gak1965

Looking great!

The coamings and bulwarks are Tamiya XF-80 "Royal Light Gray", also labelled 'Navy Gray' (https://www.tamiyausa.com/shop/acrylic-paint-flat-mini-10ml/acrylic-mini-xf-80-navy-gray/). One presumes therefore a standard Royal Navy color although you couldn't prove it by me. The waterway is Tamiya XF-23 "Light blue" George

Thanks for all the encouragement. An update. I fortunately re-checked the sizes. The largest coaming was too wide, so I adjusted, painted and mounted them in the hull. Scrap wood was placed around the coamings to give the deck planks something to anchor to: The deck planking stained with 'maple' stain: and the first three deck planks installed. Much more planking to go, but it's a start. Regards, GAK

Absolutely amazing job! Calling it the 'Revell Cutty Sark' seems to be a misnomer at this point. As much scratch building as you've done, I'd put it in the scratch section. I can understand why you wouldn't necessarily want to put the figures in place, 1:96 is a kind of awkward scale for them. At 1:350, no one expects figures to be detailed, they kind of add some surface interest, and I've seen ships (particularly aircraft carriers) where they gave a proper sense of the bustle. That said, I included some of the 1:96 figures on my (out of the box) Revell Constitution. But, they were figures painted by my then 7 and 9 year old daughters and the model was a present for their grandparents. The 'toy look' wasn't as much of an issue.

Very, very brief update. I've been busy with work work, home work, and what might be called vaccination logistics and it's kept me away from the building table. As a first step back, I've built the four coamings for the main deck. I like to put them in first and fit the deck planking against them rather than putting the planking down first. It is a bit of a pain, particularly when the coamings and the deck planking don't match exactly (i.e. always), but, it's how I've done all the others and I don't intend to change now. This took way longer than I originally intended, as the smaller coamings are very fiddly - if they are even vaguely off they look really bad - I wound up making multiple pieces for the small ones until they finally looked right. The 1/8 by 1/32 segments are eventually going to be the hatch covers. I cut them so that I could place the 1/32 by 1/32 segments I used to define the edges of the hatch covers in a way that everything would fit properly. Anyway, they are built, sanded and the bottoms are sanded to match the camber of the hull. They aren't painted because I realized I was out of the particular gray I'm using for the bulwarks and coamings. Once they are painted and installed, time for the main deck.

I will follow with interest. A quick question. Do you have access to a laser cutter or use a commercial service? If the latter, which one and what did they need to do the cutting? George K

Good luck Brad, I wish you all the best in your new efforts!

Heck, that's a DDG, twice the displacement of our most recent class of frigates.

Now that is looking ahead. I'm obviously well past that point, but if the Discovery has them, I'm definitely going to drill them while the waterway and planksheer are in place but no stanchions or bulwarks.

My only expectation of a call from the Smithsonian is to tell me no in advance...

Hi Brian, I was planning on installing the vents and I expect you are right on that, and it will require a bit of rethinking the order of installation. Based on that, logic says to install the decks and coamings first, and probably cut the bulwark sheaves before installing the vents and then the topgallant rail. That way, it's still open, but I'm not mashing the vents with drills, or knives, or bits of deck. Just out of curiosity, did you use a drill or a pin vise to make the holes? I need to see if I have a large enough bit, but after I broke off a mostly rigged jibboom on the Niagara it needs to be a very big hole for me to pull out my drill. I usually install the coamings first, and then the deck. Even though it is a bit of a pain, I think it looks a little more 'real', but not sure about doing so on the Fish. At a minimum, I think I will install a (shortened) coaming on pre-laid deck where the aft cabin facade sits on the main deck. Otherwise, I think I'll need to run the planks to an under-coaming support that runs the full beam of the ship, and the longer such extensions are the harder it is to maintain the camber properly. Elsewhere (including on the poop) I should be able to install the coamings first without much problem. Thanks again for the tip! George

