dafi

Holy impatience ... ... still not happy with the self made lines ... ... the thick ones no problem, the thin ones are a drag ... ... but big want to continue. The best result was a 0,3 mm Krick-line, that I unraveled and laid from new :-) But first came sorting the rings ... ... by size and form, served hot on tape ... ... and fixed on the lower deck guns. Then came the lead aprons for the gun locks ... ... the line for the tompions and some turns around the muzzle. As I had to preassemble the gun outside, the task was that all the lengths for the rig are different due to the tumbledome and the different breadth of the deck. First fixing a template ... ... and it fits :-) Now some bondage - I like making some guns happy ;-) First the breechline around the bum, fixing with CA ... ... knotted in the front, the groove on the side helps as a guide for the height ... ... and two wedges to make it tight. Then flooded the breechline with CA and phase 1 done :-) Phase 2 some more bondage, a shortened needle is a good help ... ... and well bound and done too. Then still fixed a gauge for the upper lashing ... ... some CA-flooding and phase 3 done too :-) After freeing the whole thing it stands nicely there ... ... held to its final place and shortened the over lenghts. Fixed some rings as they might be seen by the open gunports. And finalemente the whole in place. That is what I was looking for. Small check from the outside: The side takles will still be set, but this will be the next story :-) Lieber Gruß, Daniel

Hello Michiel, it is always warned about lead corrosion. The lead can disintegrate into white powder. Museums usually refuse taking models with this material because of that reason. I saw some nice effects already in the different forums about this issue. In the MSW.1 there was an article about it. Can anybody reproduce this one and start as a new topic? Daniel

Nothing exaggeratingly new, business as usual ... ... main mast done, together with the oob-version ... ... and the mizzen got his split lines. Happy rest-eastern, Daniel

I was looking at the pictures above. They looked great, but something was disturbing. I was looking at the pictures in of the V. in P. ... ... they looked the same. ... ... until I asked myself, why do I display steel masts?!? What makes the visible difference in this scale in between a painted steel and painted wooden masts? The wooden ones are made up of four parts around a core, showing the splitlines :-) Ok, operation on the open heart, means on the finished painted mizzen mast ... ... carving the split lines, restoring the paint and the inking and retaking the pictures :-) Much more what my heart desired! So this was the open heart surgery, soon there will be the brain surgery on the fore mast with the top already fixed, that will be fun too ;-) And by the way, Dave at MSW realised, that I fixed the boom the wrong side up on the saddle ... ... already fixed too. All the best, Daniel

As usual it started with making a small pile of rubbish ... ... than marking the positions for the new mast hoops on the now naked masts, fixing the start and bending round with some hair clamps. . Small quizz: whats that: Gettit? The supports of the boom´s saddle. Also renewed the ring for the belay pins and brought it into a horizontal orientation and checked the height with the old trial poop deck. Refined the edges and corners of the cheecks, hounds and fishes ... ...painted, inked and highlighted as usual, and the mizzen mast was done, here compared to the fore. One can nicely see the more ladylike proportions, the different angle of the testle trees, the missing rubbing fish in the front and the missing of tapering and rubbing battens on the all new top. And also this joke I could not resist: Usually the masthoops were painted black as a standard. Nelson gave order to repaint them in buff according the rest of the masts for recognition reasons. But as the painters were lazy - or better said economical - the hoops underneath the quarterdeck stayed black :-) But stop, something elementary was missing, the belay pins ... Okok, making some new ones in 1:100 ... ... some wire, put in a stand, some white glue to form a drop on the top and some paint spilt over it. All exactly 4 mm long, just standing a little bit messy in the stand. Things got stuck together - pins with rail and pins-rail-mast together with trial poop deck ... ... it goes deep down ... ... and much up :-) All the best, Daniel

Even me, even I do stupid things ... ... uneven groud, color first too thin - than too thick - then too thin, wrong brush, uneven application, airbubbles and especially too late night and hurry to go to bed ... ... bad mixture ... ... okokok, as a punishment and not as an excercise sanding lesson ... ... ... but next session a little bit more competent and concentrated ... ... after fixing the buff, also the new top got its paint ... ... you can see nicely the slots underneath the gunwhale. As a result of the freshly introduced quality management our little a able-bodied seaman checks the fitting of the rail ... ... fixes the netting as demanded by the trade unions and insures himself about the stability of the planks of the platform.. Then came my usual drybrush and incing session, looks rather strong in the macro, but with the final viewing distance of min 40 cm it looks fine, especially to articulate the details with all the rigging still to come. Soo dafi looking rather happy now again :-) Lieber Gruß, Daniel

