Dubz

Thank you Dirk. HAPPY NEW YEAR and all my wishes for you to complete the Sherbourne and to get started on some new 2001 Plastic kits.
 
Yves

As I mentioned in the introduction of the Blog, I will be using the model as part of a celestial art piece. As such I will not be using the traditional way offered by Moebius, to display the kit. Moebius offers three stands under the living area (sphere), Earth antennae module and the propulsion block. The long model rests on these three rather flimsy stands to be displayed horizontally on a flat surface. My model is going to be "suspended" on the side and I wish to only have stands on the propulsion module and near the living quarters. In addition, I wish to provide some kind of illumination on the thrusters and on the main deck. Therefore, we have to rethink a little bit the kit and stiffen it considerably.
 
In the Moebius kit, the two spines (realized by two metallic tubes of 4 mm) are connected inside the Earth antennae module: 

The piece of tube in charge of the coupling (as provided in the kit), is way too short and not tight enough. As a result, the two rods are sagging and not straight. It is okay if you go with the three stands approach of the kit. However, if you plan to have support only on both ends of the vessel, the spine will sag and look more like an arch. So, we need to stiffen it up.
 
The following picture shows what I have in mind: 

The top piece of tube is what Moebius provides in the kit. Then we have the two rods of 4 mm each. The brass tube I decided to use offers an additional inch of support on both sides and fits very tightly on the 4 mm rods. When lining up everything, the spine is straight and sturdy. The brass tube is #129 3/16 x 0.014 made by K&S Engineering and can be found in almost all Hobby Shops.
 
The two adjacent modules have to be gently enlarged to accommodate the extra diameter of the brass tube. This is done first with a bit of 4.5 mm and then fine-tuned with a round file (I do not have a 4.8 mm bit which would have been perfect. The coupling is very tight and will hopefully provide us with a "straight" vessel.
 
Yves
 

Folks,
 
This is the beginning of another project I have been trying to realize for a while. I recently got the kit from Free-Time Hobbies in Georgia, as they were having a very interesting sale.

Like many of you, I watched the 2001 A Space Odyssey movie, in 1969 when it came out, fresh from the genius of Stanley Kubrick. I was just 10 years old and that movie created a life lasting impression on me. For many years, only resin kits of the various space crafts were available. Then Moebius decided to create a series of 1/144 based kits to satisfy the 2001 enthusiasts. XD-1 Discovery is the latest kit produced in 1/144 scale, not counting the enormous EVA 1/8 Pod kit that was recently released:

The enormous Deep Space Exploration vessel driven by a psychotic HAL 9000 en route to the vicinity of Jupiter, has always attracted me and when the opportunity to build that magnificent model presented itself, I jumped on it. There are multiple videos and Blogs on the Internet of very talented modelers who have completed this beautiful model. I am not planning to even come closer to their talents. Instead, I will use the model in a different way to produce a piece of art made of mixed-medias as they call it in the artistic realms. I will provide more details when we get to that stage. 
 
In the meantime, let's take a look at the kit: 

The box is very dense and literally crammed with parts: 

Lots of the parts are the same as we have to build multiple bays arranged along the spine of the vessel. The instructions booklet is simple but carefully written and clearly organized: 



On the Photo-Etched side, a few additional kits are available: one for the PODs bay and one for the main control deck. Not planning to represent the POD bay opened, I only purchased the Main Deck set from Para Grafix. Notice that even though the focus of the set is on the living area, it also provides the thrusters grills on the Propulsion Block  

Yves

Thanks guys. If feels good and as you said there just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to get every thing done. But I am really enjoying my self.  Any way here is a couple of photos of the shop and addition to it. I added it in where do you do yours.  

Hi Alan.  Forgive me sir, wasn't sure what Travis was saying so I answered him. In the mean time good sir I have become retired and have spent the last year in adding a extensin and gas heat to the shop. I have done a little work on Montagu so am really looking fwd to spending a lot more time on her. Life sometimes just gets in the way. Wish it was better but am happy with it. Gary

Just a post on how i try to keep all parts of my builds organized. I bought lots of cheap boxes. Things that can easily be identified without the numbers i simply cut out and move. Its really handy instead of having everything in the Main box. 
And i clearly mark each box where i store them so i dont have to mix different kits up.

Today works... Happy new year, old chaps !  😀

Some solar pics, before ending work...

I like kits, but I am basically a scratch builder and I especially distrust kits of Dutch old ships. This is caused by the fact that the Dutch never made as much good material available to model builders, like for instance the English did, mostly because the Dutch never made plans of their vessels. This results in kitmakers producing fundamentally wrong models.
Making a card kit of a replica of an old Dutch ship is a smart solution. The research for the Duyfken was mostly done in the end of the 90s by Nick Birmingham in Fremantle, Western Australia, where the replica was built. I had the honor to be invited to visit the project as an advisor. I spent a wonderful week there.

Eight days after my order the package with the kit was delivered from Poland, which is remarkably shorter than some years ago :-). It consisted of a 14 page booklet with 8 pages of parts and 6 of explanations, both in text (Polish and English) and very clear diagrams.
Apart from the basic kit you can also order blocks, gun barrels and lasercut sheets (3).
  The whole package is very well produced with good printing and fine colors. I was especially interested in the inventive way Tomek Weremko, the driving force behind his new kit company Seahorse, does his planking. (see his threads her under 0Seahorse, like this one amongst others:) Paper kits usually have problems with producing fair lines, often caused by the ribs showing through the planking. We know from his postings, also at Papermodels.com that Tomek has a method of making beautifully fair hulls without any use of filler. He is demonstrating this technique in this kit, which will be an eye-opener for many of us.
The scale is 1/100, which is very small and the builder ends up with a 31 centimeters long model, although the hull is only 25 centimeter. A real challenge for the miniature lovers to build this humble ship, which was the first vessel ever to map parts of North Western Australia early in the 17th century. 
 
