palmerit

Do you have photos of the jigs or can you point me to them if they were in a build log?

I'm curious about whether neat spirals are more common (on models or boats/ships) or if "garden hose" kinds of circles of rope are more common. The neat spirals seem to require a pin at the center and then spiraling around (using plastic of some sort as the base, perhaps with a piece of plastic on top, spiraling around, securing with something like shellac or glue). The "garden hose" loops would seem to be something you could do around a small dowel (that then has shellac or white glue applied, taking it off the dowel before it dries complete and sticks to the dowel). Don't know if people have thoughts. I'm not necessarily trying for a perfect match to the real world, just wondering what approach looks better, and maybe it depends on the kind of model.

This is a model that'll have a bunch of rope coils near the various tie-offs of lines. I made a poor attempt at rope coils on my Pram - which basically just meant that I stiffened the rope a bit with a white glue slurry so it lay a bit inside the boat, not that naturally, and certainly not in a coil. That one only had a couple of ropes because the rigging was so much simpler - and because I had inadvertently cut a third rope short at the cleat not thinking there'd be extra length coiled below. And the photos on the Model Shipways instructions are fuzzy and not always complete. I want to try some ways of doing a rope coil on the Smack. I'm gathering that some people do the rope coils completely off model as an independent coil and then kind of just glue the actual rigging line underneath or something to look like it's a continuous line. I think that approach would definitely be useful if trying to tie off some of the more intricate hanging bundles of line that I've seen on some builds. The Smack doesn't have a place to hang line, so it's just rope coils I think. I'm going to try to do the coils on the actual line. I've linked below a few build logs and posts showing how to do rope coils. If someone has another pointer to add to the list, please let me know. I won't be getting to do the actual coils probably until the weekend since I have more rigging to do, but I'll be reading and research a bit over the next few days. Again, these are just for coils that would lay on a deck or a bench, like I'll do on the Smack, not hanging rope coils - there are a bunch of posts for doing that in various styles.

One thing I realized too late was that sometimes I was trying to keep the planks the same width all along, but that meant that if I had a dip in the lower plank I was trying to close I'd then mirror that dip in the upper end of the plank I was adding. It was probably better to have a small amount of inconsistency in the width - almost imperceptible - to try to see the top edge of the new line of planks parallel. Not saying I'm seeing any of that in yours, but it was about when I got to the point you're at now that I think some of the problems started. I eventually ended up making the planks a bit too wide and then sanding them down to try to keep a parallel line at the top.

Slow and steady progress on the rigging and sails.

Adding the interior bulkheads. Following the instructions, I didn’t glue to the upper bulkhead ears since those need to be snapped off later. I need to order more .5 and .6mm drill bits. I was trying to predrill holes for some nails to secure the pieces and was trying to be careful but the bits snapped. Ugh.

Like those jigs. I'll need to copy them. Did you just use diluted white glue to stiffen the rope? Or some other concoction? And a very nice boat!

In its home in my office.

Bag 28 + sails and rigging. Finished. Looks pretty cool for a Lego model. We’ll see how much by comparison it takes to build the Occre Endurance I have packed away when I get to that.

Bag 27:

Bag 26:

Bag 25:

Bag 24: lifeboats Lego said they determined the scale of the ship based on the size they could design the lifeboats.

Two baby steps. Added the front part of the keel - this just slid in without any filing. And glued just the narrow edge of the thin maple veneer at the stern, as recommended, to glue the rest into shape after it sets. Since the veneer is so thin, I used clothes pins to hold in place rather than the stiffer clamps. (I bought the clothes pins originally because it’s easy to turn them into customized clamps by drilling and gluing other wood to them.)

Bag 23:

Sorry. They were the ones included in the Ranger kit. I didn't order them separately. Thanks.

Did you experiment with mixing the dyes together vs. doing a dip in one dye and doing a dip in another dye. I'm sure I can read a bunch on how to dye things. Just wondering if you had experimented or had seen videos or posts recommending dye mixing vs. sequential dyeing.

Thanks so much for all the pointers and suggestions. @chris watton@James H - what are the sails made from? I might like to buy a little fabric to experiment before trying on the actual sails that came with the kit.

Clamping the keel to the underside. Lots of clamps. I had to do a fair amount of filing of the notches to get the piece to fit.

I think I did an ok job of faring the hull. @James H said it took him only 20-30min. I probably spent an hour on it. A good bit less time than my Sherbourne, but that was my first. Way less time than my NRG Half Hull, but that hull was way more complicated. I used finger, eye, and a spare strip of thin planking to check. Seems like a pretty easy hull, confirming what I read. We’ll see if the planking goes as easy. (Good to look at the faring the next day with a fresh eye. I saw that I needed to do some more at front and back near the keel. And I saw a few places where some of the frame was bulging a bit from the deck in the place where the additional supports are glued in place in the middle of the ship. I might need to fare a bit more where the counter goes in the stern but I'm waiting a bit since I need to install some of that in a step coming up soon.)

Added the ply deck. Had a bit of a better time than I had with my Sherbourne in that none of the tabs snapped off. But the ply did pull up in a few places. I think I need to flex it a bit more. I’m just afraid of snapping it. Once the ply deck is in the whole structure is even stronger. Per the instruction, I glued underneath (with a diluted glue-water mixture) with a brush. I’ll leave it to dry overnight.

One thing I was kind of unhappy about - especially in the posted photos - is that shine on the sails. The instructions called for painting the sails with a cream-consistency slurry of water and PVA (I used white bookbinders glue) to stiffen the sail. I don't know if there were other options, the glue slurry needed more water, or if I could have just left the sail unstiffened. The stiffened sail did make mounting it to the mast easier since it was a stiff piece. I didn't see the Vanguard Ranger, which comes with sails, having this step.

Finished the main support structures of the hull. Vanguards models are really engineered well. There’s really little concern about not having the hull support pieces at 90 degree angles because there’s so much redundancy in the way the pieces go together.

Still no gluing.

Fitted the bulkheads into the keel. There’s no gluing (yet). I had to file the notches on all of the bulkheads because they were quite tight. Pushing them all the way down without filing could have meant snapping a bulkhead or the keel.