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Ian_Grant

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  1. Finished the daughter board and finally started to, gingerly, try out some code. Here is what it looks like: Four 3-pin connectors for the servos along the bottom edge; fuses are in but they are bypassed by the 2-pin jumpers; three 3-pin connectors for signals from the RC receiver (one for future use) near the top left corner. Being a complete newbie I planned to take it in small steps. The first step was to verify that I could use the "pulseIn" command to measure the widths of the PWM pulses in the servo control signals from the receiver. This consists of literally two lines of main program loop - read the pulse width, and do a serial write to my monitor screen to tell me about it. Maddeningly it always returned zero after exceeding the timeout period waiting for a pulse to arrive. I went down several blind alleys, handicapped by my lack of an oscilloscope, but using my multimeter I was seeing the DC levels at the microcontroller pins vary as I moved the Transmitter's sticks, indicating the expected varying duty cycle. Finally I asked about it on the Arduino forum. After some twists and turns, it came out that I was specifying the wrong pins at which to monitor for the signal! Being ex-engineer, I was looking at the schematic and specifying the pins on the microcontroller chip to which I knew I was connecting the signals; turns out that Arduino makes it simpler by designating "pin numbers" as the pin numbers at the connectors on the UNO board not those of the chip. They make the Arduino a true "black box" with the user not even needing to know what chip pin they are using - just call it by the board pin number or name and the compiler knows where it goes on the chip. A true case of not knowing what I didn't know, if you follow me. I plan to get an Arduino book from the library to see what else I don't know.
  2. Hi Bill; There are three pairs of ropes that pass thru the 1/4deck gratings beside and aft of the mainmast, specifically the mainyard jeer falls, mainsail clew garnets, and the main topsail sheets (refer again to the note at the top of pg267 "Belaying Plan Quarter Deck" with the line pointing to the gratings beside the mast). These ropes are tied off at the main deck bitts part # 89 (two of them) just forward and just aft of the main mast, respectively. It is much easier to tie these to the bitts and form any desired coils BEFORE the quarterdeck is cemented in, and either pass the threads through the quarterdeck as you are gluing, or after gluing, than to attempt to tie them off after adding the deck. That's all I meant to advise. Longridge also has a photo, Plate 46 between pg196 and pg197, showing the bitts. The aft bitts receive the jeers and garnets, the forward the topsail sheets, as the caption mentions. Note: on the old Victory web site there was debate about whether a larger gap should be opened in the gratings to allow these lines to pass through, or whether the gratings should be removed entirely. Not sure there was a firm conclusion; Daniel might have an update 🙂.
  3. Great work! I don't envy you the task of sanding all that clicker surface however... 🤔 Later edit: I meant "clinker" of course, not "clicker".
  4. Just for laughs I pulled my SR out of the stash to compare the as-is stern bulwark to yours. WOW!!! What an incredible improvement!!! I will feel let down if/when I ever get to it......
  5. My book about Pellew has arrived. After more than 40 years of reading Hornblower I am still unsure how to pronounce his name. Is it Pell-ewe, or Pe-loo? 🤓
  6. Bill, Nelson's cabin needs a portrait of Lady Hamilton......😉
  7. I've finally realized why "Capt Graham Moore" seemed familiar. In "Hornblower and the Hotspur", Admiral Cornwallis detaches five ships to intercept the Spanish treasure flota under the command of Capt Graham Moore in "Indefatigable". Looking forward to reading about it when my copy of the book arrives. Presume he was the soldier John Moore's brother..........
  8. Yes, your main sheet looks good. Your Cutty looks nice. Maybe I should consider trying to clean 40 years of dust off mine and then case it? For the most part it is still intact, some minor repairs required, although I wish I had painted the molded deadeye lanyards. Or perhaps I will build another someday with wood deadeyes. My Constitution is a write-off; for parts only.
  9. Three titles so far....... But look at this: https://www.abebooks.com/9781503254336/Frigate-Commander-Supplement-Wareham-Tom-150325433X/plp
  10. While searching for this, also came across "Commander" by Stephen Taylor. This is about the real-life Edward Pellew and his exploits in "Indefatigable". Obviously I have not read it, yet, but it seems highly rated.
  11. I built both Revell kits way back in the 70's; they're still sitting in the shipyard but very dusty and pirated for parts. I think the Constitution is regarded as the better model of the two; the Cutty Sark has weird issues like the deck caulking lines are proud of the planks not recessed, or the lower mast deadeyes (at least as supplied in my 70's model) are molded with lanyards that span about 8 scale feet !?, or the bow and stern decorations are simple decals with no 3D "presence" (again, at least in my 70's kit). The Constitution is pretty good, except for the yards being just magically glued on to the masts with no parrals or lower yard truss pendants. And both models come with those molded "rubbery" shroud/ratline assemblies which I would not use again personally....
