vossy

Re my comments above about drilling holes under the channels for the deadeyes, I used the right size (short) drill on an angle and then angled in the bottom of the chain plate.  Worked OK, but some distortion of the rods that I couldn't fix.  I did that on the side that won't be visible.
 
Then I just bit the bullet and used a 1/16 inch drill straight down, which gave a hole a bit too large, but since I was reinforcing these by bending the other wire under the channel, worked fine.  A picture of that below.
 
Regards,
David

I've now pretty much finished all the deck structures and fittings.  Pictures here of all that.
 
Some comments on sequence.  I'm not exactly sure why, but I chose to go ahead and do the stern deadeyes early, which was a relief when I installed the curved stern railing.  I'm not sure I'd have been able to avoid mangling it if I'd done them in the manual sequence, which is during the rigging stage.
 
Speaking of those, the manual and drawings show a way to create the chain plate from wire, and then fix it to the deck below the deadeyes, which is conceptually fine for those in the middle of the hull if you have a 3 inch long .75mm drill bit -- mine are shorter, and I'm not sure they exist.  I may still do it by drilling on an angle.  It still looks like a flimsy fixing for the tension on the deadeyes, so I'm going to reinforce them to the bottom of the channel. 
 
But there's no clear way shown to attach the ones on the stern that you see here -- so I improvised by creating a sort of wire "plug" on the deadeye and gluing that into the hole.  I'll do the ones on either side of the hull next, as I won't want to try to maneuver those into place with masts and yards up (which is the way the manual would have you do it).
 
The other improvisation is the small front railing between the ladders.  I lost one of the stanchions on the floor somewhere, and of course Mantua provides no spares.  So I had to fashion the two rear stanchions out of wire.
 
Before I get to the rigging, I need to build the lifeboats and mount them, which is the next step.
 
Regards,
David
 
 

Thanks for the update James! This is indeed fantastic news!
 

Thanks for the update James! This is indeed fantastic news!
 

As a quick update, Amati are currently printing the full size plan-set for me and the MDF, ply and PE parts will shortly be cut and sent over.
 
They are now sourcing the high-pressure castings for the cannon and other fittings. 
 
I now have the instruction manual that Chris Watton put together, and this will serve as the basis for building the Victory and producing a manual for them in their current format. I'm busy studying the build from the keel upwards!
 
The manual Chris made is actually very good and very much of the style you see in his new Alert kit, but Amati want the whole lot shot against a white background in a photo-caption style format that you see in their recent kits such as the Orient Express Sleeping Car etc. These are glossy, perfect-bound books.
 
I've had some long talks with Amati over the last months. Things are now moving along! 

Thursday 19 September 2019
 
With these last details I finally put an end to the guns installation. I'll almost open a bottle of Prosecco or Lambrusco to celebrate this event . . .
 
01 Ragusian Carrack/19092019/IMG_20190919_170220.jpg

 
02 Ragusian Carrack/19092019/IMG_20190919_170300.jpg

 
Now there are many other activities that can be started. Rudder installation, figurehead, anchor installation, masts and so on.
For the moment I decided to experiment the building of the masts and maybe even various spars and rods. There is no particular reason to do one thing before the other and so I follow the will of the moment.
Using my small Proxxon wood lathe, I started to prepare the foremast and the mizzenmast. The foremast consists of a 10mm diameter rod that must be tapered up to a 6mm diameter. The mizzenmast is an 8mm rod to be tapered to 5mm. Using the lathe the operation became to me particularly well and I am very satisfied.
I then completed the foremast by installing the top, ready for some time.
 
03 Ragusian Carrack/19092019/IMG_20190919_170337.jpg

 
04 Ragusian Carrack/19092019/IMG_20190919_170345.jpg

 
But now there are two beautiful problems to be solved: one is very simple, since it is a question of choosing whether to leave the masts and the yards in their natural wood-color or to color them, as they most likely were: masts in ocher yellow and yards in black.
The other one is more complex and concerns the mainmast: it involves turning a 12mm diameter rod that must reach the 8mm at the end. But the problem is that my lathe reaches a maximum of 10mm and therefore cannot be used as I have done up to now.
I have to find an alternative route that I currently can't see, even using Google Maps !!
In the meantime I will take time working on the other elements of the masts but for my problem I need an adequate idea.
 
05 Ragusian Carrack/19092019/IMG_20190919_170637.jpg

 
See you soon, Jack.Aubrey.
 

Thursday 12 September 2019
 
During these 10 days since my last update for this model there have been very few news worth to be illustrated: I had to prepare a bunch of raw objects that required lot of patience, anyway very important to allow the implementation of the blocks and finally start to install the guns.
 
The images show the gun carriages definitively fixed on the decks: the fixing takes place through the insertion of a pin that passes through the carriage into the deck floor; it is visible, even if with some difficulty as it was later painted, in the central part of the carriage itself.
 
The images 01 and 02 below show the eight guns that make up the ordnance of this model, partially "wired". Each rope endpoint of the completed tackles is fixed to the deck with a drop of super glue and cut. Later I will prepare the rope curls, as I did for other models in the past, trying to make them better as realism. The curls will be applied over the endpoints so that they look like its natural continuation.
 
01 Ragusian Carrack/12092019/IMG_20190912_145128.jpg

 
02 Ragusian Carrack/12092019/IMG_20190912_145134.jpg

 
In the next two images (03 and 04) I started fixing the gun barrels on the carriages. The barrels are glued in their position with a small amount of two-component epoxy glue. Now I have to wait sometime to allow this glue to harden and then I will be able to proceed with the subsequent operations. Each gun has its own supply of ammunitions, prepared days ago, fixed to the deck with a drop of superglue.
 
