Ryland Craze

I can only guess, that these are acrylics, wefalck. The artist pens from F-C should also work fine for this kind of work. Where the AK weathering pencils really shine, is dampened. You can use them as a multicolored wash and weathering medium. I really love to work with them.

Here are some examples of a Sci-Fi build, where weathering was done with the AK pencils dampened:








 
Cheers Rob

I´m closing in on the finish line. Due to some back spasms, bench time is somewhat limited lately, but I started painting the figures and props.
These were primed and sprayed with Tamiya Buff then.
 


I wanted to try a new technique for the laminated wood and graining with pencils. My AEG has two different propellers, a good opportunity to finish the props a little different. 
Number one was ´laminated´ with AK weathering pencils Dark Chipping for Wood and Dark Rust by hand following the logical ´flow´ of the lamination.



Number two was ´laminated´ with Sand and Sepia for a bit more contrast



The props were varnished differently,
Number one got Tamiya Clear Orange applied by brush, which removed a lot of the laminating effect. Not all propellers of the time had a verry apparent lamination effect, so I let it be.

Number two was varnished with the airbrush using Tamiya Clear Red, which lead the wood layers show through much more.



Cheers Rob

Thank you gentlemen for your likes and comments.
 
Here is a small update on the hair brackets and cheeks. I thought I would paint them blue with a yellow facing. It seemed like a good idea but it didn't work out - and sanding the paint off was a bit of a disaster. Chuck very kindly sent me replacements.
 
I didn't entirely follow the building order set out in the instructions. After ages of fiddling about trying to line things up I settled on starting with the upper hair bracket and using that as a datum point as it were.
 



I painted the friezes off the model.

 
And this is how they came out. I painted my initials (JFH) on the starboard hair bracket - just behind the figurehead's upper arm - for a bit of fun. 
 


And here is the port side. Some tidying up of the scruffy paint work required but otherwise I'm happy with the outcome.
 
 


All the best 
Fred
 
 
 
 
 
 

Not the original poster but where I build my model (in my garage) was on the edge of my wifi signal and made it somewhat of an unreliable connection (solved it this week for different reasons). I know others build in workshops/basements/etc where the connection simply may be lacking regardless of the connection to the ISP.
 
 

Hi,
I went on with the cockpit parts. I eventually received the super nice Yahu replacement for the instrument panel which is shown here glued to the other kit parts:

I have added three prominent control levers in the center of the panel made of thin aluminum foil to complete the appearance of the IP. These are the cockpit parts that are now basically completed:

Differently from the instrument panel which was a disappointment, the Eduard seat belts worked fine and added a nice level of details to the kit seats. These are the same parts seen from another angle:

This time, I am going to depict a used aircraft, so I added some grime and dirt by brushing on some pastel powder. Now the parts are basically ready to be assembled, but before I will spray a mist of matt clear to uniform the finishes and mute the glint of metallic parts. On the underside of the cockpit, we have the ceiling of the bomb bay which I also started to color. I first sprayed a black primer followed by a light coat of colors that let the black to be seen through (although not very visible in the picture):

I will finish the bay by adding some more weathering effects to it. Presently, I am preparing the fuselage halves that need to have some of their annoying extractor pin marks to be addressed.
That is all for now, thanks for following,
Dan
 
 

Use just one elastic band per frame, over the frame. Use a small piece of scrap under it as necessary. If the plank is wet bent, it really shouldn't need a lot of force to hold it in place.

No direct response from Model Expo, but it seems they opened up an order for a replacement sheet since I got a notification this morning. 👍 Good, but also means I'll be putting the planking on hold until that arrives.
 
Log #6
 
A small update and some notes for later. I may not post much until I get replacements.
 
After messing around I was able to get the plank glued in place. That's some tricky clamping to figure out. I grabbed some bobby pins. Thanks to @JacquesCousteau for that idea; yours was one of, if not my favorite dory build logs.
 
I find caution is needed when using those metal clamps as they're pretty aggressive. The bobby pins aren't quite aggressive enough. My mind is thinking of all sorts of ways to clamp in the future (yes, it's only a bobby pin holding the plank to the step). For this, I collected some extra elastics, bobby pins, and cut up some card stock to combine with scrap wood.
 
