JeffT

They look like bats hanging there 

Pressing on with video 10. The orlop deck pieces are installed. The sections/openings all align with each other rather well and with the hold below. Quick mast check shows good alignment for the mast holes and other mounting areas below.
 
I wasn't thrilled with the way the fore and aft sections come together. These little tabs were very fragile. I think I broke at least half a dozen of these during the dry fit. It also took quite a bit of tweaking to get the fore and aft sections to fit together.

I ended up gluing some strips to the bottom of the forward deck sections so that the aft sections had something they could be glued to. Otherwise, there was no way to keep them together.

Even with that, they just don't go together very well and there are gaps and they don't really align well. The result is not a good look but it is what it is.

Other than that, the deck look good.


Courtesy hold with LEDs lit pictures.


 
 

I had similar issues with a kit I bought The Flying Dutchman. They had resistors etc. I always thought as well that the lights should be flickering since back them they would have been using lanterns. 
I was able to buy mini leds from Evans Designs Led lights. They look great but I too struggled with mounting and soldering. Just too a bunch of trials and errors.
😂
IMG_6736.mov

Finally got all the LEDs done in the hold. Took a little while but its not a race I guess. I had a few redos along the way as I wasn't satisfied with the result. Still need to paint a few exposed wires inside to finish up and in the end, no one will know the wires are there. I am now complete through video 9.
 
I think this is a much cleaner result in the end with a lot less wires to deal with. I was hesitant to do this at first, but now that's it done I'm happy that I did.

The LEDs really add life to the model.

You can see my take on the flour bags here as well.

I had to move a few barrels around (second set up from the bottom of the picture) as there are a couple parts that extend down into that area of the hold from the orlop deck. This isn't addressed until video 11. A good set of plans would have been useful in making that known much sooner.

I have decided to take a shot at building this kit. This will be a test of my vision but I'll do my best. I have an opinion on a few things that I may state but its just my opinion. First of all, this is classified as an elite level kit by AL. My take is that this means that you need elite skills to build it and so far I believe that to be the case. The videos are great but they don't offer any insight on some things you need to pay very close attention to. This kit is complicated and requires a bit of scratch building to finish. I really think that a kit like this should have written instructions (my opinion). You must think far ahead before completing a step and I don't recommend following the order of construction in the videos. This is critical when installing the inner frames.
 
It would also have been nice to have drawings to scale for a build like this, particularly of the hold area. The hold drawing is virtually useless for lack of a better way to say it.
 
There are templates provided for the various structures that you will need to build. The first thing I did was glue these templates to a piece of cardstock with an Elmer's glue stick. They are too floppy otherwise. Also, in the video, they will have you glue a bunch of planks together to make a sheet to cut the parts from. I'm not doing it that way. I'm gluing just enough planks together to create a specific part as needed. I think there will be less wasted wood that way. In addition, in the video, the builder is gluing the planks on top of a sheet of paper creating a mess to clean up on the back of the planks. I'm doing this on top of a piece of parchment paper. The glue will stick but pops loose from the paper easily with no cleanup needed.
 
And very conveniently, I can see that the builder is cutting out the parts with a laser cutter. I don't have that convenience.
 
On with the build:
 
Assembly of the hull is pretty straight forward and now in addition to the videos, you can use the written instructions for the full hull version to help you along. I do love this hull assembly method. The inner hold planking isn't too difficult but does require some thought on getting the planks to clear the bulkheads at the bow and stern as seen in the videos. The videos would have you glue in the mast step after finishing the planking but I left the mast step out for a reason that you will see in a minute.
 
I live in a very arid environment so a lot of parts are warping badly. I was able to straighten the hull using the build board and then the planking holds it.



Here is where things get interesting. In the videos, they have you draw a line using a provided template to position the inner frames. If you do this and nothing else, you will have big problems later. Specifically with installing the orlop deck (is that right?) pictured here. The frames must be positioned perfectly in order to fit this deck. You have about 1/2 mm of wiggle room all the way down the length of the ship to play with. If the top of the frames are off by more than that there will be troubles.  The first thing to think about are these decks and how they will fit. The deck is assembled from 4 pieces. Mine didn't fit lengthwise or across the width. I suggest dealing with this before assembling anything in the hold. This required some fairing of the inside of the bulkheads to fit across the width. I didn't want to take anything off the decks in either direction on the length because of the various structures that are sitting on top of this deck. I do think my most forward bulkhead was slightly out of alignment top to bottom (not a kit problem, just my eyes). I ended up chiseling away some of the thickness on the hold side of the bulkhead to get the decks to fit lengthwise.