Brad, Vladimir, Brian, and Cathead, thank you for the answers and the encouragement. I've made some progress since the last post. Step 1 was to install the stanchion extensions between the main rail and the topgallant rail. Before I did that, I spent some time restaining sections of the rail so that the stain variability was reduced to something I considered acceptable. At each stanchion between the poop and the forecastle, I measured in 3/32 from the outboard edge of the main rail and marked the location. For the poop and the forecastle where there were no stanchions, I kept the same spacing, with the exception of the stern, where I increased the number of stanchions by three fold to properly define the stern (as is shown on the plans). I then glued pre-painted 1/16 square segments in place, using the marks I had just made, and aligning the angle of the extension to the angle of the stanchion beneath. I made no effort to get the length exactly right, as I was just going to cut the excess off later. I used the same strategy for the stern bulwarks as before. Put the segment into boiling water, strap it in pace around the stanchion extensions and then clamp in place until dry. The only difference is that I pre-painted the inside of the bulwarks before gluing them in place so that I wouldn't have to put any paint on the main rail. Once in place I used a cutting blade on my Dremel to trim them down to size. I had to reseat a number of them. Unlike the primary stanchions which sit in holes in the planksheer, these were CA glued directly to the rail and the bond was not as strong. No matter, cut another section, glue it in, trim the tops; by that point the bulwark was shaped and not going anywhere. The ship now has its primary coat of paint. I mentioned earlier that McKay wanted to paint her green, and so I have done so. This means I have kind of slipped away from the historical now, but I'm trying to be rational about it. The green I'm using seems fairly similar to a number of modern versions of green where the name at least appears to have been in circulation at the relevant time (it is pretty close to the Great Western Railroad colors). I only painted the green from the planksheer to the load waterline, which will be the edge of the sheathing. Below that I painted it black since I think that will provide the best color for the underside of the plates. Similarly, I painted from the planksheer to the bulwarks flat black. It needs a bit of touch up, but letting the paint fully dry before I do so. I don't know why McKay ultimately painted her black, but when people make changes like that I assume that the answer is money. Maybe green paint cost more. I may take one more non-historical step on the build, and that is to pick out the planksheer with a very thin line of gold paint, to kind of highlight the green to black transition. My logic is I think it would look nice, and if McKay had the money, he would have done so. We'll see - step 1 is to do the touch up. One final thing - this is a big model. I went through an entire bottle of black paint doing the hull. George K

Really looking amazing. When you are done, is it for your home, or are you thinking of offering it to Vicksburg NMP?

If you don’t mind me asking, what is the problem? I haven’t done the Dory but I have done several other Model Shipways kits. The other thing to do is search on the forums for a log of the same ship and put your question there. I know my co-builder of the Flying Fish @Keithbrad80 has built the MSW Dory.

Reading Ed T's log on the Young America is an almost surreal experience. The man is an artist in mixed media that also has solid engineering behind it. I don't know if you've ever seen any of the ship models in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (this is the one I remember most https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijksstudio/works-of-art/ship-models/objects#/NG-MC-651,0, which is 4.5 meters long and 4.1 meters tall), but Ed's work could take pride of place there or the NMM in Greenwich, or anywhere else for that matter. Just amazing.

Very nice. I love the new storm gangways and the ladders look great as well. I'm embarrassed to ask, but what are the little huts around the capstans? Passat had them as well, but I never gave them much thought. Skylights for a cabin below?

Hello all. FIrst thank you for the assistance and the encouragement, it has been very helpful. Over the last couple of days I carved and attached the covering board/main rail. There are two laser cut pieces, everything else needs to the bent or carved. The laser cut pieces are 1/4 inch and are supposed to project 1/16 of an inch, so I marked 3/16" in from the edge of the counter and aligned the laser cut pieces on them, which alas left a gap that needed filling with a piece of cut 1/4 x 1/16 wood. The covering board remains 1/4" x 1/16 until just abaft of bulkhead 14 (where there will be an edge board, supported by a set of knees eventually. This is straight enough to manage with some bending. It shrinks to 3/16" by 1/16" from there to bulkhead 5, and this could be handled with a bit of bending. The remaining sections (6 all told) had to carved in matching pairs from 1/2" x 1/16" stock. Two sections from bulkhead 5 to bulkhead 2, two from bulkhead 2 to bulkhead A, and then a final set of segments that reach around the knightheads (and had to be carved around them). A bit of sanding to resolve some minor shaping issues on the poop deck, some stain and we get the following: I also took the opportunity to put some ceiling planks under the forecastle. I painted these white rather than the grey used elsewhere because I expect it to be dark in there, and want as much light as possible reflecting off any internal details. I was disappointed at how differently the various basswood strips took the stain. It's less obvious than the photos tend to show, and will likely be even less so once the topgallant rails are on. I am putting additional coats of stain on the lighter rails in hopes of balancing them a little more. Nevertheless, I may yet paint it buff or brown rather than leave it bright (at least on the inner sides) as the instructions suggest. George K

You are selling yourself way too short. I would be thrilled if my efforts were half as "crude" as yours...

Yep. I tend to associate holystoning with naval vessels rather than commercial ships, the former carrying way more crew per unit weather deck than a commercial vessel. USS Constitution, a vessel of similar length, had a crew of 450 versus what, maybe 25-50 on a typical clipper? Frequent holystoning apparently damages the deck; there is a reference in Wikipedia about the US Navy at some point saying stop because it was damaging the decks of the battleships (even the Iowa's had teak decks). Amusingly, in the early 1970's novelization of the Star Trek episode "City on the Edge of Forever", Edith Keeler mentions how clean Spock and Kirk have made the storeroom, and Kirk thinks that something finally came from doing all that holystoning as a midshipman.

