hamilton
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Everything posted by hamilton
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OK - I promise I actually do have a job and it is about to get very busy...but once again I seem to have found some time today to fabricate and rig the stay sail....I won't belabour things with long explanations - things went pretty smoothly - I did simplify the halliard rig, as this is one area where the plans (otherwise very clear and readable) are a bit confounding.....anyways, here are the pictures - I actually also fabricated the jumbo jib sail, but I think I need to adjust the pattern for the model as built - the one I've made is a smidge too big.....bye for now hamilton
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One more photo - in a burst of activity, knowing work's going to kick in seriously for a bit, I managed to fabricate and rig the fore topsail! Here's a last pick for the day. hamilton
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True, Gregg! But as I crest the middle of middle age the remembering is taking longer and longer! hamilton
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Hello there: Another quick update on Bluenose - the foresail is now rigged onto the model. This was a more or less straightforward process, and I learned from my rigging of the mainsail to fasten lines with relative tension rather than one at a time! It's been so long (2016) since I rigged any model that I feel like I'm learning things all over again.....anyway, here are the photos. Next it's on to the fore topsail.....but since I'm heading into a few weeks of very intense work I may not get to this for a bit.....enjoy the photos hamilton
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Hi there: I have some confusion about how the staysail halliard on the Bluenose would have been rigged. The plans provide two views of the halliard (see below) The upper and lower blocks seem obvious - one seized to the peak of the sail, the other seized to an eye on the main topmast. But in the image with the three blocks, the line just seems to circle between a standing end on a ring, through the block on the sail, up to the block on the mast, down to a third, hooked block - but where does this third block go? There is talk in the explanation to the right in the image of it being hooked to the sheer pole - ok....but then there is talk of the "running end" of the line, which doesn't seem to exist in that drawing.....has anyone come up with an interpretation of this element who can share it with me? Thanks a lot hamilton
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Looks great! hamilton
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Hello all: I found an opportunity yesterday to spend almost the entire day at the work bench - what could be finer or more relaxing than throwing on an audiobook and doing some rigging and sail making? I had a couple of small tasks to complete for rigging the mainsail - lacing the sail to the boom & gaff and tying on the mast hoops. This got done fairly quickly, so I decided to move on to the main topsail. I stitched the sail, and added eyelets and rigging elements, which is about as much as I could accomplish yesterday. This morning, I rigged the sail onto the model and then, in a fit of ambition, decided to start on the foresail. I traced the sail form onto the cloth and marked out the seams and reef bands and then stitched the entire sail before I realised I had done the whole thing backwards - I stiched on the port side of the sail, but the model is built for a starboard side display!! I managed to retrace it before my modelling time ran out, but completion will have to wait for another day - going to go play some mini golf with the family. To all the Canucks, happy Thanksgiving!! Enjoy the long weekend and the photos hamilton
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Truly impressive! hamilton
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some one suggested this already, but an adjustable open top aquarium lamp might work - except they're designed to sit on the top edges of the aquarium sides - you can get ones that are dimmable and that (while quite bright) would not be so intrusive or offensive. They are, however, not cheap...and an enclosed case would require the addition on the top side edges of thin extensions on which the light could rest - here is an image of an aquarium I designed a couple of years ago that shows this. The broad spectrum REBs are high quality, but really designed for plant growth - so bright! But this photo is just to show how the lights fit on the aquarium...and to illustrate what you might need to do do fit something securely on your model case.... I'm on another forum for my aquarium/aquascaping hobby and one time someone there asked about putting a wooden ship model as a decorative element inside the aquarium! It's fun when there's crossover between these two worlds....good luck! hamilton
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Hello there: I've now started rigging the main sail - a lot of elements to juggle here! The first step was to lash the sail to the boom and gaff and the clew, toe, throat and peak - the eyelets I added to the mainsail helped here, though I wish I had blackened them first....an oversight (or overeagerness) on my part. Regardless, After trying to rig the throat and peak halliards with the boom and gaff "loose", I added small brass nails to the ends of these parts and drilled holes on the main mast so the spars could be anchored in place to ease the rigging. I also had to undo the tackles on the flying backstays since these were really getting in the way - I'll re-do these once the main sail and main topsail are finished. In any case, at this point I've put in the parrell ropes (but not added parrells or tied them off) and rigged the peak and throat halliards and tackles. There is still a lot to do here - including lacing the sails onto the gaff and boom, the sheets and boom crutch tackles, the topping lift and quarterlifts and the lazy jacks - I installed the flag halliard today, so that's taken care of at least - and of course I'll need to tie on the mast hoops and parrells.....sheesh! Then onto the topsail..... Bye for now and happy modelling hamilton
