Ryland Craze

".....ignore all that gooey, kissy face stuff! why...... it's the spice!"
 
But, there is a moment you could slide aside, Denis. You can easily get idea to make/reproduce famous painting scene ...
 

Ahoy mates!
 
I know it's difficult to believe, but I really didn't fall off the face of the earth, rather life just sometimes gets in the way of hobbies, and I had a stretch of work where I was working 70+ hours per week (went 6 weeks straight without even a day off), and then I went on a short vacation/road trip to a track event at Miller Motorsports Park.
 
I thought the work stuff was behind me for a while, but then my manager announced that I was in charge of the June release and oh, by the way, she was off to India for a month+ so not only was I in charge, but surprise, she wasn't going to be here to show me all the stuff I needed to do (none of which she has documented of course), so I was sort of muddling through on my own.  Then, her boss says "Oh, by the way, I'm on vacation for the next two weeks".  
 
Cool.  So the person who normally does it is in India, and the person who used to do it is gone on vacation.  Wee..  
 
In any case, I've actually gotten back to a little bit of ship-work in the last couple weeks, but it's been rather slow going.  Slow as in I've been working on gun carriages, and getting one of them done every few days.  So really really slow.
 
First I assembled one to make sure that the slightly larger than the kit carriages from Syren would work ok.

 
Looks fine to me!  Of course after this it occurred to me that a smart person would have painted the parts before assembly.
 
I finally got an air compressor, so I laid out the rest of the parts and primed them.

 
I then painted them all, but didn't take any photo's, and began assembly.  Late in the assembly process I did snap a couple pictures, but they are mostly pretty boring.

 
Tonight I got carriage #6 done finally, so I figured I'd stick them on deck and see how they look.  No quoins, so the barrels are a bit high in the gun ports.

 
Lots of work still to do on these, I have to respray them to get the parts without paint covered, make the quoins, add all the eye-bolts, then make the caps to hold the guns on, glue all the various bits in place and do paint touch-ups, etc.
 
Oh, and I also need to complete the finish on the hull & deck, right now there is only a single coat of poly on everything, and I need to buff that and add another couple of coats before I start putting stuff on the deck that will make it difficult/impossible to do later on.
 
But, it's good to see at least a tiny bit of progress after the almost 2 months since I finished the poop deck.

Jack:
MSW members are Associate NRG Members. 
You will need to show MSW in the NRG Member # space on the form.  In order to verify that you are in fact a MSW member and thus an Associate NRG Member we will need to know your MSW ID - yours being Jack12477.  Yours will fit in the space completely but others may need to add it in the margin if mailing the form.  If calling the office, just tell Mary your MSW ID.
Hope to see you and a lot of the MSW members in Mystic.
Kurt

Not having heard anything from ME in response to my email of May 6 asking for replacement parts for my Essex kit, I was getting ready to call them. I went to "my account" on their website to get my Essex kit order information so I'd have it for my call-- when, lo and behold, I see a new order consisting of "misc. parts", dated May 8th in the warehouse about to be shipped. Maybe I'm going to get my replacement parts after all!
Bill M.

I'm now onto the hull planking starting with the first of the two wale layers. I made sure that each plank fit nicely into the stem to avoid as much sanding as possible. I don't have the clamp and glue technique sorted out yet so I just worked my way aft by hand and glued two or three bulkheads at a time. Although the wale location was previously marked, I did make some tiny adjustments as I went along. This was especially true where I had to ensure that both wales end up at the same location where the break of the counter and square tuck meet.
 

Treenails enhanced by using 6H pencil, then each nail varnished with 25/75 golden oak/natural

Today I started to raise frames. I made a jig out of 1/8" plexiglass to help make this process as accurate as possible.
The profile of the keel structure is cut into the bottom of the face piece. The grid you see on the face was made in MS-Excel to no particular scale. I printed the grid out on self-stick Mylar.
 
This first photo is from the front and shows the Deadflat0 frame in place.
 

 
The second photo is the back of the jig from an 45° angle to show how everything lines up. The blue tape is just to make the pieces stand out a bit. After applying the Mylar grid to the front and cutting the base so the keel is exactly dead center I built the back supports. These are nothing more than 2 bases with an upright glued to the center. For these it is important to make sure everything meets at exactly 90°. The front of the uprights is perfectly flush with the front of the bases. Once the glue has had time to really set I went about attaching the back supports to the back of the face piece. To do this I slide both supports into the keel which I used to set the proper gap. With both support pieces in place I ran a line of glue along the base where the supports meet the face piece. After a couple of seconds I made sure the face piece was in contact with the front edge of each support and ran a line of glue down these joints.
 

 
When I'm raising a frame I use a small bar clamp to gently squeeze the keel assembly with the bases of the support pieces. This keeps the whole thing from moving as I raise the frame.
 
The third photo is another view of the back of the jig, this time looking straight on.
 

 
Because everything is square to everything else this makes a handy way to raise frames and check their alignment. The scale of the grid doesn't matter, the lines are just used to check symmetry. The jig is used on a piece of glass to make sure the base I'm working on is dead flat.
 
Once the glue has dried on one frame the jig can be slid back to make room for the next frame.
 
Up next is raising the other 11 frames then I'll install the gun port sills, sweep sills and scuppers.
 

I think the simulated treenails came out okay, this before any varnish.

still using my Samsung S5 for documentation. Things are moving forward.

Toni, I'm sorry to hear you may have to put your dog to sleep.  As a dog owner I know that's the hardest thing to do, but it's the ultimate gesture of love shown to your pet.  You never want to see  them suffer.  I don't look forward to the day when I will have to make that decision for my dog Toby.