The recoil rope has already been added to all the gun barrels, in the next days this rope, prepared before fixing the barrel to its carriage, will be definitively fixed on the inner side of the bulwark.
 
As you can see, there is still a bit of work to flag this activity as completed, but surely I'm approaching the final tasks.
However, this trick cost a lot of working hours and lot of patience.
 
Cheers, Jack.
 
03 Ragusian Carrack/12092019/IMG_20190912_153039.jpg

 
04 Ragusian Carrack/12092019/IMG_20190912_153056.jpg

This is simply stunning work you are doing here Eric! As a community here, we are very fortunate to have people like yourself who possess not only the skill to produce such works, but also the knowledge behind the vessels they create. Congratulations!
 
Cheers
 
Chris
 

Back from vacation, and found the extra copper plates waiting for me.  Took me a while amidst post-vacation catch up tasks to finish off the coppering of the hull.
 
That brought me to finishing off the keel, bow and stern.  I had planned to use copper tape for that, and as things turned out, it worked really well.  I've attached pictures showing pre-taping rough sections, and then the finished product.
 
Found there was a learning curve in handling the tape to minimize crinkles, but they show up no matter what you do, so I'm glad I used the plates for most of the hull, and equally glad I used tape to finish off the edges.
 
Now I can go back and pick up the sequence items I skipped waiting for the extra plates to arrive.
 
Regards,
David

Now some deck detail at the bow.
 
This will be my last progress post for a few weeks.  Off for a vacation with my wife.  The copper plates are now in shipping to me, so when I get back I'll be able to finish the coppering.
 
Regards,
David

Here's the stern deckhouse.  I like the look of this model with the brass/paint/wood combination.
 
Regards,
David

Thursday, August 29th, 2019
 
Adding new details. .
 
Having prepared the bowsprit on a lathe, I then fixed it in the correct position.
 
01 Ragusian Carrack/29082019/IMG_20190829_103636.jpg

 
In addition to the bowsprit in this picture you can also see the cathead, applied also on the other side of the hull.
 
02 Ragusian Carrack/29082019/IMG_20190829_103657.jpg

 
Here are some details of the base of the bowsprit, including the classic rope binding from the bow to this mast.
 
03 Ragusian Carrack/29082019/IMG_20190829_173326.jpg

 
A beam has been installed also aft, protruding far beyond the hull.
 
04 Ragusian Carrack/29082019/IMG_20190829_173314.jpg

 
Finally the last missing detail on the railing between the main deck and the quarterdeck.
 
05 Ragusian Carrack/29082019/IMG_20190829_103651.jpg

 
Now I will dedicate myself to the guns, task quite long and boring. Luckily, there are only eight.
Greetings, Jack.

Here are better pictures of my ship.  Sorry, but I did not put up the cheap paper flags.  I think they are tacky.  I don't know what my next build will be yet.  What are the cross bars that you put the sails on called?  Anyway, I think I did the back one incorrectly.  I think it was supposed to be tilted.  It did seem weird the way they had the mast done in the middle for that bar.  They were not very clear on how to do it.  I had to be clever on where to tie the front sail off of.  The tiny picture did not really show where the bottom ropes were supposed to be tied to.  I have learned sometimes you have to come up with clever ways of doing certain things.  You know they really need people who don't know how to put these ships together to test their directions to see if the directions are clear enough for people to understand.
 

 

 

 

 

Looks great David. Really like your informative updates on your logs. Copper plating looks super when done, but I can imagine its a royal pain in the **** to actually do!
 
Cheers
 
Chris
 

The deck moldings and the channels are now on the ship, and they make it look much more finished.  
 
I'm having to work out of sequence waiting for the hull plates to arrive, but fortunately there are deck structures I can do.
 
Regards,
David

A Weather Vane sits atop the light dome. The orientation of North is correct (before you check it John  ) :

 
There is an Anemometer where the original radio antenna used to be. I think the antenna was removed when radio technology improved :

 
With the fitting of the safety railings the model is FINISHED :










 


 
Danny

A bit more -- there is nice molding to dress the area where the planked deck meets the bulkhead.  See before & after pics.  [and again, pictures in reverse order]
 
Regards,
David

cash isn't the problem. father time waits for no man!
 

James, forgive me if I am interpreting this wrongly, but does it mean that until you build the Amati version of the 1:64 kit, and they (Amati), then develop the PE. masts etc. we will not see this released? This could take a considerable amount of time, depending on how fast you build of course. Would I be not far off the mark to suggest a couple of years at least?
 
Cheers
 
Chris
 

cash isn't the problem. father time waits for no man!
 

cash isn't the problem. father time waits for no man!
 

cash isn't the problem. father time waits for no man!
 

cash isn't the problem. father time waits for no man!
 

James, forgive me if I am interpreting this wrongly, but does it mean that until you build the Amati version of the 1:64 kit, and they (Amati), then develop the PE. masts etc. we will not see this released? This could take a considerable amount of time, depending on how fast you build of course. Would I be not far off the mark to suggest a couple of years at least?
 
Cheers
 
Chris
 

James, forgive me if I am interpreting this wrongly, but does it mean that until you build the Amati version of the 1:64 kit, and they (Amati), then develop the PE. masts etc. we will not see this released? This could take a considerable amount of time, depending on how fast you build of course. Would I be not far off the mark to suggest a couple of years at least?
 
Cheers
 
Chris