hof00

Wonderful job...she is coming along nicely.  The attention to detailing the yards out with *ALL* their blocks, stirrups foot ropes , flemishhorses, and sheet blocks can be daunting.  Not to mention the jackstays.
Many modelers tend to forego many of these and keep the yard furniture to a minimum.  If you plan on adding leach and buntlines...you'll need these blocks as well. Not failing to mention those pesky jewel blocks for the reef tackle.   It can get pretty busy for sure.
 
Good luck.
 
Will you be adding sails...furled or otherwise?
 
Rob

Hi All,
Bit of an update seeing that it's been a few weeks....
 
Working on Spars, Blocks and Hooks tiring to get my "Recipe" correct for these items. 🙂
 
I have completed Block installation for the Mainsail yards. For the Blocks that attach directly to the yards I first made up "Pigtails" with the Block siezed to one end using a "Slidey" Siezing secured with a dab of CA.
I then wrapped the "Pigtail" around the Yarad and used the same Siezing to secure the Block and "Pigtail."
After much Gnashing of teeth and brow beating the method works for me, a little more work but the results are more acceptable than other methods attempted. I also utilized the Jack Stay installation to line up Blocks along the center of the Yard. (Blocks for Boom and Gaff a similar approach for Block installation.
The Stunsail Booms are not yet glued in position as I need to develop a method for Footropes and Stirrups. While I experiment, it will be nice to remove any "Clutter." (I have some ideas for Stirrups and Footropes.)
 
I took some time to have a think about Hooks for Blocks and Rigging and developed a simple Jig to create 5.0mm Hooks. (I need quite a few of these as I am thinking that allot of the Running Rigging will eventually be secured to "Hooked" Blocks with Eyebolts on the Deck.)
Next was to think about attaching the Hooks to the Blocks.... These Blocks require a Becket, no problem to create these but I was disappointed with the result after tying the Siezing on the "Hook" side of the Block. (Even with 0.15mm Rigging Thread, the result was disappointing.)
I decided to resort to 0.4mm Black "Art Wire" More acceptable results and much easier.
 
Next tasks:
Stirrups and Footropes Topsail Yard Furniture That's me for the mo.
Comments/suggestions always welcome.
 
Cheers....HOF.
 
Photos:
 
 
 

Look into the concept of tapering (reducing plank width) and planking using the belt concept. Learning opportunities to increase the skill set.  Somewhere on this site is a planking guide for different situations.

Hoping you won't make a mistake....but those strakes at the stern go all the way back to the edge of the stern post...they do not curve as you have them against the last bulkhead.  they should go straight back to the stern post.
 
Rob

Thank you very much, HOF 🍻 !!!  Continuation of planking........

Good Stuff!! 🙂
 
Unsure if you already know of this resource....
sobco.com/ship_model/fc/Flying_Cloud_plans_bradner.html
 
I have found it very useful.
(There is sod all information out there it would seem.)
 
Cheers.... HOF.

the laying of the planking .......

Final details of the framing......

I also have many leftover parts from other kits, I hope they are enough to supplement any missing pieces......
 
Hull frame assembly 

I sincerely hope that you have enough material(s) in your kit.
As you may have read in my log, I was rather frustrated by the lack thereof in mine.
Take care of the small components as I found that there were just enough....
I am finding, at this juncture, that there are not nearly enough Blocks, I am glad I have plenty from other builds.
 
Cheers....HOF.

Thank you Hof , your experience will definitely be useful to me 👍🏼

Nice Build!!
I really like the color scheme.
 
Cheers.... HOF.

Nice start Chap!! (Brings back some memories....)
I think that I am two years into my Flying Cloud build?
Happy to share any insights if you require.
I'll be watching you progress with interest.
 
Cheers....HOF.

Nice Build!!
I really like the color scheme.
 
Cheers.... HOF.

There is a song from The Reverend Horton Heat, which is called "It´s Martini Time". The song is like a anthem to me as I love cocktails and specially Martini cocktails, albeit, I never prepare them with Martini. Anyway, the BT45 would fit into the bar, but no chance, no models in the living area .

