Louie da fly

Mark, I can probably insert wooden pins in the bottoms of the uprights and make holes in the deck to key them into. I'm getting pretty good at that. I've been tidying up the mainyard. It was covered with old bits of cotton from previous incarnation. Also it had been broken and though I was able to put the pieces together the yard was missing a small part so it was thinner at the join than it should have been. I took a leaf out my dromon build and sanded down a remnant of the old timber and mixed it with white glue to make filler. With it I was able to make up the thickness of the mainyard. I had to do two lots of filler to get it up to full thickness. Here it is sanded to shape. And here it is in full, with the surplus cotton removed. Steven

Those are some nice tips on tying blocks, mate. I've bookmarked this page for future reference. A good set of techniques for a very fiddly job. Steven

No worries. That's just down the road to an Australian . . . Welcome to MSW. As Mark said, start a build log so we can all enjoy your build - and help answer questions, solve problems etc. You're among friends. Steven

Welcome, David. Sounds like you've built up a good store of experience which will stand you in good stead. The 1:80 model won't have as much detail (which should be a plus) but will help you find your way around the Endeavour, so when the Big One come along you'll be on fairly familiar ground (albeit rather more comprehensive). Start your build log, and also do a search on other logs for the Endeavour - it's a very popular ship to model, so you ought to be able to pick up a lot of tips from them. Oh, and do read the tutorials on planking; they'll make your job a lot easier. Endeavour has a very bluff bow, and it's apparently a bit of a job to get the planking right. Steven

Welcome, Ernie! Copper's all very well, but if you go to the early 16th century Dark Side, you can use lead sheathing! As far as rigging goes, you will pick it up as you go. And if you can't figure something out, just ask one of the friendly Forum members - someone's bound to know. (Oh and deadeyes are so-called because they vaguely resemble a skull - the French call them sheep heads). Have a good look at previous Speedy build logs - you'll probably find many of your questions/problems in your own build have already been encountered and solved by one of our members. Steven

Where are you based, Gordon? As you can see I'm in Ballarat, but here are a lot of Aussie members - you might even have one near you! Your idea for the Golden Hind is interesting, to say the least . . . . But nobody's going to rain on your parade and hey, maybe we'll learn something from your experimentation. Steven

I hope I'm not intruding on this thread, but I found a couple of articles in "Ships and Ship Models" magazine from September 1935 which in hindsight are very interesting: A mention of the launching of the destroyer HMS Glowworm, which later covered itself in glory against the heavy cruiser Hipper. And another which I found very interesting - I wonder what happened to all those bells, and where they are now? Steven

Unless you're flying a Hawker Harrier. In which case they "viffed" and caused the opposing pilot to overshoot, with predictable results. Speaking of getting hooked on books (not to derail the thread TOO much) I just finished "My Mystery Ships" about the Q-ships of WWI (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q-ship) by the most successful of the British Q-ship captains, written about 10 years after the war. Fascinating stuff about a lesser known aspect of the naval service. Steven

Thanks everyone for the likes. A little more progress. I've recycled the old fighting tops from the fore and main topmasts. Even though I'd made a new fore topmast I was pleased to find that I could salvage the old one - though it was broken into three pieces, they were all intact so I could glue them together again. I'd far prefer to keep as much of the original build as possible rather than replace it with new. I'd also made a new main topmast, but in that case the old one was past saving. So here are the old tops in their new homes. And here's the old fore topmast rebuilt, and the broken off stump still attached to the lower mast. It might be a bit of a problem to hold the two pieces in alignment while I glue it together again, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I won't be doing that until the hull planking is complete, possibly later. The main sanding of the upper deck is done. Only a little tidying up to go. The foredeck is proving a bit of a devil to clean. When I was a kid I slathered white glue everywhere, including on this deck, and the dirt is ingrained in the glue. So I have to carefully remove the glue within a pretty confined space. I've tried slicing it off with a blade, scraping it off, and removing it with isopropanol. None of those techniques is perfect - I'm just having to wing it. I'll probably have to remove the foremast bitts to get at the front of the deck, but there's a great glob of glue at the base of each upright anyway, so it's probably just as well. Steven

Of course, if the Pelican had any sort of decoration to go with her name, it would be a pelican "in her piety" - see http://www.thewestologist.com/symbols/the-symbol-of-self-sacrifice . These representations often looked completely unlike a real pelican - the artists had probably never seen one. According to that great authority Wikipedia: "The legends of self-wounding and the provision of blood may have arisen because of the impression a pelican sometimes gives that it is stabbing itself with its bill. In reality, it often presses this onto its chest to fully empty the pouch. Another possible derivation is the tendency of the bird to rest with its bill on its breast; the Dalmatian pelican has a blood-red pouch in the early breeding season and this may have contributed to the myth." As Michael Caine famously said (assumes cockney accent) "Not many people know vat" Steven

Thanks for the likes. Druxey, I think it would end up more as a helmet than a hairdo - or like the women's hairstyles of the 60's with all that hairspray; if you flick your finger against them, you'd get a "clunking" sound . . . (not that I ever tried that . . .) Steven

Thank you, Thunder. That's something I'd never known before. Chris, that's a beautiful model and very believable (though I love Patrick's as well). Steven

I've been unable to cut out any more oarsmen for the time being - I broke the only blade I had for my coping saw, and I have to wait till we can schedule a visit to the hardware shop - not going to make a special visit just for that! In the meantime I've been tidying up the existing ones - I wasn't happy with some of them; I'd cut the heads too narrow so I couldn't give them the full head of hair that was normal in Byzantine times - several of them had short back and sides and a few were bald! I'd resigned myself to not being able to fix that, then I thought maybe filler would help. I stored the residue from sanding the bamboo of the Great Harry's decks and mixed it with white glue. Turned out to work very well - much finer than the usual sawdust, though I had to remove random bamboo fibres that had got into the mix. The first iteration had them looking like 1950's starlets: But after the glue started to dry and I manoeuvred the filler around a bit with a toothpick, they looked surprisingly good. Note Harpo Marx at the far right, Harrison Ford far left . . . Steven