I can strongly recommend it!
 
Ab
   

As usual, things didn't quite work as I thought.
I had to do some sanding and following that, some more dying. I would not recommend doing this my way. You have to be extremely careful with the rest of the model. The advantage is, that the planking structure remains very visible. Painting it might cover the seams and joints, so you have one black belt without any visible planks.
In the end it is a matter of taste.
The best thing to do is propably using the black hornbeam, wich JpR62 mentioned above.

This is the finished starboard side of the model.


Matthias
 
 
 

The complete set of ivory-windowframes is now clean. But before installing them on the model there is still a lot of planking to do.

Thank you. So that is chapter one finished. Chuck, perfekt timing!! You just posted chapter two. 

I remember getting some very good advice from someone very close to me.   It has served me well over these many years.   I was given this advice on my honeymoon.   But yes , it also applies here as well.
 
Just a quick note about an observation I have made.  Some of you guys are moving along very quickly.....probably too quickly.....definitely too quickly.  I mention this as a cautionary tale.  It took me more than 4 months to plank my hull on both sides below the wales.  All of the planking took me almost six months.  
 
I have observed that what took me months to complete has  taken some of you a mere week or two of time.   Planking is not something that can be rushed and  then have the results look neat and clean with a proper run.  Again this is a cautionary friendly word of advice as I see many of you about to start planking below the wales.  Slow down and consider each plank as an individual project.  If you get a gap between planks....tweak it so the gap goes away.  If you see dips and a poor run of planking develop....slow it up and try to correct the run of planking with your next strake or remove the offending planking and do it again.  There is absolutely no reason to rush through the hull planking.  Its just too much fun to rush through!!!   Planking I mean...
 
Remember that the planked hull is the largest visual element of your model.   Hull Planking that is rushed can sink the appearance of an otherwise wonderfully built model.  That should be printed on a fortune cookie!!!!    It will detract from everything else you do on the model no matter how well done it ends up being.   Just s friendly word of advice.....slow down and enjoy the ride.   
 
Remember, the bottom isnt painted.  You could plate it however if need be.  Or slow down and try to tackle just two or three strakes a day.   Probably two.  Try and slow down...best advice I was ever given.

Steve , John, Druxey, Pat, Thanks for your kind words and thanks to those who added the likes. I am really enjoying getting back to the cutter. This evening I had a go at a miniature piano hinge.
First I annealed a couple of strips of .003" brass shim-stock, then folded it over a piece of .025" music wire in the grinding vice.

Next I trimmed it to width with an exacto knife.

Put it back into the vice tucking it down as far as it would go in order to file away the the alternate tabs I basically eyeballed the distance as the width of the needle file.

Folded the second strip and repeated the filing using the first one as a guide to get the spacing matched this was a little tedious with a lot of trial and error

 
The two halves fit together nicely eventually.

Then they were fitted to the boards this is before the holes were countersunk and the copper rivets slotted to make them look like copper screws, I was so focused on getting this finished that I forgot to take any pictures of the countersinks and slotted screws, I will make sure I do that on the second one.

Here the lid is fitted to the starboard side locker.
   
 

Once they were fitted with the "screws" I ran some CA glue along the joint between the brass and the wood on both sides of the hinge just to lock the pins in place. The hinge feels pretty solid and folds nicely so I am pleased with today's progress.
 
Michael

A happy new year to everyone. Today I started to do a bit more work on the cockpit The supporting side panels were covered with some "panels" of  mahogany. So now I can finish the top boards and hing the lids. then the cushions to complete the main elements of the cockpit.
 
The support sheet is pine

 
then the Mahogany was glued to the panels and treated with Tung Oil
 

The edges of the teak seating will now get finished and fitted with the lids hinged to access the lockers underneath.

It feels good to get a little work done on the cutter, so thanks Dubz for the inspiration. 
Michael
 
 

Nothing to do with ship building, but fun to post...I also like to draw as a hobby, so this is a project i'm working on now.
 

Inside decks, below the first deck, was the job for 2019.
Next year, the job will begin with the deck beams for the first deck and I just finished most of the notches of the deck beams.

photos 1 and 2 are from photoshop 2019
photo 3 photoshop 2015; much better. I am not sure I could still do this way, it in 2019
before last photo: a space was left near the inside wall to facilitate wall inspection
 

thank you
and a few more

Nobody would be crazy enough to build 4 times the same model ship but 1 advantage of building it, at least twice, is that you can see the end, even before beginning. As an example, here is what the false deck could look like in a few months:

Final step for the lowest level of this model ship: adding the aging look with tung oil

Continuation of the construction of the floating warehouse.
Next level will begin. The larger open place, in the middle, will be the amphitheater, a place to care for the sick and wounded..
One of the goals, in this small project... is to limit  at the minimum the decks planking to maximize the interior view.

For this step, an alignment rod is use to make sure all the pillars are all on the same line of alignment.
This is the easier way.
Trying to align by eye is  very difficult mainly because the eye does not have direct access.

Thank you Sea Hoss,
 
How can we get cannonballs out of  have 3 very  deep cabinets?
First, we need to enter the cabinet by some kind of entrance.
Secondly, we need to go down to the bottom of this deep hole with the help of some kind of ladder.
 
Son 3 openings have been done and ladder rungs have been added in each of the 3 holes.