I am using the orlop deck as a template to align the top of the bulkheads ad as you can see, there is very little room for error, almost none. The videos don't address this at all.

I'm using the template provided in the kit to align the lower part of the frames and the paper template for the walkways. This why i didn't glue in the mast step.

 
 

Pressing on with video 10. The orlop deck pieces are installed. The sections/openings all align with each other rather well and with the hold below. Quick mast check shows good alignment for the mast holes and other mounting areas below.
 
I wasn't thrilled with the way the fore and aft sections come together. These little tabs were very fragile. I think I broke at least half a dozen of these during the dry fit. It also took quite a bit of tweaking to get the fore and aft sections to fit together.

I ended up gluing some strips to the bottom of the forward deck sections so that the aft sections had something they could be glued to. Otherwise, there was no way to keep them together.

Even with that, they just don't go together very well and there are gaps and they don't really align well. The result is not a good look but it is what it is.

Other than that, the deck look good.


Courtesy hold with LEDs lit pictures.


 
 

Yes. Light does leak through that area.

Finally got all the LEDs done in the hold. Took a little while but its not a race I guess. I had a few redos along the way as I wasn't satisfied with the result. Still need to paint a few exposed wires inside to finish up and in the end, no one will know the wires are there. I am now complete through video 9.
 
I think this is a much cleaner result in the end with a lot less wires to deal with. I was hesitant to do this at first, but now that's it done I'm happy that I did.

The LEDs really add life to the model.

You can see my take on the flour bags here as well.

I had to move a few barrels around (second set up from the bottom of the picture) as there are a couple parts that extend down into that area of the hold from the orlop deck. This isn't addressed until video 11. A good set of plans would have been useful in making that known much sooner.

Pressing on with video 10. The orlop deck pieces are installed. The sections/openings all align with each other rather well and with the hold below. Quick mast check shows good alignment for the mast holes and other mounting areas below.
 
I wasn't thrilled with the way the fore and aft sections come together. These little tabs were very fragile. I think I broke at least half a dozen of these during the dry fit. It also took quite a bit of tweaking to get the fore and aft sections to fit together.

I ended up gluing some strips to the bottom of the forward deck sections so that the aft sections had something they could be glued to. Otherwise, there was no way to keep them together.

Even with that, they just don't go together very well and there are gaps and they don't really align well. The result is not a good look but it is what it is.

Other than that, the deck look good.


Courtesy hold with LEDs lit pictures.


 
 

Finally got all the LEDs done in the hold. Took a little while but its not a race I guess. I had a few redos along the way as I wasn't satisfied with the result. Still need to paint a few exposed wires inside to finish up and in the end, no one will know the wires are there. I am now complete through video 9.
 
I think this is a much cleaner result in the end with a lot less wires to deal with. I was hesitant to do this at first, but now that's it done I'm happy that I did.

The LEDs really add life to the model.

You can see my take on the flour bags here as well.

I had to move a few barrels around (second set up from the bottom of the picture) as there are a couple parts that extend down into that area of the hold from the orlop deck. This isn't addressed until video 11. A good set of plans would have been useful in making that known much sooner.

Its been a little while since my last update. I've been watching a lot of videos on soldering and getting a little practice at it. After much thought I have come up with a method of wiring the LEDs that works well for me.
 
I'm using only two wires for each set of bulbs. The AL groove tool doesn't create a groove that is large enough to house the wires and bulb leads, so the groove needs to be widened and deepened.
 
The first thing I do is solder the wires to the starboard LED, trying to solder to the side of the lead.

Then, for each wire, I use the soldering iron to burn off some insulation from the wires at the spot where they will be soldered to the second LED bulb.

and them solder the wire to the LED.

I drill a hole in the bottom of the beam to pass the wires through

and then pass the wires through the planking. The location of the wires will make them nearly impossible to see from the open side of the hull and no big holes in the frames. 3 down and a bunch to go.

I also stained the deck and added the small strips which are painted black.

Video 9 is complete. This structure was a bit more challenging than the first one. I have it separated into 3 sections. I feel like it will be a bit troublesome to try and glue this thing down to the deck as one piece. There are a few areas I still need to touch up with white paint yet. Reality is that you can't see much of this other than the extreme right area of the picture below.
 
Moving on to video 10, there are a few more smaller structures to build for the orlop deck. The deck is glued into the model in this video. I'm not ready to do that yet. 
There are a couple things I still need to do in the hold first. One is the lighting and the other are the flour sacks. Once I finish these last few structures then I'll head back to that.
 