After that much research I needed something easy to relax ... On the left Hellers version of the rudderwheel, right dafis version, just enjoy, no further explanations :-) Gute Nacht, Daniel

Lee discribes on page 24 the use of additional crosstrees for tops of large ships. The timeframe is just the great repair and the Vic could be considered a "large ship", so seen by Lee this version could be qualified ;-) Aapproved by the admiralty from 1802 to 1815, these tops were made out of two pieces for easier replacement, these tops needed further strenghening by upper crosstrees/sleepers. This led too to a different layout for the battens. I already found some pictures of top of todays Victory mast tops, they all are done the "Heller way" :-) Neither Marquard or Schrage show this arrangement. But I found in Goodwins HMS Victory: her construction, career and restauration, he writes on page 21 that during the great repair of 1800 to 1803 the Vic was fitted with fighting tops "in two halves to make repair easier". This should be this version Lee talks about :-) And I found some sleepers on USS Constitutions 1930´s tops. http://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/5888797806/ As pictures better show than long explanations can do, I made a fast model compared with the classical version. One can see the extra cross trees on the top side and the different layout of the battens. Just Lees drawing does not show all the details, also it does not correspond with the small cross section he is showing underneath the drawing. Here are the details that I am trying to find out: Is the back of the gunwhale open as the classical one is? How is the shape of the span piece? The battens are shown in the longitudinal section with no decreased height towards the center. As the battens that point towars the lumber hole have no second barrier, I decided to diminish the height as it is in the classical one. How is the form of the front span piece? Are there filling pieces underneath, is ther a slot like in the back or does the span piece go bdown to the rim? Also, do the upper crosspieces diminish height towards the outside as the lower ones do? Then came version two: Half of my questions were answered by Lee two pages later in the 1815 version of the tops, just he names them now Sleepers instead of upper crosstrees ... How should I know that ... So there is stated, that the sleepers have the same form as the lower crosstrees, just halve of the height. So three suggestions of mine have been proven: Same form as the lower cross trees with chamfering towards the outside, too thick in my version '#1 and the span pieces go down to the rim - 3 hits, not bad for the ego ;-) Ok, back to the machinery, slimming down the sleepers, giving them the chamfer towards the outside ... ... rounded off the edges, cleaned up a bit, and it looks much more harmonic and so we get a little dance from ... ... our beloved dancing sailor :-) Lieber Gruß, Daniel

Actually I never got, that you striped the superstructure from the existing model ... :-0 This beats all off my humble tearing down parties! Love to see you back, Daniel

Hurrrray! After successful application and having passed the qualification test I was admitted for the final and terminal examination!!! So: Stacking spheres was in the past. The attentive follower might have realised that the sheaves at the sides of the sweep are still missing. They were easily carved out off some 2 mm x 2 mm square-shaped timber, strenghened with some CA and drilled twice . But how to fix them underneath the beam beside the sweep? This time just a short ... ... thought ... ... and fixed a handle out of wire ... ... and placed it with some CA on place. But that was just the warm up. How the hell to get the tiller rope through this now hidden sheave??? And another time ... ... thought ... ... thought ... ... and used the threading help from my wife´s sewing kit by pushing it from front through the inner hole of the sheave to pull a helping line from the back to the front to pull the tiller rope from the front to the back. Sounds complicated, it is not ;-) Then pushed the threading help from the front through the outer hole to pull the tiller rope from the back back to the front. Sounds easier? It is :-) Then constructed the further guidance of the rope with the cross members in the center line of the ship. Looks sexy ☺ The rope is then led upwards through next deck´s gratings to the wheel. And as the 1:100 original model steering wheel is to fiddly for some real life´s turning, I constructed a substitute one. The drum diameter is about the right size. As the tensioning tackles on the tiller are fixed for some reasons, I had to adjust the tension in the system by two wedges underneath the barrel, this giving the great hight of the construction. The construction now follows exactly the original so the following should happen: If those dafinistic fingers seen on the picture turn the barrel ... ... the tiller and the rudder move magically :-) :-) :-) ....hihihihihihi... I hope that with this I passed my happy home examination ;-) I also hope you enjoyed this excursus to a 18th century steering system as much as I did. Learned a lot regarding the technic used in those days as much as learned some nice new tricks for model making. ☺ With all the best wishes from this nice bin with the upholstered walls, oh what nice colors I can see after those funny pills , always yours, Daniel Disclaimer/Remark 1: NO! The steering wheel underneath the poop will not be movable! After fixing the next deck, tiller and rudder will be fixed for security reasons. I do not need an "unshipping of the rudder" on the finished model. But until then I will enjoy the view :-) Disclaimer/Remark 2: I already waiting for people trying to copy the substitute rudder believing it was an original fitting ... Disclaimer/Remark 3: But who knows - one of the first hits of the french round shots was the steering wheel and who knows how the orinal substitute looked like ... Ah, here they come, the men with the white coats, they are coming to take me away ...

