JeffT

Jay, Contact the US rep for morope: Martin Meyer Model Shipswright 5821 N.Navarre Chicago, IL 60631 E-Mail: Curlee11@aol.com

a few more. http://shipwrightjournal.blogspot.com/2012/06/uss-essex-by-model-shipways-near-finish.html

I'm not sure if this was posted here before but here are some good pictures of the Essex prototype. http://shipwrightjournal.blogspot.com/2012/05/announcing-frigate-essex-by-model.html

The decorations look very nice.

I think its petty standard for some ship models to supply walnut as a second layer of planking.

Looking good so far. Just curious, is this based on the Mantua plans?

Good video! Thanks! And also thanks for the help on soldering. I appreciate it.

Thanks Harvey. I appreciate the tip. I need to practice first for sure. I don't even know what flux is.

Thanks Rusty.

Sooooo, moving on now. I have setup all the gun ports on each side except the last 3. Those 3 will be rigged open but that will be done later since I don't want to risk knocking the top part off the hull on a regular basis. I also prepped all the deadeyes for the chainplates. The next step is to solder the deadeyes to the chain plates, gulp. I've never soldered anything in my life so I have no idea what to do here. :mellow: a couple shots of the ports. a few deadeyes feeling like I do thinking about the soldering coming up

Yes Bill, I got the kit a few years ago, so I didn't pay the price they want today.

That is some impressive work. Hope to see more.

the sovereign really is a nice kit. I'm impressed with everything in the box. the keel in this kit looks to be walnut. I've never seen that before so I don't know if its typical for the kit. and there are hundreds of bronze parts.

I didn't find it to be much fun either. It took me 2 months.

The Sovereign is one of my favorites. I have the kit sitting in my closet collecting dust.

Although it looks like a rats nest, I'm sure its completely organized.

In the pictures of the finished Friedrich Wilhelm it looks like the lower gun deck is finished?

The Mordaunt is a nice looking model. I like the stern.

I think you're right

she sure is! looks like a ship now.

you're moving right along Jay. You make it look easy.

Thanks! and yes Jay, I saw yours and also ended up with 8 sides the first time.The second time I ended up with a blob, and the third time I got it right. I think I'll keep mine though.

The gunports. The gunports are pretty simple. Its just a matter of gluing the two halves together and shaping them to fit each opening. Two holes are drilled in each top piece for the rigging. A curtain is glued over top of each gunport. The wire I used for the rigging. Its just jewelry or hobby wire. I used two pieces about an inch long. Twisted one piece to the middle of the other and formed a triangle. The two ends of the triangular piece are inserted into the holes on the upper lid and glued to the back to keep it in place. After that I glued the gunport to the port and attached a curtain above the port. The curtain has a hole in it for the rigging so a hole has to be drilled through the hull there to accept the rigging. I put a drop of glue on the wire before inserting it through the hole. Its a little tough to see the rigging in the photo.

Here is another quick update. I finished the skylight and started working on the gunports. I have decided to model the majority of the gunports closed since I think that if you've seen one, you've seen them all. There really isn't much to see anyway besides a barrel and a wooden block. They are also easy to knock off the hull. I will probably leave the last 2 or 3 on each side open. The upper half of each gunport has some rigging I'm assuming is used to open and close the port. The practicum suggest to use white wire and then paint it black. I chose to use black 34 gauge wire, therefore no painting is necessary. The following pictures show the method used to build the skylight. It took me a couple of tries to get it right. For some reason the six-sided shape was difficult for me to wrap my mind around. Using the pattern provided with the practicum, I cut out the first piece and then traced it to get the second piece. I used a razor saw to cut a groove for the 6 sections on top. Then I shaped the top using a number 11 exacto. I used styrene to add the raised detail to the edges of both the top and bottom piece. Then I glued the two pieces together, painted, and added 4 pieces of wire on all sides of the top. The little round piece on the top was made from a piece of 1/8" dowel. I glued the skylight to a piece of styrene cut from a sheet and painted green which was then glued to a square piece of construction paper. The whole thing was glued to the deck.

Its currently $250 on Model Expo with the mad13 code.