  12. Bill, looking good! If the bitts behind the main mast aren't glued, you might want to drill some sheave holes at the base of the uprights in order to rig the three pairs of ropes passing thru the quarterdeck here sensibly. Also, those little pillars are easy to knock off as you slide the quarterdeck into place. If they're not glued already, they're easy to add afterwards, and then you know you're lining them up with the skid beams properly.
  13. No that bracket is not provided. You either believe it was there (see Dafi's recent posts here) and make one, or ignore it and put the block just on a long strop to the eyebolt.
  14. True, you cannot do better than Longridge. He spells everything out clearly and succinctly, rigging line by rigging line.
  15. BIll, you have it routed correctly, but to make it easier I would glue in an eyebolt for the standing end of the sheet (as in Longridge's diagram) instead of running this end of the thread through the hull. If you carry on as is, you will need to predict the exact length of thread you need to get the sheet block in the correct location be it with or without sail; if you add an eyebolt you can make the thread longer than needed, store it in a coil dangling from the hull, then when the time comes rig it and tie off the end. EDIT: Sorry, I was away a few days, logged on and saw your original question about the main sheet and answered it without realizing there were all these interim posts. Yes, many of the rectangular holes are for attaching the channels, which hold the lower deadeyes. As for the main tack, after it emerges from the hull just below the big deck chock for the sheet anchor it passes through the sheave hole in the chess tree just aft of it (Longridge pg 252 "Tack"). See below, which shows the main tack and fore sheet crossing each other in this area. Again, I would add eyebolts as shown to make them easy to rig later. On my model: On the 1:1 model:
  16. I don't recall butt-joining things like stag horns and bitts onto bulwarks or decks, but I think all the masts and spars lacked guide pins too rather like the cannon barrels. My current Preussen kit has the same lack of "tenons" let's call them. Especially irritating was the tiny dolphin striker which was to be butt joined to the bowsprit; that would never have held. Same with the support stanchions for the boat skid beams. Must be a Heller tradition. On the other hand, though, all the kit parts fit well.
  17. Bill, she looks great! I like your weathered deck painting. I seem to recall being at step 9 for several months but you look likely to finish it in days. Remember BEFORE you glue in the quarterdeck that there are not only the lower sheets and tacks to attach to parts 41 & 100 we talked about already, but also lines to tie to part 89 (mainyard jeers, main topsail sheets, mainsail clew garnets; see note near top of pg 267 in Longridge). Regards, Ian
  18. Just a thought - did you wash the hull to remove any remaining mold release on its surface?
  19. I imagined they would stand on the main deck and access from below the pin, rather than climb over the boats. I wondered where to coil them when I rigged my model; in the end I think I just cut them and moved on.🤔
  20. As Marc said, the centre head rail curls around this roundhouse corner and sweeps up to become the cathead support. What you are seeing is normal.
  21. Ted, great questions! When I did my Victory, I saw a photo of someone's model with the fore jeer falls coiled in tight eliptical turns, and frapped, lying on deck fore-and-aft on each side of the mast between the bitts. I did the same, but I did not coil a realistic amount of thread for the function... Neither did I coil realistic lengths for halyards and cat falls. Don't know how they handled it in reality. Raising anchors is not frequent - could they have long-spliced an extension to the catfall when needed? I don't know.
  22. Roger, for those hatches I'd be sorely tempted to get some 3D printed parts especially as there are so many of them and the eye would be drawn to any differences between them. You could draw them with all the flanges and gussets in TinkerCAD, which is free and can be learned in a day for such simple shapes. With your .stl file on a memory stick, you could get them printed at any 3D CAD shop assuming you don't have a printer.
  23. Bill your copper looks great! Drove over to Lake Superior, a little past Sault Ste Marie. Pitched the tent at Pancake Bay Provincial Park and explored around there and in Lake Superior Provincial Park. Beautiful area; hadn't been up that way since 1992. Lovely lookout views by hiking, and even canoed in Lake Superior off Agawa Rock (waited for a VERY calm day 😉). Later Edit: Forgot to mention that we were amazed at all the trees around Sudbury now - in 1992 hwy 17 bypassing Sudbury was completely barren, bare rock due to 70's acid rain. Great to see nature taking over again, and isn't life tenacious? Sorry to go off topic, but Bill asked! 😁
  24. 12 pokes per plate............God, you have dogged determination. 😲
  25. A72 is the main sheet. Pass a thread through the sheave hole in the hull and rig the inboard end to the staghorn on the maindeck bulwark. Then coil the excess outside until needed. You'll need enough thread to go from the sheave, through the block mounted on the hull, up to the main yard if rigging without sails, or to the clew of the mainsail if included, then back down to an eyebolt on the hull. When you do come to rig it, just pass it through the necessary blocks and tie the standing end off at its eyebolt. Again, the Heller instructions are best employed as a spur to make you look up the real answer in Longridge. The best illustration of this particular area is Fig 56 on pg 95. Longridge has the mainsheet block rigged with a little bracket; there are existing photos of the block just attached to an eyebolt. Take your pick; I made a little bracket just because it seemed better than the block banging against the hull.
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