GuntherMT

Albert - the first three photo's in your post from this morning are showing 'tinypic - image has been moved or deleted' icons.  The last picture looks fantastic.

Good forward thinking for the masts Rich!

Great looking longboat.  I love the oar display, well done!

Muchas gracias Professor:

I didn´t know about this place, apparently they have very nice and quality things.  The problem is that it is somewhat complicated and expensive to buy from Mexico.

 

Saludos, Karl 

If you can find a place like Ulises suggested, I highly recommend the blocks and line (and well, everything else he makes really) from Syren.

What is the issue with buying from Mexico, do they really nail you on the importation of things?  What if the package was just mailed from somewhere else in Mexico by someone who was visiting, or is the postal service unreliable?  I guess I don't understand what makes it difficult and expensive there.  I visit Mexico fairly regularly and am curious as to what the issue is.

Thanks,

Hola Gunther:

 

Good for you that you can get the blocks from Syren, I tried to make them smaller but with no success, so my only solution was to add only one instead of the two according to the instructions.  

 

Saludos, Karl

Can you not get them in Mexico?  

Hola;

Following with the cannons and carriages, apparently the problem was solved changing the eyebolts but that was not so. I tried to accommodate the cannons in its place but they do not look good, the reason: the blocks are out of scale and are to big (the correct size would be less than 5/64 instead the ones provided 3/32). So, instead of two blocks per side I remove one of them to get more space. They are not as they must be but they look better.

 

And... now you know why I immediately throw all the kit blocks in the garbage and use whatever size looks correct from Syren.  

The deck is looking great with all the furniture on it Karl.

Don't buy any tools you don't need up front, just get what you need when you need it.  Then take the entire cost of the kit and the basic starting materials (under $100 will get you going for a few months easily) plus the cost of the kit, and divide it into the 12-36 months it will take you to build it, and the cost over time is extremely low.

Don't make up front costs alone make you miss this experience, as plastic builds tend to be much faster, so the cost of the kits over time will often add up to much more than the costs of wood.

Many guys here build masterpieces using only very basic hand tools.  It's not necessary to spend a fortune to get into this, or even to continue doing it!

Good to see you get started Rich!

That would certainly explain it being soft!  I sure wish someone local to me carried boxwood, it would be awesome to be able to just walk into a shop and sort through boxwood for what I wanted.

Pretty sure you didn't get boxwood from Hobby Lobby, as (at least here) they only carry basswood, which is much softer than boxwood.

Janet B

             I am having problems posting pictures i am being told my pictures are too big.Anyone have ideas.

They must be under about 1600x1200 in resolution, and 2mb in file size.  If you get the resolution down to 1600x1200 the file size is pretty much guaranteed to be small enough, so just use Paint in Window and use the resize option on them.

If I may make a suggestion, on the filler blocks between the gunports, just fill those gaps in completely.

When you go to cut in your sweep ports, that way you have solid wood all the way through and not a plank/gap/plank sort of a deal.  IMO this helps when you are doing your shaping/sanding of the sweep ports to just have a single 'piece' of wood to work with.

I completely filled up the spaces between every bulkhead other than the gunports themselves, and I found no downside to that later on as I progressed in the build.

Welcome aboard.  I would personally recommend that you avoid the paint from Model Expo.  Get the same colors in a quality paint like Vallejo (which Model Expo also carries) which doesn't cost any more and is much better quality paint.

As far as tools go, I'm in the "you get what you pay for" camp on tools, and 95% of the 'cheapo' tools I started with are no longer in use, but the hobby knife is always useful!

Good luck and have fun!

You don't need to right-click on it Rich, just click on the #1 and a new window will pop open with the link in it.  Highlight the entire thing, copy it (hit "Control+C") and then follow the other instructions for adding the copied link to your signature.

Bummer grayarea.  I never use forceps as a clamp because they don't have any force adjustment at all and clamp very tightly.  For stuff like that I'll use the style of tweezers that are normally closed, or small alligator clamps.

For the hearts, Model Expo will replace parts free of charge, so don't be afraid to just contact them and ask for more!

I replaced the kit hearts completely using the ones from Syren.

Interesting, the laser-cut pieces for the waterways in my kit were walnut.

Remember too that the purpose of the deadeyes is to adjust the tension on the shrouds.  Realistically the deadeyes then would not always be exactly in a straight line.  Some variation would be expected.  This is one area where I think we builders try and strive for perfection where perfection did not actually exist.  Admittedly the straight line "looks" better , or neater, but not necessarily scale.

IMHO

Tom

True enough, but I want them nice and straight on my models anyway.  

Well... here's the real thing..

The difference in rakes is pretty noticeable even at this less than perfect angle.  It's your ship, so it's certainly up to you, but the photo's of the real thing show a fairly significant rake and it's easy to see that the masts are at different angles.

Do a quick google image search on 'brig niagara' and you'll have hundreds of photo's to go through to decide what you want to do!

I made a simple board out of some balsa wood (something it's actually useful for!) much like what davec did:

I found this to work quite well.  I used wire just poked right through the balsa to pin the deadeyes in place, and a couple more wires through the deadeyes at the bottom to hold the wood in position.

Looking good grayarea.  I had some of the same difficulty that you did in the transition area on the bowsprit, so I feel your pain there.  I ended up making 3 bowsprits as I didn't like the dowel, went to a wood from the hardware store (square stock) and then ended up doing the final bowsprit in boxwood that also started as square stock, which makes the octagonal area much easier!

Glad you ended up with some Syren line, it's just so much better than that nylon stuff in the kit.  That line is probably my biggest 'issue' with MS kits.

Interesting approach to the timberheads.  Should have more strength than just sitting them in the little notches per the instructions.  I pinned mine for extra strength, but you have enough glue-surface that yours should be solid without anything else.  Nice.

Do them in red & black!  Heh..  I painted my trucks red, but then painted the outer circumference black as if they were iron banded.

Really it comes down to whatever you like the most appearance wise.

Thank you very much, Brian. I missed that on the plan (maybe I should look on the plan more often). I refitted the stern frames, added blocks and transom and the window sills. Then I spend an hour sanding everything to shape. Dry-fitted the windows last. The outer windows leave nearly no space for the upper window sills so I have to add them later after glueing the cabin top sub deck or reduce the lower sills a little. Next: Adding bow filler blocks..

Eh, in the end, as long as you are happy with how it looks, that's all that matters.  It's not as if this is a replica of a specific historical ship anyway.  

Darrell,

Your Niagara is looking great.  Just caught up with it from about 2 months back, and your rigging is progressing nicely and looking fantastic!  I agree with you that Chuck's rope (and blocks and specialty blocks like the hearts for that matter) are awesome and really make a huge improvement to your model over what the kit provides (i.e. garbage).

Good looking start, but on the stern frames it looks like you did the same thing as I did.  Look at the details of the stern on the plans, and you will see that the center parts #1 need to be beveled/angled in order to cant the windows in slightly.  I had to completely re-build my stern when I discovered this a bit later, you might be able to correct it easier if you do it at this point.

In my build this is mostly in this post I think - http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/8085-armed-virginia-sloop-by-gunthermt-finished-model-shipways-scale-148/?p=245091

Here is the key plan view, note the part #1 where I added a red arrow pointing to the top, and the red-boxed comment to the left which is on the plans (I added the red box around the comment).

Note that this angle means that the bottom and top of both #2 and #3 need to be beveled so that they 'lean in' to match the angle created with #1.

Good to see another AVS in the works, I had a lot of fun building it, and overall feel like it was a very decent model, even if I did end up replacing a lot of the kit wood and parts.