Overworked724

Yep. Had same problem. Those laser cut caps for the ship’s boat were both a bit narrow and too short. Maybe if I’d sanded a bit more they could have fit a bit better, but I prefer to make my own as well. Nice work!

Ran into a snag. The bridle port doors nearest the bow are single piece doors that SHOULD have a longer hinge strap (photo etched). But, my kit either didn’t come with them or I lost them. It would not look right with the smaller hinge straps…and I did check but it seems off. I was going to try to create some out of brass when I thought I could use thin boxwood strips I made to create the shingles for the gallery roofs I made earlier. (Doesn’t hurt to not throw away anything sometimes!) A quick coat of paint and Waa-La! Easy bypass and they look pretty good. I can trim the strap lengths easily and add on the hinges after I’ve glued them on the ship. Moving on!!!

Before I start trying to drill holes for the gun port doors, I realized I needed to remake the doors nearest the bow and stern, as well as the transom doors. What sucks is they still don’t fit perfectly, but I’m tired of messing with the doors and they’re close enough. So, I’m going with them. The paint isn’t a perfect match either…but what the hell.

Sooooo…gun port doors. Chuck’s practicum has about 2 sentences on mounting these suckers. In short, I’ve been struggling on how to Mount them so they don’t look askew or show the hole you need to drill into the side of the ship to mount them. Also, the idea of trying to put those tiny 1.4mm hinges on AFTER I’ve mounted them terrifies me. I opted for putting on the tiny hinges first. Then made a faux window sill with a foam board to see where best to drill the holes and ensure they look clean. Theoretically, this means once I’ve got them drilled and prefit, I can store them until I need to mount them. I see myself ripping these off by accident multiple times in the future. Hey…in theory this should work. Looks ok with the practice piece. 🙏🏼 Gratuitous pics below.

Also…found some unique clamps at the local hardware store in Kirishima that will work great for 2nd hands as well as modified arms for my serving machine! Pics to follow. 😋

Sigh. Gotta say…those gun port doors have been ‘Writer’s Block’ for me. Just like the Pintles and gudgeons…been trying to figure out how to Mount them cleanly. In the meantime…I made the doors for the stern gun port doors. Pics to come soon…but I think I finally pushed through the barrier.

I will use thin washi (Japanese) paper. I’ll tape it to standard stock paper and run it through an inkjet printer. Then I’ll reverse the washi paper and tape to a cutting pad … easy to see the graphics. I use a glue stick to lightly and evenly cover the back of the flags…use a razor blade to cut out the shape, lay rope across the middle and fold it to complete the flag. Scissors to trim and clean up the shape. With washi paper, you can lightly wet it to creat realistic folds…as it dries, it maintains its shape. It’s also extremely thin, so doesn’t seem out of scale. Folks do their flags in a variety of ways. I prefer this way as it’s simple and I don’t trust myself to paint my own to my satisfaction.

Redo looks great! Looks like it was definitely worth the time invested. 👍🏽

Very nice! I'm waiting for you to catch up to me before I start my carronades! 😃

I'm sure it looks fine to the naked eye. Zooming in is the bane of every modeler because we are all perfectionists! Zoom in close enough and you'll find imperfections in everything. I think it looks great! Those are some small pieces!

They can also make you feel like a complete imbecile. 😝

Took a diversion for a couple days. I've had Chuck's Syren Servo-Matic in storage for over 2 years gathering dust. Since it's a skill I've not developed and one I will need for the rigging, I decided to sniff test my device and see if it was working, and whether I was up to actually being capable of serving my rope...something I did not do on the Sultana. So...long story short...it worked and I was able to serve a 20" section of 0.035" tan rope I had laying around with some black cotton thread. The problem I had was then thing was so squeaky my teeth were itching. This is where I did something REALLY DUMB! The squeaking was driving me insane and it was late...so my sleep addled brain said, "Hey...squeaky stuff needs WD-40!" So without thinking (at all), I took a few drops of WD-40 and dropped them into the joints. Boom...squeaking disappeared. You can see the WD-40 streaked wood below. Suddenly, the cog connected to the rotating lever started to slip and it fell completely off. I had to look it up, but yeah...WD-40 dissolves CA glue. Who knew? Besides the fact you shouldn't use it on wood in the first place...I'm an idiot. Instead if trying to glue it on again, I decided to get some new washers and some 'R' pins. Drilled some holes into the brass tubing sections where I needed them, and used a simple tack to lock in the cog with the R pin...waalaaaa. I also put in holes for R pins on both outward facing brass sections so I could use them to lock in various attachments I made for finicky bits I will need to serve later on. Final fiddly bits with my newly repaired and fully QUIET and functioning Servo-Matic in the last pic. I served up a 24" section of the same 0.035" tan rope with black silk thread and the result was astounding as well as fairly quick. I came away with newfound confidence that serving rope is not the bugbear I thought it was...so it gave me a little confidence boost. Moving on....

Got an answer to my question above from a shipmate who also researched into it. My flags are correct. I think some other modelers who built this kit noted the discrepancy when they made their own flags but didn’t mention it! 😎 I guess that makes me a squeaky wheel. Moving on…

I think she turned out just beautiful! What a fantastic achievement!

Was spending time organizing and doing odd little chores on my USS Syren parts and decided to make the graphics to prepare the flags when I get to that point. My intention is to prepare them using washi paper as I did on my last build. So, I looked up the flags online and prepared the flag and jackstaff graphics. I thought the graphics and sizes were pretty close to those in the kit, and was happy to move on and consider this little chore complete. But I noticed a major difference between my naval jack and the Shipways kit supplied naval jack. See the graphic below. The main country flag and reverse images are an exact match. Slight color differences but nothing else. The naval jack provided in the MS Kit is completely reversed from the gif I prepared. Considering that I got the graphic for both the country flag and naval jack from Wiki, I'm wondering which is correct. I could you some help here...is the MS kit provided naval jack incorrect or is there some mistake I am making?