Roger Pellett

How about a sight glass for checking boiler water level?

And of course, you can make up your own custom color by mixing artist oils, the kind sold in tubes, with linseed oil.

How about a sight glass for checking boiler water level?

And of course, you can make up your own custom color by mixing artist oils, the kind sold in tubes, with linseed oil.

Aaaaand - I'm back. The recovery period took longer than planned but now I'm back wearing a contact lens in both eyes and able to see properly again. Its early days but I think I see a little improvement from the surgery already although its supposed to take about six months to get the full benefit.
Anyway I am back with Castillo Loarre and making progress again.
The last area that needs blocks is the octagon tower. A suitably fiddly thing to finish with. Windows and the triangle on the template suggest there is some sort of bastion on the other four faces. The guide is notably sketchy in this area so its been back to the drone video of the real thing. That seems to confirm the bastions although at a much shallower angle than the template suggests. I also started the first rows of roof tiles.


The area at the foot of the tower is also difficult to make out but I installed a row of blocks and will sand then back as a slope


Looking over work from before the surgery I found an annoying fox paw. Note the two windows in the outer wall

And on the inside .... Maybe I really did need the eye surgery!

I deliberated for a couple of days about anyone caring and reluctant to start tearing stuff down at the end of the build. Fear of a visit by the Guardians of Loarre Castle finally won out and down it came.

The shaping of the bastions on the outer side of the tower has been completed. The inner ones need to be sanded to shape.

This whole area is only vaguely referred to in the guide. Back to the video to try to assess how to finish the area around the half dome. The model departs from reality here and seems to have blocks covering the floor and overhanging the outer walls. That will wipe out half the height of the dome. The real thing has a parapet part way round the wall so I'm going to try that and use the tile pieces to cover the floor

So I have started the parapet. The tiles are going to be a nuisance


So this is where I am now. I ran out of blocks although if there had been less damaged blocks I would have made it. Just tile pieces to use now.
I'm looking forward a bit, it occurs to me that I need to completely finish this element of the castle before adding it to the base. I need to add the ground material and that also means adding the figures because I need to cover their bases with the ground stuff. So after some serious sanding and filling there is going to be a switch to the paint bench
The ground looks like it is gravel in the videos. I need to think what to use for that. The kit provides a very small amount of white granules that is not going to cover the area in question. I need to start researching railway scenery elements I think
Its great to be back. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading all the spectacular work being done on this forum while I have been recovering.
Thanks for looking in
Alan.
 
 
 

Doing the last finishing touches on the rear of the Snowplow:
 

 
Railings have been added, a steam pressure gauge and the inevitable broom to clean up the floor:
 

 
I can now glue (permanently) the roof.
 
Yves

Guy, if you have bought your Byrnes saw or (or any other mini saw with a 1/2 in miter gage slot), by all means buy the NRG’s thin rip fixture.  I just finished cutting 70+ hatch boards with my saw using this little fixture.  These boards are only 1/32” thick (1/2 mm?).  It made the job quick and easy.  Buy directly from the, NRG office.
 
Roger
 
 

I don't know if it is the same in Sweden, but in the U.S., "raw linseed oil" is as it says, linseed oil with nothing in it. What is also sold as "boiled linseed oil" isn't boiled at all, but is rather linseed oil with some Japan dryer added to speed the oil's polymerization (drying.) Additionally, "food grade" (meaning "you can eat it") linseed oil and "flax seed oil" often sold in health food stores are essentially the same product, although sometimes produced by slightly different processes. Food grade flax seed oil is also produced according to safe food-processing protocols while non-"food grade" products are not and may be unsafe to eat. 

Although US Navy aircraft carriers are prominent features of WW II operational histories and battle accounts very little seems to have been written about the nuts and bolts of their construction.  (I don’t have Norman Friedman’s book so maybe I’m overlooking something.). This build really highlights the complexity of these vessels.  Well done!
 
Roger 

MDF is just a substrate, a blank canvas.  It can be finished with a variety of finishes.  If the finish is tasteful and well done it will look fine.  For example, MSW member Druxey is a master at applying faux marble and wood burl finishes to ordinary base materials.  Unfortunately I can’t come close to matching his artistic skills.
 
A caution- MDF is a wood fiber product and can and will warp from changes in ambient moisture. It is therefore necessary to balance the two opposing sides of the baseboard.  A while ago, I glued a piece of veneer to one surface while leaving the other exposed.  It warped like a banana.  So, if you paint or otherwise finish one surface it’s necessary to likewise treat the other.
 
