Grimber

Thanks, it's slow and maybe not as well done as it could be but I'm not displeased with it considering some of the troubles it's given me through out the build so far and I'm not as good at this as I use to be. ..... not much more done today, I'm doing more reading than anything. Installed the rudder, glued down the hinges and trimmed off the top of the rudder post. After doing all the work on this rudder I think it would have been easier to just glued the rudder on after shaping and then faked in the hinges as they don't actually move anyways. still have the pin nails to put in the hinges. Then I shaped the tiller. Wasn't too bad doing this but the piece gets pretty thin fast. Just glad its a harder wood. Instead of drilling out a hole, I just cut out the back end and I'll glue it on this way. Easier to then adjust for the angle of the tiller. Painted it red also and put on some finish, Need to age the tiller and rudder yet.

Those cannons look nice, and I'd defiantly save the old ones for a later ship you might want cannons on that didn't come with any

OK model is the Margaretha kit number SM108. no date on the kit, anywhere has 15 pages of typed english instructions 2 pages parts lists and additional instructions ensigns (flags) are ink printed cloth. cloth sail material ( not pre marked or cut) 4 large pages of illustrations brass etched plate most the parts are pre cut except for 1 sheet. The other Tris kit I have just like this one (The Paranzella)

I know this post is a month old, but I have 2 models kits from Tris ( not built yet of course). I'll post some pictures in a bit of one of the kits.

Little more work done. Put some JB weld on the joints of the rudder hinges and let that dry. Had to be sure I was using the right JB weld as I have for metal ( red tube) and plastic ( yellow tube). I messed that up last time I had to glue a laptop case back together. Then started to shape the rudder, rounded out the hinge side. Then used my lines to bevel out the taper ends on the bottom and back sides of the rudder. Then just connect the dots between the curved hinge notches down to the beveled ends. Rounded out the top of the rudder until ferrule fit, but only work from the back side not the hinge side. After that it's just fine tune the sanding and test fit to the ship. Found the rudder was too long so I trimmed a little off the bottom. The top of the rudder is too long too but I'll trim that down once I get the ferrule in. The hole will need some fine tuning to make everything line up before that. After the JB weld was dried I started on the paint. Sanded the hinges to get a clean contact and painted them black. Painted the rudder red. little more painting to do before I can put this together. Mean time, the hull. Had to work on the last coat of finish. I hit it with a mixture of 1 to 1 satin varnish to matte varnish ( had to shop around to find some of this without spending too much) to cut down on the sheen. Put a coat on the hull and the cabins. Then while still wet and to speed up the aging of the varnish I put them under a couple florescent plant growing lights. ( lots of UV put out by these ) (rotated the parts occasionally. BTW this really messed with my eyes so had to put them in a back corner so I wouldn't look directly in the lights) After 2 days in the lights... Just enough antiquing left on the seems, joints and in the grains that show through the paint to make them stand out. And no I didn't mess with my camera settings, let it n auto and full lights on my work bench. Defiantly took allot of the shine and brightness out of it. Set the cabins on the ship just to see how they look on the deck. got a couple tiny spots that stand out need a touch of clear coat and then back to the lights for couple more days.

some wires have a poly coating applied to them to keep them from oxidizing. sand the soldering location first. if your wire is oxidized that can also keep the solder from sticking, sand it. what metal is the wire made of. copper is easy to solder but if your working a steel, brass or aluminum it takes more/longer to heat those up as they abosorbe heat slower and they also disperse heat faster than copper. you should also have on hand some liquid or paste flux with any soldering work, when you heat the solder the rosin is released and will quickly turn gaseous if its under heat for more than a few seconds ( that stink you get with soldering, which is very bad for you btw so don't lean straight over your work)

I like that. Only thing I can think of that may want to add, a way to adjust the height of the sanding drum to accommodate different thicknesses ( or maybe I missed it that you had that). but I'm defiantly going to write this down for when I get to making my shop tools.

I'll probably use it on the foresail bracer for the loop around the deadeye as well. Its just another wire. but I'm also considering tossing it and make my own. I've seen them used in other swift builds and even painted looked like a wire.

