Captain Slog

A few months back, during one of my regular tours of card model sites, I noticed that the website for Orel, a Ukrainian publisher, was down.  Turns out it was down because the publisher was in the process of creating a new and improved site.  Well, they are back up now, and here's the link:
 
Orel
 
Orel are not one of the old, well-established publishing houses, but they have been very, very prolific since opening up shop about ten years ago.  They produce kits of ships, planes, vehicles, trains, and architecture.  Their ship model line leans heavily towards Russian pre-Dreadnought era vessels, but ships from other eras and nations are well represented.  One of their newest designs is of the USS Vesuvius 1888, a pneumatic-gun cruiser.  Orel have also been gradually increasing their line of laser-cut and photo-etch detail sets.
 
The new site is well done, functional, and easy to navigate.  Check it out!
 
 

Try out of the yards before I start attaching the blocks.

Small but pleasant piece of resin again, and as you can see I have made it look like swiss cheese. The Eduard fret hatches will allow me to paint them properly, and have nice brass rims to the skylights. plus a belaying point. I'm hopeing it won't look out of scale once it is white.

Yet again, the resin piece is nice the detail on the resin will require incredible painting skills to make it ok at least somewhat realistic. As such I have added the Eduard bits to briing up the detail. I paid for it so I may as well.
 
Whomever did the diagrams (there are none for this in the instructions) have the hatch layout wrong compared to the Russian version which I think I'll have to use. The Kagero book and the Artwox kit mirror each other.
 
As you can see from the black and white drawings, the lay out of the doors is wrong as are the placement of the skylights. There is also a need for belaying point for stays.
 
Using the Eduad fret again I had enough doors to do the correct (I assume) 6 doors on the port side and 3 on the starbord. I drilled holes where the portholes/skylights will sit and will paint the photo etch off model for these.   

Probably the easiest piece yet, the base of the second funnel. Just added 4 photo etch details.

Ok, a test fit of the brass shim false deck, very tight in places.
 
As there are no linear instructions, I'm guessing a fair bit here, as this is the second build on the forum there is no one to follow except on a Polish site.
 
The circled bit is the first section of resin to work on. As you can see from the instructions it is fairly basic. From the Russian works (black and white drawing) it is an electric  winch, which has a separate machinery section running off it into the ship itself. I cannot replicate the cogs, but I made the braces up from the Eduard fret (an off cut) and used the cable drums to make up stands for the end of the fly wheels.I will trim them when I finally attach them to the deck after painting.
 
The ships bell is tiny (1mm) and is attached on an even smaller strut.
 
I have now discovered using one of the kids pencils and a quick bit of spit on the tip makes a great holder for photo tech (found that on U-Tube with a review of a Tamiya photo etch pencil, which is basically a grease pencil)

After the catheads, I decided to make a timberhead, which came out pretty decent for my first try.  Only made the one for now, need to make 5 more.  I made this using a barret file for shaping.

 
Next up was the stairs.  I made an angle in my little planking jig to make the ends parallel based on the bottom angle on the ladders, and then used the mill to cut groves for the treads.  I'm not very happy with how they came out, but they do look much better just staring at the boat than they look in the pictures.  I'll ponder whether to make some new ones to replace these.

 
I then made and placed the boom crutches, which can be seen in the above photo, and then assembled the binnacle.  Fairly happy with how it came out, but I mis-placed it just slightly, but since it's pinned, I think it will stay here!
 
Shots of the overall ship as it sits now, and close-ups of the binnacle.

 
Still to go - 5 more timberheads, the pedestals for the swivel guns, and the channels and chain-plates.  After that we start looking at masts and rigging!

The catheads turned into an unexpected issue.  The angle built into the laser cut parts appeared to be completely wrong.  When the 'flat' on the bottom of the cathead was placed on the cap rail per the plans and instructions, the base was standing proud of the inside of the bulwarks near the deck by about 1/4".   Not sure if they are cut wrong, or if I somehow managed to get the angle on my bulwarks that far off of what they should be.
 
The solutions that I could think of were:
1) Cut an angle into the cap rail making the catheads stick up at an angle more severe than that shown in the plans.  Issue being that I was not sure the cap rail had enough thickness to actually support that angle, and the base of the catheads on the bulwarks would be lowered, possibly enough to interfere with the waterway.
2) File the bottom of the cathead  to make it fit, again causing a fairly steep angle, and presenting issues with how to shape the bottom edge of the cathead once that much of and angle was built into the 'flat'.
3) Modify the catheads by separating them into two pieces right at the corner, and changing the angle.  Issue - getting them aligned properly upon re-assembly, and making the join neat enough to not be visible on completion.
 
I eliminated #1 almost immediately, as if it didn't work right, I would have the problem of wrecked cap rails which would be a huge task to replace.
 
