Ian_Grant

Very nice display for the gardens!

I enjoy creating the CAD drawings for stuff, and it's great to see the crisp printed parts, but in the back of my mind lurks the thought "is this true craftsmanship"? Perhaps it is just in another way. What is certain is my HMS Lion would not look nearly as good if I'd had to try to create all those small parts by hand in wood or plastic. I marvel at Marc's carved plastic pieces......

Another absolute gem of a build, Siggi. I am in awe...........

Rained today so no pool testing. I finished painting the grey around the deck periphery and on the torpedo net storage shelf. She has a much more finished appearance with that done. Also reprinted all my weather deck hatches, skylights, bollards, cleats, and breakwater with the smaller 0.2mm nozzle and everything came out nice and crisp. Drew the 13.5" director platform and "spotting top" in CAD and printed them too. Reprinted parts. Torpedo net shelf and deck perimeter painted. Director platform above compass platform; spotting top above that; fore topmast inserted but not trimmed to length yet. Sorry for the focus. It turns out my foremast is a little closer to the funnel than drawn so I will have to make some adjustments to the spotting top and reprint. I still, as when I was a teenager, have difficulty seeing in the drawings exactly how men climbed up to these platforms,especially as Norman drew the foremast with tripod supports from aft which is not historically accurate. Supports were deleted during a refit early in her career when they swapped the positions of the foremast and fore funnel --- she was actually built with the funnel between the supported foremast and the compass platform which led to embers falling onto the compass platform and the poor men in the spotting top living in the smoke stream from the funnel! They wisely corrected that....🤔...and deleted the mast supports while they were at it. Early photo of Lion as built. You can just imagine the smoke and heat from the funnel spilling up the mast. Apparently the mast got so hot one couldn't touch it. Note also the other two funnels are shorter. Spotting top is seen but the director platform was a later modification. Lowest yard was removed when director was added. Thanks for following!

Geez Marc, you gave me a scare!! Checked in for the first time in a while and saw this, thought you must be very ill indeed.......scrolled upto see that you're just a busy guy.....what a relief!! 👍

Looks great John!! Looking forward to the cabin work.

I spend far too much time on the computer and not enough working on this model. I have made some progress, but I am going to switch from adding detail to getting it functioning on the water and keep adding to it. I have enough of the topsides done now that it would be presentable "with explanations" to the club members. Smoke and sound will have to wait for now. Here are a few shots. The foredeck: Looks great, but the only parts glued down are the main windlass and the anchor winches and chains. The rest of the parts are just placed for the shot, in fact I see I forgot to paint final grey on the breakwater which is still primer grey. Of course, it would only be the work of a few moments to CA the rest down, but only after I mask and paint the grey rim along the deck edges/torpedo net shelf. Forward tower FINALLY assembled with glue. I procrastinated for weeks due to needing to have forward shelter deck railings in place beforehand. The camera is certainly a humbling tool.........need to add a jumble of bracing beneath the forward projection of the compass platform out ahead of the chart house. Speaking of railings, for some reason I decided to try for handrails on the two ladders on the shelter deck's aft edge. Bent up from 0.5mm brass rod.I ended up making seven to end up with four; the other three pinged off my tweezers and I simply couldn't find them. I enjoyed the process so much I am not adding handrails on ladders to the captain's walk. 🙄 I will however have to add them to two ladders at the aft end of the aft superstructure since they're quite a climb from the upper deck; also the two ladders down into the aft well deck. Did not even contemplate handrails for the ladders between decks in the tower. Aft well deck, with some open engine room vents, a closed skylight, a closed hatch, and the pair of steam launches as yet unpainted. As I mentioned there will be a ladder with handrails on each side. Somehow other boats have to cram in outboard of the launches. Final shot: the painted funnel grates and steam vent pipes at fore and main funnels. My flat black seems to have become satiny near the end of the bottle which has happened to me before. Will be touching up. So, I now have both my 12V motors and my two ESC units. Next steps are: (1) Grease prop tubes and add props/shafts. (2) Add motors with U-joint links. (3) Measure the current draw of a motor driving its 2" prop. (4) Fingers crossed - the current is not high and I can order the smaller 12V gel battery. (5) If high will need to do another ballast/load test to see if larger 12V gel batt weight could be tolerated. If so need to rework the rotating mechanism for "Q" turret to make room for the bigger battery. (6) I can do some more building while I wait for whichever battery to arrive. If Canada Post goes on strike (yet again!) it could be a while. Thanks for following and the likes! Ian

Perfection!!

The family will be thrilled to see the result, Glen. Beautifully done!

I'd be "loudly wondering" the same thing. 😏

Beautiful plank job, and deck. 👍

Bill you have a new follower on your AV build.

Bill, love the LED "deck lanterns" and internal illumination. To reduce possibility of shorts, you could provide protective "heat shrink tubing" at your soldered joints. It is a neater solution than electrical tape. Can't be added now except at "dead end" joints for example to the left of the third internal LED in the first picture above, where you could slip the tubing onto the soldered length then shrink. Either a heat gun (preferred) or your iron can be employed to heat thus shrink the tubing. Just an idea for future soldering 👍 Ian 🤙

Hi Bill! Nice to hear from you. Yes, it's a new direction since getting back into modelling, but as you know it's a reboot of an old build of mine. She is going to look much, much better than before. Are you doing another wood build now? Best Regards, Ian

OK, so this has nothing to do with Lion or even ships, but seeing as penguins are a recurring theme among the cognoscenti like Keith and Glen, I bring the following to your attention: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/penguin-poop-helps-drive-cloud-formation-over-antarctica-according-to-a-new-study-180986686/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&lctg=92646438