Elastics were a pain since they're all different sizes. It'll be best to pick up a few different strengths that can quickly be identified. I mitigated the denting as best I could, but was less concerned with the parts of the frame that will be covered by the seat risers, thwarts, etc. I will correct as best as possible with water after.
 
I was trying to fill some of the gaps with glue/water mix as per instructions, but it didn't work too well. Some gaps were a little larger than I liked, and I wasn't able to close them up with available clamping. I ended up putting on a 5 minute song and holding 4 or 5 spots with my fingers to close the gaps. By the time I let go they were all closed up and pretty solid. 👍
 
Some thoughts for the future:
Alligator clips, heavy duty paper/binder clips. I may try gluing some card stock to the inside of some clips which should help create a softer clamping surface. For the second plank, I may try cutting some elastics, which can be routed through ignoring the building board. They'll only contact the planks and bottom board and then can be tied as loosely or as tightly as needed. Having elastics right around the planks could push it the wrong way so I may try adding some spacers on the inside of the boat to keep that from happening. We'll see how bored I get while waiting for the other planks to arrive. Thinking of creating a crude gauge to help set the height of the second board the same as the first.
 
I swear, the glue doesn't look that messy in person. I guess I have some cleaning up to do.
 

 

I like how Thukydides organised his log so I’m copying. You will be able to easily find any part of the build.
 
Table of contents
 
Log #1: research and preparation
 

———————————————————
 
Log #1: Research and preparation
 
This is the start of the Sherbourne build log, the kit won’t be arriving for another 2-3 weeks but anything that I should be aware of or extra parts I should get please let me know.
 
I will be replacing all rope with
Ropes of Scale and the kit blocks with Syren blocks. I will also get thimble blocks from Syren for the backstays.
 
I don’t have an airbrush and I don’t like the idea of using spray paint for the hull.
I just bought white acrylic paint so what I might do is only use spray paint as a base coat, then apply a thinned down white acrylic.
 
I’m already thinking about gun tackles and I know I’ll need at least 2mm blocks.
I don’t think there’s really any available though. Only Vanguards blocks but they’ll be different to Syren blocks. Will I just have to make them? 

There is an old expression about a boat being a hole in the water into which you throw money.  Unfortunately, United States is just a bigger hole to fill.
 
IMHO there are engineering, business, and legal reasons preventing her from sailing again:
 
Business:  The passenger ship business seems to be aimed at two different demographics; at one end those that want to join 4999 others aboard a floating theme park/ 24-7 floating casino and at the other end those wanting a quiet experience aboard a small ship.  United States would seem to appeal to neither of these groups.  The United States, while a big ship carried 1000-2000 passengers. Fares would, therefore, be high, so she would have to tap into the small cruise ship market.  Would ongoing demand be high enough to allow her to book profitable passenger loads?
 
Engineering:  She is a steam ship!  Nobody, operates steamships any more.  She has a 900psi US Navy plant.  The only steam plants operated today in US Navy vessels are in nuclear powered vessels; different animals.  Her boilers, if they can even be brought back to life are equipped to burn bunker c oil, a nasty pollutant that the rest of the world is trying to eliminate from their merchant marine fleets. The state of the art today in marine engineering for passenger carrying vessels seems to be an integrated system where electricity from one source is distributed to both the propulsion system and the system supplying on board hotel services. This also allows use of electric driven trainable pods to improve maneuvering.  Even if it could be brought back to life, United States’ machinery is 70 years out of date.
 
Legal:  She is an American Flagged ship.  The Jones act would require her to be manned with an expensive American crew.  She could be reflagged under a flag of convenience; Liberia, Panama, Bahamas, etc. but would she then be the United States?
 
Better for whoever owns her to admit defeat and as Bob Cleek says turn her into razor blades.
 
Roger
 
 
 
 

The Big Reveal!
 
