mbp521

John, those bends are a bit precarious, especially along the scribed lines. Compound that with the instructions having you increase the scribed depth, and you are just asking for the piece to break. In my case, I did break my pieces and had to resort to gluing some card stock to the backside to help hold the bend. Thankfully the battens helped hide the breakage on the outside. Thanks for the tutorial on the proper way to bend this area. If I had used something solid instead of the provided jig, my results would have been so much better.

 

-Brian

John, your build just keeps getting better with each post. Different approach to coloring your ropes, not only does it allow you have the color you want, but I would think that the paint would help stiffen the rope as well giving it a nice taught look. 
 

-Brian

15 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

The live edge is reminiscent of the rough muddy banks of the rivers the Cairo patrolled. 

Thank you Keith, I am glad you saw that to. That is exactly the look I was going for. The grain of the wood matches the shape of the bow almost perfectly. 😁

 

-Brian

Hello everyone,

 

It's getting down to the final details of my build, I am almost done. I just wanted to share this one update right quick on a little gem that I found this weekend.

 

I was trying to decide how to display model properly. My plan was to build another case and mount it in there, eventually. Then the Admiral came up with the brilliant idea to mount it to a slab of wood. I tell you, I'm not sure what I would do without her. So I looked around on the interweb for some ideas and then it came to me, a live edge black walnut slab. So headed down to the sawmill and picked up this beautiful piece of wood. It is a tad bit thicker that what I was wanting (about 2" thick), but I think it will work out perfectly.

 

So I took it out to the barn and gave it a good sanding to get the sawmill chatter marks out of it. Started off with an 80 grit and worked my way up to 400 grit and then a final rub down with some #000 steel wool.

 

Once sanded and dusted, I then applied one coat of Tung Oil to it and let it dry.

 

and then a second. Just finished with this coat and I think that should do it. There are some pretty porous areas on the edges that will need a few extra coats to soak in, but the main part looks perfect.

 

Once this coat cures I am going to flip in over and work on getting the base ready for the light switch and battery compartment. Can't wait to see what the boat looks like mounted to this beauty. Oh, did I mention this son of a gun weighs about 40 lbs. (without the boat). I'm going to have to find a heavy duty shelf to put this on.

 

-Brian

 

As usual Keith beautiful work.
 

I generally use a small soldering iron and run it up and down the sides of the heat shrink tubing, not touching it, but close enough to get it to shrink. I use this method in the more delicate areas, or where the surrounding area can be affected by the heat gun. 

 

-Brian

23 hours ago, wefalck said:

On the Internet you can find all sorts of sizes and grades of diamond-coated cutting saws. They are not only used in tile etc. cutting, but also for cutting gem-stones.

I have a set of diamond needle files that work great for fine sanding wood in those hard to reach places, but have never used one on a saw. Seems that the speed factor would tend to gall up the blade pretty quick with the wood fibers.

 

-Brian.

23 hours ago, Roger Pellett said:

If “digital replacement” becomes a selling point, you need to replace that Craftsman full sized table saw with a SawStop table saw.  That’s a Rabbit Hole involving $$$$!

Roger, I had looked at those several years ago, but they were way too expensive. They are also proud of their saws as well, and having to replace the cartridge every time it was used can get a little pricy. 

 

23 hours ago, Roger Pellett said:

My full sized table saw is a 10in Delta Contractor’s saw bought for $150 from a local canoe builder who upgraded to a SawStop.  The sale price included a trailer to haul it home!

What a steal! I bought my Craftsman about 20 years ago and paid about $1500 for it, and that was the floor model. Not to mention it didn't come with a trailer. Had to haul it home in the truck and have three friends help unload it. 😁

 

-Brian

Eric I’m starting to get the feeling that the instructions for this model are not very useful. This may be a build as you go and use the instructions just for parts placement.
 

The side casement armor does indeed sit under the hurricane deck trim/water ways. It overlaps the armor plating, I would guess to keep most of the runoff from going between the plates and the casements. 
 

