kmart

Looking great. Like how you made the rails. I may copy that techneque when i get to that step. Question for you. What brand of paint and color did you use for gun carrages. I have the me paint set and the carrage red. But it looks to bright. The color you used looks better

Thanks for posting. Great pictures. Beautiful models

Great build Jeff! You did Victory proud!

Continuing on, The stern windows, As the ME kit is of a modern version of the ship, the kit does not include the window like they do with the quarter galleries. But to look right, the windows need to be sized and be comparable to the quarter galleries. and did I mention they are TINY! Modern Stern The stern I'm aiming for... First Attempt. Did lots of math. Calculated all the spacers I needed. Cut up lots of tiny pieces of wood. Started framing out the windows using the spacers to make square frames Then added the two sets of vertical sashes? inside each frame. Again using the spaces to get them perfectly positioned So far so good. BUT, when I took them out of the jig. started to try and add the super tiny cross pieces. They were just too tiny to align right, and the surface area holding the frames together was soo small. The frames kept falling apart. I got a pile of wood pieces that looks like the first pic, but covered in glue. Attempt #2 Looking at the plans, I thought hmmm that kinda looks like a deck grating, but just larger holes... So, While I never successfully made my own gratings before. I kind knew the general idea. Lots more measurements, math and cutting more spacers.. I made a pile of these.... Glued them together. (this time they stayed stuck together) and got these. Cleaned them up... Still needs some more sanding and cleaning. Just set in place but.... They are actually the same height as the quarter gallery windows, even though they don't look like it in the pic. They came out way better than I expected.

Next up, start the gun-port lids. Soo they gun-port lids all come laser cut... Nice! But it would be too easy if they just fit in the ports. No chance of that! Actual, after I cut them out and sanded off the char, the height was perfect, but the width was about 1 mm too wide. Now as the lids will be open, no one in the world would notice them being 1 mm too wide. But it would bother every time i looked at her me sooo. they must be fixed. Because the hole for the cannon and the portholes are in the center, I cant just take 1 mm off one side. Need to take 0.5 mm of each side. Evenly and square. And then do it 64 times.. (16 ports a side x2 sides x top and bottom piece) There is no way I can cut that precise and that consistently on my mini table saw. Plus the piece are so small... Id loose a finger tip in the attempt. : -( Had to find another way. So I cut 2 strips of basswood the proper width of the ports. In this case exactly 15mm wide. Drew a center line on all the lid pieces Drew a center line on the strip of wood I cut Put some double sided tape on one one piece and More double sided tape and Sandwiched the second piece on top of the lids. Sanded down the 1/2 mm sticking up. Repeated on the other side. And you get... Yes they are all the same size. What I was more amazed at was the gun-port frames were remarkably consistent. With only a couple of minor exceptions, lids all nicely fit the ports without adjustments. I still have to add the tiny photo etched hinges, and then paint both sides. That shouldn't be to hard. What I'm really stumped on is how to attach the things to the hull. The bottom hang straight down so I can almost just glue them right to the hull. But the upper lid is angled up. And any for kind of attachment, the eyebrows will be in the way of the attachment point. Any ideas/ suggestions on how to attach the lids?

Marking the Copper line So first.... need to get the ship at the right angle to the reference baseline. The Keel is not parallel with the baseline. The bow end of the keel is about 8 mm higher than the baseline than the stern. When I roughed out my stand.. i didn't account for that and made them the same height. That's incorrect. The bow stand needs to be slightly higher. But NOT mm. something less than that. took me longer to do the geometry than to actually fix the stand. fix was just a shim of basswood glued on the bottom Then cleaned up. trimmed both to have similar silhouette Notice how the stand in foreground... the slot where keel rests is a bit higher.When the hull now is in the stand, is correct relative to the reference baseline in the plan. Next I need a waterline marker. I inherited the drafting / architecture tool from my Father. (Never used it until now) Taped a pencil to it and presto ...perfect waterline marker. calculated based on reference line + height of stand +height of top of copper-line. Adjusted pencil height to same... and marked away. Sorry... Didn't take a picture with just line. Here is taped right below the line and right above the bottom sill of the gun-ports. (ie bottom of white stripe). Checked bow and stern to make sure it looked parallel / aligned on both sides. Yes its level.. the picture is taken at a off angle. Annnd.. starting to paint Tape comes off Then I taped and painted between the top of the white stripe and the just below where the channel/chain-plates will go.

