Jump to content

Keith Black

NRG Member
  • Posts

    5,429
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Keith Black

  1. Glen, she's really looking swell. As the old saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention. Just a suggestion if I may, if you chuck the nail shank in your drill, you can use a metal file to make the nail heads smaller as the drill spins. Another use for the poor man's lathe.
  2. Thank you for all the comments and likes. Work continues populating the mizzen mast with blocks. I'm getting close but felt that an update was in order. Top most four blocks are the mizzen topgallant lifts and main topgallant brace blocks. Once again I'm drilling holes and glueing the blocks in place eliminating the need for eyebolts due to the small scale. Not a lot of wood to work with here. The preventer chain is .6 inches and was a pain in the backside getting the length correct. I've never gotten a chain length correct the first time, it usually takes three attempts and this guy was no exception. It's affixed at the point between the cheeks but is just placed in the yard where I can remove the yard and continue to work on the mast unencumbered. Blocks for the US flag and rear admiral's flag. I've tried to use graduating blocks sizes. Larger blocks on the lower areas where the loads would have been greater and then ever decreasing block sizes as I move upward where loads would be lighter. As I stated before I bought my blocks from Cornwall. They're perfectly fine for my project but they are not everyone's cuppa. If ordering the types of blocks I'm using, one should order about 20% more than needed. For those of you going the same route as myself, sort through your blocks. One, to eliminate culls and two, to sort sizes. Even though a bag is supposed to be one size, they're probably not and that's a good thing. I found that sizes were slightly smaller and larger than marked and I've taken advantage of that. It's given me the opportunity to try and portray a realistic distribution of blocks through the rigging. That's it till next time, thank you to all for looking in........Keith
  3. Keith, absolutely top notch workmanship. I bet your former employer rued the day you retired.
  4. Steve, welcome to MSW. Glad to have you aboard.
  5. Obviously, whoever drew up that plan didn't get the memo.
  6. Bruce, it looks like a man riding a griffin, the griffin's head is center of the man's stomach. The man's right hand appears to be ready to cover or just uncovering the griffin's eyes while his left hand grasps the griffin's talon. But hey, I flunked the Rorschach test.
  7. Marc, more of the same beautiful work. absolutely gorgeous. Hey, do you do model work in the TV room? If so, I don't know you do it. After moving tools and blocks down stairs to the TV room last winter, I tried for six months to get work done stropping blocks, I failed miserably. I've lost two years to Covid at a time when two years of my almost 75 years is a lot! This maybe the new normal, the price we pay for destroying the environment/habitat of numerous animal species around the globe.
  8. Chris, test a piece with gloss and see if you can tell a difference. The canopies turned out really nice, all three clear as a bell.
  9. Simon, great news on your recovery! Getting back to modeling the Tennessee was the driving force to my recovery of the use of my left hand after my stroke 2017. That and God's Grace. Your dad would be so proud of the job you're doing on the restoration of his model.
  10. Glen, the post are .03 mm = .011811 inches. They are tiny, fragile little things that bend quite easily. I use them for various little details, in fact I find them to be indispensable and usually have a hundred or so in my stores but alas, I'm down to 33 but if I had 100 I'd send 50 of em south. Micro Mark has some small eye pins...... https://www.micromark.com/Brass-Eye-Pins
  11. Glen, this is what I've got. The seed beads measure .08 inches but........I think I've found something much more fitting, tiny etched brass eyelets (OD measures .05) from Cornwall Model Boats in the UK, see the below link. Unfortunately they are currently out of stock and I'm pretty sure they have a minimum order amount. If the etched eyelets would work for you, how many do you need for this build, 10? I'm down to seeds and stems on the eyelets but I've got loads of the seed beads and would be more than happy to send you as many as you might need. https://www.cornwallmodelboats.co.uk/cgi-bin/sh000001.pl?WD=etched eyelets&PN=caldercraft83505.html#SID=154
  12. Glen, my dear wife once did beadwork. I'll have to go through some of the seed/tiny beads of hers that i've appropriated and see if they're smaller than the ones you have pictured. I'll get back to you shortly.
  13. Glen, you might try gray knitting yarn either wool or cotton. You can also try to color the white cotton that you have with gray chalk. Oh, the balls for tops look OK but the rail is a bit meaty. Do you think you could use seed beads and run line through them? https://www.shipwreckbeads.com/Beads/seed-beads
  14. You can Google the Revell plans and download them for free.
  15. Glen, she's a little gem. The cotton/smoke needs to be gray, IMHO.
  16. Simon, first off, I hate hearing about your medical issues, my thoughts and prayers are with you. Second, Thermopylae plans can be obtained from Cornwall Model Boats in your part of the world. I ordered a set a couple of years ago, I can't remember the scale right off hand. I think they're a bit dodgy but maybe that's just me?
  17. Eberhard, incredible work as always, beautifully detailed micro work. Is the bell 2 mm as well?
  18. John, thank you. As I said, I was just curious if there's a shade differences between the upper and lower running lines. Every model I've seen (which isn't all that many) has been depicted with running lines being the same color and that seems counterintuitive but as I said, would it be noticeable at scale with the exception of a new running line.
  19. Bitao, the complexity is so beautiful it almost hurts one's eyes.
×
×
  • Create New...