Landrotten Highlander

Have already commandeered a corner

Have already commandeered a corner

Have already commandeered a corner

Good morning Don,
 
No, I haven't given up.
 
A number of things occurred to slow me down this summer.
First there was the warm inviting sunny days I hadn't seen for months.
Then extra work demanding more of my time.
Then I caught my finger on my table saw cutting stock to make a honey stick...it is healing and to my surprise the finger nail is growing back!
The end of my finger will almost look normal.
 
It has been an uphill battle with creating my templates, now using Autodesk Inventor.  My files were huge and going backwards to work on an earlier sketch caused crashes.
Then I learnt about dirty files and dumping the temp files to clean up.
I've just refined my process and starting over yet again (4th time) but not from the very beginning!
This time I honestly believe I will have it.
 
Hope to start reposting again soon.
I will also remake my keel and stern post assembly.
I know I can do a better job.
It is the learning curve that is killing me.
 
 
Alan

This is the last edition of the slideshow. Hopefully successful.
The following vehicles will certainly be. I very much hope that the next time I will have more time to show the technology works in more detail. Although I note that recently I often use digital technology and precision equipment. This aspect is not very useful for the creation of the classic models of the ships so little use.

I finished the shrouds.-start the stand. 2nd has left almost perfect- and I wonder ... I did this, wow?

I too agree with Mark. I tried to use Dremels and other power tools when I began but soon learned that they are hard for a beginner to control, especially when you are working on extreme miniatures and still learning what the outcome of the work should be.  Working by hand will give you a feel for what it takes to get the right results before you try to speed things up. You will hear others on the site repeat the mantra, work slow, be patient, let the eye hand coordination build. I heeded early on when more experienced builders advised to treat each tiny component as a project in itself.
 
When I started I did most of my cutout work with and Xacto or similar knife.  I scored the cut lightly a few times before making my final cut.  I also found that my cutting is better when I use a harder surface than the rubber cutting mat that are common to hobbyists. The mat might allow the piece to bend when cutting which can alter the cut or splinter the bottom of the cut.  I have a piece of linoleum type tile that gives me better results than a cutting mat... which I still keep on the worktable for general cutting and to protect the surface of the table.
 
It is very important to use sharp tools.  A dull tool will "wander' with the wood grain.  I buy my blades, mostly #11, by the hundred.  Some of the folks keep a sharpening stone nearby and give them a swipe every few cuts.  They still replace them frequently. Chisels need to be kept extremely sharp to slice wood rather than splinter it.  I spent a fair amount of time learning how to sharpen chisels on diamond stone.  My smallest chisels are 1/16" or a little smaller, so they dull quickly and require proper sharpening.
 
Another of my most useful tools is a set of metal files for wood working.  These are slower but will give you better results as you start.  There are some good needle file sets that are cheap on Ebay. I especially like files made by Tamiya.  They have three sizes with different grit. The key for me was to not try a quick back and forth motion but rather to take one or two passes at a time and then look at the work to see where I was.  Also, with files and chisels I use a light stroke letting the tools do the work.  I don't try to force them. They work better than sandpaper for because they keep their shape throughout the cut. 
 
When I started this hobby I did a lot of practice on scrap wood , still do before starting a complex cut.  I often go through a lot of scrap wood, more than I care to admit to, before I get a usable part. 
 
I am one of those who enjoys the journey as much as getting to the destination.  I will work for hours, with a pile of attempts in the scrap bin before I get what I want.  There are those on MSW who make it look really easy, most have a list of builds under their names which built their skills. they had to learn at some point and they were not speed demons when the did, so try not to compare your initial attempts with their much more experienced work.
 
 As for frustration, we all experience that, even the very skilled.  I find that stepping back... with a glass of vodka, helps.
 
Richard

Hi,
I collect photos concerning hull structure and construction from presently
constructed replicas of Dutch ships  De Delft ( in Rotterdam)   and De 7 Provincien ( Batavia werf in Lelystad).
They show details of the construction of the hull
.
Tadeusz
 
De Delft
 
Spring 2003

Keel and stern post

Frame details in workshop. On the floor are drawn shapes of frames in scale 1:1.


Large scale structural model for final checking of frame shapes



Frame details machining
 
August 2015





 

Eine Sitzbank für drei Personen aus Eisen geschmiedet im Masstab 13,47 für das Maerchenschiff.
Das geschmiedetet Eisen ist bruniert.

