dafi

Thank you Sirs, very appreciated! I have been absent for some time. This is my favorite picture of this trip 🙂 XXXDAn

And here a scale bigger on Hermione, from their FB site 🙂 XXXDAn

Thank you Keith for the video. This also nicely demonstrates the use of the 2 holes in Constitutions rudder 🙂 PS: Strange the link ends on Page 1 entry #1. Please refer to Page 38 entry #1140 🙂 All the best, DAniel

The ever curious modeler's eye certainly did not miss it in the last picture: Next step were then the crews at the capstan. In my stock of pre-Frankensteiners I still had a pack of cheap copies of Preiser figures that I had once received as a gift. For single figures too sloppy reproduced, in the bunch I thought still quite useful. So once again I broke bones and mixed everything up. Since I quickly noticed that I would have been lost with single figures, I had built a sample capstan bar for the assembly. And it came what had to come: Bones were broken, joints were twisted, heads were chopped off and put on again. Especially that with correct posture the arms were stretched under the bar and that the pressure was transferred with the chest, was a little tricky in the assembly. This posture prevented kinetic energy from building up when the bars struck backwards, the bars could not hit the guys in the chest area with force. So they were simply pushed backwards with less risk of injury. Since the space on the capstan bars is quite tight, the guys were glued together right away in six-packs, because I wouldn't have been able to fit them together inside of the ship. Then the sixpacks were sent to dress. Thereby I remembered again a small detail, which is shown on a contemporary document. The inner 5 men are red dressed Marins, the outer man at the bar is a blue dressed sailor. There is also a bluecoat at the swifter, the circulating rope that stabilizes the bars. This had the advantage as the marines could not do anything else except shoot, turn and pull were stuck in the middle, while the highly qualified sailors could quickly get out and away for maneuvers if necessary. So the inner five guys conjured up short coattails, painted and also provided for the white belts. A few had allowed themselves suit relief, the jackets and belts hang afterwards over the guns shoved to the side. Fit trials outside then looked like this. First test fittings looks still quite fluffy. But you can already see one thing, the expected fiddler sitting on the capstan drum does not fit there because of the next deck. One coan see, it works with the guns, tight fit, but it works. But it gets more claustrophobic once the deck beams are added. But it still gets much tighter, the knees are still missing. http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif Once the knees were added, it was a squeeze fit, no more air to press out, but it fits. No more surplus air in there ... XXXDAn

A long time ago, I had once packed the night house and the steering wheel on a small vignette to protect them, but this small deck then broke in the middle. Fortunately without further damage to the important parts. So the thought was to glue the parts back together, put two deck beams into the hull, the vignette on top and all is tidied up and safe. So I reinforced the bottom of the vignette because of the crack and placed it on the deck beams, fixed tiller rope underneath and rejoiced. Then I noticed that the rudder was then no longer moving, especially the tiller was nice to look at so far. So what follows: Demolition of the just built. The plan was to run the tiller rope in a loop under the night house to keep the movability. But the rope was already short trimmed ... So I threaded the old rope back, threading an auxiliary thread through it to thread the new one in. Was tricky, but worked. Then the new rope was in quickly and the loop was laid quickly too. But what a mess. The friction in the system was too high, rudder and tiller could not be moved. FUHUCK! Sewing machine oil didn't help either. Why? The friction just allowed to move the rudder when pulling on one side of the rope, but with the added other side, it was now just too much for the system. So the new rope with auxiliary thread were threaded out again and the old threaded back in ... But it still was a good decision, as the guys in the gunroom can no longer bang their heads against the tiller. Due to the thick skulls down there, the tiller sweep was already limited for a long time anyway. Ok, mobility is missing, but so there are at least no blokes that would have literally been knocked off the their stools. But in the meantime the small piece of deck looked a bit piddly to me, so it followed what had to follow - demolition: dafi is back in the modeler's life.