With the application form successful turned in, I was allowed to the qualifying examination to prove my insanity´s potential. I found an adequate project, the tiller sweep that supports the front end of the tiller and gives guidance for the tiller rope. First taking the measures - the moving angle of the tiller including the sheaves on the sides ... ... and it even fits, hihihihihi... The circular bits for the top and bottom were easily cut but how to do the middle part? ... ... thought ... ... thought ... - twice enough this time – and I knew how to build up the inside- the easy way ;-) Took one of the remaining 0,7 mm planks, cut it to a width of 1 mm plus and squeezed it vertically inbetween two 1 mm styrene sheets ... ... and sanded the excess away ... ... and glued it together as a sandwich. Gives a surprisingly sturdy piece of sweep, even though the faible materials. Glued a small handle on it and test placed it ... ... and it looked very promising ... ... thought ... ... thought ... ... how do I fix this bit down there deep in the bowels of my Vic in some way, that it finds itself in the right place? And underneath the deck beam? ... thought ... ... and carved two guides for the deck beam into the top side of the sweep. Now the longitudinal direction was fixed ☺ For that the tiller rope does not wear too much, there were rollers in the front groove ... ... some more tests for the positioning ... ... and again the old question: how to get it fixed down there? ... thought ... ... and again an easy solution: Two pieces of soft foam push gently from the bottom and allow precise fixing☺ The hairclips just help the positioning. Some drops of CA and here we are :-) Still had to glue the goose neck on place protruding into the back groove and the tiller even sweeps the way it should do in the sweep. So the qualification test was going very promising and I hope I was able to show a glimpse of a model makers insanity potential. Sincerely yours, etc., etc. Daniel

Application form for the funny farm Dear audience, to get myself faster into the mental home, I decided to fill out the necessary application forms. As usual, I started by getting out the heavy material ... ... but it just started with some minor discomforts ... ... and I originally just wanted to exchange the dark brown tiller as it proved a little bit to short. The one on the left had the right length but when I wanted to prepare the fittings I realised ... ... that the original had a completely different shape with the thickest part just in front of the rudder. So the fittings were fixed fast, the hoop near the rudder with the two fixing rods ... ... the bolts for the tension tackle, and the double pair in the front for guiding the rope: But now it got funny ... ... making blocks fitting to tiller with its 2 mm x 2 mm cross section. The drill has 0,5 mm and the new blocks out of Ureol have about 1,9 mm x 1,2 mm x 0,9 mm. For not having to look for them or even loosing them I left them stored on the drill :-) First rigging tests proved unsuccessfull, wrong cord, too thin and fuzzy. Also the blocks were on the wrong place. Ok, ripped it down and thought ... And thought. And thought. And thought. The conclusion: The length of the steering wheel´s drum shows the size of the rigging line. The original shows 7 turns of the rope which gives the half length of the drum and leaving a quarter of it free in the front and also in the back. This results in about 15 possible turns on a drum of about 45 cm which leads to a size of the rope of about 3 cm, respectively 0,3 mm on the model. Great, got some of that thickness in sufficient quality left :-) Rerigged the blocks - of course with the powersplice - and it looks much friendlier :-) Still added - not glued yet - the goos neck for the sweep ... ... and I do believe that I have everything needed for the successful application form :-) Greetings from hell´s kitchen, Daniel

Hwello Jan, nice to get her back .-) great build and I love the colorful style of those days! Daniel