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Hi Gregg - go for it! It's "fun" to learn a new skill, though as soon as people start coming to me for drapes I might have to feign ignorance....Fortunately I have a couple of sewing wizzes in my life, so I got some decent tutorials, but unfortunately they were not willing to do this work for me! hamilton
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Managed to get in a couple of hours at the bench today and can report some progress on the sails. I made patterns a little while back for all the sails - you can see these arrayed in the first photo below - and transferred the pattern for the fore sail to some thin fabric I had lying around (nothing like ship modelling if you want to end up with a lot of random stuff just lying around...or maybe that's just life...) for experiments with the sewing machine. After a lot of work wrestling with that demonic device, I finally got into a rhythm where the threads weren't seizing up and doing all kinds of annoying things. Feeling daring, I transferred the patterns for the main sail and main topmast sail to the cloth and started stitching the main sail - just the reef bands and outside "hems" - not sure how generally to refer to these....I forgot how time consuming making sails is!! I imagine I'll be at this for a couple of weeks given the limited time I have these days....Anyways, here are some photos - the sail patterns and some shots of the main sale with a piece of ceramic Swiss cheese for scale comparison. Happy modelling and bye for now hamilton
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A small update - no photos, sorry!! I've now finished the standing rigging, including ratlines, and fabricated and outfitted all the spars. I realised as I was doing this that I forgot to make and install the jumbo jib sheet horse in front of the fore mast, so did that quickly, and also forgot until now all about the boom crutches, which I'll need to make as part of the process of adding the sails, spars and standing rigging...not a huge deal. Man there's a lot to hold in your head with this hobby!! I'll be moving onto the sails now, as noted before. I have made sails before (kind of poorly, but satisfactorily enough for my own purposes) but it's been a long time and so I'll need to do some practice. I made templates for all the sails and have a decent quantity of thin cotton fabric in a kind of canvass-y tone, so I'll first do some experiments just reminding myself how to use the sewing machine till I get to the point where I feel confident enough to make the sails. I also invested in some tools to add grommets and eyelets, so I'm hoping this can up my sail modelling game a bit - I'll be doing some trials with those tools as well to see if I can get a hang of the process - if so and if the eyelets look decent and to scale I'll add these at the luff and foot of the main and foresails (1/16") and at the corners for lashings, etc. Though work is now picking up again for the next couple of months and I won't have a huge amount of time to work on BN, I hope to have her before Christmas. This is exciting as I've not finished a model since I completed the Mamoli America in October, 2016!!! For reference, I had already begun the planning process for Bluenose at that point! So ultimately, this project - as long as it has taken - has finally brought me bak to ship modelling as an earnest pursuit (rather than an occasional pastime as it has been these past 7 years), which I am very happy about....can't wait to return to Bellona once this one's done! I'll post an update with some photos once I get into the sail making process. In the meantime happy modelling hamilton
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Very quick update - made some patterns for the mainsail and main topmast sail. Took a tracing from the plans, transferred this to bristol board using carbon paper and then trimmed up the bristol board patterns until the seemed to fit reasonably on the model as-built. It's been a long time since I made sails for any model - and I was never as expert a hand at it as some on the forum. But this weekend, I'm going to haul the sewing machine out and see if my wife will be willing to show me (again) how to thread the damnable thing...I'm sure that a bit of casual experimentation over the weekend will refresh my memory, right? HAHAHA!! I think I'm going to invest in a little eyelet tool so I can add grommets to the sails, but I have to see if I can find something for this purpose - what do other people do/use for this? Bye for now and hope you all have a great weekend hamilton
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Looking at the photos I realise I'm not finished outfitting the boom - still have to add the clapper! And the parrell ropes and parrells, but those are for later..... hamilton