This is an updated partial look at my DRUID rigging details spreadsheet, centered on main mast connections.  I am liking this more and more.  This will be pretty standard for detailed rigging systems in the future for me:
 

 
If you read across any row you can identify all rigging lines that are accounted for and the run of the lines themselves.  So, for example, the Main Yard Jeers (7" line) has a one 20" double block attached to the yard, two 20" single blocks lashed to the Main Mast Head, a double block attached on the deck by the mast then a second double block for mechanical gain, then on to a sheave in the rail prior to affixing to the pin rail.
 
If you read down any column, you can see what connections any one part should have.  So the Main Top Gallant yard is exactly identified (all the sail work lines are farther down out of view).
 
I am still working through the sheet from several different angles to insure its completeness.  Next steps are to identify the lay of each line and also whether any serving is required.  Lots of in depth learning which is making me very comfortable with the subject matter.
 
mark

Hello,
 
the captains sleeping cabin is now ready. Today I build the chest with drawer for his clothes and the washing table with the washbowl. 
 

 

 
Yesterday I finished the cod. This little pice was really tricky to build. 
 

 
Tomorrow I will start with the lobby. When I understand it right, was this room the dining room for the captain and his guests (normally one or two of his lieutenants) and also a conference room. I would build a table for six persons and chairs instead of benches.   In one corner I would set a corner cupboard and that should be all. 
 
Did I anything forget, or should I build it in an other way? A large part of this cabin would't be build, because of the open space.
 
Regards,
Siggi

Finally, a friend of mine put together a movie.
See here:

Rigging, rigging, rigging.  I am relatively new to the details of this subject and prior to going much farther on the masting work wanted to have a firm plan on what should be done when, specifically regarding blocks / thimbles / and collars.  Before I get into the details I am working three questions with respect to this cross section:
 
1.  Should I include rigging features that are used for the sails on the main mast, but have no termination. A good example are the braces.  The pendants can be quite long and will be left dangling since the forward connection points are not present.
2.  A related question are rigging features that are used for the mizzen or foremast.  A good example are the mizzen stays.  There are several collars on the main mast that would lead these stays to the deck below.
3.  Last are the temporary used features, like the topropes for raising the topmast into place.
 
My initial thoughts are:
1.  Include them, but shorten up the pendants so they don't stick out so much.  They will be empty blocks at the end of the pendants.
2.  Include them. Again, empty blocks.
3.  I would like to include these for education opportunities (both for me and people looking at the model).  I need to insure with all the other rigging place these can be in place.
 
For my education I am using TFFM - Antscherl, Rigging Period Ship Models (square rigged) - Petersson, Anatomy of the Ship (Endeavor) - Marquardt, Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War - Lee and Plans for the HMS Brilliant from the Smithsonian (prior to renaming Druid).
 
This is an American cargo ship converted to a British Sloop of war so there are lots of questions and deviations from any one source.  The first task was to understand what rigging lines I need to handle and what they touch.  This is captured in a spreadsheet still undergoing review (partially shown):
 

 
Green means there is a touch point between the line and the component listed at the top.  For my sanity I split the masts into component pieces.  Once complete I can look down through any column and insure every one of those touch points are handled (hopefully prior to putting on the model).
 
After tracing everything a couple more times and verifying them the next step will be to identify line diameters and block types and sizes (TFFM at its best).  Then I will feel confident enough to proceed.  My biggest issue was getting this global view.  For running rigging, the diagrams 'usually' don't include the details from the standing.  Something was always missing for simplicity.  This spreadsheet overcomes that issue.
 
Lots of learning.  I feel like I should re-read those Aubrey-Maturin books now, I would have a MUCH better understanding of the at sea events.
 
Mark

Hello,
so it goes on with the construction report.
To stow the sloop on the deck, I have to build the poultry houses. These lie between the gratings.
For construction of the poultry houses, I show you the following pictures.
I hope you enjoy the pictures.

 

 

 

Lighting
 
I made a small wood base for the battery, lights, and switch to fit inside the cabin space, I didn't want any of it visible.
 

 
The LED's needed to be raised above the deck level. My first attempt was to used 1/8" sq basswood to make raised frames. Although it was fun making all the lap joints, the frames were clearly visible from the outside when the lights were on and looked pretty bad.
 

 
So I stopped for a while to try and think of a way to hold up some extremely small LED's. I found some small diameter clear plastic tube.
 

 
It's actually the ends from the inside tubes of a couple of ball-point pens.
 
The wire was threaded through a small hole in the side and the LED's fixed in place by a drop of glue at the top. The tubes were a perfect push-fit over a toothpick dowel. One dowel in the base and the other in a low frame over the battery holder. A little bit of pale yellow paint over the tubes to soften the light and some soldering of wires and it was all done.
 

