gjdale

Thanks Glen, I’m a little anxious about that too. Guess we’ll find out soon! By the way, it’s not “my” method - it’s David Antscherl’s (and he goes into a lot more detail for adding details to sails at a larger scale). Gotta give credit where it is due. 😊

After deciding that the cloth from the Admiral’s stash would not do the job, I decided to have a go at making the sails from silkspan, following the tutorial by David Antscherl in his Sail Making Supplement to Vol IV of TFFM. It took a while to obtain the various supplies needed, but in the end proved to be a lot easier to do than I had anticipated. It all starts with making a frame with a removable centre or “plug”. I knocked one up from some scraps of melamine I had lying around. Nothing fancy here, just held together with pocket screws. Here’s the back, showing the construction method: A piece of Silkspan is then cut a little wider than the opening. The Silkspan is then soaked in water for a couple of minutes and then laid over the frame (with plug inserted for suppot). Gummed brown tape (as used by artists) is then applied to secure the edges of the Silkspan. The frame is then lifted clear of the plug and the Silkspan allowed to dry. As it does so, it tightens like a drum skin. A wash is then applied using very dilute unbleached titanium white acrylic paint. I found that three applications were required to give the desired colour. The photos don’t show the colour very well, but here is a side-by-side of with some untreated Silkspan for comparison. The next step is to draw some parallel lines to represent the cloths of the sail and their seams. Antscherl recommends using a Bow Pen (known as a Ruling Pen here in Australia) with a mix of unbleached titanium white and yellow oxide paint. Instead, I tried using some Sepia ink. Unfortunately, while the Bow Pen may work well at 1:48 scale, it is not so useful at 1:300 scale. The width of the sail cloths is 21” full size, which translates to a little under 2mm at 1:300 scale, while the seam width of 1 ½” full size translates to less than 0.2mm at 1:300 scale. Using the Bow Pen at its narrowest setting I doubled the sail cloth width to leave more space between seams, but the Bow Pen line still looked too large to my eye. Having looked for alternatives, I managed to find a Copic liner pen at 0.03mm. The only catch was that the only colour this comes in is black. I drew these lines on my sail cloth, at the correct 2mm spacing and decided that these looked okay. I then made some carboard templates using the kit-provided sails as pre-templates, and drew the sail outlines onto my prepared cloth. In the picture below, you can see how I’ve tested these against the Bow Pen/Sepia Ink, the Copic Liner, and no lines. For reference, I’ve placed the kit-provided sails on the right in the picture. The next stage was to add reinforcing seams around the edges of the sails. For this I cut 1/16” wide strips from a previously prepared piece of sail cloth and added them around the edges of all sails and then also across the reef bands, attaching them with diluted acrylic matt medium. I used my “non-preferred” areas as practice for this part, as shown in this photo. Grommets for the reefing points were then added by placing a small dot using the 0.03mm Copic liner pen. And finally, the sails were cut free from the frame using a scalpel with a fresh blade. Here is a shot of the completed sail set, with the kit-provided sails above them for reference. And here is a slightly closer shot of just my made sails. I’m quite happy with the way they turned out. I thought they might be very stiff, but they appear to be quite flexible, yet strong. It remains to be seen what happens when they get mashed up to squeeze into the bottle neck!

Can’t wait to see what you’ll do next with this one Glen.

I wasn’t happy with the replacement sail material from the Admiral’s stash, so I’ve decided to have a go at using silk span. I have the “tutorial” addendum from David Antshcerl’s TFFM series and have ordered some silk span. So, there will be a brief hiatus while I await the material and do some testing. Stay tuned….

Thanks for the heads-up on both counts Mike.

Now that is curious Glen. Even the photo in my instructions shows the backwards ‘N’. I wonder how/when that changed in the production process? B.E. - I’ll try to remember to take some photos during the bottling process, but I’m a bit slack with the photos sometimes when I get absorbed in what I’m doing. It’s the one part of this build that scares me more than any other.

Flat through the neck of the bottle, and then raised B.E.

Thanks for the kind comments and the likes. Some more progress over the last couple of days. The hull is now complete, barring some additional touch-up painting. Not much to say about adding the deck furniture, other than it is tiny! I needed to file the bottoms of the gun carriages slightly to enable a good fit of the gun barrels through the ports. The anchors appear to be grossly over-size for the scale, but they are still tiny. Here are some overview photos of the current state of play. And here’s a close-up of the transom. The macro lens is brutal, but notice that one of the “N”s is backwards. I have no idea if that is how it was done on the real ship. I also painted the coat of arms for the bottle top today. The photo is not particularly flattering, but it looks fine from normal viewing distance. Onto the rigging next. The first job will be to re-make the sails. I’ll be following the excellent example of Glen McGuire when I tackle this. I’ve already sourced some replacement material form the Admiral’s sewing stash, so am ready to go.

She’s looking beautiful Bob. Great to see you back at it again.

Thanks Glen. I tip my hat to you once again for your outstanding work on your miniature Chinese fleet.