Some small thoughts ... ... with 800 men crew and 6 seats we get this optimized calculation: 800 men (NCO) / 6 seats gives 133 men/seat In a optimized 24 hours use using all seats we get the following numbers: 24 hours = 1440 minutes 1440 minutes / 133 men = 10,5 minutes/man per day. This means no second wasted and the next user always stand by. If you take account of that not the whole day it is possible to have this steady usage because of time, scedules and weather, the usage time per person sinks dramatically. If I remember well, constipation was widely spread, which leads to longer men mean residence time. So the conclusion is, that the heads, regarding the weather, daytime and service schedule, could possibly be a quite crowded place at certain moments. This account only includes the "big business". There still would be some persons too to be expected at the heads for the "small business", if they are not preferring hanging out in the shrouds (leewards): One hand for the ship and one hand for yourself - now that line is finally understood. A quick research in German Law and regulations indicates the following: Puplic Law of the State of lower Saxony says for a leisure event of 800 visitors the calculation should be: 800:100 x 0,8 = 7 seated toilets and 800:100 x 1,2 = 10 urinals (always rounded) The Law of Working Spaces "Arbeitsstätten-Richtlinie, ArbStätt 5.037.1, vom 26. Juni 1976 (ArbSch. 9/1976 S. 322)" for 250 employes one needs 10 seated toilets and 10 urinals, that means more than double for 800 employees. In a converse argument that leads to the conclusion: For a working place the ship should have 5 times more seated toilets and this leads to - that by the number of seats - the ship must be a leisure event - Join the Navy - see the better world! Sehr geehrter Gruß, Ihr treuergebener Diener most sincerely, your humble servant, dafi

Okokok... Back to business. Did you already discover the other small detail? The netting? Ever since I bought it 18 month ago I was wondering how to fix it in a decent way. Quite rigid but still floppy, bad to paint, difficult to handle, in on word: a modellers dream ;-) But now I think I found my way. Taking the measures with templates ... ... transfer to cardboard ... ... glueing the tulle over it, making a frame out of 0,3 mm copper wire and fix it with CA. Taking my Citadel paints and give it a nice coat, this enhances the appearance of the material, three layers of different colors give a little bit of shading ... ... cut out ... ... and holy s... I changed the running direction of the material and got different looks :-( Ok, made new ones and sewed them on the proper way ... ... and it looks much better :-) By pulling a little bit on the right corners of the copper wire it also got slightly wavy to be not too even. So bye for now, Daniel

Mam, he is going to do something naughty again!!! ... and he already did it again ... What´s up now? In June 2010 he was all proud about then improved seats of ease ... ... but what did dafi, or better Heller think about the backside of John Bull??? Two sailors on there? Even the bucket is bigger. And how should the able seaman aim at these little holes even if he is a seat? And what about the not able ones ;-) Ok, carved new ones see the small but important increase of spacial capacity ... ... and looks much better like this :-) And it is even enough for two backsides side by side without the danger of being trailed for sodomy ;-) And in summer even with the shade of a cosy mariners walk. All the best, Daniel

After the slipway I managed to do my second big holiday monster: the rope walk ... simple wooden box, some cogwheel from Fischertechnik out of my dark juvenile past, 4 mm aluminum wire bent to hooks... ... the movable counter part and the runner ... ... some screws as guides for a 2,5 meter curtain rail ... ... and getting a range of crochet thread from the grandma shop in the city. And these are the results - the three brown ones (nr 2, 5 and 8 from the bottom) are the reference from Krick 0,3, 0,5 and 0,7 mm: Holy impatience, they are not yet dyed but I could not resist putting them in place to see how they react and look in place ... ... and, does not look too bad :-) The build was rather easy and simple. But now it will get tricky: Finding the right materials and the right way of using it concerning the right amount of twisting and tension. cogwheel - old stuff Curtain rail - old stuff Wood - 1,58 Euro Aluminum - 1,50 Euro Feeling - priceless ;-) All the best, Daniel

Instead of the mill, the jig can also be done by glueing separate spacers together. It is a package step-spacer-step-spa... Just make sure, hat the glue only goes where it belongs ;-) Daniel

... ok, what the hell is he doing now? ...aaaahhh ... transparent bits ... ... oh tricky, putting the drill stand onto a box to extend height and swinging the drill to the backside ... ... clever-clever, but now?!? ... ... acupuncture for the keel? ... do not want to see that. Now he is taking a cherry for drilling a 3 mm hole into the 4 mm false keel, clever like that the material won´t rip on the edges. But what for ??? AAAAAAAhhh, he is preparing a fairytale play: I remember the thing with the glass coffin ... ... Snow-Viccy and the 7 dafis ;-) So happy new year and always stay above the waterline :-) Amicalement, Daniel

