Canute

Ah, got it. Have you managed to acquire all the line you'll need? Cotton, poly? Lacing 2mm deadeyes and tying to shrouds is a challenge everyone should accept at least one in their life. 

Thanks Keith… I do have the deadeyes covered. Shrouds and Standing rigging are not the issue it’s the running rigging, should I choose to represent it, I was referring to.  Yes, I will need both great eyesight and a magnifier as well as steady hands. 😆

Thank you, John. Regarding your Redjacket build, 2 mm deadeyes and single blocks and 3mm double blocks are available. I know they are available from Cornwall Model Boats but I would think they are also available here in the States. The below shows they would work and from experience they can be rigged but you either need great eyesight or a good magnifier. 
 
 2mm at 1:192 = 15.12 inches. 
 
 3mm at 1:192 = 22.67 inches. 
 
 

Nice progress, John.
 
John

Nice work, John - everything looking very good!
 
 
Amen.
 
Gary

John, Tom and Gary,
 
Thanks. The plans are pretty good, but a large number of dimensions are not given and have to be determined by careful measurements from printed drawings and scaling compared to dimensions shown on the drawings. But that's a LOT better than "photoguestimatiion" using measurements from photos!
 
But I did run into a problem. One blueprint shows the winch control stand at the forward port corner of the winch. Another shows it on the fore side of the winch between the left two brake wheels (white in the images). These images show the two different positions for the control stand. The  three white brake wheels are on the forward side of the winch, and the cables from the winch streamed out from the aft side.
 


 
 

 
If the control stand was at the port corner it would be directly in line with the port gypsy head, and that would interfere with using the gypsy to pull on ropes and cables.
 
None of the photos I have show the control stand clearly, but one that I took while we were streaming minesweep gear does show the white knob on the control stand handle to the right of the port side white brake wheel. So it appears the stand was in front of the winch and not at the port forward corner. But I am not certain where it was. And the photo may show the stand rotated around the vertical 180 degrees from the position shown here, with the handle on the inboard side. But that would put the stand right in front of the brake wheel, making it hard to reach! I will probably put it in the front, with the final position determined by what looks best.
 
The control stand regulated the motor speed. The motor drove a series of step down gears in the long gear box with the rounded corners. The gear box turned the main shaft with the two gypsy heads on the ends for winching ropes and cables, etc. Each cable reel had a brake band around the outside of one side of the spool (inside a protective cover). The brake wheels (white) tightened and loosened the brake bands. Each reel also had a clutch that rotated with the main shaft. To engage the reel the long horizontal handle beside the brake wheel was pulled to the side, pressing the rotating clutch disk against a clutch plate on the side of the reel. The vertical "pawl handle" below the brake wheel was pushed forward to engage a locking pawl against teeth on one side of the reel to lock it in place.

Nice progress, Phil.  Wonderful CAD work and I'm looking forward to seeing these 30 or so deck fittings come to life.
 
Gary

Let’s continue unspectacularly.
We’re still missing skylights, handwheels, and a winch on the main deck at the stern.
First, another small collection in my printed organizer.
 

 
Nothing complicated, so straight to the result.
 

 
The deck continues to fill, both front and back.
 

 
The small stuff on deck is now roughly completed.
 

 
I would like to show you this wonderfully detailed skylight a la Pontos again in a close-up.
 

 
That’s what sets these kits apart. Molded plastic can’t replicate that.

With 39°C impossible to airbrush. Paint would get dry instantly. Therefore I finished the job on the right antitorpedo belt this using a more powerful tool. Result with some had work came pretty nice, much better that the original

Today painting was possible. The PE guns shields proved too fragile and hard to be glued on deck. I removed them and replaced them with 3d ones I made, bit thicker with reasonable detail. Unfortunately some glue spots and scratches on deck are visible. Some can be covered but few will remain visible on close looking
 

There are few steps more rewarding in modeling than to finish a car body to a high shine surface. All the work going into took a while, but I love doing the polishing as a last step. I used Tamiya´s polishing compounds starting with coarse, then fine, followed by finish. I didn´t apply wax now, because there are still many parts to add to the body, so this will be kept to the finish.
The coarse polishing is by far the most important and also time consuming one to my eye, as you remove all the tiny imperfections, check against the light and continue until all looks good, always taking care not to polish through the clear coat.
I couldn´t resist a little workbench mock up.