Everything seems to be trying to keep me away from the shipyard but I have been able to start the stern framing. Glued the filler & frame pieces in place. Started gluing in the port sills, checking the height with the cannon cut-out.
 

I put up this short video to help answer some of the email questions I've been getting...
 

 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZDujJy5wdI
 
Paul

When first reading chapter two I kept wondering how this was all going to come together smoothly. It's interesting to see how Chuck has put this to work in such a logical way thus making the process much easier than it looks.
 
Rather than cutting the stern frames individually, each frame X, Y and Z were stacked together and cut as one piece. Each of the two outer frames ZZ were stacked three together. A tiny amount of PVA was used to hold the parts together while cutting them with the jigsaw. I used Elmer's Washable School Glue to adhere the drawings to the parts. The disc sander and oscillating drum sander cleaned things up nicely afterwards. Given the accuracy of Jason's boxwood sheets and Chuck's laser cutting the fitting of the stern frames was a breeze with no sanding necessary. Frames ZZ were faired as Chuck describes in his practicum.
 
 

 
Though apparently simple, I found that the two stern ports were very challenging to make. They are awkward to hold and care must be taken while making adjustments to the angles. They should be positioned parallel to the waterline.

 
The square tuck piece was then added along with the filler pieces glued behind it. The photo shows the port side after being faired. A lot of material had to be removed in order to get a batten to run smoothly over the hull.

I was able to complete the port painting after applying about 15 thinned coats of red over a dark pink base. The temporary battens marking the bottom edge of the wales were pinned evenly on both sides of the hull. For the most part the batten runs matched the reference lines along the bulkheads very closely.
 
 

 

Working on the first strakes.  The center and aft sections go on first, then the drop plank.  First pieces  are tapered to about 1/2 full width between bulkheads B & J then installed in segments.  Aft section takes a big twist as it gets to the square tuck.  Next are the drop planks.
Maury

There was a dip in the planking so I spiled the next strake to even it out.  You can make it out at the fourth bulkhead from the stem at the end of the drop plank.  There is a light pencil line on the strake where the problem was.
Maury

I have attached another photo of Sam Parent's Philadelphia for you guys to drool over.  The details he has added are plentiful and truly make this a remarkable model. 
Sam is new to the NRG, I signed him up at the contest, and I am going to ask him to join in here.  I gave a spiel at the modeler's symposium there about MSW and the NRG and I think we probably already have some new lurkers at MSW from there.  Maybe he will share more photos with us.
Photo by Sam Parent.
Kurt

We had two great models of the Philadelphia entered at the Manitowoc contest last week.  Both took Gold medals and one took the Best of Show award!  Before anybody makes their fireplace cook stove read my article - Part 7 - the concluding article on this model, about how I made bricks for the fireplace and how the Best of Show model maker did his.  I would do it his way if I were to do it again, but don't use the wooden bricks from the kit - make real bricks.
 
I have attached 2 photos of the fireplace.  The first one is mine.  I worked at making it look like it wasn't done by a bricklayer, figuring that the builders of the Philadelphia didn't include brick layers.  The other is made by Sam Parent from Winona, MN who won the best of show award.  He also made a lot of cooking gear as well as a lot of the stuff needed to load and fire the guns.  Excellent work.  Sam's is more closely that of a brick mason's work.  Photo of Sam's fireplace is by him.
 
We both made representations of fires in the fireplaces.
 
Kurt

Over the last few days, I've applied six well-thinned coats of black paint (Model Expo Hull Black) to the wales.  I don't have Chuck's skills at hand painting without going past the edge, so I taped it with Tamiya masking tape.  Very little bleed-thru and most of that scraped-off easily.
Maury

The rigging is now done! I added the crossjack, topsail yard and the gaff and boom to the mizzen mast. The yards and their rigging are virtually identical to the fore and main and need no further description. The boom and gaff were made up with their jaws cut and shaped from strip and bead parrels added. The boom was rigged with topping lifts, sheets and guys. the gaff was rigged with peak and throat halliards and vangs.
 
The access clearances got really tight between the main and mizzen, particularly in doing the braces, which basically run between the two masts .This work resulted in a number of "accidents" and some very colorful language. 
 
I have a few comments on the rigging process. I used Chuck's blocks and rigging line throughout. I tried to keep as close to scale sizes as possible. As a result, the majority of the blocks were quite small and the majority of the line of small diameters. The blocks are really good looking and well made. I did find that drilling the sheave  holes with a very slightly larger drill size made them easier to work with. The rigging line is also very good looking and generally easy to work with. As I've mentioned before, my only problem with it is a tendency to stretch or sag once in place. This presented some issues when running rigging lines had to be attached to the standing rigging.
 
With completion of the rigging, the only remaining items of work are the anchors, the stern lantern and possibly a boat to be hung from the stern davits.The kit castings for the anchors and lantern are not usable. I will scratch build the anchors and I'm continuing to look for a suitable lantern. I probably won't do the boat.
 
Bob

I've put three coats of wipe on poly.

I've removed the bulkhead centers with my rotary tool with no issue. Now comes the time consuming task of sanding the inner frames. I need to find out how much I should sand them. 

A little sign of life: I finished the first 5 carronades – see images below. Unfortunately this time in the year there are always too many other projects that need to be taken care of. So right now I am following the philosophy of Confucius: ‘It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop’ 
 
Thomas
 

 
 
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Floor boards getting false tree nails. Will be enhanced before the 50/50 varnish mix is applied. Uploaded via my Samsung 5s.

Ouch!!!! I hate when that happens. Through all your trials and tribulations you are making great progress Jessie. Looking forward to future updates.
            
              Happy modeling,
                  Marty G.