Hubac's Historian

Your execution on all of this is outstanding. If I could make one small suggestion: I might consider reducing the almost full-roundness of the globe beneath the wings to maybe slightly less than 3/4 roundness. To my eye, at least, that detail looks a little too full.

Mark, it is amazing how complicated this whole flowing structure is. You are doing a masterful job of drawing out all of the details and sussing through all of the convergent planes. I’m glad to hear, also, that you are feeling more like yourself these days.

These details show up quite well, at this scale, and I have personally never regretted the extra effort. Taken in the aggregate, with all of the other small details, they really enhance the overall impression of the thing. I’m glad you were able to see that that particular method of making the bolt-heads really is not quite so tedious as it may seem. The scarfs look great!

I might simply putty-over the scarf in that location.

You made a splendid job of fairing the sheer of those wales, Eric! Time well spent.

You are very kind, Bill! Thank you and thank everyone for their likes, thoughts and comments.

Really nice progress, John, and the trials and tribulations are all completely relatable. Late to Soleil, could you possibly post your photos directly to the forum? Zipping them up in an attachment file presents something of a process to open them.

AAAU. All Awesome As Usual. You never disappoint, Michael!

I think part of the reason that the alignment of the chains looks a little off has to do with the fact that the Heller kit was not designed for the main and fore channels to be beneath the main deck guns. They were originally designed to mount above the main deck guns. That meant that my shrouds had to navigate safely around the f’ocsle/q’deck guns, and the main deck guns, while the chains had to be clear of the port lids of the middle battery. With all of that in mind, I tied a string around each masthead and plotted both the shrouds and their corresponding chains. By necessity, in some instances, the angle of the chain breaks plane with the shroud. As with so many details of this modification process, it is an imperfect compromise.

Thank you, Guys! Yes, Cisco, I’ll go over the whole chain assembly with dilute black acrylic and that will even out the color and finish. The sharpie is just a quick and convenient way to make the line dark, initially. That’s good to know about the color fading, though.

Another good tip with the marker pen, Kevin. Thanks to all for the likes and looking-in!

So, I had a small pocket of time to snug and snip the fore, port channel. I was able to finesse that first knot up a little higher. Really - and considering that they do tighten up just enough more under slight tension - I am very pleased with this experiment. Black touch-up paint to follow: I am at least confident that these long links would not look better as wire. I may have over-calculated the angle of the two furthest aft preventer plates, but I was just following what the test line told me to do. Also, technically, the preventer plate links should span to the lower wale, but the first batch I made just looked over-long. I can live with this compromise. It is still a vast improvement over the stock kit. The important thing is that the chains no longer interfere with the port lids. There are three backstay deadeyes that I have yet to prepare, but I will get to them in the next few rounds of deadeye prep.