Thanks I just hope to get the rigging right and make a nice set of sails as I expect that will be the big piece of this build. ............ Well I'm calling it on the paint job. I can keep nit picking at it and make it worse. My high school art teacher told me when I was learning oil painting that every artists has to come to a point and say its done, else you keep picking at it and will eventually go to far and screw it up. ( or course in my case I usually hit the screwed up part well before the done part ) Put a coat of varnish on it and now its time to start aging it. Didn't mention before how I was doing this in the last post. After a clear coat is dried I put on an oil based antiquing. Can find it at ceramic supply places, comes in a jar or powder and you can an get acrylic or oil based, I use oil as you got more time to work with it but it takes longer to dry too of course. I tried to get pictures of doing this but really is no time. Have to use both hands and cannot stop once started. Its just brush it on and wipe it off right after you put it on and have to work quickly at it. The brush on is fast but you do ALLOT of wiping over and over again. Did sneak in a picture just after I got the antiquing on the send time around. About an hour - 1 1/2 later and Tons of wipeing and mabey 20 paper towels... need to let it dry ( its wet in these pics) and then 2nd varnish coat. Then I can do the last aging ( different then the above). Mean time between drying times I started on the rudder. Rudder hinges needed straightened out before I can assemble them. Also need to notch out the rudder for the hinges, so I mark them from the plans and then also draw a center line around the rudder as a guide when I have to shape it later. Cut the notches with a hobby saw then goto use a chisel to cut out the chunk of wood ad... Bah... A little wood glue, couple drops of super glue and a clamp and in a few minutes I'm back at it. Filed them down and sanded to get the right size. Used the thickness of the rudder as a form to bend the hinges to fit ( mostly just get them untwisted and then squeeze them down to the right width) Instructions say super glue the brass pin to the brass hinges and I seen other build logs people 'trying' to solder them. Since it's is brass parts I opt to at least tack them together with superglue for now. Brass needs allot more heat for solder to stick then an iron from wally mart can put out. Need a higher wattage iron or mini torch. Instead of solder I'm going to mix up a little JB weld and put a little dab on the inside parts of the hinge pieces. But right now it's time for a break

I have an uncle that has a sharpening business. workshop full of different tools and machines just for sharpening everything from knives, scissors, drill bits, saw blades, chain saw blades and so on. He said most of that equipment is best for either handling bulk sharpening or put the item in the machine and walk away, otherwise its easier with a grinder, file or sharpening stone if your only doing one thing occasionaly.

stupid camera, keeps adding brightness and contrast to the pictures. Dug up my old Snapp camera got of ebay for $5 simple to use and doesn't do any of that auto adjustment stuff. color is right, but the camera is always out of focus with things up close

After cleaning the cabins up put on the first coat of varnish. Then first aging pass. Second aging pass and 2nd coat of varnish ( varnish is still wet in these pics) Basiclly done except for final aging. I'll do that with the hull at the same time as I should be done with the hull paint work by tonight or tomorrow. I don't like the hinges so I'll skip those, too big and gaudy.

looking nice. yes the 2nd planking is much easier to work with. very thin and flexible, doesn't take much to hold them in place.

More work on the cabins... since the planking is so small I been working 3 at a time on each side, would alternate the 3 on one side then the other, didn't take long to get the roofs of the cabins planked. Maybe an hour for each. Used clear gel glue like I did the deck planking so it set up in about 15 minutes and could unclamp, trim off the overhang and plank again. Found my fore cabin was a bit twisted, so I wet it down a bit and rubber banded it down over night. Straightened it right out. Went on to work on the hatches. The slide rail pieces were a mess on the ends. All frayed out, also the upper slides didn't fit in the notches, not anywhere close and they were all cut to different thicknesses. Cleaned them up, used measurements of the side illustrations from the plans to get the angle the lower slides were to be cut for the slope. Just marked them and put in my home made wood clamps and shaved and sanded them down. Tested fitted them to the roof of the cabin.... Great, not even close to being flush to the top of the doors. If I cut the doors down then I don't think they would look right even after redoing the planking. They would look short. Re-measured the door height on the plans and from the parts list. They were right and I didn't cut anything off the slides to make them loose height, just angle them. So time to fudge. The upper slides put on top the lower slides vs in them gave me the correct height so I went with it and glued the slides in this way. Test fit the cover top to see how it will look. I'll live with it. Painted the slide parts the cream color. Marked a center line on the cover as a guide for glueing the cover on and for planking and glued it down. Rubber banded it down as the the overall thickness of the cabin would make the clamps have too much tension. After set up I planked the cover and trimmed and shaped the handle and glued that on as well. Little more sanding and scraping and a clean up and it will be ready for finishing. I'm up to the hatch cover work on the fore cabin as well. Plugging along on the hull paint work. Tell you one thing, I'm NEVER using a household latex paint on a wood model again..

