Justin P.

Started this morning on the deadwood as well as doing a final scrape along the rabbet with an exacto blade. Scraping really finished the edge and allowed me to dial it just right on both sides of the keel assembly. I *may* have removed too much material, not sure. Im never sure. I never know exactly how its supposed to look, and its difficult to tell what the right way is from photos. I suspect there isn't supposed to be a hard edge following off the rabbet up the deadwood, but so far as I can tell I don't think it will show. I also started separating the bulkheads from the stock sheet. The instructions say to go ahead and remove the char, but I never do this. I find the char a nice way to gauge fairing equity as I begin. I also went ahead and pulled out my building slip from HobbyZone. Its probably overkill for a build this size, in fact this build is probably about as small as one should go for this building slip to be practicable. That said, I do like presence it adds on the bench, and feel it gives me a bit more confidence when dry fitting bulkheads and moving about. It has adjustable vertical supports which provide a sturdy grip without getting in the way. The presence helps keep me mindful not to knock things about and prevent my arms from sweeping across the stem in the wrong way! This process also went fairly well with everything only needing minor adjustments here and there to sit properly aligned and along the rabbet. I also took a page out of Arthur Wayne's build and placed dowels through the transom into the sternpost. After knocking enough of these transoms off in the past, I found this a clever and very strong reinforcement well worth the 15 minutes or so to work out. I ended the day adding the strong back, though I chose to forgo the straight single spine piece as stipulated in the instructions as I just couldn't see how a single piece could provide the necessary lateral support the bulkheads would require during fairing. Its not very rigid and ready to start fairing, which is a seriously anxiety provoking step for me. I deal somewhere in a thread on fairing where Mike Y stated fairing should and could take up to 20 hours! Gulp! Ive never taken it that slowly, or been that careful.... that should be my clue! Please, if anyone see's something alarming or that looks off please let me know. Im thinking right now that where my aft most bulkheads are running towards the rabbet there might be some error in how they should be blending and to hitting my possibly over-carved deadwood.

I do know that, and have taken advantage of it in the past. Thankfully, Im not there yet!

Well its taken me a few days to look through my kit backlog to decide where I wanted to go next and ultimately decided on the MS 18th C. Armed Longboat. Hoping that with the continued "shelter at home" order in place I might get another one of these smaller projects finished, or at least make some decent headway. Ive enjoyed reading the other build logs, but especially appreciated the two by Dr PS and Arthur Wayne (the only two completed logs that I know of). Im also grateful to Ken Foran in advance, should he decide to weigh-in as he has elsewhere. I won't belabor the details of the kit, as I think those are well covered in the great review by Dubz, here. For my own copy of the kit, I found all the required parts accounted for and the plans printed at the right scale. Others found the plans printed a few percentage points off, but after measuring the 1" reference, my copies were spot-on. A pet-peeve of mine has always been creases in paper, all paper. I typically take my fresh plans into my lab for proper flattening, but given the situation Im stuck without this luxury. I tried a few ways to deal with this at home but none worked quite right, and I'd rather wait and do it the right way then muck about doing it a less right way. So creases and all, they hang at the ready. I'll just jump right in at this point as many of the preliminaries are well covered in the previously mentioned logs. Ill note one thing I do miss though, after reading through the instructions I didn't really find any sort of mention of source material or bibliography (did I miss this?). Usually found is some sort of history or contextual bit. Part of the joy in building for me has been the background pleasure reading that can go along with the modeling subject. I would have liked a short list of books or other materials that might capture the period or use of these vessels to better paint the picture as I turn my focus to them. If anyone has anything in particular to recommend, Id be very thankful. The build commenced with the all-to familiar assembly of the keel and false keel components. I almost always get this wrong, though it is probably - or should be, the easiest step. I generally sand too much or not enough or round things off so with this build I was extra careful and slow. I never seem to be that successful getting these things as well as some of more accomplished builders out there. I feel Im always chasing the air-tight joint and never able to get there. Some one doing a short tutorial on their edge prep methods would likely earn a LOT of kudos for the time spent - *hint, hint* Not having a good example of how this is done is maddening, as learning how to sand off the scorch marks, while not taking too much off and keeping everything square shouldn't be this hard! I marked everything out with pencil first, including guidelines for carving the rabbet along the narrow edge and the opposing side of the deadwood. Anyway, Ive done what I could.. As I said before, I went extremely slowly here, as Ive learned its very easy to remove too much material. One peculiar thing in my kit were these curious stains in the wood which I can only guess are drops of oil or something that may have fallen off the laser machine? Im not sure how much they bother me at this point as Im not sure how much they'll really show once the whole thing is together. I may follow Arthur Wayne's approach and only tack-glue the keel to the false-keel just in case it becomes something I can't live with and needs replacing. Ill whittle out the deadwood tomorrow as I wanted rest and a good cup of coffee before tackling that bit. Its likely not as big of a deal as Ive made it, but as Ive said Im always shooting for the kind of tolerances I see on some the builds around here so I planning to be as deliberate with each thing here as I can.

Fantastic, I love the driftwood cradle! Great job, something that will look very handsome on the shelf.

I did as well. Very interesting corner of history.

Wow, this is a great resource.

Man this looks great, very interesting!

I figured it was some sort of jig and I guess I can see what you're describing. Thanks for deciphering that for me

Thanks All.