... and now something completely different :-) The cannon balls I already presented quite a while ago, they came from here ... http://www.kugel-winnie.de/epages/62136757.sf/de_DE/?ObjectPath=/Shops/62136757/Products/010101003 ... and the blackening stuff from here: http://www.amazon.de/ShoXx-®-Brünierung-Schnellbrünierung-Kaltentfetter-Entwässerungsöl/product-reviews/B004CFHNHC/ref=sr_1_1_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1 First one to take the grease off, second the blackening and the oil for dehydration ... ... first the degreasing ... ... used a magnet to take them out ... ... well dried ... ... and like Roger Rabbit back to the soup, the blue one for blackening ... ... luckily used old china as the stains remained :-) First I wanted to avoid the dehydration oil because of the glueing, but some of the balls turned brown :-( So same procedure as every year James, back to degreasing - the rust come of the balls but not off the china ... ... freshely blackned and oiled. Putted UHU Universal into a old syringe and gave nice injections ... ... uand placed the bullets :-) Used lots of glue but still some came off, the oxide is a ideal separation agent ... So then, good luck, Daniel

In a german forum I got a hint for a good source of cannon balls, all sizes: http://www.kugel-winnie.de/epages/62136757.sf/de_DE/?ObjectPath=/Shops/62136757/Products/010101003 ... and some blackening for stainless steel like this one: http://www.amazon.de/ShoXx-®-Brünierung-Schnellbrünierung-Kaltentfetter-Entwässerungsöl/product-reviews/B004CFHNHC/ref=sr_1_1_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1 First one to take the grease off, second the blackening and the oil for dehydration ... ... first the degreasing ... ... used a magnet to take them out ... ... well dried ... ... and like Roger Rabbit back to the soup, the blue one for blackening ... ... luckily used old china as the stains remained :-) First I wanted to avoid the dehydration oil because of the glueing, but some of the balls turned brown :-( So same procedure as every year James, back to degreasing - the rust come of the balls but not off the china ... ... freshely blackned and oiled. Putted UHU Universal into a old syringe and gave nice injections ... ... uand placed the bullets :-) Used lots of glue but still some came off, the oxide is a ideal separation agent ... So then, good luck, Daniel

Still worked on the template and made the middle groove larger for that I also can work the smaller stairs, now making them is real easy fun :-) I also was able to use the template for repairing: Cutting off a misglued step, putting the stair back into the template and fix a new step :-) The only tricky thing is the groove in the middle of the large stairs. Even well packed they like to bow up and then vibrate out of the vice. So well placed ... ... and held down by dafis patended steps downholder. And that´s the bounty of the last days ... ... cuties in every angle ;-) Daniel

Usually I like to work without machinery, but that time I had to bring out the heavy material: the Micromiller ... Putting in a block of Ureol, with an prepared angle according to the stairs.Distance of the steps 2,5 mm, as seen in the test before. CAD indicates a step in depth of 1,9 mm. And here we go with a 0,6 er miller for the gauge of the 0,5 mm steps ... ... and a groove for helping the ejection, and I champfered the edges to avoid problems with increeping glue. Then putting the steps in ... ... adjusting the sides, fixing with tape ... ... putting a stop for the bottom position of the lateral supprt, glueing ... ... and another nice shot for the family album :-) And as it came out pretty enough even a close up ... ... on the target area ... ... and once lifelike :-) Lieber Gruß, Daniel

... but I had difficulties with it. Status: Heller, V1 from the very start of the build and the V2 ... And here the planks of 0,5 mm x 2 mm that I prepared long time ago before I realised that the 6 maters mentioned at Mondfeld are far to small ... ... and on the right two tests for a right distance of steps: left 2 mm and right 2,5 mm, which looks right :-) And on the far right a first test with a new assembly technic :-) Looks right more soon. Liebe Grüße, Daniel

Hallo Phil, me too tried hard with the building of the stairs: As it is difficult to measure inside of the ship, I took a masking tape to take measures, so one can easily get it right after taking it out :-) Then glueing the treads onto tape ... ... to get all of them the right distance. Beside you can see V1 from the early beginning of the build. Regrouped vertically for the milling of the groove of the middle rib.. Made some templates for the assembly ... ... glued the treads ... ... and the middle rib. And there he stands my small worker and shaking his head upon the wrong proportioned stairs and sends the carpenter back to work ... At least, he tried to do his best, but it is a simple way and Reed manages to do great stairs with this technique ... All the Best, dafi