RGL

Finally finished off the masts. I have not tidied up yet but will save that for when I have completed everything. I have now done the flag halyards and the aerials in .01mm thread. I could add more but I think that's enough as it's nerve racking. The top mast has 2 aerial spreaders which I used some 3mm stanchions. the last shot is off the comparison t the Varyag to date.

From a normal distance it has come up OK.

I intend to finish off the deck equipment next, then the railings and individual stanchions before moving n tot he life boats. Maybe in that order.

I painted mine as I read somewhere there were tarred to protect them from the elements, that being said it also hid a lot of sins, your are fantastic so you don't have to hide any.

That's just massive! Good luck, looking forward to it.

Damn, they look perfect. Excellent

The bulk of the rigging is now done. Lots of clean up to do particularly where the stays meet the deck, but overall it's the best I can do. I now have to add the aerials. I have used two diameter rigging line, the smallest the size of a human hair and just as hard to use but comes up OK.

I haven't I admit, the reason I like the EZ line is that when I knock it, which I do repeatedly, the line gives and does not pull (and, I'm sure we all do this), with the requisite wince, wondering what is going to snap off setting me back months.

I keep saying "I should have done that before I put it on the ship".

Mate you'll be fine, the problem at this scale is rigging, it's hard to belay, pulleys and blocks are too small, and you have to come up with a representation of what it should look like. I e spent 6 hours today doing shrouds and signal ropes. All my plans were for nought as to what I wanted to do as its too small. On a wooden ship I can belay and place stays, at this scale there is no rope on earth I can use, so I use EZ line, which sometimes does what it wants. Rigging my Endeavour was fun and logical, this is not.

Took me forever and I still wasn't happy with mine. They're tiny and quite difficult.

The bridge is fairly much done, just have to add the flybridge which won't come till very late in the piece as they stick out a fair bit. The binnacle, search light controls, voice tubes and flag locker added, as well as 5 scratch built pinrails.No, the pinrails are not that good but they'll have to do as they will have rigging belayed to them.

At this macro there are lots of touch ups to go, but given the stays have to go in yet, there is not much point starting that till the end of the build to hunt and patch mistakes.

The Masts upper rigging is complete and all done off kit. At the moment they are just dry fitted and once stuck on, I will work inboard to outboard deck to topmast on the rigging.

I reckon I'm about 2/3rd of the way there now.

Thank you folks, but there are people out there working at a lot smaller scales than me, 1/700 and below is just not my thing.

That looks great!

Search lights added and time to start rigging.

Now a word about customer service. After I finished my Varyag, I was in love with their fittings that are just not available commercially. I e-mailed Artwox with a photo of the Varyag I built (it was their kit) and asked if I could purchase some of their fairleads and a couple of small funnels for the Emden. The deck plans have 6 fairleads and if you look at the photo they are 2mm and I just could not replicate them.

In the mail today I received the items in the attached photo. I just had to pay for postage from China.

That, my friends is customer service. Eduard, take note.

Now, the searchlights and their controllers, the circled blob is the revell search light, the aftermarket ones are as close as I could get to the plans. I made the control boxes out of a resin funnel vent filed down with the addition of 3 flywheels. I will run a small piece of ezyline up to the base of the search light to represent the control rod. You can just make out the scratch built pin rails, I made 4 from wood or the deck and 3 smaller ones for the bridge in plastic. 

Plodding on. I have painted the masts. You can see from the Huff plans there is a LOT of rigging to do.

I love those blocks, all the hard work is done for you. I'm think once you use them everything else looks like wooden off cuts (except for Chuck's blocks of course). If you don't have the machinery to scratch build your own it's the way to go, considering how many you need to use, it's a time is money argument

Do you ever have one of those days when your shoulders just camp up from too much time at the table?

Moving onto the masts, I was going to use brass and redo the entirety of both Masts from scratch. The kit ones are just not that bad, they just have no detail.

I trimmed off the yardarms, and started with them at bare poles. At this scale, this is where the sore shoulders began. As you can see the photo of the photo etch, the platforms for the searchlights are planked, but Huff says they were metal plate, so I just glued some on top and filed it down.

Using some spare yardarms from my Varyag build, I added proper yardarms and signal rods, plus the other etched platforms required. Rigging this stuff will be a nightmare. I still have to add the 4 lights which are aftermarket as the kit ones are blobs of plastic. I also have to add the searchlight control boxes which sit below them which I'll fabricate from resin. 

David, my grandfather was from the slums in London and stowed away at 14 on a ship to Oz and started working as a nurse, became a physio and ran a boxing gym on the docks of Newcastle (Australia), that's about it.

OC, you'll be happy to know North Star has just released a new detail set for the RN you could use. It even has ships cats which won't chew models! I'm hoarding stuff for the Dreadnought at the moment for my next build, but unfortunately their 12pdrs and winches are out of stock.

Greg

Bit of paint and weathering, comes up OK, added some Artwox Chain (Park from Artwox is sending me some Fairleads which are not included). I have not even started on the spare anchor or its' fish davit, nor railings. Long way off. As you can see it is a very small area and adding more tackle will just look too busy. You may notice I have added an ammunition elevator, winch, vents and a hatch mentioned no where else but in the Huff plans.

Its a 21 year old kit, so it's getting old in the tooth.

Moving back to the front of the bus, this has probably been the most labor intensive part for such a small area. Cutting off the bollards and re shaping the capstans etc, scratch building the anchor chain brakes, adding the metal deck, it is so bloody small it has become a case of less is more as adding any extra tackle will just look messy.  I have added an open source photo from Eduard how it is supposed to look if you just use the Eduard stuff.

Looks just like a bought one Dave, some of us had to work at Easter tho! I got today in and will post when the daughter gets off the computer.

Just a piece of art, magnificent

Funnels rigged and added. I can now add the final deck fittings, the anchor chains etc, then start on the masts, finish up the railings then some side details. The last bit will be the guns.

Wow, I just can't use power tools, afraid of losing bits off me. Soo much easier than doing stuff by hand, they are going to look perfect.