#2 seemed to be a problem with the shaping and the angle both.
 
So I went with #3.  Using the UMM micro-saw, I carefully sliced the cathead into two pieces, right at, and parallel to the 'flat' where the cathead would sit on the cap rail.  I then filed the piece that would go on the bulkhead, a little bit at a time, test fitting until I hit the right angle, and to keep the mating surface reasonable close through the entire process.  I then drilled a small hole into the bulkhead piece, and inserted a small brass nail cut to leave just the pointy tip exposed.  I then pressed the two pieces together carefully aligning them.  The tip of the nail gave me a point to drill the hole into the top piece, and I then replaced the pointy brass nail with a slightly longer one cut to be a pin to help secure the two parts together.
 
I took a picture after the first one was complete, overlaid on the one that was still unmodified to show how much angle I changed.

 
Seemed to work ok, so I cut the other one and followed the same procedure, and then mounted them both on the rail.  Right after that I realized I forgot to drill the other hole in the cathead for the rope.  Doh!  So I carefully drilled out the other hole while supporting the cathead with a finger.

 
Issue defeated.  I'll decide after I finish all the knightsheads and swivel gun supports whether these will be painted per the instructions or left natural, as I'll need to do a fair amount of touch-up painting where I removed the paint to get a good joint between the bulwarks / cap rail and the catheads.

Thank you all for the likes and comments.  Now that the pumps are done, I finally installed the companionway in it's permanent home.

 
And then I buckled down and did it.  All the guns are rigged.  Woo!

Went back into the workshop and made the pumps.  The kit used to include walnut dowel for the pump bodies, but at some point they changed it and only give beech dowels, so they required staining.  I used card-stock for the bands instead of brass, because it's so easy to work with and it is painted black anyway.  I used the hard brass nails from my Carmen kit for the rods and handle pivots instead of the softer brass rod from the kit.  It's slightly smaller diameter, but not enough to really change the visual look at all.
 

As some (or all) of you may have gathered by now, I'm quite easily distracted by "shiny things".  My most recent distraction was that I finally decided that I needed to finish my work room, which required quite a bit of re-working.
 
First I removed the temporary hanging lights I had rigged, and spent far more time working over my head than I have done in a very long time, which reminded me that working on overhead stuff truly sucks.  I used Wiremold to tap two circuits out of my overhead light fixture (was wired for a ceiling fan that was never installed in this room).  I then hung 3 awesome LED light fixtures from Costco (3700 lumens each @ 4000K, for only a 30 watt draw), these are all wired to the same circuit.
 

 
So much light, it's awesome.
Next up, launched into a furniture assembling marathon, and replaced my two 20" deep, very crowded work benches with 3 x 30" x 60" surfaces, allowing me to move both existing work benches to the back side of the room and dedicate them to my ever-growing collection of power tools.  Thanks to Frank for pointing me at Ikea for these fantastic table-tops and shelf units.
 

 
I still have to mount two more of these LED fixtures, which will be on the other circuit so they are separately switched over the two work benches, but that will come later.  I've got a ton of work now just to get organized into the new area, since everything has to be relocated to the new drawer units under the new work area.  
 
Hopefully my next update will have actual ship progress again, now that I'm pretty much done with the room layout (and there is no room left for any other additions).

So I'm learning that I really dislike working with the metal bits.  I'm not really equipped yet to do soldering on very fine parts yet (need one of those pinnable soldering mats of some kind), so I went with black coated copper wire to make the chain plates.
 
I made a simple jig after getting the length figured out on a very rough not-pretty hand made piece.

 
I test fit the first one and it was fairly decent, so I made all 4 for one side.

 
Then I bent them to fit the ship and.. I managed to flip the dead-eye in the jig on all but the first one, making them too long.  I'll remake all 4 after adjusting the jig slightly and adding side pieces so that it's not possible to flip the dead-eye the wrong way.

 
My system for these is quite simple, I'm making the joint where the cap of the channel will cover it, so the fact that it's not perfectly mated and soldered doesn't matter, and just joining the thing together with CA glue.  This seems like it is going to work just fine, but I'll end up having to re-glue them all to keep them aligned after bending them to fit, as the brittle glue joint between the two sides tends to fail when I'm bending them into the channels.  
 
They'll also be painted matte black so they aren't shiny.  If it doesn't work out, then I'll revert to doing something in brass, but I'm hoping this will work, as they seem to look just fine and once they are fixed in place with the nail/glue at the bottom and the channel cap at the top, they shouldn't be moving enough to be a problem.

In order to get the angle for the chain-plates right, I cut a piece of basswood to the proper length for the main mast, then cut the bottom to fit at the correct angle, and built a step into the top at the height of the cross-trees.  Using this false-mast, I could run rope around the mast to get the angle correct (hopefully!).