To warm up and get into the groove, I finally gave the Brodie Stove its colors. Since more than 2 years it stands a bit naked on the middle deck ... ... so I sprayed it a little black and put a touch of graphite on it ... ... and up to the place with it http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif XXXDAn

Here we go again, here we go, here we go, here we go. Awakened from the slumber, she is, my little chubby one with the black and yellow stripes that make slim. She wants to become pretty. Last September weekend, this sweetie wants to go out to party, wants to party in Amsterdam, in the ship museum. She is looking forward to it, and I am looking forward to it 🙂 XXXDAn

Several of Brays sketches show the red head too. So I believe it was contemporary. Colors to be found were mostely white or red. We had a discussion on or german forum and found no hard evidence so far of if it was only for the looks or served a reason. Best guess so far is, that it had to do with sealing the tompions. An educated one but still a guess ... XXXDAn

Reminds me on a certain ship in Portsmouth ... ... and one in Boston ... ... me heratic .. ... XXXDAn

Men were always very imaginative if it was to bring someone into a "better" world. here is the Fistgun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedgley_OSS_.38

As being a producer myself I would like to add and confirm some of the reasons said before: 1 - Keep it simple enough to give the unexperienced modeler a real chance of success. 2 - Do not tempt them too much. If it is said "for experienced modeler only" I would guess that most starters feel immediately a bit of hubris and will get into a venture that might them lead into failure. 3 - Good modelers know anyway where to "pimp" 🙂 Something I learnt from the De Agostini Victory build: Almost all of the modelers that finished the build were the ones, that followed the basic instructions without too much or no pimping. Almost all that wanted to "improve" the kit failed. And those are unfortunately the ones with the loudest voice in the social media ... XXXDAn

There is one: Gravity 😉 We have been discussing this feature in our german forum too. My strong believe is, that the shot was quite save in its holes as for its own weight. Since they were a very snug fit in the racks, they couldn't build up any momentum that would fling them outside. For this, they would have to have less weight. You can see from a bowling ball, that they are very difficult to move out of their holders when stored. With a toy soccer ball, the situation is quite different, as a breeze is enough because of the lack of gravity. If the cannon shot is almost sunk to its middle inside the rack, both the ship pitching, rolling and standing tilted should not be a problem. At least as long as the ship itself doesn't mind, after that it doesn't matter anyway 😉 XXXDAn

Here again are Mr Rivers drawings from the Victory. @Morgan: Did you find out the date of this drawing? And fitting to this the artefacts from Thorsminde, only horns were added XXXDAn

Do not see this door as a big point of water entry 🙂 I do not believe that a scupper for the door was needed. There was more water coming in from the waist - waves, rain and cleaning - and it ran along the waterway to the next scupper. As ships were not stable a scupper straight underneath the entry port would not have helped too much as the water would follow the way of gravity, following the angle of the masts and the motion of the waves. So just offer it a multitude of exhausts, one will be on the right place. And next moment this will be another one 😉 Just see the green circles in the picture above. XXXDAn

Anyway this is an 20 century addition 🙂 I love the expression "raised wooden welcome mat"! That made my day 🙂 🙂 🙂 - I know of no scuppers for the door, not today or even less in contemporary sources - There is a big scupper passing though the middle of the outside steps on todays Victory, but I always related this to the chain pumps. Stupid place to have it placed imho ... As for Allans question regarding the scuppers: the only contemporary source that I know for placement of scuppers on a first rate is the model LR0512 http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/66473.html XXXDAn XXXDAn See more info about the entry door here:

Here some pictures from the Invincible Wreck Site on Facebook. The only original stay and preventer with their mouses that I know, only 50 years before Big V. Interesting is, that they are completely served only in the area of the mouse, the rest of the mainstay is only wormed, the preventer apparently not ... XXXDAn source: https://www.facebook.com/InvincibleWreckSite

Wonderfully done! Thanx for showing. All the ebst, DAniel

Good one and wonderful! In our german site the question about the "vent trunks" came up too. Those are shown in the Vic today and are also displayed in the AOTS by McKay and this where the name was taken from. That´s why me too I incorporated them in my build, long before going to deeper resaerch and questioning sources like the modern authorities 🙂 My believe is that the principal source of the video is AOTS as other small bits fit in there too. All the best and enjoy the show, DAniel