Roger
 
 
 
 

I’m Assuming that your Tar Colored Wash is what Americans would call an “oil based wood stain”.  This is nothing more than artist oil colors mixed in linseed oil so diluting the stain with more linseed oil should work fine.  I agree with Druxey that stains don’t cure rapidly as they are intended to be top coated with varnish.  There is a product called “Japan Dryer” that when added to linseed oil based coatings speeds up curing.  It should be available wherever you buy paints.
 
Roger
 

I’m Assuming that your Tar Colored Wash is what Americans would call an “oil based wood stain”.  This is nothing more than artist oil colors mixed in linseed oil so diluting the stain with more linseed oil should work fine.  I agree with Druxey that stains don’t cure rapidly as they are intended to be top coated with varnish.  There is a product called “Japan Dryer” that when added to linseed oil based coatings speeds up curing.  It should be available wherever you buy paints.
 
Roger
 

I’m Assuming that your Tar Colored Wash is what Americans would call an “oil based wood stain”.  This is nothing more than artist oil colors mixed in linseed oil so diluting the stain with more linseed oil should work fine.  I agree with Druxey that stains don’t cure rapidly as they are intended to be top coated with varnish.  There is a product called “Japan Dryer” that when added to linseed oil based coatings speeds up curing.  It should be available wherever you buy paints.
 
Roger
 

OK.  Forward part of the decking complete.  I added the metal pieces around the sides of the wood decking, also.  I'm not going to put in all of those hatches in the small square cutouts until the end.  Same techniques as before.

Since your model was purchased in 1954, it would be of the original Bluenose, not Bluenose II.  Bluenose II was not launched until 1964.

$1500+ buys a lot of tools and books!

$1500+ buys a lot of tools and books!

$1500+ buys a lot of tools and books!

$1500+ buys a lot of tools and books!

Treenails... 
There have been many discussions here on the forum; Treenails, yes or no. 
For me: yes. It's a lot of work, but for me it adds value.
The idea is to add the treenails and then paint the hull with diluted Tamiya paints. This worked last time with toothpicks and ramin wood, but the cherry wood does not provide enough contrast. That is why I purchased walnut strips with a diameter of 1 mm, these provide sufficient contrast with the cherry wood to be able to paint over later.
 
There is not much information for the Mary Rose, only the diameter of the treenails. The frames also do not have an ordered structure to create a treenail diagram.
Therefore, back to the method on my previous model. This creates a schedule that has some structure. This will not match the real ship at all. but it looks good (to me).
 
The Mary Rose info, 
Further in the book it says :  We will investigate this further later...
My treenails are indeed 0.2mm too thick. But I couldn't find smaller strips in walnut and 1 mm drills are cheap here

The frame diagram 

Plan B


The strips : ordered on monday, delivered on teusday.

There should be approximately 5500 to 6000 holes between the keel and the first wale. This work requires new tools 

Drilling
Adding the treenails (and my very first hammer, still in service)

Work in progress

Great pictures of an interesting vessel.
 
The engine appears to be a compound version of a Western Rivers steamboat engine.  Western Rivers defined as the Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri watershed.  Most of these engines were single expansion; steam from the boiler was expanded in the cylinder and exhausted to the atmosphere.  The heat energy in the steam at atmospheric pressure was therefore lost.  This engine has a second larger cylinder arranged in tandem with the high pressure (HP)cylinder.  After being expanded in the HP cylinder the steam was piped into the second cylinder where it expanded further.  By expanding the steam sequentially in two separate cylinders they, the cylinders, remained at a more constant temperature.
 
It is also likely that the pipe in the foreground from the LP cylinder going through the deck leads to a condenser below.  This used river water to condense the steam, recovering the heat energy remaining in the steam from 212F to the temperature of the river water.
 
Roger

How did you cut the slots for the metal inserts, free hand with a small power-drill and a saw or cutting disc?

Wooden slats were removed from the inside of the bulwarks and a deck was installed.

As a result, the rear part of the model looks like this

I am NOT criticizing the quality of the kit or the enjoyment that casual hobbyists might get from assembling it.  I am criticizing marketing it as Santa Maria Boat. If we don’t have reliable design information for Santa Maria, even less is known about the small boats that she may or may not have carried.  There is some scholarship coming from the excavation of the “Red Bay Galleon” found in Newfoundland.  Accurate drawings exist for one of her whaleboats and  a more typical small boat called a “Barca” has been excavated but I have been unable to find anything published about this boat.  These boats are also 100 years later than the boat in the model kit.  A c1570 Spanish whaleboat unfortunately has nowhere near the marketing appeal as Santa Maria.
 
Roger