I noticed that the forward railroad irons do the same thing that I had an issue in with my build where the top few rows tapered up into the hurricane deck trim. Later on in my build I found the reason for this was that the angles  between the forward casements and the side casements were different. The HSR plans have both casements at a 45 degree angle but later research shows the forwards were 35 degrees. 
 

I love the toddler tenacity of wanting to work on your model right now!  😁

 

-Brian

2 hours ago, KeithAug said:

That is interesting, could you provide more information on the diamond blade and perhaps where you purchased it from.

I can’t speak for the UK Keith but over here we have a place called Harbor Freight. They sell tools really cheap, but of course they are cheap. Several years ago when I first got into wooden ship building I purchase one of their cheap mini table saws for something like $20. Needless to say, you get what you pay for, and it wouldn’t cut a clean line for anything. Long story short, it came with a diamond blade, but it does say for masonry. Never thought to try it on wood. 

 

2 hours ago, KeithAug said:

The advantage of the Byrnes saw is that the amputation is much cleaner, which facilitates the process of surgical re-attachment.

Good to know that digit reattachment is easier with the Byrnes. Good selling point. I sure hope this information doesn’t come from personal experience though. 😁

 

-Brian

Beautiful work Greg! Definitely an interesting subject, but it looks great. 
 

-Brian

29 minutes ago, kurtvd19 said:

Do you have a zero clearance insert for your saw blade?  The use of one for each saw blade cuts down on the splintering on plywood.  Makes a much cleaner cut.  Tell your wife that the Byrnes saw is a matter of saving your fingers.  While it is quite capable of taking off a digit or two it being smaller and sized to the work you do with models makes it safer to use than the big shop saw.

Hi Kurt, unfortunately I do not have a zero clearance insert for my saw. I had never really thought that I would use the saw for small detail work like ship modelling. However, that is something that I will look into if I can't swing the Byrnes for a while. I'll definitely bring the finger saving idea up to the wife though. If no one hears anything from me for a while I may be recovering from a mysterious frying pan upside the head accident. 😁 

 

-Brian

16 hours ago, Alex-Ks1 said:

I have a precision small table saw, it uses a very thin diamond blade, this dose not put the rips in the wood, it looks more like it was uses with a hot knife. Very smooth, no rips, 

Alex-Ks1, thank you for stopping by. I have been eye-balling a Byrnes precision table saw for some time now, it just hasn't been in the budget as of yet. I cut the bulkheads on my Craftsman 10" Industrial table saw from 1/4" plywood, with a brand new carbide tipped blade. Even with a new blade I just couldn't keep the plywood from shredding. Of course the plywood was not of the best quality either, but this is the reason for all the tear-outs. Fortunately all the bulkheads were hidden and none of the "nastiness" of the plywood can be seen. For the finer stuff, I used an Xacto saw blade and a lot of sandpaper. One of these days I may be able to talk the Admiral into a Byrnes (fingers crossed).

 

-Brian

11 hours ago, Cathead said:

I've always used Model Expo paints in the past, I'm used to them and a creature of habit. But I'm out of paint and needed some different colors. This time I switched to ordering some Vallejo primer and colors from MicroMark.

Glad to see another update. I’m not a huge fan of ME paints. They do have some nice colors that are, for the most part, true to some of the originals, but I find them a bit thick and in need of thinning before applying. I love the Vallejo paints. They have so many more color options available and they apply nicely right out of the bottle. 
 

Fantastic job on getting the hull shaped, and I love the plan you have to weather the deck. I’m a big fan of natural wood decks. I wouldn’t sweat the PE too much. I found that it was easier to work with than I first thought as well. Well, at least the bigger parts are. Haven’t had the joy of working with the tiny stuff yet. 😁

 

-Brian

8 hours ago, Zetec said:

Hi I came across your build site as I was looking for information on the USS Cairo that I have just started to build. What a lovely model you have built. You must be very proud of what you have achieved. I only hope mine will come out looking something like yours this now gives me a bench mark to aim towards.