After two more sessions, the BT45 was done surprisingly rapid in the end. The innards of the nose section fit perfectly and on went the nose. It is removable as are the cockpit and engine fairing. 
It felt nearly indecent, to paint the beautiful turned aluminum rims, but my car had them in black. After drilling all the needed holes very carefully, not to scratch the precious parts, I primed them with Mr. Surfacer 1500 black and found the matte black looked so good, why spoiling it with a color coat. Finally the tyres were mounted onto the rims and then I added the air vents, which proved fiddly. The tyres are absolutely perfect, with pre printed branding and much heavier and durable then e.g. Tamiya tyres. They need to be with the weight of the car, which is also supported by two spacers under the chassis.

Well, let the pics speak:







































Cheers Rob


 

Getting close to the end now! Just the landing gear, propeller, and a little bit of rigging left to do.
 

Empennage is complete, except for rigging.
 

And now, just for fun . . .
 
Several days ago I noticed that the photo editing software on my Google Pixel phone had changed, and today I received the email from Google notifying me of the update. Gee, Google, thanks for the heads-up, I guess? 🙄  Anyways, the updated software includes a new AI assistant. Well, of course this latest update demanded that we test the limits of what the fancy-shmancy AI can do, so I loaded the photo seen in my previous post and asked the AI to redo the photo in a cubist style.
 
And this is the result:
 

I dunno, but I'm thinking the new AI assistant is confusing cubism with a Rubik's cube. 😂  Color me unimpressed!

I am going to call this build Finished.  The small boats ended up in the garbage, new ones will be ordered from AL.  I started this build with great enthusiasm but that was lost when I ran into problems with some of the materials, and lack of drawings.  The videos are a great help but drawings would be better in my opinion.  No mast lights are provided with the kit so I used plastic thumb tacks.  This build gave me great frustration at times and complete joy at others

The hull.........

hi rob, I only have the plans provided by the kit, usually when I modify the kits I make disasters ....

Build it as you like….

I start by assembling the hull .......

Fourth time the charm?
 
This will be short.  After placing my new helm on the CS, something simply did not look right.  Turns out the poop skylight I had just finished redoing was way too large.  It made everything around it look wrong.  Proportionally it was not too bad unto itself, but the overall size was way too big.  I did not check the dimensions against Campbell's plans, which was a huge mistake.
 
Of course, smaller is harder.  The big problem was reproducing the metal protective bars.  The fine electric motor wire I used in my last attempt was now far too big.  I ended up sacrificing an old USB cable to harvest the fine wire within.  Of course, the fine wire was a nightmare to work with. The bars add a great deal to the look so really wanted to have that modeled.
 
This is what I had to do:
 
These closeup pictures make the wire look not so bad.  Reality is, it was like working with baby's hair.  I tried all sort of ways to stretch this wire into a pattern so I could then glue it to the panels.  I tried double-sided tape, etc., to hold the wire into position but it always allowed too much creep.  I printed out two paper patterns with spacing that I felt would work and then glued to a piece of plywood.  I then drilled holes at either end to insert the wire and then soak with CA.  On one end the holes go all the way through the wood so I could gently pull the wire taut and then fix with CA.

 
This method worked fairly well but several of the wires broke during the process so had to redo them.  At the end, some wires ended up slacker than others.  I re-tensioned the wires by using a couple small brass rods.  I then slid a piece of wax paper under the wires and then pressed down the skylight panels while introducing CA under the wood stiles.  A very tedious process but got away with it.  Once the glue had set up, I cut the panels away with a razor blade.  The wire spacing could be improved a little after-the-fact by pushing the wire around with a needle.

 
The results are not bad but still need to clean up the bars a little and try to straighten/space them a bit.  The new skylight tuned out to be ~20 percent smaller, which magically made everything look and feel much more balanced.

Slowly, I´m nearing the finish line. I added many details to the body, like fasteners, bolts and rivets and worked on the final fitting of the body parts. I am always a little scared when it comes to vacuum formed parts like the smoke clear windshield. It´s always best to cut it with a pair of scissors, than sanding, because the burr is very hard to remove. Finally I got it done, using Tamiya flexible masking tape as a guideline.
The clear part was glued to the body with 1mm wide double sided clear adhesive tape and then received the tiny rivets. The side air intakes are not finally glued to the body, I may let them removable for better sight on the engine, but then, I add some guiding bolts.
Now I´m preparing the rims and the nose section and then wroarrrrrrrrrrr 🏁.





Cheers Rob