This kit proved to be much more challenging than I anticipated, but I am mostly happy with the result. The propeller hub ended up being a little troublesome -- the first painting effort produced a cracked finish, so several additional rounds of filling and sanding were needed. It wound up being pretty smooth, though, and easily wins the "Best Paper Hub I Have Ever Done" award. Enjoy the pictures!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
I really like the angle on this next shot because you can easily see the Typhoon's lines in the ol' Hurricane.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
This last one is the new wallpaper on my phone.

 
Cheers!
 

Always sad to a grand old ship neglected and in decline, but I can understand why. They are expensive to fix and expensive to maintain, and there's a lot of resources locked up in all that metal.

8 Years later, maybe not going to happen.
 
Thanks for the post David, after seeing a video of the USS United States from the Battleship NJ Museum folks, I was pleased to find this further information. 
 
Unfortunately I think this old girl's days are numbered, I'm not up to date on her status but these drive-by pics taken by my sister aren't real inspiring. 
 
Cheers Mates!
 
From the 2016 article:

April 2024:
 
Does anyone know of any model kits for this ship?
 
 

Thanks Andrew, enjoying following your Trial build. So impressed that Chris changed the name for your gun brig base to “Sparkler” - now that’s customer service!
 
Theo - thanks too
 
The last day on Adder has posed some interesting challenges of my own making. 
 
I decided to fit the plywood false deck before the aftermost bulkhead part 153 to help ensure that the bulkhead was at the right angle. So far, so good. 
 
I’ve fitted 8 of these plywood decks to VM models so I know the drill, but on Adder I snapped it down the centre line. I could not fit the two parts so that they were aligned leading me to think that the structure below must be out of alignment. 

I contacted Chris suggesting that I’d better start again and buy the MDF sheets and plywood deck again from him. Instead, he told me that once the deck is split it’s hard to get the halves aligned, but there’s a neat trick to achieve this: taping the two halves together before they are fitted and then adding them, letting the glue dry and removing the tape. 
 
This I did and it worked very well. 
I clamped a flat piece of scrap wood on top to ensure the central join stayed flat and painted diluted PVA over all the joints below. 
I also added most of the MDF pieces that form the bow structure. 
 
Then it was time to fit the rear bulkhead 153, but as can be seen below there’s a small overhang of the false deck over the end of the keel and the longitudinal formers parts 31. 
Checking vs the plans, this results in the bulkhead being at the wrong angle and the false deck needs to be sanded back in line with the keel and parts 31. The gap between the bulkhead and the keel shouldn’t be there in the photo below (unglued). 
If you’re following the sequence in the instructions, this will need to be sanded back before the deck is fitted as the bulkhead will already be in place. I checked all this with Chris and he told me that he usually makes these type of parts over long to cover all eventualities, better to have too much than too little.

Now in the right position and back on track below. 

Chris thanks so much for your help. 
 
Whilst the glue was drying I started work on the cannons and carronades. The 3-D printed resin barrels are very high quality, but on the carronades the cavity for the barrel is shallow and if you look closely you can see the flat bottom ~1mm inside the lip of the barrel. I saw on someone’s build log that they had drilled these a little deeper, so decided to do so too. The barrels are surprisingly strong and easy to drill. In the photos below the right hand barrel has been drilled to ~2.5x as deep. It’s grey because of the resin and the inside of the barrel will need to be painted black again. 

Next to go on is the rearmost bulkhead 153. This is a pearwood piece that is the rearmost bulkhead. There is a small inconsistency here between the instructions and the part. The part has two square holes in it which are not present on the photo of the part in the instructions.

The holes go against the end of parts 31 (see photo below) but there is no tab on parts 31 to go through the holes.

The instructions show that there should be a tab at the end of parts 31, but my parts 31 don’t have it (photos below).

I think that the holes in 153 should be there and parts 31 should have the tab. 
 
This is very very minor and I’m just raising for awareness for other builders and it really doesn’t matter for the build. The lower half of part 153 is covered later by etched planking which will hide the holes. I just need to be extra careful getting 153 aligned without the tabs. 

 

Whilst I’ve been away Adder appeared on my doorstep. Adder will be my ninth build (all from Vanguard) and my first square rigger. 
 