Thank you John for the kind words. I see that you are new to MSW and I hope you are planning to do a build log on your model. There are so many wonderful resources here at MSW and I would love to follow along and help out where I can.

 

- Brian

Looks like you handled the pressure pretty well. Nice work on the pilot house. 
 

-Brian

Nice quarry Eric. Looks like the freezer is beginning to get stocked. 
 

-Brian

Looking beautiful Tom. I use the CA on the thread method all the time. It certainly helps when threading the smaller ropes through the blocks. 
 

-Brian

Nice work on tying down the dingy Keith and nifty idea to plumb the masts. I'll need to keep that in mind on my next masted ship build. As I view your log, I sometimes have a hard time believing that this is a model. Your details are amazing.

 

-Brian

I actually still have my O-Scale Lionel train from the early 70's. I dug it out last year for my grandson to play with, but I was not about to don a suit and tie to watch him play with it. 😁

 

-Brian

@Roger Pellett, @leclaire, @wefalck, @Canute, @KeithAug, @mtaylor, @Keith Black Thank you all for your input and suggestions.

 

So I spent the evening playing around with different methods and here is what I came up with.

 

My second attempt was to try printing the flag on silkspan just to see if the ink would bleed. Turns out that the printer did a fantastic job on the silkspan and the lines came out nice an clean. I taped the silkspan to a piece of cardstock to hold it in place so it wouldn't crinkle up under the printer head.

Then I separated the printout from the cardstock and trimmed the edges after a bit of weathering. I wasn't too keen on the color of the white areas on the silkspan when I pulled it off the cardstock, it looked a little too gray, but when I folded it over the gray toned out a bit and it looked a little more white.

The silkspan that I had on hand was very thin, something left over from a balsa airplane I made years ago. But I figured I'd give it a shot, so I slathered some glue on the back side and folded it over to glue the two sides together. That is where I screwed it up. The glue thinned the silkspan down so much that it was next to impossible to work with and when I went to align the side it just smeared and ruined the whole piece. So on to the next method.

 

The next method I tried was @KeithAug suggestion to print the pattern on both sides of the paper and just make the flag a single layer. I printed out about five versions of it before I finally gave up. My poor cheapo printer just would not line the paper up when I would turn it over to print the other side. This was the closest I could get the sides to line up with each other.

I went ahead and gave it a shot anyway to see if I could distress it and get it lay the way I wanted to without using any glue. The distressing looked great, but the paper was just to flimsy to lay right. So I moved on to the next method. Parchment paper. Well needless to say, that method didn't work either, The parchment paper was too crinkly and when I went to shape it the wrinkles were just too unrealistic.

 

So finally I decided that I would make another attempt at distressing the printer paper like in my beta test. I liked the way this version looked aesthetically, I just wasn't happy with the way it was hanging on the halyard. As Eberhard pointed out, the angle was not natural, so I redid this method to place the header down the middle of the flag and have it hang more centered on the mast.

 

Here are all of the attempts I made, just to show the differences.

 

A. second version of distressed bond paper. I added a little more weathering than the beta version, but I liked the curl and hang a lot better.

B. The  beta test

C. The single layer

D. Parchment paper

E. Silkspan

 

Here is version A placed on the model. I like the way that it hangs and I think the weathered patina looks just right,

 

 

I found some pictures online of flags sitting on stages in flag stands to get the drape right, and used these to mold my shape. On the western rivers, there was always some sort of breeze, so the flag wouldn't be sitting perfectly still or hanging against the mast. So I took this into consideration and left the left the bottom of the ensign hanging slightly out from the mast, just to give it some "life". I think I am completely satisfied with this version, and now that I have beat this subject to death. time to move on to the pennant.

 

Thank you all so much for your valuable input and suggestions. It is greatly appreciated.

