Haliburton

I posted this in the wrong place before. These are a few of the tools and stuff i picked up while in New york. The  small square will be invaluable.  The automatic switch for the vacuum system is the most practical as i often don't switch it on  when i just need to make a quick sand or cut. Now i have no excuse.





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strake 14 complete
 

Thank you very kind to say.  Yes I have seen the diorama I think it looks cool 😉

Shaping up beautifully. Well done on those yards.  

Wow, looking really great!  Have you seen the Occre diorama with the Terror surrounded in ice?

Wow, looking really great!  Have you seen the Occre diorama with the Terror surrounded in ice?

Hi Guys, thank you for all of your comments.
 
I will say that this venture is a new experience for me, doing stuff that others did in the past like putting together the manuals, box art, kit packing etc. We will get better with experience, as some aspects of the kit I am doing for the first time, and is one hell of a learning curve.
 
The main priority right now is box strengthening and making sure all kits get to the customer in perfect condition.

Arrived safely in Lancashire! I'll do a write up in the next days.
 

Not a long journey, in my case, a mere 76 miles, but my Alert has arrived, delivered by UPS at 2pm.

 Everything intact but I think it would save Chris some problems down the line if he does invest in a stronger box, the long sides gave little  support to protect the  contents.

Not had chance to fully  examine all the contents but the materials look good and I love the A3  instruction manual,  beautifully produced, and what a bonus for my tired old eyes.
Liked the touch of a personally addressed note inside the box.👍
 
Thank you Chris, I look forward to hopefully doing your Alert justice.
 
B.E.
 

The yard arms took a surprising amount of time, but there is a lot going on in them.
For the shroud I was pulling the string tight. I think this was the wrong way to go because the first mast the dead eyes were not level. For the 2nd mast shroud it was not ai tight. 

The ratlines got easier the more I did but it feels like knitting with tweezers. 

The masts were straight forward enough. It was easier to paint them in sections and then put them together. 
I recently got a rotary tool (it was very cheap, wasn't sure I would need it) and thought it would be a good opportunity to try it out on the holes for the mast. It was amazing and saved me so much time 😁.
Now its starting to look like a proper ship. 

Very nice ship indeed Sir Francis, lots of very well done
timber work.
Hooroo Chris

Thanks guys
 
Of all the worries I had yesterday, damaged kits wasn't one of them. I was worried whether you guys would like the kit when you opened the box, never thought for a second they would arrive so beat up!
 
Also, it's mad that the US and Canadian guys receive their kits before the UK orders, I do not understand that!
 
I should be getting a quote for thick cardboard sleeves sometime today.
 
I did have some tiny boxes arrive today, for the figures, looks like these will be quite safe.
 
ETA - the Alert manual is a3 size, I chose this size because I knew I could just about fit the Alert 64th scale profiles on this size, so I could have everything, instruction and plans-wise all in one manual. Plus, I always hated how small the text kept getting in new kits, needing a microscope to read anything - I wanted to redress this...
 
Speedy will probably have an A4 manual and separate plan sheets for profiles and mast, yard and rigging, as that's a little bigger.

Another hair pulling night. Pontos doesn't help. Their directions on folding the PE is really bad and confusing.  On every page, at the bottom, they have this note? instruction?

I just couldn't figure out what they were talking about. I kept looking for the vent.  Was there a vent in every assembly? Then I realized they meant to say BENT!!! From looking at the picture, the bends are either dashed green lines, or red ones:

Here you can see that they want you to "vend" this part up at the green dotted line.  This is a PDF image captured at 400%. I marked the TINY hole in part 47 with red arrows. You would NEVER see it on the paper PDF, and I didn't see it because I wasn't zoomed at 400%. But I bent the part according to how the indicate.  MUCH later one, you can see what this little hole is for:

That hole would have been in line with the rod for support, but because the instructions are a mess, it ended up on the other side. Not only that, but the first hole that the rod actually goes through before getting to the hole wasn't nearly as large enough for the rod to slide through.  I had to cut the tab with the hole in it for it to reach the back of part 47, where there was no hole and I just glued it. It really sucks to have to spend so much time trying to decipher where things go and then have to rework things later, and oftentimes, reworking just either mangles or destroys your work.  Not fun.
I eventually was able to put together the cables that this whole mess was for:

 

I ordered beeswax online and then used it on the line holding the ships boat. It makes a huge difference to candle wax. Then moved onto the pump handles, this has a lot of tight bends that were challenging and I had to do it twice. The anchor chains were straightforward though.



The davits were ok, hardest part was trying to fix the eyebolts together at an angle with the superglue. But with theses attached and the brass rods at the bow, every time I move something is getting snagged.

The anchor chain links are too small to fit the loop that the anchor is attached to. In the end I had to file a small bit of the loop.

I decided after seeing the bowsprit made up that it could do with some variation to break up the dowl colour. So I'm going to water down some paint and use it more like a stain. 
I also moved the ropes and wood block on the 1st half up higher than where they are on the instructions. The placement on the instructions didn't match where they should be on the pictures.

First outboard lid done
 
To morrow, the same other board... 😊

It's going to be exciting to see these kits show up in the build logs!
 
I would contribute to a fund, to award one of Chris' captain figures to a builder who has reached the rigging stage..😁

Maybe there should be an Alert Group Build here if we get enough interested parties?

Delivery from UPS

 

Not bad service from UPS and great work by Chris and Steve
 

Does anybody ever use solder for PE?  I saw an article in finescalemodeller about using it. But it seems to me most just use the glue. 

Hello All,
I did quite a bit today for father's day. Spent most of the day in my man cave.
The only model kit that I can remember growing taller after each sub-assembly was a model of the Apollo Saturn V. This thing just gets taller and taller! It looks imposing. The pictures don't do it justice. Also, please forgive the lighting. Obviously I will get better pictures later on.  Hope you like.

Update: Not a lot of progress but a very important discovery.  I have been really bothered by the CA glue "frost". Especially on black.  VERY unsightly. Even if you don't show any glue marks, that outgassing of the glue does. I started doing some touch up but had an idea. Here is a picture of the results and they are great! I sprayed some clear semi-gloss lacquer in some of the areas and it worked! The picture is of a really bad area and the most dramatic result.
BEFORE:
AFTER:
I should explain something. The first thing I did with the Pontos set, was wash it, de-grease it, and then spray it with clear lacquer, so spraying more on top of the "frost" must allow the coat underneath to kind of "swallow" the frost?  I have no idea, but it makes a huge difference.  I might just end up spraying a clear coat over most of the ship as I'm working.
Also tonight, I worked and finished the "starfish".

Testing fenders

Quarterdeck rail done