 
The battery overhangs the edge to make it easy to pull out and the whole thing just slips into the deck well and the cabin goes over it. Nothing is fixed down.
 

 
This is how she looks.
 

 

 
Final Thoughts
 
My first wooden ship model is complete    .
 
I've really enjoyed this kit. It wasn't too difficult, was good value for money, and the instructions using just the pictures were fine. All the pieces were cleanly cut and fitted well. If you're a little heavy handed as I am, adding some support pieces is a good idea. I would also have left the side rails until the very end - you don't want to know how many times I fixed them!
 
I would definitely do another mini-kit as a gift and one of the larger ones is now on my to-do list (but there's 3 others in front so it'll be a while).
 
Again my thanks go to Clare for posting his excellent builds, pointing me to this kit, and for the help with the rigging.
 
Thanks also to the many kind responses and all the likes. And to Bob Riddich for his inspiring build of the Higaki Kaisen.
 
BTW, my daughter loves it  . 
 
I asked my other daughter (she's almost 11) if she wanted one. She said no, she wants me to make her a desk. This means I'm going have to get the big saws out!
 
All the best,
Richard
 
 

Hello,
 
now I have also the beams fastened and the last stanchion is set, and Mark, the binnacle is painted.
 

 
But now comes the problem of this deck. 
 
Question for the experts and all who know something about this
 
Where should I stow away the rammers, sponge and wad hook for the cannons?
 
We have 7 cannons at every side of the quarter deck and 3 of them have no deck above them. So I could't store the side arms there. At the wall is not enough space between the cannons, see the picture. Later with the carronades, who where really shorter, they where stored there.
 

 
I would do it this way. First I would make the rammer and the wad hook into one item and store them all between the deck beams in front of the bulwark. May be also with the side arms from the cannons of the cabins so that the captain has only the cannons in his cabins.
 
The handspikes and smaller items are lying under the cannons and the buckets between them. The buckets from the cabins are stored in front of the bulwark. The match tubs I store at the upper gun deck also in front of the bulwark. (not visible) Because one gun crew operated the two cannons opposite each other, I think they need only one mach tub.
 
I hope you could help me, many thanks in advance
Siggi
 
 
 

She's Complete   
 

 
Well it's only taken a month to get everything else done! Work and home projects + some fun things got in the way (but generally in a good way).
 
Lanterns
 
These are small laser cut dowels with colored paper strips wrapped around them. 
 

 
In the kit, there are 5 each side but I needed them to be fairly sturdy so I only put 4 on each side where there are supports. A very small peg (turned from a toothpick) was added for extra security.
 
 
Stand
 
I decided not to use the stand that came with the kit. I'm not putting the ship in a display case and it would be too easy to knock off a shelf (it only weighs a couple of ounces). I wanted a dark base to show off the boat but didn't want it to be overwhelming so I took a length off poplar about 10" x 2 1/2" then added a thin layer of walnut on the top. Some 1/4" sq wood on the bottom gives a slightly floating look. This was finished with a few coats of wipe on poly and the nameplate that came with the kit.
 
I wanted to be able to easily remove the boat from the stand so I decided to use some magnets I already had. In the bottom on the boat I added two 3/32 cube magnets and inserted 1/8" dia 3/4" long magnets about 1/4" into the stand. These are very strong neodymium magnets that easily hold the model even with a layer of wood between the magnets. I then sheathed the magnets in brass tube (to match the brass on the model).
 

 
Extras
 
The larger Yakatabune model has some rope work on the oar and rudder. Clare (catopower) very kindly supplied the details for this. I used some of Chuck's rope (bought for my other build).
 
This is the oar wrapping 
 
The larger model has a wooden cleat to hold the oar rope..
There was no way I could fabricate this so I used 2 pieces brass wire soldered together. This was then chemically blackened (another first for me).
 
The oar is not very secure so I added brass wire to the pivot point and glued it to the figure supplied with the kit (he also has brass wire added to his feet!).
 
There is also rope added to the rudder. This is how the stern looks.
 

 
Well that's all for now. I don't want to make the post too long and it's late here.
 
I'll post the details of the lighting and final thoughts later in the week.
 
Thanks for reading,
Richard.
 