One part I had struggled with was making a base for the ship since it didn't come with one and I was trying to avoid buying one. With the constant issue of handling the ship now and messing up the paint job, thought now would be a good time to build a base. After a browsing walk around home depot I found a cabinet drawer face plate on a clearance shelf that looked pretty good and about the right size. Then digging through my junk hardware boxes I found 2 brass pieces that looked like pedestals to something else, but the slot openings were way too small for my ships keel. And found 2 used drywall screws that looked to be about the right length and width. Measured out centered drill points on the wood base and drilled holes. Then spent like an hour filing down the openings in the pedestals until they fit the keel. drilled counter sink holes on the bottom side. Placed the pedestals base and screws on the ships keel, eye balled it to a spot I liked and worked the screws a bit to mark where I needed to drill pilot holes in the keel. Took my time, ran the drill slow to keep making sure I was drilling perpendicular to the keel. Sanded and then put a light coat of varnish on the base with a paper towel. Thought the wood looked nice and didn't need any stain. Took a wire brush in my rotary tool to clean off all the built up gunk and tarnish from the pedestals. Put it all together and just used a regular screw driver to drive in the screws so i could watch closely to make sure the screw didn't bulge the wood or come out someplace. Now I got something to hold onto while painting and can set it down without resting it on something. I'll have to cover the base up with some rags while I work so I don't drip all over that.

new picture of the hull. still working on the paint which I'm not rushing it. Little bit then go do something else. Every time I kept handling the model I would mess up the red paint so I just put a little clear coat on to protect it until I finish the paint work.

ah, thats not likely glass but water like that is usualy either sculpted from plaster and then painted or made from a polyurethane, silicon or epoxy resin. http://www.diorama-dreamland.at/index.php?id=26

Glass sculpted to look like the ocean http://gizmodo.com/this-artist-sculpts-panes-of-glass-into-3d-oceans-1599186433 take a look at the artists journal and gallery here on his home web site: http://www.brokenliquid.com/165266/about otherwise only thing I can think of is scraft soemthing with stained glass or find a skilled glass blower

too bad. I rather like the look of the planks.

the color and sheen will tone down once I put a finish on it. Between the latex satin paint and florescent lighting it makes it a bit shinny.

Little work update. Progress seems slow but I've been doing allot of side stuff like researching for rigging, sails and related hardware. Also my book collection is slowly growing so doing more reading. While searching the internet I also get distracted finding other things I'm interested in or future needs such as making home made shop tools vs finding the bucks to buy them. My SIB build wasn't much a distraction as that was more waiting on paint and glue to dry then time spent building it. ...... Since I had 1 coat of varnish on the bulwork paint job I scrapped much of the excess blue off pretty easy with a hobby knife chisel blade. Repainted the cream color with touch ups on the inside bulworks as well. Used my home made wood clamps and the mast dowels to get the ship off any surfaces so I can do touch ups on the red and blue of the hull. Too much handling of it would start to mess up the paint job and resting it on a surface or a temp mount would also rub paint off. Cutting painters tape with a straight edge and hobby knife into small strips to mask out parts of the blue areas to be repainted. Don't need much of a masking, just enough so not to slop paint but to get a better edge then trying to do it by hand. I'm a little further along than this with the painting, just no pictures yet. Mean time I started planking the cabin doors and the cabin walls. To simulate the slit of the doors I just straight edge cut a line down the middle then used a mini 'V' file to widen the cut a little. On the cabin planking instead of cutting all the short planks then glueing them on I am just gluing the end of a full plank on then hold for a few moments till the glue holds it. Then clamp it. Wait about 15-20 minutes then trim it off with the hobby clipper. I'm working 2 sides of each cabin at a time this way. I figured if I pre cut them and ended up with short pieces it would be allot of waste. This may be slower but no real waste and I'm not in a big hurry. Also glued the doors on so I can then start planking that side of the cabins as well.

The colors of the planking, scuppers, and so on are really bringing it together nice, even the color difference at the scarf joint, just looks right to give it that 'working ship' look.

you can use a poly clear satin varnish but you need to apply the first coat VERY lightly as some paints ( oil and water based) can break down under a varnish. Especially any metallic paints will just flow and run under a varnish. 2 or 3 thin coats (4-5 hour dry time between each should even out the sheen though your white can yellow or get a slight darker ting to it under a poly varnish and as poly varnish ages the white can end up looking yellowed more. Sprays can pool up along seems joints and corners easily, have to have a light hand in its application. Warm up your poly spray can prior to use ( let it sit in a pan of warm water 15-20 minutes then shake/mix VERY well.) and keep cleaning the nozzle. If you want to keep it easy, an acrylic brush on finish is easy to use, clean up and control if you work it on thin and will not typically break down paints as long as you gave the paints plenty of drying time. Down side, not as resilient as a protective coat as varnish or shellac and it can leave white streaks if you have residual oils on the surfaces when you put it on where the coating is repelled by those oils.

looks like you will be busy all winter

http://www.answers.com/Q/How_can_you_separate_pieces_of_wood_which_have_been_glued_together_with_wood_glue http://www.doityourself.com/stry/how-to-dissolve-wood-glue should note however some wood glues bond MUCH harder than others, so can be more difficult to dissolve. you may also need to add some filler block between the 1st and 2nd bulkhead along the false keel for the garboard strake ( first strake along the keel line which will stop someplace midway between bulkhead 1 and 2)