Cheers Rob

Airbrushing is already done and didn´t take up much time. There are three sessions, first primer, than three coats of body paint and finally three coats of clear. The prep and polishing time exceeds the spraying time by far.

Cheers Rob

Looks absolutely supercool, Craig.

Cheers Rob

I printed out the model in 1:12 scale, then put it all together with a water soluble acrylic glue to check the parts fit. Needs fine tuning, but that’s to be expected with a 3D print. There was an option for the body to be printed whole or with the doors separate. I think the former would have been a better option in retrospect.

Excellent writeup on building/growing your layout. 👍
 
Dead rail is the thing for the garden railway crowd. Our club garden setup is mostly that nowadays, with a few live steamers in the mix, too. Batteries need to shrink a lot for HO, but I can see the O scale guys doing it. Not sure about the tin-plate folks. I need to talk to my American Flyer guy.

Really like this scene. And your shelf on the fascia. Very important for operations. Having to put car cards on the tracks while switching is very distracting. Looks very good.

That rates a double thumbs up from this old aviator. 👍👍

Fasttracks owns Mt Albert. Great products.

Here's a bit of fun historical background. I was finally able to make a trip to the State Historical Society research center, where they have all sorts of cool stuff. The item I was after, which I'd perused before but not taken detailed notes from, was this:

This is a thick volume, published by the railroad, that lists summaries of every town along its entire system covering Missouri, Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. These summaries include population, primary industries, descriptions of the surrounding country and its agriculture, and so on. The volume then goes on to list, in exhaustive detail, every business or businessman having a relationship with the railroad in an extraordinary variety of classifications. For example:



That last one cracks me up. Language is always changing.
 
So I was able to slowly go through the entire volume and note down every business that dealt with the railroad in my focus towns like New Franklin and Rocheport. Here's a summary of the businesses operating in Rocheport in 1912 that the railroad felt were worth listing in its business directory as shippers or receivers, curated for the entries I felt were most relevant. Yes, I'm focusing on 1900 instead, but this is the only year the research library has and it's close enough for my purposes.

Hotels Grossman Hotel Agricultural implement, vehicle and wagon manufacturers and dealers W.W. Scobbee Apple and potato dealers, buyers, shippers, and growers George Roberts, apple grower & shipper C.D. Hill, " C.C. Bell, " H.J. Fieschman, " Luther Grigsby, " Sid Challies, " L. Torbitt, " C.S. Jenkins, " Coal & wood dealers T.J. Canole Drug dealers B.F. Dimitt E.H. Chinn General merchandise dealers E. Inman J.B. Challis H.R. Harris Grain Elevators, flour, feed, corn, grist and rice mills Rocheport Roller Mills, flour, 125 bbls daily Rocheport Elevator, 10,000 bu Hardware and mill supplies F.E. Bysfield Hay and alfalfa dealers and shippers T.J. Canole Lumber F.E. Bysfield Stock yards and livestock dealers and shippers Basque & McMillan Rapp & Little D.C. Steckdaub  
Note some of the interesting overlaps: TJ Canole is both a wood/coal dealer AND a hay/alfalfa dealer. This is pretty fun, since when I was first trying to figure out what that giant hay barn was, I thought it might be a lumber yard. It may still double as a fuel dealer and that means I can spot cars of coal there (Missouri has several major coal mining regions that were quite active in this era, including a major field along the MK&T mainline in SW Missouri). Also noted that FE Bysfield is listed under both hardware and lumber; that's also a pretty sensible combination.
 
The sheer amount of independent businesses in a town of 434 is fascinating. Not to mention the far more diverse agriculture. Nine independent growers and shippers of apples from a town that size! I knew this area was once vibrant with orchards but even so that's a vivid picture. I'm strongly resisting the urge to get political here with regards to the decline in small towns, manufacturing, and independent communities and the resulting socio-economic problems. 
 