Enjoy and shiver ... Thanx, Dan

And now on to new adventures. After I was once again amazed by the print results of the iron swivel gun, I wanted to try out something I had been thinking about for a while. One of the most time-consuming parts of the gun deck is the gun rigging, especially the side tackles. And you don't see much of it. Why not try something new there? A quick test shot ... ... which showed that in principle it fits http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif So I made it a bit more precise and quickly installed it. Still a bit much spiral spring, but I think something is possible. As a next step I made the ropes of the rigging a bit thinner, 0.3 mm instead of 0.4 mm diameter. I also broke up the uniformity a bit and added minimal variances. Old on the right, new on the left. Then I swung the brush, added shading to each colour as usual, and added some ink to the whole thing. This was the time for a little setting test. The inner planks were marked with a pencil, the knees were glued on and I noticed that the holes for the bolts were still missing... ... so I got out the shish kebab skewers with the incorporated drills and ... ... drilled all the way through the ship http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif Attached the side rigging to the gun and tested the position. Fits, only the breech rope is missing. The length is determined, all fittings are attached and ... ... wrapped the rope around the grape as in the Constitution. Since the breech rope is longer than the rest, this could be glued in place without any finger knotting ... ... and then the gun is pushed towards the ship's side, the guide rails are guided into the glued holes and the gun is placed, a little glue with the toothpick under the wheels and done http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif XXXDAn

Thank you Jonny!

A short excursus. The printer has once again spit out something, a small collaborative work from www.segelschiffsmodellbau.com A small iron swivel for older ships. Faramir had built the original file of the barrel, with me making a few more adations. Interesting are the dimensions of the trunnions with 0.3 mm and the matching eyebolt of the holder. This actually results in a fully movable gun even in this scale :-) All modern drawings known to me show the powder chamber handle always pointing upwards. After the first test prints I saw a Life-Fire video and realised that the handle was turned to the side and so the fuse hole was on top, otherwise the fuse would not have been able to reach it. So I turned the handle and inserted the fuse hole. And there they were, the new prints. For painting, I put the barrels on a needle and noticed that the difference in diameter is not very big. With a very dry brush I brushed them with black paint, which doesn't put to much volume on and rubbed them carefully with graphite on a Q-tip. I was most surprised that the firing hole is actually visible :-) And because it is so beautiful, different views. There you go, the bad boys may finally come 🙂 XXXDAn

Short interlude, "What if." I wonder what the Constitution would look like with a 12 cylinder sports engine? A contemporaneous anchor nozzle from HMS Royal George at Thorsminde actually still survives. A lead pipe with the ends flanged around. So new hawse inlays printed, with 3 mm inside, 4 outside and the curves at the flang. Hawse holes drilled out to the nea diameter, inlets pushed in ... ... and inside still another fake flange put on. Now the whole area is also neatly wallpapered in one piece, the closed port is no longer visible, and the intersection of the plastic strips is in the middle of the port and will be covered by the gun. XXXDAn

After that, I took care of the anchor hawses. In the kit, these go 90° perpendicular to the ship's axis and out downward. Considering that the ship is driven away from the anchor by the wind on the tensioned anchor cable, there would have been a nice bend in the tensioned cable. That's why the anchor nozzle has to sit parallel to the ship's axis with minimal downward slope. A toilet paper roll happened to be the right height and served as a rest for the Dremel. The anchor cable has about 2 mm in my scale, so printed short semi-finished tubes with 2.2 mm inside and 3 mm outside and glued them in and then still trimmed all after that. Then the cable was threaded ... ... and noticed, omg, there is missing the clearance. Often the anchor cables were still secured with various wrappings against chafing. In addition, I decided that the ship is represented before 1812, and there the bridle port, the foremost port was not cut in yet. This one was not equipped anyway and served to facilitate the anchor handling. So this port was closed and I noticed that this would probably result in a nasty patchwork on the internal planking. So came what had to come, a dafi did what a dafi has to do: Demolition! With these cruel pictures I just want to leave you ... XXXDAn

So far I had ever avoided, and the gun ports not yet clad inside. Was made up, so that one does not see the wooden slats and also file irregularities are concealed. First all 4 sides laminated with 0.25 polysterol ... ... then trimmed the inside with a scalpel ... ... built a small sanding block with a handle ... ... and neatened everything. Fortunately only 30 times and not 100 like the Vic. Saved the scraps, you can still fill up any gaps with them. XXXDAn