Hubac's Historian

This is a brilliant piece of work, George! I’m sorry I missed this one, but I’ll be keeping closer track of what you do next. All the best, Marc

Burnishing should help, but a light touch is recommended, so as not to burn through the leaf. Glueing the upper bulwarks together before installation is probably easier, as far as concealing the seam, but only if you have first created good joints between the individual bulwark pieces and the upper main wale, first. If you haven’t really tested those fits yet, you may want to do that before glueing anything together. I think the instructions call for installing the beakhead bulkhead first. This provides a useful and necessary reference for the required tumblehome of the upper bulwarks. On my current go-around with this kit I have spent an incredible amount of time and effort fitting these parts to get as good a lap-joint as possible. Even then, I have thought it a good idea to re-enforce the joints on the inner bulwarks wherever they can’t be seen. Trust me when I tell you this is time well spent. You can only really appreciate how poor the general fit of these parts is, once you really try and dry-fit the required hull curves, relative to the actual beakhead bulkhead. The bulwark parts have to flex quite a bit to seat properly in the lap-joint.

Awesome, Michael - incredible detailing at this very small scale.

The flag looks pretty incredible! This is Silkspan tissue, or Kleenex tissue? As for the fit of the kit parts, I recall that on my first attempt of this model, I was duly impressed by how cleanly it all went together. I kind of regret chucking it in the garbage, after I realized that the ship topsides were painted red and not blue. In any case, I have a second kit sitting in the stash. Your unique approach to painting her, opens up the door of possibilities. Like, maybe it would be fun to do a diorama of the ship 10 years after her sinking as primitive diving bells descend to retrieve her cannons; what state of decay and deliberate deconstruction/destruction would she have been in, by that point?

The paint work looks very clean, Bill, and the wale bolting shows very well at scale. One thought on the gold leafed figurehead: I can’t tell whether it is just the light and photograph, but the surface of the gold looks a little textured. Have you tried lightly burnishing the surface with a Q-tip wrapped in T-shirt scraps?

This is an extraordinary build!

Das ist bedauerlich. Ich freue mich, dass Sie an Ihren Bemühungen festhalten.

May I ask - what were the main issues that prompted you to start over?

Hi Bill - those holes in the upper main wale are for the plastic kit eyebolts that the “chains” attach to. I lowered my chanels down to this upper main wale because that would have been the correct location in the late 1680’s. Where Heller has placed the Channels is correct for 1669. So I filled those holes and my bolt pattern remained the same, except for where the channels are located.

Fantastic and assiduous research - love it!

I prefer to save my sea legs for real action.

Genius milling idea for the deadeye groove!

Brilliant, clean work Mark. Whatever small gaps you may be seeing can be caulked with finish. I can’t see them myself.

Thank you, Greg! I wish the same for you and your family.

It’s been a pretty solid week. Headrail painting continues in the evenings. I also finished up the window plate detailing. I had trouble making the raised panel framing out of a single piece of .020 styrene, as I had done before. Rather than make myself crazy, I cut out and used the curved lower portion of the frame, and then I pieced-in the straight sides and tops from strip plastic: I cut raised panels for the doors from the stock stern plate. For the door handles, I had run out of scroll castings, so I just made a pair from sheet styrene: Completed window plate: The acetate windows before greying-in the leading and trimming to size: I hope everyone enjoys a happy and safe new year! All the best, Marc

I have never been to Times Square for New Years Eve and I can not imagine why anyone would want to subject themselves to that. I don’t even like Times Square on a regular weekday. Nope - I’ll be at home all weekend doing absolutely nothing that I don’t want to do. This should translate to plenty of model time! Agreed - Buffalo got it bad. Happy New Year, Bill!

Nope - we’ll still be here. My log fluctuates between 44 and 49. Some people come and go, and some come back again. I think the old saying applies; you can make some people happy some of the time.

Hi Bill! The upper and lower port enhancements were carved from 1/16” styrene sheet. Each half of the dolphin drift rail end caps was also carved from 1/16” sheet. It wasn’t strictly necessary to glue an inner half for these ornaments, for the inner bulwarks, but you will have to carve left and right side masters for both port and starboard, anyway, so the little bit of extra work is worth it, IMO. My #1 piece of broad advice is: take your time! Obviously, I took the upper bulwarks to an extreme, but I had developed a very clear idea of what I wanted it all to look like, and I didn’t really care how long it took because I knew these modifications would completely transform the kit. Start to finish, I probably spent a little more than a year modifying these 4 upper bulwark pieces and that is only up to and including the frieze. The upper quarter galleries probably took another 6 months to make and assemble. Take your time, and #2 piece of advice: don’t be afraid to erase your drawings and throw away unsatisfactory attempts for the masters; if you’re not that excited about your port enhancement master carvings, you really won’t be happy when they are repeated 28 times along the main deck guns. #3: Relative scale and proportion are everything; maybe your carving/detailing skills are not yet advanced, but as long as the element is proportional and the overall outline or shape is good, then the parts will look good. This is where a willingness to draw and re-draw will serve you well. My advice: obtain some drafting vellum. You can draw and erase on vellum almost indefinitely and it won’t disintegrate. Make a photocopy of one of the forward upper bulwarks. You may have to adjust the contrast a bit, so that you can clearly see the size and shape of the main deck ports. There will be some distortion in the copy, but it is negligible and won’t hinder the process. Then, blue-tape a patch of vellum over a port opening, for example, and you will be able to read the exact size and shape of the port opening through the vellum. You’ll also be able to see the relative distance between the top of the ports and the drift rail above. This is critical because you want your port enhancements to fit comfortably in-between. It is important to use the forward bulwark for this because the available space tapers more narrowly from aft to forward. I based my master on the aft bulwark, where the space is wider, and I had to let the very tops of my forward enhancements into the drift rails. This isn’t terribly noticeable, but it is one thing I would do differently. Another thing to be aware of is that despite using thin CA (just common Crazy Glue brand, at the time) to mount the masters to the plywood, there is going to be a lip of CA all around the carving, once the glue dries, and this extra glue/squeeze out, will affect the sharpness of your moulds all around the perimeter. I learned pretty quickly that it was a good idea to gently scrape level this glue-lip with the corner of a very sharp chisel and-or EXACTO knife. A main reason why my ornaments look good is because I spent an enormous amount of time completely eliminating the background, but also scraping each moulded piece so that all the surfaces and creases were more clearly defined. Right out of the mould, the parts will look pretty good, but the extra working of surfaces - kind of like the way a metal smith chases brass castings of furniture hardware - really makes them stand out. Lastly, before I mount my carving masters, I first painted the mounting surface with thin CA and sanded that after dry. It seals the surface of the plywood and smooths over any grain structure or imperfections in the surface veneer.

Thank you so much Mark! I hope whatever personal challenges you are facing, they have not been overwhelming. I am quite happy to see the activity in your shipyard, lately. Yours is among rhe cleanest and most inspiring builds around!

It is a compliment well received, Bill. I am very glad that you are able to pull value from my build-log.

Thank you, Henry! I hope you had a Merry Christmas, yourself!

The path to enlightenment and a conjectural SR 1670 begins, in earnest, right here: Merry Christmas everyone! Have a happy and safe holiday.

Thank you, Gary! I wish all the same for you and yours. Happy Holidays!

Right now, it’s 46 degrees in New York. By midnight, it will drop to 11.

The snipped bolt heads look perfect under paint. Your technique worked really well. Now, hurry out of the shipyard!