One thing I've done in preparation for the lighting is acquired a smaller soldering iron more suited to the fine soldering needed and some finer solder. I'll practice the soldering a bit on some spare led diodes that I have before tackling that monster.
 
For the flour sacks, I picked up some resin printed sand bags that I think will work. They are a bit smaller than those the kit has you make and seem more to scale to me. I really don't know for sure what size flour sacks were loaded on ships in those days though.

Pressing on with video 10. The orlop deck pieces are installed. The sections/openings all align with each other rather well and with the hold below. Quick mast check shows good alignment for the mast holes and other mounting areas below.
 
I wasn't thrilled with the way the fore and aft sections come together. These little tabs were very fragile. I think I broke at least half a dozen of these during the dry fit. It also took quite a bit of tweaking to get the fore and aft sections to fit together.

I ended up gluing some strips to the bottom of the forward deck sections so that the aft sections had something they could be glued to. Otherwise, there was no way to keep them together.

Even with that, they just don't go together very well and there are gaps and they don't really align well. The result is not a good look but it is what it is.

Other than that, the deck look good.


Courtesy hold with LEDs lit pictures.


 
 

Pressing on with video 10. The orlop deck pieces are installed. The sections/openings all align with each other rather well and with the hold below. Quick mast check shows good alignment for the mast holes and other mounting areas below.
 
I wasn't thrilled with the way the fore and aft sections come together. These little tabs were very fragile. I think I broke at least half a dozen of these during the dry fit. It also took quite a bit of tweaking to get the fore and aft sections to fit together.

I ended up gluing some strips to the bottom of the forward deck sections so that the aft sections had something they could be glued to. Otherwise, there was no way to keep them together.

Even with that, they just don't go together very well and there are gaps and they don't really align well. The result is not a good look but it is what it is.

Other than that, the deck look good.


Courtesy hold with LEDs lit pictures.


 
 

Pressing on with video 10. The orlop deck pieces are installed. The sections/openings all align with each other rather well and with the hold below. Quick mast check shows good alignment for the mast holes and other mounting areas below.
 
I wasn't thrilled with the way the fore and aft sections come together. These little tabs were very fragile. I think I broke at least half a dozen of these during the dry fit. It also took quite a bit of tweaking to get the fore and aft sections to fit together.

I ended up gluing some strips to the bottom of the forward deck sections so that the aft sections had something they could be glued to. Otherwise, there was no way to keep them together.

Even with that, they just don't go together very well and there are gaps and they don't really align well. The result is not a good look but it is what it is.

Other than that, the deck look good.


Courtesy hold with LEDs lit pictures.


 
 

Finally got all the LEDs done in the hold. Took a little while but its not a race I guess. I had a few redos along the way as I wasn't satisfied with the result. Still need to paint a few exposed wires inside to finish up and in the end, no one will know the wires are there. I am now complete through video 9.
 
I think this is a much cleaner result in the end with a lot less wires to deal with. I was hesitant to do this at first, but now that's it done I'm happy that I did.

The LEDs really add life to the model.

You can see my take on the flour bags here as well.

I had to move a few barrels around (second set up from the bottom of the picture) as there are a couple parts that extend down into that area of the hold from the orlop deck. This isn't addressed until video 11. A good set of plans would have been useful in making that known much sooner.

Finally got all the LEDs done in the hold. Took a little while but its not a race I guess. I had a few redos along the way as I wasn't satisfied with the result. Still need to paint a few exposed wires inside to finish up and in the end, no one will know the wires are there. I am now complete through video 9.
 
I think this is a much cleaner result in the end with a lot less wires to deal with. I was hesitant to do this at first, but now that's it done I'm happy that I did.

The LEDs really add life to the model.

You can see my take on the flour bags here as well.

I had to move a few barrels around (second set up from the bottom of the picture) as there are a couple parts that extend down into that area of the hold from the orlop deck. This isn't addressed until video 11. A good set of plans would have been useful in making that known much sooner.

Finally got all the LEDs done in the hold. Took a little while but its not a race I guess. I had a few redos along the way as I wasn't satisfied with the result. Still need to paint a few exposed wires inside to finish up and in the end, no one will know the wires are there. I am now complete through video 9.
 
I think this is a much cleaner result in the end with a lot less wires to deal with. I was hesitant to do this at first, but now that's it done I'm happy that I did.

The LEDs really add life to the model.

You can see my take on the flour bags here as well.

I had to move a few barrels around (second set up from the bottom of the picture) as there are a couple parts that extend down into that area of the hold from the orlop deck. This isn't addressed until video 11. A good set of plans would have been useful in making that known much sooner.

