Salty Sea Dog

robin b. - Thank you for your interest. You will not be disappointed.
 
 
tlevine - Thank you for this important tip. I did not even think about this. I will take your advice and redo the incorrect frames.
Thanks,
 
Marc

All the frames and chokes in the long clamp. Nothing has been glued yet.


 
 
These are the frames from the book from Ab Hoving. The original plans. This will be for my POB and it will be a only a hull.

as an illustration to the 'facial expression'
 

I think I already posted the link to more of my pics of the ship:
https://picasaweb.google.com/101597346346552139735/UtrechtsStatenjacht?authuser=0&feat=directlink

BWPETERS;
Always liked the Dutch ships, I am a Dutchman living in the US. I will let you know if I need more detailed pictures of the Utrecht besides what I can find on the Net. I like all round en flat bottom boats plus the many Staten, Prinsen en admiral jachten. The war jacht from Abel Tasman is impressive as well.
 
In due time I know I would like to have more pictures of her carvings. I need more different angels. Also het boegbeeld (figurehead), the lion. The facial expression is unique.
 
Marc

These are the last shots with the flags in place. Taken on a light table.
I painted the VOC emblem on the flags as this was the era that the VOC had yachts. I omitted the one sided British flags that came with the kit.
In a couple of months I will add the display case pictures.
 
Thanks for viewing.
Marc

Different angles and close ups.

Jadzo,
 
Thanks for your kind remarks. Regarding the figures, no no primer was use. I just washed the figures, and using hobby paint just applied it directly upon the gilded metal. All the colors adhered very easily.
 
Thanks for dropping by.
 
MIchael

Hi friends:
It seems that I am approaching the final steps, now in the process of placing the sails on the masts.  As the first one I selected the fore sail or fore course.  One thing to mention is the great number of rigging it has:  18 lines for this sail only!!
 
Here some pictures:
 

 
Thanks for your likes and comments.
 
Saludos, Karl
 

Hi guys:
 
These past two weeks I finished fixing the sails to the spars corresponding to the main and mizzen masts.  Also adding more details to the sails and spars:
 

 
Thanks for your likes.
 
Saludos, Karl

Cheers Max, we work the same way then.
 
I have been working with the tops. It's funny how fast this step feels after doing slow work like the ratlines.
 
What I've done is making holes for the  connections for the ropes/next level deadeyes holders.
 
I also tried to make the skanskläder for the mainmast:
 

 

 

 

 
 
/Matti
 
 

Thanks Mark! I haven't fully decided but I may wait for Vasa II. But I'm lousy at just waiting when building things. It kills the passion and I can only do one project at one time. It's the way I keep focus.  
 
 
/Matti  

Hi Matti!
 
This is looking great! The dead eyes on the real ship almost look too small! Hope that helps!

Right, back to boats.
 
I've took the plunge and fitted the first of my 'next to the garboard' planks.
I forgot to take photos of the process I went through to come to the final fitting, I'll do that for the next post.
It may come across a little backwards, sorry about that.
 
The plank itself didn't actually need too much spilling (little worried about that), only the prow end needed work and I must confess at this point. I did apply sideways bending.
 
You can never have enough pins, I haven't used the tiny pins that came with the kit. Just hope the glue holds over time.
 

 
The lines seem quite nice.
 

 
Again at the stern at this point needed very little work?
 

 
Edge to edge fit seems good and of course glue was applied along the mating edges.
 

 

Hi Keith,
 
He is indeed a Marmaduke aka a Great Dane and his name is Bram, quite an old boy now aged 9 (I lost my bitch Great Dane 2 years ago).
Believe it or not he's the smaller of my two dogs as I have an Irish Wolfhound too.
 

 

 
I've been working my way through the videos, they are brilliant.

Hi Mobbsie,  Thanks for stopping by.  I am really looking forward to the next adventure.  Thanks to you and Grant for letting me play.   
 
Thanks also to the "likes" they are always appreciated.
 
Time for a small update.  I have been working on the fiddly bits. The kit supplied parts are plywood or plastic so they needed to be cloned into a more natural material.  The cleats, blocks, spar and oar holders were all scratched from oak.
 

 
The plywood cradle was remade out of Mahogany.
 

 
The rudder is mounted loosely until I blacken the brass pin head, The cleats and oar holders are mounted.
 

 
I milled slots into bits of left over oar handle to act as keepers for the rudder suspension leather piece.  I have not completely figured out how to terminate them.  You can see them closer up in the second picture.
 

 
The paint tests are finally over.  I had some trouble finding the correct paint that would not creep under the masking tape.  My oldest daughter paints a lot of fabric and both she and the Admiral recommended a brand named Tulip.  It is the stripe on the left and the obvious choice.
 

 
The sail painting and rigging are next but I am heading to St Louis for the NRG meeting so they must wait.  
 