Thank you all for the kind words and the encouragement. I've followed your various builds ( @Vladimir_Wairoa your Cutty Sark, @mbp521 your USS Cairo and @Keithbrad80's Flying Fish) with interest. Since at least two of you are further with the Fish than I am, a question, did you bend a 1/16 by 3/16 strip to make the main rail or carve it out of something like a 1/16 x 1/14? I don't think I'll need to do anything special for the covering board at the poop - it's pretty straight except where there is a laser cut section - and there is a lot of surface for the adhesives to grab on to. The forecastle covering board may also be okay with a bit of a bend, so long as I start at the forecastle. I think that the main rail will probably be fine with some bending (or maybe some bending, but in two sections) but would be curious how you handled it. On a related note, to any of the clipper folks out there, the decks of the Fish were listed as white pine. Anyone have any notion of how or if they were finished, if at all? Just wondering to decide what kind of stain to put on the deck planks. I can use 'pine' stain, but if they used some treatment that made it darker, it would be nice to know. @Keithbrad80 had a great method for making his deck look a bit worn, but I like to build the ships as if they are headed out on their maiden voyages, so curious what they would have looked like new.

Okay, well I've put the starboard bulwarks in place. In order to get the stern bulwarks to fit well, I soaked them in boiling water so that they would become ductile, and then fitted them as tightly on stern as I could realistically do with just the clamps and no glue, and then let them dry overnight so that when I did apply them they wouldn't create large gaps as they became less waterlogged. The next day, I had a nice set of U-shaped planks. The next step was to attach the planks, and then start the process of final hull and bulwark shaping. That is not yet complete, but here are a couple of views of the ship to date: Ultimately I did not build up the bulkheads to even the poop and the bulwarks, but rather sanded it down because I thought it would give a better look. This seems to be the case, and I'm glad I took that path. I've tried to tread lightly with filler on the bulwarks as it would be bad to have a bunch of it oozing through any gaps and appearing on the open waist of the ship. One nice thing about warships is that they have ceiling planks all along the bulwarks that hide all kinds of gaps. For the clipper history buffs, a quick question. Does anyone know if the stanchions on the Fish were extensions of the frames, or whether they were floating stanchions fitted between the frames? It doesn't matter to the model, I'm just curious. When I got some initial information on Discovery I learned about the floating stanchions that were apparently common on a lot of later wood construction, but I don't know when the transition occurred, and I still find it interesting for some obscure reason. George K

Wow. Looking forward to the new photos! George

Hi Brad, haven't seen an update in a couple of weeks. How is everything going? George K

Thanks for the visits and the likes. I've started on the bulwarks, putting a temporary batten in place to position the stanchions and then securing the bases with CA glue. The somewhat eclectic order of stanchion installation was (at least in theory) to prevent pressure on the batten from causing deformation - I put a number on each end and then installed port and starboard pairs where I thought they might do the most good in terms of maintaining the 'natural shape'. As with most people, I mad the stanchions longer than necessary with the intention of cutting them down to size. Once all the stanchions were in place, I started putting the bulwarks on. Before I could do that, I realized that I needed the planksheer to extend all the way to the knightheads (otherwise there was a gap between the garboard strake and the forecastle bulwark, so I fabricated two planksheer extensions. The bulwarks are made with 1/32 by 3/32 planks. I've only completed one, and have not yet completed the section around the stern, which is going to require some serious steam bending. After the planks were in place, I used my Dremel to cut the stanchions down to size, and used a bit of filler to fill any gaps. You may note that the final plank extends a bit over the stern bulkheads. It looks like that is not the case uniformly across the after bulkheads. The further aft, the more it appears that the 5 planks will reach the top of the bulkhead pretty exactly. I'll need to see how many bulkheads are impacted. If it's only one or two, I will build up the bulkhead with some scrap to level it off. If it's most of them, I'll sand down the bulwarks until it runs smoothly to the forecastle. Honestly, my suspicion is that I will do the former. I think it much more likely that I will get an even set of bulwarks if I add 2 or three extensions to the bulkheads rather than try to sand them down well into the waist (the forecastle looks pretty good - no serious mismatches there. That may mean adjusting the aft cabin when it is installed, but I'll at least be aware of it ahead of time. One thing to keep reminding myself is that building a ship is a question of making the adjustments when things don't follow the plans exactly. Every ship I've ever made has required some adjustment in order to make it work. The Niagara needed a huge adjustment on the gunports. If you had followed the plans exactly you would wind up with carronades that hit the ceiling of the gunports. Evolve and adapt.

BTW, you will see many more defects than anyone else looking at the model. A) you know where they are and b) every builder is the most critical judge of their own work. And 1/32 inch is what, 6 inches at full scale (it’s 1:192 I think)? At the rate they turned those Casablanca class jeeps out, it wouldn’t surprise me if they had a sponson or two off way more than 6 inches... I’ve wondered on more than one occasion if some of our models are more perfect than the original ships.