Finally got all the LEDs done in the hold. Took a little while but its not a race I guess. I had a few redos along the way as I wasn't satisfied with the result. Still need to paint a few exposed wires inside to finish up and in the end, no one will know the wires are there. I am now complete through video 9.
 
I think this is a much cleaner result in the end with a lot less wires to deal with. I was hesitant to do this at first, but now that's it done I'm happy that I did.

The LEDs really add life to the model.

You can see my take on the flour bags here as well.

I had to move a few barrels around (second set up from the bottom of the picture) as there are a couple parts that extend down into that area of the hold from the orlop deck. This isn't addressed until video 11. A good set of plans would have been useful in making that known much sooner.

I have decided to take a shot at building this kit. This will be a test of my vision but I'll do my best. I have an opinion on a few things that I may state but its just my opinion. First of all, this is classified as an elite level kit by AL. My take is that this means that you need elite skills to build it and so far I believe that to be the case. The videos are great but they don't offer any insight on some things you need to pay very close attention to. This kit is complicated and requires a bit of scratch building to finish. I really think that a kit like this should have written instructions (my opinion). You must think far ahead before completing a step and I don't recommend following the order of construction in the videos. This is critical when installing the inner frames.
 
It would also have been nice to have drawings to scale for a build like this, particularly of the hold area. The hold drawing is virtually useless for lack of a better way to say it.
 
There are templates provided for the various structures that you will need to build. The first thing I did was glue these templates to a piece of cardstock with an Elmer's glue stick. They are too floppy otherwise. Also, in the video, they will have you glue a bunch of planks together to make a sheet to cut the parts from. I'm not doing it that way. I'm gluing just enough planks together to create a specific part as needed. I think there will be less wasted wood that way. In addition, in the video, the builder is gluing the planks on top of a sheet of paper creating a mess to clean up on the back of the planks. I'm doing this on top of a piece of parchment paper. The glue will stick but pops loose from the paper easily with no cleanup needed.
 
And very conveniently, I can see that the builder is cutting out the parts with a laser cutter. I don't have that convenience.
 
On with the build:
 
Assembly of the hull is pretty straight forward and now in addition to the videos, you can use the written instructions for the full hull version to help you along. I do love this hull assembly method. The inner hold planking isn't too difficult but does require some thought on getting the planks to clear the bulkheads at the bow and stern as seen in the videos. The videos would have you glue in the mast step after finishing the planking but I left the mast step out for a reason that you will see in a minute.
 
I live in a very arid environment so a lot of parts are warping badly. I was able to straighten the hull using the build board and then the planking holds it.



Here is where things get interesting. In the videos, they have you draw a line using a provided template to position the inner frames. If you do this and nothing else, you will have big problems later. Specifically with installing the orlop deck (is that right?) pictured here. The frames must be positioned perfectly in order to fit this deck. You have about 1/2 mm of wiggle room all the way down the length of the ship to play with. If the top of the frames are off by more than that there will be troubles.  The first thing to think about are these decks and how they will fit. The deck is assembled from 4 pieces. Mine didn't fit lengthwise or across the width. I suggest dealing with this before assembling anything in the hold. This required some fairing of the inside of the bulkheads to fit across the width. I didn't want to take anything off the decks in either direction on the length because of the various structures that are sitting on top of this deck. I do think my most forward bulkhead was slightly out of alignment top to bottom (not a kit problem, just my eyes). I ended up chiseling away some of the thickness on the hold side of the bulkhead to get the decks to fit lengthwise.


I am using the orlop deck as a template to align the top of the bulkheads ad as you can see, there is very little room for error, almost none. The videos don't address this at all.

I'm using the template provided in the kit to align the lower part of the frames and the paper template for the walkways. This why i didn't glue in the mast step.

 
 

Video #17 Complete

Lining of the gun ports is done. Not the neatest works, insides were difficult to paint due to access, but by the time it's finished will be very difficult to see.

Absolutely.

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Video #16 Complete

Hull frames are now faired ready for planking. Was probably the easiest one I've done to date. I used an orbital mouse sander to do the bulk of the work, and switched to a Dremel with the EZ-Clic sanding disc for the stern area and anywhere close to the keel.



Then the first 4 layers of hull planking on each side. The wood supplied is amazingly pliable. I've not had to use a single plank bending method anywhere on this build yet.
 









 
 

Video #15 Complete

Pretty simple, planking/painting the inner sides of the lowest gundeck, and fitting some cable to each deck in prep.