Finished the planking on the upper deck. A little difficult at the end because the frames were so far apart there was no support for the "pointy" end of the last couple of planks. I got a bright idea - glue two planks together for each side. That seemed to make it possible to cover the gap - that plus friction against the adjoining planks held them in place well enough to glue them in. So that's done. It has to be sanded down and then that will be complete. I'm pretty happy with it - it's in keeping with the existing decking but can be seen to be different. My next major job will be planking below the water line. Wish me luck! Steven

Lou, the cheapest one (reportedly in good condition) is on ebay though there are several out there at similar prices. Just google Book Storm Over Kokoda Steven

I came late to this build - it's looking fantastic! The detail is far and away better than the old Airfix 1:72 models I made when I was a kid. I've always loved the P-40; it just seems such a beautiful aircraft. I made a 1:72 Airfix model of it back in the day. I read a book a while ago- unfortunately I can't remember its name and the library I borrowed it from has closed for the duration - can't even access the catalogue online - about the Australian pilots in the New Guinea campaign, who were fitted with P-40s. They independently evolved the tactic of attacking in a dive and built up a respectable score against the zeros. Then along comes one of the high brass straight from his comfortable office in Melbourne, several thousand miles from the front, who accused them of cowardice for not dogfighting with the zeros. So the CO went up to dogfight with them and was shot down and killed. Good one. They fought under terrible conditions, always short of equipment and replacements, and under continual pressure under attacks that never seemed to let up, they performed magnificently. The book is well worth a read, if I can figure out what it was called. Steven [edit: The book is called "Storm Over Kokoda" and is by Peter Ewer. The book review says "Most of us have heard of the battered and muddy troops who 'saved' Australia on the Kokoda Track during the darkest hours of the Pacific war. Far fewer know of the Australian pilots and aircrew of 75 Squadron who first checked the Japanese advance into the South West Pacific, in desperate air fighting that swirled over the jungles of New Guinea and the base at Port Moresby, fully six months before the land campaign began. Storm Over Kokoda tells how Australian crews, in a handful of Hudson bombers and Catalina flying boats, took the fight to the Japanese. Peter Ewer draws on eyewitness accounts and combat reports to shed new and exciting light on a neglected episode in Australian military history. This is not merely an 'aviation' story, but a compelling tale of men at war - on both sides - in a harsh physical environment. This was a time when every flight proved an epic, and every man a hero."] Strange that it doesn't mention the P-40s, which was what 75 squadron was equipped with.

It's been a while since I've checked on this project. Beautiful work. I particularly like your machicolations, but everything is really well done and amazingly lifelike! Steven

Well, just down the road from Hedland (in terms of North-west distances). I can think of few things better designed to take a person's mind off work and lockdown than ship modelling. The Lady Nelson is a very attractive ship, well worth the effort. Looks like you've already got a good start on her. Steven

Sorry you haven't been able to the instructions so far - I see masa might be able to provide them. You might also care to look at which though it's of the earlier version of Bluenose II might be of help to you building the later version. Steven

Hi Stu, and welcome. Where are you? I used to live in Port Hedland in the north-west of W.A., but it's a big State so you may be nowhere near there. Looking forward to your build log. Steven

Continuing to add the upper deck. Bamboo is a dreadful thing to make deck planks out of - the grain forces your blade to go where it doesn't want to, so getting parallel sides to your plank is quite difficult. The only reason I'm using bamboo is that I'd used it when I first made the model. I thought it looked cool, and the grain made it seem that there were lots of narrow planks instead of a few wide ones. Never again. Nearly finished. More on this in due course. Here is the last of the new tops - this one is for the mizzen topmast. The central wooden rod kept it together better than in my previous attempts, and was removed once the top was finished. Still not a perfect method and if I wanted to make more I think I'd have to work out a better way of doing it. Lateen yards for the mizzen and bonaventure masts. And I've started cleaning the existing decks. I've been using sandpaper for the main gundeck, but the forecastle deck is too small for that to work, so I've turned to the use of cotton buds and saliva. You can see the clean patch compared to the rest of the deck which is still dirty. Yuk! Assuming the rest of the ship is equally dirty, it looks like I've got my work cut out for me. Steven

Coming along nicely, Termi. But it looks like the lower gunport frame fourth from the right is a little out of square. Might be worth checking. And it might also be worth making sure that they "run" in a smooth line with respect to each other, to avoid problems further down the track. Corel's method of doing gunports seems rather strange, but if it works . . . Steven

Jacques, here is a French-English "Dictionnaire des Termes de Marine" which I have found very useful with translations. https://archive.org/details/dictionnairedes00tiregoog/page/n4/mode/2up I know automatic translations can sometimes be very wrong, particularly with maritime terms - for example the French term "cap de mouton" becomes a "deadeye" in English (because the holes look like the eyes of a skull). I hope this helps. Steven

That's a beautiful model, JR. Start a build log so we can all follow along. There are quite a few restorations among the build logs that might help you as you go. And don't forget to ask questions. There's bound to be someone out there who's been in a similar situation and can give advice if you hit a problem. Steven

Bienvenu Jacques! Votre maquette est déjà belle. Go to the page "Build logs for SCRATCH SHIP MODEL PROJECTS" and follow the instructions at the top of the page to start your build log. I look forward to seeing your log on our forum. We have many members who use a translator to post on their logs. Feel free to ask questions. The members are very helpful. Steven