 

-Brian

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Sorry, my jaw just hit the keyboard. 😁 

 

Beautiful details Keith. Craftsmanship like yours is what I strive to someday achieve. Truly inspiring!

 

-Brian

 

 

10 hours ago, Roger Pellett said:

Stiff paper flags can ruin the appearance of a well built model and your beautiful model deserves lifelike ones.

Thank you Roger, I agree 100% with this statement. Never would I even think of putting a stiff paper flag on any model. It's almost blasphemy to spend that much time on a build only to tarnish it by slapping a unrealistic flag on it.😁

 

Actually you brought up one of the methods from the NRG that I was going to try. I was going to deviate slightly from the method and attempt to see if the Silkspan would hold the ink from my printer first without bleeding. If it does bleed, I may see if I can locate some rice paper and try that. I've never dealt with rice paper before, but there is always a first time for everything. I am not real confident in my painting skills and getting straight lines, but there is always the need to improve a skill I'm lacking in. However, the star field is what's holding me back from painting. 34 small stars (at 1:48 on a 6' x 10' flag are about 2mm across) and doubling that for both sides would test my patience to the max. I may someday try painting one on a more simpler pattern such as the Union Jack, I just don't think I'm ready with this one. Not to mention with the eyes that are on me now, I want to make sure that I get it done right so I don't disappoint.

 

 

7 hours ago, mtaylor said:

Another way to get natural looking flags is take an aluminum can, open it flat.  Then bend it to the desired shape for the hanging flag.  Put the flag on the shaped can and soak with white glue/water (if printed... test to see if the ink runs) and press into the can to shape.   Let dry.    I used that on my Constellation and Wasa and the flags came out very well, IMO.

Mark, Thank you for the suggestion. This is not a method that I have run across yet and will definitely take into consideration if I am not able to achieve a natural look. 

 

 

6 hours ago, KeithAug said:

Brian I'm looking forward to seeing and learning from your flag experiments. I think it is time you stopped pretending this is your first scratch model, you are fooling no one😁.

Keith, no pretending here. This entire build has been a learning experience. 😁 But, pull up a chair while I run through my first attempt at flag making.

 

 

 

With this much attention I decided to go ahead and get my beta test posted and get some input (positive or negative) from everyone. So here goes.

 

I started with printing out the ensign on just some plain white printer paper. Not a heavy bond, just lightweight so that the flag wasn't too thick and easy to work with.

 

I took an ochre chalk pastel and lightly brushed on a little color to give it a stained/weathered look and take some of the sharpness out of the white and dull down some of the blue and red.

 

 

Both sides aged a bit.

 

Then I trimmed away the excess paper get the full shape of the ensign.

 

This next step was really hard for me because it seemed a bit disrespectful to do this to the flag, but I kept telling myself, it's only temporary and part of the process to show it off properly. I wadded the paper to soften the fibers and make it look a lot more like material.

 

After unravelling it, I pulled it across the sharp edge of my desk to help smooth out some of the harsher lines. I repeated this step about three or four times to get the right feel.

 

Once I had the paper feeling like I wanted, I applied a thick layer of clear Elmer's glue to the inside and smeared it out evenly on one side. I used a good bit so that it allowed me to slide the edges together and get them even.

 

Once the two halves were glued together, I pressed them together with a steel block to smooth it out even more.

 

Now to the fun part. Trying to shape the ensign so that it looks like it is hanging naturally. I didn't want to show it like it was flying in a stiff wind, I wanted to have it look like it was hanging on a nice calm day, with hardly a breeze. Just enough to show the colors, but not stick out too much. I used my steel block to hold the header flat and in place since this side would be straight when secured to the rope. I then curled the rest to form a natural hanging look.

 

To hold the curl in position until the glue dried, I placed a wooden block on it. The block was not heavy enough to flatten the flag, but light enough to give it some dimension.

 

While the glue was drying, I pieced together the halyard and hooks. I simulated the grommets with a pencil and pierced the header with a small punch.