So all this is very interesting if you're a complete local history nerd, but why is it relevant to this modeling project? Two primary reasons.
 
(1) It lets me use real names for local businesses. I can now call it the Rocheport Elevator (creative name, I know) and put a sign for TJ Canole, hay dealer, on the larger barn wall. I can give the commercial buildings in town the names of real enterprises. It adds a layer of realism and context that I think is pretty neat.
 
(2) It makes operating sessions more interesting. Having all these names for local shippers lets me set up specific orders for cars. For example, maybe one set of stock cars sent to the stockyard is for a consignment being shipped by Basque & McMillan to one destination, while another set of cars is for Rapp & Little being sent to a different destination (for example, Kansas City vs St Louis, both of which had major meatpacking establishments), instead of just "two stock cars". I can have different boxcars spotted to be loaded with apples from different farms being sent to different destinations. I can have shipments for a given merchandise or implement dealer set out, rather than just "spot boxcar 123 on track 1 loaded with general freight". Operators switching in Rocheport (or anywhere else) will have a much richer sense of what the railroad is doing there, and that's part of the joy of modeling railroading, the ability to really recreate the actions (not just the look) of a setting.
 
Another aspect of (2) is the value of planning a model railroad based on real settings. I laid out my version of Rocheport based on the actual track arrangements and what I could see in contemporary photographs. For example, there's only one siding and only two physical destinations for freight cars on that siding (the stockyards and the hay/grain complex). Model railroaders building something more freelanced would want more physical industries in a scene this size, and would be adding factories and other sidings and so on. I stuck with what I could see. And the reward is the evidence that Rocheport DID have a lot of other industries going, it's just that most of them didn't have specific loading points. I left room in my track plan for two spots where freight cars can be spotted for general loading/unloading (called "team tracks", since traditionally a wagon drawn by a horse team would pull up there, and still called that today even when served by modern trucks). I didn't have a specific plan for what would ship to/from these points, I just felt certain they'd be needed. And now I have a massive list of specific businesses that would be using those team track points, from outbound apple shipments to inbound farm equipment. It just makes the whole setting so much more vibrant.
 
In a future post I'll talk more about model railroad operations but this is enough writing for one post. I think it's some pretty cool context and maybe you will, too.
 
 
 

From the looks of the parts it’s going to be a lot of time at the spray booth as well.
 
 Looking forward to the progress as you build this one!!

Nicely done. Excellent presentation of an uncommon model. 👍

A few drops of India ink in iso alcohol makes a good wash for dirting up your models. It will collect in any panel lines. It's not as concentrated as the Tamiya washes.

Agreed, At 1/192 my Redjacket will most certainly have many things left to the viewers imagination. i.e. rigging blocks will probably be carefully tied knots in the thread. I have already learned that a suggestion of paint color is a way to scale down the painting. But then I believe I learned this from you Keith. 😎
 
John

Thank you, J. Unfortunately at 1:120 a lot of what I do is merely a suggestion and not replication. I learned long ago that leaving a tiny item to the viewer's imagination was far more affective than trying to actually make something. 

Has anyone used the old typewriter carbon paper to simulate tar paper?  I think this is still sold as tracing paper.  It is pretty thin.
 
I think there are also fine glitters what could be used to simulate the quartz gravel.   Not sure how well sugar last over the years.  I have heard of Kosher salt being used in modeling to simulate snow in scale.
 
Graphite is soot, which contains things like carbon nanotubes and bucky balls.  Not stuff you want in the lungs. 
 
Laser printer toner is a thermal microplastic.  That could also be used to texture simulated tar paper, and it is heat set, so would melt like tar.
 
I can not remember if india ink is carbon or iron based.  Home despot carries cement blacking which is pure iron oxide as a really fine powder.  A magnet will stick to the plastic jar.  Useful for making conductive ink. Mix with an oil, with alcohol or lighter fluid as a drying agent.
 
-j
 

You could always just paint the roof flat black, like tarpaper, then put the roof on top of 'your' roof for the summer. That should weather it pretty good and natural like! 🙃 LOL
On second thought, that wouldn't work. The bird poop would be out of scale! 😲