After a couple of months of no progress, I finally got back to this over the last couple of days. The usual excuses of life getting in the way, coupled with a focus on a new furniture project (building a display cabinet for some of my models). That project is ongoing, but hopefully I’ll be able to progress this little one at the same time now. The stand is comprised of a timber base with a brass top plate and four ‘columns’ that will support the ship. After painting the timber base, the top plate was glued down and the two lateral columns added. The longitudinal columns get added a little later. The decks are photo-etched brass. These are painted a dark brown and once dry they are sanded with a very fine sandpaper (1200 grit) to remove most of the paint, leaving only the caulking joints with paint. This is a quite effective method. (Note the metric ruler for scale). The main deck is attached to a photo-etched sub-deck that has two sets of ‘ears’ that will become the mast steps/pivots. These two components are then held in place while the position of the quarterdeck is checked. The bulwarks are a single piece of photo-etched brass that is first prepared by painting in a similar fashion to the decks. Here you see the outside face of the bulwarks after sanding off the excess paint. The inner face is painted in a solid coat of dark brown. The bulwarks are then bent to shape, initially forming around a piece of dowel of roughly the right diameter, and then on the actual hull. Slots in the bulwarks go over the channels. This is temporarily held in place (with fingers) while checking for clearance at the quarterdeck. There are three holes on each side that rigging will later pass through and these need to be clear of the quarterdeck. More by good luck than skill, my quarterdeck needed no adjustment. The quarterdeck and quarterdeck planking are then permanently attached, and then the fun begins. The bulwarks are then once again held temporarily in place while the keel/bowsprit (a single photo-etched piece) are test fit. The keel/bowsprit hooks over the forward end of the bulwarks and then should sit in a slot in the bottom of the hull (carved by you) all the way along and up the transom. Let me just say this was a lot trickier than the instructions would have you believe. It took me a couple of days of head scratching to figure out how to make mine fit. In fact, I walked away from the model for two days while I thought about it. Eventually, I decided that the only solution was to deepen the slot on the bulwark where the keel/bowsprit hooked over it. The only tool I had that would fit this narrow slot was a cutting disc for my rotary tool. Some very careful and delicate touches were required, but eventually I was able to get a reasonable fit. Here is another overview shot. You can see in this and the previous shot that the deck hatches and gratings have also been added. I still need to touch-up / re-do some of the paintwork – particularly the white paint on the lower hull – before moving on to the deck furniture. Hopefully, it won't be another two months before the next update!

Fascinating project Glen - “ambitious” is the understatement of the year, but if anyone can pull it off, you can. Now, about those penguins……

Sorry to hear you’ve been unwell Bob. Hope to see you back at the bench again soon.

What a lovely thing to do for your friend - I’m sure it will be a prized possession.

Congratulations Glen on another excellent build. I love your choice of display stand as much as the ship/bottle. Of course, the obvious question is, “what’s next?”

Well done Glen - a great fix indeed.

WOOHOO!!!! Congratulations Glen. I know you’ll work out how to solve those remaining minor issues. I’ll get the champagne on ice in anticipation.

Congratulations Dave, well done!

Congratulations Dave, looks fabulous.

Steve, Welcome to MSW. The simplest answer to your questions is to soak the end of the thread (say 5mm or so) in a little CA glue (super glue). Then, once hardened, cut the end at an angle. This will give a hard, sharp end to thread through the block. Once fully threaded, you can simply cut off your sharp end.

I placed an order with Vahur a couple of weeks ago as I was interested to see if Black Hornbeam might be a suitable substitute for Ebony. So I ordered one piece each of 10mm and 6mm. For such a small order, the postage actually cost more than the timber, but that is not Vahur's fault - I'm kinda used to the extortionist costs of international postage these days! Vahur kindly also included some samples of other timbers, including White Hornbeam, Swiss Pear (both dark and light), Holly, Costello Boxwood, and Alaskan Yellow Cedar. Delivery time was under two weeks, which is quite exceptional these days - I usually figure on a minimum of a month for international deliveries. Vahur also went to considerable effort to package the timber very securely to prevent any damage during transit. The timber itself is beautifully milled. It is of the same standard as that which some of us were used to receiving from Jeff Hayes at Hobbymill (US) before he retired, and that is a very high bar indeed. Full marks to Vahur for both quality of product and customer service - five stars all round 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟. I highly recommend Hobbymill (EU) as a go-to source of model timber supplies. Oh, and the answer to my orginal question is yes, I think that Black Hornbeam can be used in place of Ebony. I compared it to a piece of Ebony I had on hand, and it is hard to tell the difference. Thank you, Vahur. 😊

Outstanding Tom! Congratulations on completing a fine build. I'll be standing by to follow your next scratch build - it's sure to be a beauty.

I think we all have those days, Glen - some of us more frequently than we would like! Ship's looking good - can't wait to see what you do with the sails.

I shaped the hull today. Initial sanding to get the shape roughly right, then applied a coat of Durham’s Rock Hard Water Putty to even out the various imperfections, followed by a final sanding at 240, then 400 grit. Here is the hull as it stands today.

Thanks Glen, Keith and Mark - glad to have you all onboard for the ride. Glen - you know that yours is my "go to" reference log for this build! Moving right along.... I proceeded to glue up the lifts, adding the additional stern pieces. These were fitted leaving a gap between them for the keel. The photoetch brass sheet containing the keel was used as a spacer for this purpose. At the bow, there are two additional shorter pieces added. These are then sanded to create a continuous slope before attaching the final piece, called the under deck, that runs the full length of the hull. Here are a couple of photos prior to commencement of final shaping. Not much to see, but they give an idea of the process. The Quarterdeck is made up separately from four more lifts, which are then shaped to a “wedge” shaped profile shown in the instructions/plans. Interestingly, two of these pieces are duplicated and shown as “optional” – presumably to give some latitude in achieving the correct final thickness. I found that I did not need to use the optional pieces. Here is the result – again, not very exciting. This piece is then set aside and attached somewhat later in the build. I must have read through the instructions from cover to cover at least a dozen times now, and they seem to be lacking in some areas (no surprise there!). Although they are quite specific about painting some bits and pieces, at no stage do they indicate to paint the hull itself. I’ll make a judgement call about that in due course. They also give quite explicit instruction about NOT fitting two of the support columns on the base, but never get around to saying when the right time is to do this, or even to attach the base to the hull. Another conundrum to solve. Rest assured, I’ll be checking through all the other build logs I can find to see how others have approached these issues. Now waiting for the glue to cure fully before starting to shape the hull.