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mikiek

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Everything posted by mikiek

  1. mikiek
    Question regarding the gun outhaul tackles. I've read that these were not usually installed during normal operation. Makes perfect sense - a real safety hazard. In theory they would be needed only before loading the first round and there was usually no rush in getting that load ready. There have also been some suggestions that there may not have been individual tackles for each gun. Possibly they were shared by neighboring gun crews. So my question is if the tackle is not hooked up where would it be? Stowed below? Draped over the gun? Elsewhere?
  2. mikiek
    Thank you Don. It may be a while. I used up my stash of parts & pieces for the port battery. It is now back to the grindstone to make enough for starboard.
  3. mikiek
    Glad someone is making progress. Lead on brother! Not sure if Niagara had this and I don't have plans in front of me. On a lot of ships the pintles are mounted to the rudder in a recess. This has the effect of bringing the rudder closer to the sternpost and making the tail end of the ship a little more hydro-dynamic - the wash from the hull runs over the rudder cleaner. Looks like Eagle had it. If you have that practicum check page 69. Probably never would have noticed it but I was just reading about rudders a few nites ago. Other than that your wood work is impeccable!
  4. mikiek
    I have said this before - I realize as a percentage, casualties were usually not overly high (although Lawrence was an exception). But I believe the injury and maiming caused during these battles - especially with carronades - may have been some of the most brutal in history.
  5. mikiek
    When I was young I used to be very interested in WWII and the fight in the Pacific. Carriers and the planes they carried was a hot topic and I read all I could about it. I remember a general description of the fighter planes as "a huge engine and just enough of a plane to get it and some ordinances off the ground". Don't know how true that was but it always stuck with me. Arming Niagara is giving me the same sort of reaction. No real crew quarter, no real stowage area, no galley, no room. Just enough of a ship to load a lot of guns on. That's all the main deck is going to be - guns. The main deck is half way armed now. The figurine is 1:64 so it matches the build scale. It's interesting to get a feel for the size of things.
  6. mikiek
    Sounds like you need to get into hard soldering. When done correctly the joints are much more solid. It's not that difficult or expensive. I've had a few suggestions/reminders to add pins to the channel edge, drill matching holes in the hull where the channel will be mounted and insert the pins as you glue the channel to the hull. Apparently the channels will get a lot of stress as you tighten shrouds, etc. Keep up the good work!
  7. mikiek
    I'm with you on that. It didn't make sense - seemed like a safety hazard.
  8. mikiek
    Elijah - did you ever decide if you were going to make the cockpit recessed?
  9. mikiek
    I've made a few comments already in this thread, but I will say again - this is so exciting Chuck!! I've never seen a kit developed before. When I open up the box I'll feel like I already know the boat.
  10. mikiek
    Just ordered a hi-intensity LED lamp. I think you're right about the shadows. They will play tricks. I have grabbed for rope with tweezers and literally missed 5-6 time in a row. A good excuse for some primitive vocabulary. I apologize for getting off topic.
  11. mikiek
    Sometimes I wish I could. I am looking into some additional lighting. Thinking maybe I am not seeing things well enough. What do you light your area with?
  12. mikiek
    Back to the assembly line My biggest problem recently is that eyes, hands (and brain) are not working together. I've done more than my usual share of stupid things during this process. Lots of rework....
  13. mikiek
    I've done what you're planning with the pump (kept in a drawer). It gets beat up and broken that way too. I'm still in admiration of you putting your nose down and grinding out all those carronades. The process is taking an incredible amount of time. I'm not even getting one per day.
  14. mikiek
    Nice pump! What else would you have done in those 2 nites? You didn't show the backside, did you paint and/or drill the water exit holes in the 2 columns?
  15. mikiek
    Time to break out the torch? Julie, what you discovered may well be, but you still have a beautiful build in hand! The ultimate decision is yours, but if it was me I would stay on the same path.
  16. mikiek
    Such an interesting design. So different than the square riggers that we usually build. Your build is coming along great cor_f !! Thanks for posting.
  17. mikiek
    Glad to see you started this up again.
  18. mikiek
    Hope he's still out there. I'm curious as well Paul. Got this one on the shelf. Keep us posted when you start yours.
  19. mikiek
    I can't remember where but recently I read that these parts were set in a recessed notch-like area. So when mounted they were flush with the surrounding surface. I'll see if I can find that. Everyone seems to say don't glue to painted or charred (laser) surfaces. I haven't had problems with either.
  20. mikiek
    Wow. Looks better than before. Hope you were able to reuse your metalwork on the new piece. What do you use to glue the metal to wood?
  21. mikiek
    Thank you for reminding me about the bits!
  22. mikiek
    I hear ya E.J. - I probably have more kits than I could build in my lifetime. And I have no doubt there will be more. Elijah - close your ears La la la LA LA la LA la la.... Just counting down the days to retirement.
  23. mikiek
    Thank you Joel. I have a punch & die set that makes these pieces that look like the head of a carriage bolt. I've used them on some other parts. The smallest of those is actually so small it's not really of much use - your dot of glue would be larger than the bolt head. re: the catheads - I've been dying to put the anchors back on and lash them to the side. But I know they would get beat up down the road. I do have a question about the anchor cable. The plans don't really show where they run to once on deck. I'm looking at the Eagle practicum and they run the cable all the way to the main hatch and into some holes in the grating. I was thinking about dropping them into the first grating at the bow. But now I'm seeing that the bow area below deck would have been the crew area (the seamen at least) so I don't know that a cable running thru there would have been practical. And of course the cable I do have on the anchors is about 2" too short to reach the main hatch.
  24. mikiek
    Hello everyone. It's been a week since I've posted, mainly because there has been a lot of grunt work going on and it's not overly exciting. I mentioned before I had only 4 completed carronades when I began to rig them. So I'm making all the pieces and assembling those. No wonder all his pieces keep falling off I did notice several of the cascables are broken. Not sure if I want to try to fix those - not sure how I would. I'm also trying to rig all the eyebolts in the waterway before going back to the guns. This afternoon it is raining, all day actually, so for once with the portable AC running the garage is actually cool. A welcome change. So back to the guns. I'm following Darrell's plan and gluing and rigging all the gun bases first. It just makes good sense. But I believe it's been 2 weeks or more since I frapped a tackle and I have almost forgotten my process. While doing some reading I came across a mention of frapping the gun tackles. Apparently it was a pretty common thing to do while at sea with no nearby threats. Nice to have a little validation on that. Sometime in this last week I backtracked a bit and built and installed some hull anchor linings. I just glued some thin strips edge to edge and when that dried, cut it to the shape I wanted. Seems as though the linings were bolted on to the hull , so I am debating whether to add some bolt looking things. Well at least I'm back on track with the gun rigging again.
  25. mikiek
    And ship-o-holics grab them all. Beware! Don't worry, there is help......

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