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Thanks for the comments Nearshore and Gregg! Another quick update - I spent the last couple of days fabricating and outfitting the main boom - a relatively straightforward process. I'll complete the main gaff and then make the mainsail and main topmast sail before adding all these elements to the model and moving forward. Here are some photos - hope all are well! hamilton
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Even if it doesn't come out exactly symmetrical, this approach should produce good results - great work so far - very precise and clean looking! hamilton
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Looks really good so far! hamilton
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Well - it's finally time for a real update on the build. I've been working on the standing rigging and this is something I always have trouble documenting because of my poor camera skills and equipment (iPhone).....but now that the standing rigging is almost done (only the fore lower shroud ratlines and fore spreader lift ratlines plus the fore topmast shrouds to complete) I can share the progress. I won't spend too much time with descriptions here other than to say that I did not pay enough attention to the plans and ended up tying the ratlines across all four lower main shrouds instead of the first three with an occasional extension to the fourth.....I know I talked about historical accuracy above as something I'm not too concerned about, but this one sticks in the craw a bit - though I'm sure eventually I'll reconcile myself to it.... In any case, I really enjoy the rigging process - probably my favourite part of any build - as it really brings the model to life in such a big way. Even ratlines aren't too bad with a good podcast or audiobook! Next to give myself a bit of a break, I'm going to fabricate the main boom and gaff and the main sail and main topmast sail and rig those up before moving on to completing standing rigging on the foremast. Enjoy the photos all and bye for now hamilton
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Thanks a lot Johnny - I agree wholeheartedly - if I could afford it, I would always go with Syren blocks. As it is, I have to save those kinds of expenses for builds where I have more of an eye to accuracy. The Bluenose is what I consider a kind of "recovery model" - a project that - along with a 1.5" = 1' rowing skiff I built last summer - I'm working on primarily to get back into modelling. When I first got into this hobby in 2009, I built 15 models in succession over an 8 year period. Then I injured my hand back in 2017 and have only worked sporadically on models from that time until the beginning of last summer, when I built the skiff, picked up Bluenose again and started working on HMS Bellona (Corel), which I am going to try to build to at least something of a level of historical accuracy (though there are Bellona and other 74 builds on here that outstrip my capacities in all ways!!!). Like you my questions are the same - what do I want to achieve with this build? Where are my interests going with this or that model - most importantly what is available to me for resources! Bluenose is obviously well documented, but the aim of building it really is to get a modelling rhythm back in my life...... Thanks for dropping by! hamilton
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Thanks for the recommendation, Alan - my son is a budding filmmaker (hard to believe given what's happening in Hollywood these days) and we have a weekly film club where we watch classic cinema - the farthest back we've gone so far is Night of the Hunter (1955), which he really enjoyed (as do I) but I'll add Captains Courageous to the list! hamilton
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Looking good cisco! hamilton
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Thanks for the helpful suggestions guys, but I do this for fun, and will go my own way on this one. I appreciate and admire those with the technical skill, money and time to achieve at the high level you guys do, but this is my hobby and I seek relaxation and quiet enjoyment in it. And since I'm under no obligation either to keep anyone on board this boat safe or pass a bar of historical or technical accuracy, I'll leave these as they are and move along. I do appreciate the comments, and if I ever come to build a model with an eye to technical and historical accuracy, I will definitely make sure to rig my blocks correctly. Thanks again! hamilton
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Hello again: In a burst of activity today I managed to outfit the fore mast and fore topmast - they are now assembled as a single structure, but not yet installed on the model. I'll wait to do this until I've finished outfitting the main mast and topmast and I'm ready to begin the rigging, though some rigging elements (the spreader lifts and ratlines) will be installed first. The process was mostly trouble free, though the results are a little wonky....I've been trying a new blackening agent that is not very good - so the pieces look...well more rusted than anything...I may try to dab some black paint on them to tone them down a bit but we'll see....I don't know why the new blackening agent I was using today ended up flaking so badly - I bathed the brass in acetone and rinsed with water before blackening and then tried just putting them straight in the blackening solution, but in both cases the results were equally poor....I may try diluting the blackening liquid more to see if that helps, but honestly I'm at a loss....the old Blacken-It (no longer available in Canada) is sorely missed!!! Any tips from pros out there would be appreciated. Enjoy the photos and bye for now hamilton
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