 

Next I needed to dress up the edges a bit so that the white paper didn't show, so I used a red and blue chalk pastel to cover it up.

 

I just ran the pastel softly along the edge then dusted the excess off. This seemed to work pretty good and blended the colors nicely. I also darkened the header a bit with a rust pastel to show the differences in material.

 

After I had the edges covered up, it was time to secure the ensign to the halyard.

 

Then the whole thing was placed on the mast.

 

For the most part I think it came out pretty nice looking for my first attempt. I am going to play around with some other methods, but I am looking to get an opinion or thoughts on what the gallery thinks of this version. I am open to any and all suggestions or criticism. This is a learning experience for me and I'd like to make sure that I learn right.

 

Thanks to all for stopping by and look forward to your comments.

 

-Brian

 

 

Thank you all for the kind words and likes!

  

13 hours ago, bdgiantman2 said:

Of all the places, to get the flag in the size suggest getting (the size of an index card), I ended up buying from a company in England!

Oh the irony of that one. 😁

 

12 hours ago, bdgiantman2 said:

Will need to see if able to find the name of the company to send to you over private messaging.

Please, by all means send the link. I'm always on the look out for places to shop for modeling supplies. For this build I am attempting to make my own ensigns, but if I fail I may need a fallback.

 

There are several methods that are posted in the "Tip and Tricks" section of MSW and I want to try a few as well as experiment on my own. Most of them require the ensign to be printed out, which helps when you can't find the correct scale online, and it allows you to go with any size you like. In this case I am going with a 6'x10' 34-Star ensign in 1:48 scale. Should be just about right for the ones flown on these boats. As for the pennant, from what I have found so far, they call for them to be 32' in length. Scaled to 1:48 that is about 8" long. I think that would be a little too much and wouldn't look right on the model. I'm still investigating that one and may have to shorten it up a bit to get it to look right. I did discover that the 13-star version was used during the Civil War, so I am one step closer.

 

I am going to play around with these for a bit and see how they turn out.

-Brian

Totally impressive! I’ve just now started weathering models and see that I have a long way to go. 
 

-Brian

Hello again everyone,

 

I took advantage of the cold rainy weekend and got some work done on the ships boats rigging. A big thank you to @wefalck@Cathead & @Keith Black for keeping me honest and pointed in the right direction. 

 

I spent some time studying the old City-Class pictures and from the limited detail the old photos provided, this is what I came up with for the control and stabilizing lines on the davits. The eyes at the end of each davit is hard to make out in the photographs so it is difficult to tell if the control lines and stabilizing lines are separate or one continuous line. I went with the executive decision to make them separate. My reasoning for this was that it would be easier to replace one shorter rope should it break than a long one, and I thought it looked better having them all separate. First thing I did was to secure the tackle to the davit on the covered boats. I did it this way out of sheer laziness, I didn't want to remove the boats and their covers and redo them with cutouts for the tackle to go down the lift rings on the boats. Not to mention that I have not been able to find a single photograph of a City-Class ship with a covered boat anywhere, to show how it was stowed.

 

Tackle secured to the davit.

.

 

Control lines and stabilizing lines in place on the starboard boats.

 

 

 

Control lines and stabilizing lines on the port boats.

 

Since I still had some time and it was still raining after finishing up the boats, I decided to do some touch ups and a bit more weathering. Here is some of what I got done.

 

Bow weathering.

Closer details.

 

Wheelhouse and deck structure weathering.

 

I still have a bit more weathering to go, I just wanted to get this out there before the Thanksgiving holiday, I am currently working on more weathering, as well as the ensign and the commissioning pennant. I have seen some models and pictures of another pennant flown from the center mast on some of these ships but I am not sure of what it is. It would be a neat addition, just not sure of it's authenticity.

 

 

 

I also need to find out if the commissioning pennant the Cairo flew was the 13 star or the 7 star version. Still looking into that one.

 

Thanks again for all your input and for stopping by,

 

-Brian