Well, I'm just going to jump to the end of the build here because I'm there! I added some paint details inspired by the Japanese paintings of these boats in Edo times. Yesterday, I whipped together a display pedestal to match the two I built for the Higaki Kaisen and Hacchoro models.
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 
Now, I can get back to other projects for a bit and experiment a bit with ways to make the hanging lanterns inside to light up the interior a bit. Pretty hard to see in there right now.
 
At this point, I'm mostly out of larger scale updated Edo Period Japanese boat kits. However, I do have two of their older coastal transport kits (Sengoku Bune), which pre-date laser cutting. Those kits are larger than the Higaki Kaisen. What I find interesting is that they are also more like traditional ship modeler's kits. That is, they provide patterns for cutting the hull strakes from sheet wood, frames are not pre-cut, but have to built from posts and beams, etc. Many parts are pre-cut, but there is no weight or space wasted on die-cut sheets. Instead, all the pre-cut parts are neatly packaged for you.
 
There were two of these Woody Joe coastal transport kits. The Kitamae-bune, is now out of production, and hopefully, we'll see an updated version soon that's as nice as the Higaki Kaisen. The other is the Sengoku-bune, which they still sell. This one is kind of a generic version of the coastal transport, not quite as large as the Kitamae-bune, which operated from ports along the Western shores of Northern Japan.
 
Either of these would make a better display model than the Higaki Kaisen because they are larger. They are incorrectly labeled as 1/30-scale kits, but are closer to 1/53 to 1/60-scale. Been thinking that a 1/48-scale model would be ideal for display purposes.
 
Also, it may be time to try to scratch build a boat based on the work of boatbuilder Douglas Brooks, who'll be speaking at the NRG conference in a couple weeks. 
 
I'll keep you posted!
Clare

nuevo taller

Thank you all for your feedback. 
 
Here is another update.

Hello,
 
just to show you, that I'm not lazy here, the first pictures from the wheels. I worked after the method EdT used with his HMS Naiad, but modified some parts. Thank you EdT for this tutorial.
 
At first I cut the triangles and glued then together.  
 

 

 
The next step was the axel. The pentagon is loose on the axle, hold only with a peg.
 

 
Here is all turned round and the parted.
 

 
I cut the channels for the spokes, so that the drill bit would have a direction.
 

 
Here all is glued together and I drill the holes for the spokes. I drilled the holes, because I did't have such a nice machine like EdT
 

 
Here I turn the interior free. That is now the second drum I turned. The first one did't make this step
 

 
Here the temporary spokes are installed
 

 
and I could turn out the rest. This time all went very well.
 

 
The spokes here have a diameter of 1,8 mm. The next days I will turn the spokes and they shod go done to 1mm diameter. I hope I will not get crazy about this work. 
 

 
Regards,
Siggi

Thanks Bob. I think this is working out pretty well. The model is supposed to have a row of plates at the base of the upper plank as well as the lower plank. But, since I've painted the lower plank black, I'm not sure that it's necessary to add the plates there. Real plates were actually inserted into recesses, and I know that on many boats, the lower recesses were often filled with putty instead. I presume that would then be painted over after the puttying.
 
The trick after all this is done is that there were often plates, or maybe they were just painted areas, on the deck house too. Not quite sure how I'll deal with that yet.
 
But, in the meantime, I was able to finish off the row of plates on one side of the boat. Turns out that a section of text I was having trouble translating was telling me to do pretty much the following:
 

 
Laying out a strip of masking tape with sticky side facing up, in my case I chose blue painter's tape, I taped the tape down to a flat surface and placed one of the copper plates on the sticky face, right at the edge. Then, using the plans as a guide, I laid down copper plates with 7mm spacing in between.
 
I trusted my skill with 5 minute epoxy since it's viscous enough for me to control and to keep a very thin layer, so I started with a needle, putting just a touch onto each plate, then going back and spreading across the plate with the side of the needle, regularly wiping off excess from the needle. I then peeled the tape up and laid the tape, sticky side down, along the edge of the plank, so that the plates were held in place in proper position until the glue set.
 
I think the Woody Joe instructions suggest applying instant adhesive one plate at a time and then rolling the tape down so that it holds the glued plate into place, then applying to the next plate, and so on.
 
This actually didn't take all that long. I carefully peeled up the tape after the glue had set, but while I could still push the plate slightly with my thumb nail to straighten and make final adjustment.
 

 

 
With this one side complete, I feel like I'm nearing the final stretch on this model!
 
 
Clare
 
Edit: Forgot to add this shot of how I was using the tape method at the bow...

gracias José. más avances

hello to all latest pictures of the construction site Fleuron
 
upcoming releases in a few weeks
 
amicably

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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                        Rekon54