mikiek

Man, that's the beauty. You don't need to know - they will tell you.

Elijah - you show a lot of discipline having that other kit on your shelf and not starting it. And as a result you are nearing completion. That's just too much temptation for me - 4 builds going right now and little noticeable progress on any of them.

Beautiful work Darrell!

Maybe with some simpler things under my belt I will come back to Niagara. I think what is going on with me is the realization that rigging will take 6 months or more and I just don't want to spend what time I have doing that right now. Maybe some better coordination between eyes & fingers too. For some reason I have been extremely clutsy the last few months.

Did I ever mention proportional dividers?

I found those letter decals

Oh yes - mooring cleats? Definitely a modern day thing.

Thanks Darrell and right back at ya. I have some letter decals I am going to try. I'll have to remember where I got them - I believe Amazon. They're a thin block type font, yellow and I think they are the right size. I may start working on that. Hanging rope? I'm still thinking I like the look of the first mast spar in each hole with shrouds and just stop there. It'll make for a heck of a lot smaller display case

Wow man. Hope they don't have to cart your stores in from Pittsburg or New York. Roads are bad this time of year. The swamp is frozen. If you run out of things to do, check the rudder chain at the stern. Just realized I completely overlooked that one. Might want to think about lettering also.

A small item(s) added although it took a little while to figure out. Sacks of something hanging on a hook in the wall. Once again the plans show a cryptic picture that made no sense to me. Something about wrapping a piece of the supplied material around a dowel and then I got lost. The end result looked slightly triangular rather than cylindrical so I found something else to wrap around. The material. Wrapping the material. Used CA on the edge right by my thumb. Then fold over the CA edge The back side. Remove from bottle top. Trim the wide edge - should end up like the 2nd pic. Put CA on the lower edge and fold the pointed side over. These things definitely have a good side and a bad side so be careful where/how you tie the knots. Carefully drench them in matte varnish. When it dries it helps to keep their shape. I also glued them together so the good side faces out. I still may do something to dirty them up a bit. G'nite yall

Thank you Paul and thanks for your guidance.

I was able to really get going today. Thanks to Paul - everything I did today was due to his last post. The shelves(ladders ) and the port opening system. I had been very tempted to leave all that out - the build is already crowded. But I suppose crowded is part of what the design is trying to display. The build has an outer and inner hull with "frame" pieces making the space in between. After completing both hulls I put a capping plank on top of them to close the gap. Down the road I realized that the port opening system required ropes to be passed thru the outer hull, thru the inner hull and then rigged up. With that cap there was no way I could do this and it did not want to come out. Pauls most obvious idea - put a hole where I need to pass the ropes thru. The destruction is not a problem. There will be another plank that sits on top of the entire hull. Access to both hulls using the gap in between them. Off to the races. These ropes are used to close the port doors. The brown rope is a seizing. Holes for passing ropes thru the hull. The rig to close the ports. A little cheesy, but they match the instructions. Given that I did all this so late in the build there was no way to drill holes up into the beam, so I bit the bullet and drilled from the top. I'll have to go back and fill them. Ropes in fitting and threaded thru hull. Second part of the opening rig. Just a stropped eyebolt Seizing the rope to the port fittings Right about this time I got to wondering. I'm putting this whole system together based on one picture. It all looks good but how does it actually work? The next pic shows both positions - port open and closed. The brass fitting in the background is closed. The foreground (which I am pulling on) is open. OK, so maybe it will work. Second block installed. More holes in the beams to fill This shows the hole rig. The shelves added. Do you see any resemblance to a ladder? I did learn a new knot. I had to tie off the end of a rope in an eyebolt and there was virtually no room to reach it. The Davy Knot did the trick. This is a very cool website if you haven't seen it. I'm actually feeling like the end of this build is in sight.

Two great points Paul. Wasn't thinking far out enough. Who cares what happens to that plank anyway? There will be another one with the hammock rail covering it all up. Duh! I keep meaning to type some of that plan verbiage into Google Translate. Maybe that would have said SHELVES. If that's what they are I will include them. Thanks for the help!

Well I threatened some pix so here goes. As I mentioned the other day, no real milestone just a lot of little things added. It's starting to look like a gun deck. I believe I will go with only 1 row of cannon ball holders. The other row is supposed to go right at the back edge and looked a bit contrived to me. Besides there would have been no easy way for someone to get to them. There's enough strips to make 1 maybe 2 more buckets. Possibly for the table. I still have to do the rigging for the port doors, however I planked myself into a problem. The ropes for the door are supposed to go thru holes in the hull, outside to inside. But I have no way of passing the rope from the outer hull thru the inner hull as I have already glued a plank over the gap between them. That plank doesn't want to come up and I'm not going to force it. So I'll end up with ropes going from the doors into the outer hull and a different set of ropes coming out of the inner hull. It should look OK but it won't work. Plans show 2 short ladders mounted to the inner hull right above the table. Any idea what those would be for? A short guy at the gun?

You lost me right around "please wait a moment" Maybe I should dust off my proportional dividers soapbox. With those it's almost impossible to go wrong if you have your bands and know how many strakes per band. That's because you readjust remaining strake widths based on how many strakes are left in your band. Check page 13 post 244 in my log.

Good advice Paul. At this stage I have no choice but to go with their "scale" unless I want to start making my own parts. I'm just glad someone else thinks things are a little out of whack.

Moving right along. There has been some progress and I need to snap some pix for you guys. The problem is there really aren't a lot of milestones with this kit, and that's usually where I take a break, take some pix and talk about it all in a post. With this one, you just keep adding little things to it. And I suppose all of a sudden, Presto, you're done. I did start the upper deck and grate. There is also something that looks like some bitts next to the grate. As I was fitting those it seemed like they are awfully low. I didn't have the cross piece in when I took the pix. Knee-knockers or maybe even shin-bruisers. Seems like they should be taller. Did anyone else get that feeling? Remember this is 1:23 scale

And don't forget the little tenon at the bottom of the spanker mast. And don't forget the rings on the spanker mast.

I agree with JSGearson - fit another plank in the space or replace the top plank with something 7mm notched at the ports. You have several options. Sorry I can't send you my Byrne's Sander. You could make a perfect 2mm plank with that.

Right back at you Allen. The guy did reply this morning. About $700 shipped and he claims it is like new. There was another set for less but the condition did not sound quite as good. I'll check with them.

Allen - I am contacting Abe Books about one of the sets they have posted. Will let you know.

Is the top of that top strip where it is supposed to be? If yes then you probably should add a filler strip. The question becomes do you put the filler under the top strip or notch the top strip around the port and make the filler the new top strip. I seem to remember Niagara having some inconsistencies regarding the port placement. I think I added an additional 3/32x3/32 strip on top.

Allen - that limited edition set would look great in anyone's library. I can almost smell the leather covers. I think I was getting the hardbound version confused. It appears to be 2 volumes. Abe Books in the UK has several - hardbound and limited editions.

Pretty soon all you're left with is the bow or the stern

Cornwall has most of the European kits for a lot less than anyone here. Even with freight I usually save $100. And the freight gets here within 2-3 days of the order. I have several of the Victory kits including Granada. Looks like you and I have the same taste in boats.