My plan had been to build VM’s Speedy next, and I like to only have one kit waiting to be built next so a stash doesn’t build up. But speaking to Chris, he advised me the following:
I have a great deal to learn on how to rig a square rigged boat and where all the lines go, so having a slightly reduced rig for my first square rigger makes absolute sense. 
 
Chris also advised that the bluff bow on Adder is not a problem for planking as half the hull is covered in pre-cut engraved parts and the actual planking is all white painted and below the waterline. I know I’m not a builder who has the patience to ever produce a planked and fully unpainted hull, so that’s music to my ears.
 
I had also really liked the look of this highly unusual boat when Chris first released pics of his prototype and knew I’d want to build her, so it became a question of whether I should build Adder or Speedy first. Chris’s guidance made it very clear to me that Adder should be the first. 

Beautifully packaged with the usual exceptionally high quality content that I have come to expect from Vanguard. Some photos of the box contents: 
Those two 24 pounder cannons, which are Adder’s raison d’etre, are huge. Shown here compared one of the tiny surplus to requirements 4-pounder cannons from Grecian. 
Chris has continued to innovate here and the first instruction is to build a throw away keel base / build slip which the keel slots into. Furthermore, the keel itself is attached to a jig that will be broken off later. All very clever and helpful. 

The bulkheads slot in easily. 

Once the bulkheads are in parts 30 are dropped into place each side of the keel to secure them. As in other VM builds these do a wonderful job of making the structure more robust, but can be stiff to push fully home. As usual I did break each of these at least once fitting them, but they’re fully seated in place and the breaks don’t seem to matter.

There’s so much robustness and other supports to ensure alignment in Chris’s hull structure that a few small breaks don’t matter. On Grecian by mistake I left out a whole set of bracing supports across the bulkheads without any detrimental loss of structural integrity for her hull. 
 
Photo of Adder with Alert below. Adder is roughly the same length, albeit a very different shaped hull. I knew her dimensions, but as a two-master she looks bigger in the VM photos. She is going to be a very nice easy size to case and display at home. 

Lower deck was fitted and parts 31 across the top of the bulkheads, another part ensuring the structure is straight. 
 
 
 

Nicely done.  That does look sweet!!

That looks really good! Those 3d printed wheels on the carronade carriages look a lot better than the old PE versions.

Started fitting Adder out. I’d already made some of the fittings. She has very nice lines for a gun brig. 

Parts 173 go below the hawseholes on each side and are not mentioned in the instructions but are clearly on the plans - easy to miss if you just work from the instructions. 

The carronades still need PE parts 17 and 18 added. I’ve also left the sprue to the lower elevating arm for each carronades in place for now and will remove this at the last moment as I broke a couple of these on Grecian and they proved nigh on impossible to glue back on. 


I’m not fully rigging the guns but will certainly add breach ropes to the 24 pounders. I may add breach ropes to the carronades but I struggled to make these lie naturally on Grecian. 

The plans show six side steps on each side with the lower two on the main wale. Chris’s prototype in the instructions photos omits the lower two. I suspect that the plans are more accurate as the bottom of the four steps would be quite a reach from a small boat, but I’ve copied the prototype as it’s more aesthetically pleasing. The parts are there for six steps each side if anyone wants to add them. 

The deck and inboard fittings were treated with Danish oil and they came up very nicely. 
 
I’m not sure what to do on the exposed wood on the outer bulwarks and stern. I’ve scraped PVA glue off the bulwarks in places and I know from experience that Danish oil won’t be absorbed where the glue has been and would give me a blotchy finish. I guess I’ll try some poly varnish or make another attempt at mixing some wipe-on poly. I’ll put Danish oil on the channels to be consistent with wood fittings inboard. 

 

Just a small update...
 
I was eager to get started with the planking of the bulwarks.   There is no trick for this.  Its just a grind of cutting and shaping planks to fit between the ports.   Its a slow process and you must be very neat and keep the cuts around the ports straight etc.
 
