eyeball the curve on each modelers build but found that to be somewhat frustrating as the perspective of each photo was off (bad angle) so the true radius was distorted. Oh well ! Now to figure out how to recover the planking and reattach it to the frames without starting a complete rebuilt with a new kit. Slow setting CA might help hold them while the wood glue sets, but I am loath to using CA as it is very unforgiving. I've used CA Debonder to "unglue" misaligned planks but it leaves a mess to clean up. Thanks for following my build and the advice.

Ryan thanks for the review and advice. Your observations are spot on. I had a lot of trouble figuring out the radius of the curve for the garboard first and second plank. Took 3 tries and 3 un-glues before I got it reasonably right. The real problem tho is the 1st sheer plank at the gunwale It wasn't set high enough at the bow. The last planks (middle) were full width in the center with a very sharp taper at each end. I ended up with 11 planks on each side instead of the 12 that Chuck had specified in the instructions. My solution was to edge glue another sheer plank at the gunwale and get it aligned with the bow then plane it down to super thin at mid-section. It worked! Until I pulled a really dumb move. I tried to soak the whole boat for 5 minutes to see if I could get some of the indents caused by the clamps out of the planks. WRONG IDEA ! Apparently you don't really need isopropyl alcohol to unglue Elmer's Carpenter Glue - just plain old H2O will do the job even quicker. I guess it isn't really a PVA type glue but it's what I've used on all my models without problems. Photos of the disaster in the shipyard follow: So the Build Log will be on hold for a while until I can either repair the damage or start over with new planking. Will update when I figure it out. In the meantime, if anyone has any suggestions/recommendations on how to calculate the radius of the curve on the garboard planks, I would greatly appreciate hearing from you. Edge bending is new for me and I had a lot of trouble getting the curvature on the first to planks set. The sheer plank(s) were less of a problem as I could just clamp them in place wet and let them dry overnight before glueing them in place. I guess I won't be getting my ration of grog for this screw-up

Nice planking, Mike. Wish mine came out looking as good as yours.

More photos this morning: After looking at the boat again and comparing it to other member's models, I think I made the first plank a little to low at the bow (clamping problem ?). Didn't see it till I was finished. Easy correction I think is to just add an additional plank above and then taper it with my miniature plane down to the stern. Since the friezes will be applied over it I doubt the mistake will be even noticed. Comments anyone, before I move on ????? After removing the centers and sanding them down:

After reading all the build logs of other members, I decided to get this kit and start building it before I start all the other model kits in dry dock. This is my first build log so please bear with me while I become accustomed to this system. First the customary opening photos: Laying the keel. (The miniature shoulder plane really works and is great for small parts) Building the frames: Planking underway: Planking completed: I think the planks are either set too low or the frames need trimming down ? (Always have trouble getting the first plank set at the right level below the bulkhead/frame top edge.)