Hey Chuck. I have RW kit on my shelf. But years down the road befor i start her. Ill follow you build in the meantime. If you havnt aready. Search the forum. There was two fabulous builds of RF completed in 2019. Both with great build logs. Also. Before they went out of business. Euromodel had a user build practicion on their website free to download. Had 13 or 14 large pdf on slmost every aspect of build. If you dont have that but want it. PM me and i can send you. K

Jonathan. My sympathy on the loss of your Mother. I like how you built your sheaves. Im aproaching that part soon. Hadnt yet figured out how i was going to male them. May do a varient of your techneque. K

Congrats. Very nicly done. I also like how your sails came out

Lol. Well they are medical syrnges. But wont be injecting myself with glue using them. That would be a quick way to harden the arteries. 😁 Not pointy hypodermic needle . More like eyedropper tip. Dont need perscription. They actually work great for applying glue. Very small amounts in controlled fashion in exact spot. Glue doesnt dry out or clog in there. Just use a micro drill or t pin as a cap. Glue stays good. No clogs. Have used same syringe for a year now as my primary glue application tool. John.and usedtosail. Thanks for the positive comments. Means a lot to me. Im not so much fast as ocd. Wont touch the model for months and months. Then i get a long week like over Christmass and i disapear into worshop for entire duration. Only emerging to eat and sleep. I get obsessed to complete a phase and reach that next milestone.

Sooo. Starting the white stripe decided to go with Vallejo paints instead of my old stock of floquil. After testing on some sacrificial wood. Vallejo was just so much easier to use. Went on with a brush very easy. levels right out nice, no smell. and the color look good. I was also really worried about using that really old Floquil. It looked ok, but didn't want to risk the model with it. This is coat #1. you can barely see it.. but its there I put on very thin layer at a time. it levels out very nice straight from the bottle. not thinned. Dries quick so I left 1 hr between re-coats This is around coat #4. After last coat (#6) I also started preparing the Eyebrows (Rigloi??) cleaned them up and painted black. Will glue them on.. so its wood to wood before I put black on the hull. Used double sided tape to stick them to a board. Made it much easier to hold them while painting Nest up.. While looking at pictures of the real ship.. I did see that there is a series of bolts on the side of the hull Basically just below the sill of and between each of the main gun ports : . : 2 - 1 -2 pattern So thinking about if I wanted to add this detail. I haven't really seen it on other builds. but they are noticeable enough on the real ship to at least consider adding. I'm guessing these are at back of the ring bolts used for the cannon tackle. the pattern and location certainly seem to match. Thinking ahead for the inboard green bulwarks on the spar deck will also have all the bolts heads . So I did a few tests to see if I can simulate bolts at the right scale to be used for both. Made a few test strips with very small brass nails but the heads still looked way to big/ out of scale. So I went and looked at several of the other Connie build logs I follow. JSGerson log. He had a ingenious method with a brass die punch. His turned out great with that method .. but I neither have a punch or the patients or skill John had to make the 1000s bolt heads by that method and come out looking good. UsedtoSail's is my other go to log (I reference that all the time. Its basically a build practicum the way he organized it!) He used small drops of white glue. turned out looking real good as well. and easy to replicate. so i copied the white glue technique. (using my yellow wood glue). I apply the glue using a small medical syringe. can put out very small drops. so I mad a test plate and painted with black. Looks big in the picture.. but the "bolt heads" are ~0.5 mm diameter. so they look the right scale. That test strip took me all of 1 minute to make all those heads.. So that looks like a winner as the way to go. I'll definitely do this for the bolts on the bulkheads. Now I just need to decide if I want to add the bolts to the side of the hull below the gun-ports. Probably will .. but still TBD That's about it for now. Will let the white acrylic paint fully cure for the week.... while I go to back work for the week. Want it fully Dry before I use masking tape on it. I've read that acrylics dry to the touch fast, but take a while to truly harden and cure. Else they can peel right off. Should be ready to add the black next weekend. Then she will really start to look like Connie.