Done.

What is it? How is it used?

Its done. Wrapped up the last bits today, including a few more anchors, a few handholds and the provided stand. I used some Syren scale rope I had laying around from another project in lieu of the provided nylon rope for the steerage cables. I also added the air pipe. All in all it was a pleasure to build and a fun little deviation from the much longer, much more arduous building projects. I think I need to reward myself with more of these little quick builds in order to break up what can sometimes feel like an endless build somewhere else. Forgive the black backdrop on these final images, its what I had laying around. I wished to take better photos, but without my studio at work Im a bit hampered. I can usually bring a few bits home for these sorts of things. I must invest in my own neutral grey sometime soon... or perhaps a good Lightbox. Thanks all for following along and all the kind words.

I have none really. My plan was just to finish, and as always, that can be ambitious enough

Not entirely. They are provided as laser cut pieces which one must bend and shape into hinges. They certainly werent my best work, but they'll do.

It was another productive weekend, although with the shelter-in-place order in effect, there really isn't a whole lot more I could really do anyway! Or so I told myself It was time to start in on the "iron" banding, which is made from a black 10 pt card. As someone whose professional life revolves around the intricacies of paper, I appreciate that Master Korabel got this bit right. I was at first resistant to using paper, and I may yet regret going with it. In new condition however, the look and workability of the chosen material was spot on. I especially appreciate that they got the grain direction of the chosen paper sheet correct for wrapping around the hull. I also started in on more of the metal work. I have to say this was not my favorite part of the project. I know next to nothing about making hinges, which becomes exponentially more problematic when making them at a minuscule size. Fitting them to the fire-pipes, getting them blackened and having to make probably 4x the needed parts took about the whole day. For whatever reason, if I dropped one piece it completely and utterly disappeared. I mean gone. No matter how neat and tidy I kept my bench, if it slipped from my tweezers/hands/pliers it was gone. Hence, making each piece so many times... The above shots show the installed hinges with the pin left long as I fitted and adjusted the piece. Ive also had to brush on a bit of blackener to occasionally refinish the brass as my fumbling scratched it. You can see the glean of the liquid blackener on the surface of the hinge here. I also had to add a few brass loops and eyes here and there which Ive left unblackened for the same reasons as previously stated, I just like the contrast. You can see the post and eyes in the below photo unblackened, and also left long until completely finished. Finally, here she is as she currently sits. Still a few details away from finished, but getting there.

I certainly appreciate the in-depth review, thanks for taking the time. Im also encouraged to see that my initial reaction to these tools is supported by actual use by wefalck and Tony. When I first saw these on the Micro-Mark website I was curious but from the pictures could tell they would likely be much too coarse for anything Ive ever done in ship modeling.

I think I got enough off the windows to be satisfied. I thought about the vacuum too, I have a micro-vacuum at work with variable speed. Or maybe a can compressed air with a tube. In the end, what was laying around proved just as useful.

Not much today as I spent most of the day tending to kids and trying to put together a form of homeschooling that isn't concerned with ships and small bits of wood. Apparently reading and math are important pre-requisites. I did manage to tackle my annoying dust problem. After poking around in my assorted bits-and-bobs container, and after trying a few prototypes that were WAY over designed I ended up just bending a micro-brush into a 45° and found that to be a perfect solution. Luckily this model is designed to be able to lift the hatch off to see the interior details, so... Before After It took four in total... of course the little brush tips won't load up on very much sawdust, so two a piece per window isn't bad. Especially when 400 brushes cost something like $10. Glad to have finally found a use for them

That makes sense now that you mention it...

Why is the bungie holding up the motor? Or can you explain what's happening there, maybe its not holding it up? Just looks that way. I haven't seen this modification before.

Key word here is "almost," I may have a trick or two up my sleeve ;). I may also be delusional...

Oh man... I haven't even tried yet, waiting until ALL the sanding I could possibly have to do is done. Just knowing it is there is making me feel nuts enough! I can't imagine how Ill actually get it out. Im thinking Ill start with a blast of compressed air, but worried that might make it worse! Was also up in the middle of the night going back through the process wondering what I could do (next time) to prevent it. Such is life in quarantine.

Love the ingenuity of the copper plating jig. You are moving right along, I fear I must move at the speed of molasses compared to this!

Today I started the detail work. After clipping out the brass bits, filling them down a touch and blackening I started the "riveting" work. I also assembled the hatch door and rudder. Ive skipped a few steps in the instructions as it seemed like it would be a hugely problematic to try and finish this thing with those delicate oars sticking out the sides. I feel similar about the rudder, so Ill likely leave it until the end to attach. I chose to leave the brass nail heads unblackened for no real reason other than that I just liked it better. The contrast is pleasing to me. Similarly, I also chose not to paint the window work black as is shown in the photos. One supremely annoying problem I have though is the fine sawdust accumulation on the glazing of the windows. If I had taken a bit more care I probably could have avoided this problem, of course now its looking pretty impossible to get it totally off the interior of the glazing. I will be creating some kind of armature window wiping thing... ugh. Its fear this is one mishap that will drive me nuts. Its already making me crazy... I find Im incessantly blowing on it, knowing full well the dust is on the inside.

Oops. Thanks. Wasn't trying to promote it, just direct some eyes at yet another bizarre depiction of this mystery vessel.