The planking is all 3/64" thick.   Just as I did with the Winnie, the two strakes below the the ports (the spirketting) were added first.  The spirketting is normally thicker than the planks above it and stands proud.  I have always accomplished this by planking the spirketting in two layers.  It still amazes me how few kit mfgs even show this feature.  You dont have to do it this way if you dont want to.  You could just use 1/16" or even 5/64" thick planking and do it one layer.   Its up to you.  I will add the second layer of spirketting once the entire side has been planked.  I will use a .025" thick second layer.  
 
Having said this...some notes are in order.   The top of the spirketting is lined up perfectly flush with the bottom of the gun ports and sweep ports.   This is great if you happened to get lucky and they all line up perfectly.   I dont care who is making the model, this is pretty impossible to do.   Even the most skilled builders will need to tweak the bottom sills of each port so they line up perfectly with the top edge of spirketting.  This will become very apparent after you run your planking strip down the inboard bulwarks.   I was very lucky in that most of the ports only needed some minor tweaking.   Some were just a hair too high.  Less than 1/64".   So I used a sharp chisel to  make the ports sits flush along the top of the spirketting.  you can see that in the photo below.  The ports will need a lot of paint touch up which was expected.  Whatever you do,  do not notch out your spirketting to accommodate a port.  Try and keep the top edge of the spirketting a nice continuous run without notching it.  Should one of your ports sit too low...I recommend instead that you add a sliver of wood on top of the port sill to raise it up in line with the spirketting.
 
I hope that makes sense.
 
See below...notice how I did not use any pencil to simulate the seams between each strake.   In fact, just the opposite.   I am painting the bulwarks red so this allowed me to take a small shortcut.  You may want to consider it as well.  I dont want any seams to show at all.  In fact I didnt even have to use two individual strakes for the spirketting.   If you look towards the fcastle bulwark planking you can see the area I havent planked yet.  I used one wide strip of 3/64" thick cedar instead of using two narrower strakes as is typical.  I believe it was around 1/2" wide.  Probably slightly wider on the aft portion.   
 
Then because we know the sweep ports are 3/16" high,  a 3/16" strip was used next and cut between the ports and sweeps.   I was careful to be very neat with these cuts.
 
Finally the remaining planking above the sweep ports would normally consist of two more strakes.   Because I am painting the bulwarks, I once again used ONE wider strip of 3/64" thick cedar so I could quickly fill in those areas in one pass.  It should paint up very nicely.  This reduced the number of neatly cut ends to all those strakes between the ports.   There are fewer seams to keep neat as well.   The photo almost looks like a solid hull because there are few seams showing between strakes.  
 
Now if you are NOT going to paint the bulwarks red....this means you will have to use individual narrow strakes.  It will take many more cuts and trial fittings...repeat and repeat again.  That is your choice.  I will take more pics after the second layer of spirketting is added and after the bulwarks are painted red.  The bow area will be planked with narrower strakes just as they should be.  It will be easier to bend those.   But once the bulwarks are painted red nobody will be able to tell how many strakes you actually used.   So you must make a decision ...to paint or not to paint.  Essentially you can plank what's remaining of the bulwarks with just three rows cedar strips.   The wood package comes with your typical 3/16", 7/32", 1/4" and 9/32" wide planking strips that are narrow, so you will need to buy some 3/64" sheets should you want to plank your bulwarks like I have done here.  Then you can cut some 1/2" wide strips instead.   But only if you will be painting the bulwarks red.
 
 
 
 

I should have mentioned, Salvinos JR doesn't skimp on the decals, they are high quality Cartograph, not the old mediocre Monogram sort. if the decal sheet was an aftermarket item, it would likely sell for a price of $20 or maybe more.

Basic color scheme for the model is black and red. The decals will add a lot of extra color and detail to otherwise drab black body panels. I need a nice set of racing harnesses, will look through my accessory stash as I think I have some harness buckles in photo etch. 
 
 

Great work Bob!  

Perhaps he was infiltrating other workshops. 😎
Steve

was just out sowing his royal oats.

Did Mini-me bring a camera? I’m sure he’s had an adventure! How many model ship decks has he walked since he left?
 
Or is the next piece of electronic equipment that he’s going to get an ankle monitor?
 
Andy