captain_hook

Nice little ship. I like the base as well.

Wow!

Absolutely stunning!

You‘ve made a good job so far. 

All assembled parts are then put together and installed into the base slots. 

Finished the base. 

Incredible nice ship! And the lightning gives it a very realistic touch.

Installed the roof beams and light. The instructions say „keep the transparent sheet clean“ but that is easily said. I have to give the superstructure a nice cleanup before installing that to the base. BTW I have started to prepare that. The stickers are already on and I surrounded the MDF-sheet with boxwood stripes. They were a little warped so difficult to use as a mast or else but forced in position with clamps, glue and tape. I think, I might sand a chamfer surrounding the base. 

Due to some work at the our house I had to make a 4-weeks break from modelling and now started to build the flowerhouse. This proved to be more difficult than expected. The flowerhouse is a sandwich-design with the clear plastic part enclosed by wooden covers. But the plywood backsides were heavily warped and it was almost impossible to fit them together by only using the supplied glue. So I glued them together and - before the glue had dried - drilled a 1,9mm hole in every corner right through both sides and treenailed them with 2mm birch rod. That forced both sides together and will last for a long time.
 

Added all items to the wall, all were supplied except for the backdoor handle - I made that of some scrap brass. Attached all covers to each side but the paper cover for all the folding edges are still missing so it looks more like a transparent packaging in this stage. Next is attaching the light and the roof parts..

@Jaager:That is only a distant wishful thinking what to do with the wood, but I appreciate your comment. 
 

Actually I have to think about the right place to store it. I have sealed the ends with some clear nitrocellulose paint first (so the black paint won’t penetrate the wood) and then some old black paint. I decided to store the wood in the basement. There is a window above for air circulation if needed, the radiator in the back is not used, only little light / UV and no known problems with humility. The billets are separated with 1/2“ stickers and I have put some weight and some boxes on top. What do you think?

The boxwood parts are great. It would be great if you decide to make a swan class sloop kit like the fly out of boxwood, it is a pity LSS stopped selling their kingfisher kit some years ago. It was sold for about 2000 dollars if I remember correctly and there are still a lot of people out there searching for some available kits. So if you stay in that price area with all the great details you‘ve shown I‘m sure there would be a lot of people interested to buy one. At least you could sell the figure and decorations - there are a lot of swan class POF builders who don‘t want or can‘t do the carvings on their on yet (like me).

OCD? You mean Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder? 🤗 Thank you for all the information. One of the billets will definitely become a POF swan class in the future ..

I received the Castello today, had to raise my order to 40kg (minimum amount for ordering), seems that I now have enough to build shipmodels out of it for the rest of my life. The colour differs from yellow to light brown. Still have to store the wood for the next two years to get rid of all moisture. Any fungicide protection needed before storage?

Best Regards,

Andreas

Very nice!

Thank you Jaager. I will order a small amount first (maybe 20 - 30 kg) to check if the source is reliable. The seller told me, that the wood is about 9 month old (after cutting down), so a 15% weight loss of drying out the wood should be expected. I have to store the wood then for some time. But it is not needed now, I would like to use it for a first POF project in about 2 years or later.

On 5/12/2020 at 3:03 PM, jdbondy said:

Edward, when you notice that a neighbor has cut down their Buxus sepervirens, please let me know and I will come across the pond to get some!!

We have some small ones in the garden. If my wife don‘t mind it, I can take one down for you. Wait 2 years and then - you will at least be able to scratchbuild a bottleship out of it. 🤗 

About three years ago the boxwood borer - an exotic parasite - started to kill almost all boxwood plants in the neighborhood, so the ones in our garden may be the last ones alive in the street (because in the end I sorted the borers out by hand). Almost all nurseries stopped selling boxwood trees and the people started to substitute them so they are hard to find here these days.

Very crisp work and a good start. When the start has made, it is hard to realize that working on that will continue for the next years..

Thank you, that is indeed helpful.

Hello,

I found a source of large Castello boxwood sheets here in Germany. Unfortunately I‘m not familiar with the current price. The seller gives some information:  Sheet length between 1,20m (about 4’) and 2m (about 6-7‘), 8 - 15 cm wide (3 - 6“) and 5,2 or 6,5cm height (2-3“). Price including tax would be 11,50 Euro (about 12,54 Dollar) per Kilogramm (2 pound). Is that currently a good price?

Thank you for any input.

Castello in 52 mm oder 65 mm Stärke / Längen zwischen 1,20 m - 2,00 m / Breiten liegen etwa bei 8 cm – 15 cm / Der Preis beträgt  11,50 € pro kg inklusive Mehrwertsteuer zuzüglich Versandkosten

Nice idea! Good addition to the beautiful model.

You made a good job - some sanding and looks like a solid base for second planking. You can use the supplied walnut stripes. It is a common wood in kits, but it look quite dark. And it has a tendency to split - especially when you cut the openings (f.e. gunports) and a rather raw structure. But it is easy to bend and no other costs for aftermarket stuff.

Or reconsider using another type of wood. A lot of builders use Castello boxwood, which has a nice yellow/cream colour and structure. I used it for my AVS instead of the supplied walnut. But it got quite expensive these days. A lot of buildlogs rise using Alaskan Yellow Cedar which has an even more yellow colour but isn’t as hard as boxwood. Haven’t tried it yet. Another excellent wood is pear. More brownish but has an even structure and little grain. Allmost all Vanguard Model Kits are provided with this one and you may take a look. Sure there are more options.
 

If you haven‘t found it yet - there are some planking tutorials on this side which can be found here:

 They might prove useful for your next steps. 

A good start and careful preparation! A link to a nicely build model as another reference:

https://collection.maas.museum/object/238338
 

There is also a picture of the stern gallery, where you can see all windows and their arrangement.

Hehe, no way - only one flower-house per family! I‘ve made only some minor steps. Painted the walls with emulsion paint (egg-shell) which leaves a very matte surface. Build the lamp, installed it into the roof-part and tested it.

That is a cool idea and a very nice start. Don‘t want to hijack this threat but I did the same thing 3 years ago but somehow lost interest, because when I enlarged the plan items by 133%, the bulkwards were only 16mm high (about 80 cm in real) and the false deck (that means false keel and all bulkheads) should have been set about 3 or 4 mm lower before to make them look more scale (in comparison to the Cheerful, AVS or other other single masted ships). So you can use scale cannons later. But the hull was already larger than that of the 1/48 AVS. A 1/32 version would be very nice as a RC version, the height should be more than a metre.

Haven‘t decided yet. I have a 1/48 POB swan class or the 1/48 Cheerful in my mind.