Hello Delphic, I'll grab a front row seat on this one. Right at the start of your build. Always liked the looks of USS Rattlesnake. Always; eyeing that one when it goes on sale... maybe after I finish the kits already sitting on my shelf. 🙂

1 more update. So when I put in the gundeck planking and bulwarks... at the time I didn't put in the green waterway. Time to correct that. Because its the gun deck and will be barely visible.. I didn't try to do the proper shape Just left it a rectangular profile. Painted up several strips and added. And side view...If you look close in addition to the waterway... I've been adding some of the pre-paint details You can see I have the lower deck port lights also installed. They will get painted in position when the hull is painted. I ordered a bottle of Microscale Krystal Clear. After painted.. will use that to make the porthole glass... as well as the glass panes in the stern windows. I'll add the Scupper ports and the gun-port eyebrows next before I paint the black. Also created and installed molding /trim between the channels. In AOS it actually shows 3 rows of trim. the one as seen above. another one that runs through the center of the spar deck gun-ports and a third below the channels but above the gundeck gun-ports. The trim itself is 1 mm high. by 2.3 mm wide and there is a grove down the middle. The groove is 1/2 mm deep Took me forever to figure out how to make that. Still deciding if I will add the other two rows. To make , I uses a dremel (sears actually) router table that I have (but never used until now) Used the smallest engraving bur bit. And was super careful not to route my fingers when working with strips that small Hopefully fairly soon I'll get to post some pictures with her white strip on. 🙂 K

More updates So in addition to making the channels. I'm getting the hull closer to painting. First step.. Sanded the whole hull with 320 grit. Next I used Areo Gloss Filler to coat the hull. This is what they used back in the 70 and 80s to make model rockets. Its basically a lacquer based sanding sealer with fine filler. They discontinued it for years.. but was in the hobby shop and they had some in stock. So I bought. Brushed on the hull... Let dry Sand again 320 grit Second coat + sand. And the result.. going to add some of the hull details before I actually start.. hut the hull itself is all ready for paint As for the paint. In my stash I actually have some still good Floquil. New bottles unopened until recently to check to confirm they are still good 2 bottles of engine Black ( plan to use this. will test to make sure its not glossy) 1 Bottle of Dull Black 1 bottle of Grimy Black. (might be good for the cannon barrels) 1 new bottle of flat while (White Stripe) 1 navy aged white I took a few large squares of basswood. (same as hull material) first prepped with the Areo Gloss. Now am paining with the colors to see how they come out before I commit on the hull.

Time for my next post. While I haven't posted in awhile I have been making progress on my build. First up.... I finally got around to fixing the forward gun-port. From way back last year.. when I framed in the gun-ports, I used a jig to ensure all the ports were equally sized and square. The jig also spanned athwart ship to do the matching gun-port on opposite side. This worked great for almost all the gun-ports. The foremost port is where the hull curves in to at the bow. Well using my jig,, these forward ports came out square and matching with its pair. But because of the curve of the hull and geometry...:-) it was larger than the other ports.... Fix was to insert a new side piece of the port to make it the proper width. Then added a piece of hull planking (vertically). (i know wrong but no way to put in proper horizontal planks that small). sanded the new plank in flush. Later I'll use some wood filler. Once painted it should be invisible. Looks pretty rough hear but it cleaned up well.. better pictures of fix later. Next up... started roughing out the channels. cut out blanks to the proper size... From plans... measured and positioned them on the hull where the belonged. Because there is not a lot of surface area to later glue these on, and because of the stress of the shrouds... 1) drilled small holes in the hull facing edge. 2) drilled matching holes in the hull. 3) used small brass rode.. into the matching holes. So now the channels stay in place.. (not glued yet. But the rods will help me align them later and give a lot more strength when I do glue them on. Speaking of gluing. I am planning to attach the channels permanently prior to painting. Want a wood to wood matting. to add strength. ie not tried to glue to a painted surface. The risk is these will be in the way / risk breaking during other parts of the build. Well see how it works out. Next, I used Microsoft Visio.. build a template to match the channels. Then figured out exactly where the notches for the chainplates will go. also spent hours going over the plans... all the way through Standing and running rigging to figure out where eyebolts will also go. Want this all added in advance of attaching to the hull. More details on the channels. Notches, eyebolts and some of the wire rods.