This business of learning to make the chains continued to confound me as I discovered yet another mistake in my process. For anyone who may also be new to this aspect of the hobby - BEWARE: jewelry wire (brass/copper) is coated with an anti-oxidation layer. Brass black will not take without first stripping the coating (acetone bath, 99% purity - available at the pharmacy), and then roughing the wire surface with ScotchBrite. I failed to do either of these things. For your own sake, just buy untreated, soft copper wire. My first dipping in JAX brass black almost didn’t take at all. Whatever oxidation there was, was very spotty and wiped away easily. After thoroughly rinsing the parts in acetone, my second JAX bath did much more to blacken the parts, but the depth of oxidation was highly irregular, there were still lots of completely bright brass patches, throughout, and the oxidation that was present still rubbed off too easily. What to do, now? I quickly decided that I absolutely was not going to re-make all of these fittings, as I had at least bent them into nicely uniform parts. The only reasonable solution, IMO, was to spray-prime the lot black: After inserting the deadeyes, and any necessary touch-up, the deadeye strops looked like this: Quite satisfactory, I think. On the inside, bottom edge of each deadeye, I placed a drop of CA, in order to fix the orientation of the deadeye. I needed to make a run of split-rings, both for the gun out-haul tackles, and for between where the chains attach to the middle wales. For these, I really like how tight a twist I get with galvanized steel wire. Given that I was going to paint these, as well, it didn’t seem quite so important what the material was, but how it behaved. I found it quite easy to close the eyes with my parallel pliers, a decent set of which are essential for this work (Thanks Druxey!), and I sealed the rings with a spot of common, brush-able CRAZY GLUE. The eyes on deck: In preparation for the deadeyes, I made ready the channels. Because I found it necessary to shift a handful of deadeyes, so that the chains do not interfere with the gunport lids, I found it necessary to widen a number of the channel slots. I then drilled for short sections of .030 styrene rod, so that I could favor one side of the slot: Next I made capping strips for the outside edges of the channels, and simulated the nailing with shallow slices of triangular styrene rod. I used the same “heat flashing” technique to dome over the heads: With my masts in-place and a guide-string, I penciled-in the preventer plate locations. The important thing, I think, was that the join of the preventer plates and the small loop-links be in a consistent plane, along the upper middle wale - just slightly higher than mid-wale. Following a tip from fellow SR enthusiast Eric Wiberg, I purchased the following dome-headed rivets: https://www.eugenetoyandhobby.com/products/plastic-rivets-round-head?_pos=3&_sid=320937e14&_ss=r My idea was to use these with plastic cement to secure the preventer and loop links. After drilling the top preventer plate/loop-link hole, I secure the position of the preventer plate with a common sewing pin in the top hole, and then swing a short mechanical pencil arc for the bottom hole location. There are very slight differences between preventer plate links, so you do have to drill specific links for a given location. It is very fiddly to fix the plates with these tiny styrene pins, but it can be managed from the bottom up with plenty of patience and a sewing pin to guide mating eyes into alignment. Now, my hope for some time and results redemption depended upon whether or not I could make appropriate diameter thread look like the long connecting links. Among my stash, was some really nice line that Dan Pariser very generously donated to my cause. Although light in color, I found I could “paint” lengths of line with two passes of a black sharpie, which also gave the line some stiffness when dry. I found that a single bow-knot gave me the ability to introduce tension to these links: Obviously, it is important to ensure that the loop links and deadeye strops are in the correct orientation to each other. The proof of concept on this first link gave me sufficient confidence that this idea will produce a nice result. It is only important that one wait to stiffen the knot with CA until after you have pulled the knot up close behind the deadeye strop loop. On this first one, I glued before doing so, and the knot is less perfectly concealed than the others will be: This picture above was before pulling the knot up. Eventually, when the lower deadeyes are lashed to their corresponding upper deadeyes, these chain links will pull fully taught with just the slightest tension. Here is where things stand as of now: I quickly learned it is wise to cover the gun ports, so that you are not continually losing links into the hull. After pinning the links in place, I brushed over the link assembly with thin CA, to give it a little extra holding power. I then left it to dry overnight. Next, I will draw all remaining loops taught, and then the whole of it will receive a thinned acrylic black wash to homogenize the assembly and touch-up any bright spots. There are, of course, many better ways to go about all of this. For me, for now - I’ll take this all as a learning experience and move-on with it. Thank you all for looking-in! Best, Marc

You are doing something quite difficult and arriving at excellent results. Druxey has great advice, here, although if your initial grain was too variable - then you would be more likely to arrive at wavy results. This is all ground you have covered. Keep going. You will get there.

Hi Ian - I think the lower wale is also above water in post #103, but it is an abbreviated quarter view.

A beautiful presentation, Kirill!

Happy Birthday, Marc! I hope you and your family are well.

Well, I can tell you that the central lantern that Batavia Werf constructed for the Provincien was large enough for a grown man to stand comfortably inside. The Provincien carried five stern lanterns. SOS has one large central lantern. It does not seem implausible to me that maybe three people could be inside there at a time.

The mesh really adds to the lanterns.

That’s an interesting idea.

Michael, is it a fiction of my imagination that the Sovereign had a small step ladder into the lantern, between it and the jackstaff? I remember reading in Pepy’s Diary that for fun they’d bring noble ladies up into the huge lantern so that all could marvel at the sheer size of it. I don’t see any trace of that, really, in the VdV port side drawing, though.

Gor-ge-ous! Interesting thought on the rudder coat. Might be able to simulate that with wrapping tissue and dilute white glue. Would have to maybe create some kind of conforming pattern that fayed nicely into the stern counter. Not really sure how to do it, really.

Okay, I’ve been thinking about this for a little while now. What I would try is to make 1/2 of the moulded profile from a piece of hacksaw blade, and fix that scraper into a kerf cut into the end of an appropriately small hardwood dowel, the long end if which gets fixed into a flat board. You are essentially creating a stationary router/scraper. If hardwood dowel is too feeble, perhaps hard brass rod will do. layout your moulding shape in a piece of stock that is the thickness of the moulding and make sure the stock is large enough to move easily with your two hands. Cut out the center to your inner lines. Now you can more comfortably and gradually scrape the profile into the inner edge of the moulding. Once you have achieved the desired profile on the inner surface, you can cut the outside profile of the moulding. Next, temporarily fix the moulding to a flat surface with an adhesive that can later be dissolved with alcohol. Finally, you can re-purpose your scraper into a longer handle that enables you to easily work around the perimeter of the moulding. Once satisfied, you can separate the finished moulding from your substrate.

All of the woodwork is just beautifully executed. Not a stray line to be found!

Stern view for the DR: I don’t know whether the scale ruler is legible in this format, but the port sills are drawn just about five scale feet above the waterline, which is about right. No doubt, though, Heller’s underwater hull is way too shallow, and one really should raise the waterline.