 
Yesterday, I spent a large chunk of the day doing touch-up painting, getting an extra coat of paint on all the new stuff I've added, so that I can put some poly on it after it's all dried.  I then made bowsprit mark II.
 
For the re-made bowsprit, I started with 3/8" square boxwood from Crown Timberyard, and first shaped it to a slightly oversized octagon using a lovely little jig that Frank loaned me on Saturday.  Once I had that done, I shaped the base of the bowsprit, cheating heavily by using the mill, and then using the lathe, turned the round portion down to size at half-inch intervals, and then used 220 grit sandpaper, still in the lathe, to finish it to a smooth taper.  I then used the cut-off tool to cut off the tip, which I then sanded to shape by hand.  Finally, I cut off the larger square piece where it was chucked into the lathe, and completed shaping the base to the correct angle to sit on the fore-deck.
 
Much happier with the improved mark II version.  It's sort of hard to see in the photo's, but the edges of the octagon are much sharper, it's much more uniform, and the square foot is much sharper and better shaped in general.  It's a very tight fit through the bow.  In the photo's the original bowsprit I made from the kit basswood is the lighter one on top.

 
Edit: Fixed dimension of the wood stock.

Ship update!
 
After redoing the workshop, I got back to the final deck details prior to starting to work my way forward and upward!
 
I completed the timberheads, swivel gun support posts, and the channels in preparation to begin the chain-plate fabrication next.
 

 
I think I'll make a dummy mast so that I can attach rope to get the angle on the chain-plates correct, and then make some sort of a jig (I've got some ideas from other build logs here) for positioning the upper dead-eyes later.  I've decided to replace the kit dead-eyes with Syren ones, and I've got them assembled but not sanded yet.  Also, after messing around again with the kit brittania cast swivel guns, decided to throw them out, and ordered brass swivel guns which I'll need to fabricate a yoke and handles for.

The next lot of photos show the Head Rails being fitted. they where fitted one at a time and allowed to dry for 24 hours
 
That's all for now I will post some more soon

Hi All,
 
The last post shows the completion of the coppering it was a fairly straight forward process except for the fact that it was quite time consuming but I am quite pleased with the result
 
So on with the next stage of the build, and from here on I hope to keep it in sequence .
 
The main rails for the beak head deck are laser cut from 5mm plywood and although it looks like the deck has straight edges there is a slight curve that theses pieces have to be bent to follow, unfortunately I don't have any photos of the jig I made to bend these parts but I can briefly describe how I did it.
 
Firstly I placed the head rails in tub of hot water to soak for about 30 minutes then I traced a template of the deck on paper and transferred this onto a piece of 10mm plywood and hammered nails along one side of the line.
When the parts had finished soaking I placed them against the row of nails and hammered in another row of nails to hold the part in place along the line. The parts where left to dry overnight.
 
Once they had dried into shape they hade to notched out to fit over the top wale and the aft end of the deck as seen I the following pictures

Hi  Kester,
 
Thank you for your kind words. It worked quite well and I was happy with the result.
 
The next pic shows how I shaped the plates to the curve of the keel, I stuck a piece of masking tape where the plate was going to go and trace the outline in pencil and then transferred this to the plate and cut around the outline this gave me rough profile of the shape this was then cleaned up with a file and fitted in place
 
 

 
The next pic shows the coppering of the starboard side of the keel completed
 

 
Sorry about the flash reflecting off the plates. I thought I had some more pictures of this stage but I can't find them  they may have been lost when my old computer crashed

As I had planked the keel and stem post the plates where not  wide enough to cover the edge of the keel so I had to lay the plates in the centre of the keel and then bend a plate on either side of the edge to cover it
 
I found it easier to pre bend the plates and adjust each one as needed before gluing them on
 
The first three photos show how I bent the plates
 
Which no matter what I try I can not get them in the order I want them sorry
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hi All
 
The copper plating was now continued from the keel up the last line of plates laid.
 
The next two photos show the starboard side almost complete and the start of the plates along the keel on the port side. This process was fairly straight forward the hardest part being cutting the triangular shapes to fill the gaps.
 
The last Photo, hopefully if they come out in order, shows the coppering on the hull completed the next stage is to copper plate the keel and stem post
 
 
 
 

Here is another shot of the beak head deck fitted and some photos of the copper plates. The first photo of the copper plating shows the plates finished to the gore line. The next line of plates will come form the keel up to this line 

Hi All,
 
After completing all that could be done to the beak head deck off the model, including painting the underside black in between the frames, it was fitted to the model.
 
 
 
 
 

and some more detail...

Thanks Slog, and everyone for your kind words. I finished the main shrouds and catherpins, futtock shrouds. Also reeved all the deadyes and tied off properly.

Some more progress all ready for the blocks now.

Working more on my rigging.I have learnt it is an art of patience and determination.
Snoepert