Thanks for looking.

Hi Mates,
 
Continuing with cannon door assemblies; I first looked through the 60 or so inserts that I cut out looking for those that would fit right away. Found a few, some minor edge sanding, and then glued the outer parts of the doors with the inner trim pieces.
 
Used a bit of painters tape to stabilize the outer doors from moving to make it easier to adjust the inner parts before the glue set.
 
Noted their locations and then used hobby masking tape to fix them to their correctly adjusted places. I know that if I had not taped them on my location drawing, for sure the paper would move and well…you know (;-)
 
This bit is sort of fun, though I have to figure out how to drill in two eyelets for the ropes (opening and closings). I’m thinking of using only one eyelet and then curving the backside that will face the hull. This is probably destined to create breakage. I have very little working room after the lions are glued into place,
 
Two eyelet pieces one on each side is probably the best solution….attach the ropes, then the hinges followed by the lion heads.??
 
Yes, I need complete the chain plate bits first, been very lazy with this, though as you can see its been started. The other side has been completed for all three masts.
 
Thanks again for dropping by.
 
Regards,
 
Michael

Hi Matti!
 
This is looking great! The dead eyes on the real ship almost look too small! Hope that helps!

Hi Matti!
 
This is looking great! The dead eyes on the real ship almost look too small! Hope that helps!

Winter is approaching, this means model ship building season is upon us (or at least me)!
I have been thinking whether I should pursue building my Hesper (http://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/723-hesper-by-frenchguy-pilot-schooner-scale-148/?hl=hesper ), or put her on the back burner and start something else. Hesper is a beautiful model, but it’s a scratch build model, and despite fantastic plans from Erik Ronnberg, this model has already tested my limits with scratch building. So Hesper will stay on the shelf at least until next year.
 
There are two other models from kits that have been on my radar for some time: the America Yacht from BlueJacket, and the Benjamin W. Latham from Model Shipways. Both are 1:48 model, the first one is POF, the second is POB
 
I finally decided to go with Benjamin Latham for the following reasons:
1-      I love New England Schooners
2-      The America kit from BlueJacket is fairly expensive (although I found their kits to be of better quality overall that Model shipways)
3-      There are already several logs of folks here building this model - and I will shamelessly steal any good idea I come across J
4-      There is solid information about New England schooners  in Chapelle’s schooner bible
5-      I got  a 40% coupon discount for MS
6-      I love New England Schooners
 
There is plenty of documentation and pictures on her. I also saw a beautiful model of this schooner at the Cape Ann Museum in Gloucester, MA http://www.capeannmuseum.org/collections/objects/schooner-benjamin-w-latham/
So here we are, I just received the box, and inventoried the content. The kit was backordered, but with the discount, it was well worth the wait.  I had printed the manual some years ago, and went through it a few times before (BlueJacket, take note: offering a free download of the manual from your website would be a great idea). The plan sheets are superbly detailed and I also like the down to earth approach of Ben Lanksford when it comes to instructions.
 
Let the building begin!

Thanks all for your kind words! It was fun for me too to go through all the pictures and make a summary of what has been going on over the  past years. Brought back a lot of memories. There is more but I didn't want to make it too long. Dave (Midnight) has a backup of my log and Dave and Danny are sorting things out to get it in a format easier to repost. So hang on and at some point the text will be back too.
 
Greg, if I'm going to add the items (I'm not sure yet) it will be when the fore platform is ready. I think the sequence will be finishing the main mast partner , switching to the fore platform. And then adding the ballast. I need to figure out a way get them secured permanently. There will be lots of handling of the hull for time to come and I don't want to have pieces flying around. I think it's wise not to use the gravel.
 
So now I'll reconstruct my last post on the old log and than move forward. It was a little how to make copper bolts, I use them extensively 
 
First the end is rounded  off with a cup burr
 

 
The bolt is cut
 

 

 
The cutting leaves a little burr on the edge that needs to be removed, other wise I'm having a hard time inserting the bolt in the hole (my drills are 0,5 mm and the rod something like 0,47 mm so the burr gets in the way). Rolling a steel ruler over it does the trick.
 

 

 
Next up is making a thin burr half way down the bolt. This will keep it in place so I don't have t use glue to fix the bolt. The blade is rolled diagonally with light pressure over the bolt. 
 

 

 
Now the bolt is ready to be installed, I use a home made pushpin with  a small hole in the tip so the dome of the bolt will protrude. Blackening is done with liver of sulphur once installed. I make them in small batches so it doesn't become to tedious. I don't dare to make an estimate of how many bolts will be used in this ship. 
 

 
And here's the current state of the foremast, holes can be drilled in the cheeks for the bolts.
 

The lower masts and mast tops

The pinnace was build from a NMM plan 

Building the cutter using the Admiralty models plug

Deck clamps

The stem and the ribbands