Elijah

EJ, she is beautiful! The sails are a very nice addition.

Patrick, she looks great! I like your approach to copper plating. And yes, it’s always better to be able to not glue the masts, especially if anything unforeseen happens.

Bob, she looks fantastic as always. Very nice work!

Hello all! I’m having great difficulty with this concept and am wondering if anyone has a solution? Essentially, I need to strop double blocks for rigging the cannons on my ship, but I am rather confused as to what happens to the end of the line. It seems like it is supposed to feed back into itself? That seems a little beyond my capabilities, but I’m very curious to see what others do. It’s something that’s so common, I don’t see the actual process mentioned very often, nor do I see it detailed much at larger scales. At a smaller scale, it’s a lot easier to give the illusion of a properly stropped block, but at this scale I am at a loss for how to proceed. Any help is greatly appreciated! Here are a couple pictures to illustrate what I mean. (I know, the last picture is definitely not the best way of doing it, right?)

No way!! I can understand getting too involved in that game, I recently got it, and I find it hard trying to get on with my build because of an issue with stropping blocks that I haven't gotten resolved. Anyway, good to see you back to building, I think I need to do the same and bite the bullet with my own.

She looks very nice!

Very nice, I can't wait to see her in natural lighting!

Nice start to your Phantom! Yeah, I found the solid hull very annoying to work with quite frequently, and the templates provided didn't correspond to the plans. I'm still not in the mood to build another solid hull model in the near future... She's looking good though, nice work.

Thank you EJ and Mike! I'm sure there will be even more mistakes to hide along the way... I'm using Syren rigging line, which is the best kind I know of, thanks Chuck. 

Thank you very much Doc and Vaddoc!

Thanks Jesse! 

I have turned the spars using an electric drill and sandpaper, and I think they have turned out decently. I actually broke one, and had to fix it. Can you spot the repair? 

I've also begun rigging the cannons, which I'm doing off of the model before fixing them on. 

Until next time,

Looking very nice Jesse!

A little early perhaps, but just curious, will she be rigged?  Nice start JP, I hope to keep up

Looking forward to this build! Also, very nice diorama, Jim.

Whoah! This looks really cool, Doc!

Looks nice Bob! I've seen this black monofilament line idea around, it looks good. Where do you get yours?

Nice choice Patrick, I'm looking forward to your pictures!  

Nice work EJ! She's looking very cool!

Looks great Dave! Doesn't look overdone to me either!

Looking good Patrick! That is an interesting question concerning that drawing. And that's both really lucky and really unlucky about your bowsprit. 

Thank you very much Mike, that's exactly how I felt when I had to start planking. And I hope that's not how it will be when I start rigging, but I'm not entirely sure...

Thanks guys! I'm thinking more and more that 3/16th would work out pretty well. As to the pictures, Dave, I wish I could take credit for them, but those are actually Landlubber Mike's photos from when he visited the exhibit.

Oh, here's this one too

So, it's been way too long since I've updated this log, sorry about that.  I've been busy with a number of other activities, but have managed to make a little progress on the boat. My line of approach has basically been to fabricate as many parts as I can without staining or painting them, in preparation for a mystical day in the future where I stain and paint everything. So, I made the anchors! That was pretty simple. Then I tackled the main mast. I've never had to carve a mast before, so it was interesting. I think I was a lot better at it by the end than at the beginning, and I suppose that's how it's supposed to work...  Still, I cannot swear that the mainmast, or the topmast for that matter, are perfectly round...  I have a number of parts to make up before staining and painting day, including the cap rail. I'm probably not going to literally save everything to be stained at one time, but I would like to minimize the amount of time's I do it, since I've found it a rather frustrating process in the past.  In any case, now I'm preparing to make the spars. Since I'm going to rig the model with sails, I'm going to have to scratch build the spar that holds the bottom of the mainsail. I have a 1/8th scale plan sheet that has it on there, and I both measured it at that size, and also scaled it up with the printer at 400%. I measured the lower spar to be 3/64'' on the plan sheet, but when I scaled it up, the lines got so thick that it looks bigger than 3/16'', which is the drawing at 400%. I've been looking at photos, and just haven't made up my mind as to what size I want to use, so any recommendations? The main spar is 5/16'' in diameter, for reference. It seems to me that the lower spar is smaller in diameter. Anyway, that's the puzzle I'm working on now, but I don't really have any photos to show for that yet, so here's the photos I've got to get you up to date!