texxn5

I can only add the same accolades, and rest assured Augie is looking over your shoulder and giving you hints on how he wants it...great job Bug.....Augie is greatly missed here.
John

I can only add the same accolades, and rest assured Augie is looking over your shoulder and giving you hints on how he wants it...great job Bug.....Augie is greatly missed here.
John

I can only add the same accolades, and rest assured Augie is looking over your shoulder and giving you hints on how he wants it...great job Bug.....Augie is greatly missed here.
John

WOW, Bug. You're doing Augie proud. She's a beauty.

Bug,
Just tripped over this log and am amazed at the work you are doing to complete Augie's Confederacy. How did you ever rig that last gun? You're making Augie proud up there. By the way, great photos.
 
Dave B

agreed Augie would be pleased to see the good work continued

Tedious to do but beautiful in the end.   Well done, Bug.   I agree with Jack and I'll add.. Augie would be smiling

Beautiful job Bug - looks fantastic. Augie will be proud.

Hello everyone!
 
     My sincerest apologies for the complete lack of updates and information.  My business travel schedule as of late is pretty brutal. I have two more trips this month (one tomorrow), and then three more in June.  Oy.  Top that off with organizing a giant party for my lovely wife's 40th Birthday last month and it's been a hectic 2016 thus far to say the least!
 
    At any rate, excuses aside - I have done a bit of work on the Confederacy in short spurts and starts when I've had a little availability.  Here's what I've been up to:
 
First - I finished up the ship's wheels and remounted them on the deck along with all the fixtures I removed to resurface and smooth out the deck.  That also meant re-mounting all the cannon.
 

 
To that end - even though the plans call for just four six pounders, I wanted to fill out the upper deck a bit more - so I ordered a few more cannon from Chuck and set to work added some guns and putting together some carriages.  Of course I referenced Augie's hard work so I could replicate as closely as possible.  Obviously I didn't want the additional guns to look any different from what he had on deck already.
 

 
Now, one part that threw me, and I couldn't find reference to in Augie's log - was how he created the knob/handle on the stool bed.  So I took a nail, added a glob of super glue, then painted it.  I don't think it's noticeably different from Augie's work, so I'm pleased with that.
 

 

 
Along with the 6 pounders, I also wanted to add a couple longer guns to the foremost cannon ports, even though those gun ports are closed. The open deck (starboard) side wasn't too difficult.
 

 
But on the Port side, that meant I'd have to tuck the cannons below decks, then attach the rigging to the sides of the ship below the deck.  It's was a little hairy in there... but I managed to pull it off after bouts of occasional profanity. 
 

 
All cleaned up, I think she looks pretty good.  Hopefully Mr. Augie's watching over and is pleased.  :-)  
 

Hi Mike, yep our power was out until Thursday - almost lost the freezer. On the 19th got 8" of water in the garage. You know we've had a hail storm, a flood and a tornado in the last 6 weeks. We might want to consider a different location to live....lol. Good ole' Texas Gulf Coast!
John

Brian - I did get a dehumidifier today. Guess I should have researched more. Yes, it did start filling the bucket almost immediately. It also exhausts 105 degree air. Reading the fine print - this is normal behavior. Go figure, low humidity makes it seem cooler. OK I get that.  What does 105 degree air blowing into your room do?????
 
It will be returned tomorrow.
 
Good tip on the AC vent. I'm not sure if this idea will work or not. It's a big area even though my workbench is at one end of it. I don't plan on leaving it running all the time. Just turn it on 30 minutes before I start work and shut it off when I'm done. If I can keep temps in the mid 80's while I work I think that will be good enough.
 
As for the planking tool - proportional dividers are used by architects, artists, (modelers), etc. Typical use is to transfer measurements between drawings and the like and can be used to change the scale as well. It looks a little like a compass (the circle drawing one). You can get plastic ones on Amazon for $10-15. Better ones go for $50+ .  It has given me some confidence when shaping planks. Even if I screw one up, after it is glued I can remeasure the distance to the end of the band and it will tell me how wide the remaining planks need to be. So I can adjust as I go.
 
I see in your signature you have a few mini Mamoli's. Where did you get your kits? Been considering one for my 10 year old but they are not that easy to find.

Man Friday nite was one of those where I almost gave up the hobby. Just feeling down I guess, but I tried to shape one hull strake, screwed that up royally. It was almost 90 degrees in the garage and I was dripping with sweat after about 5 minutes. Just kept saying to myself - "this is not fun".
 
I did snap out of that on Saturday and made some progress. I tool arrived which I find incredibly helpful for planking - proportional dividers. Transferring measurements is a breeze now. I've also found that my results are getting better. I was going to cut & shape all the strakes for band B, then glue them. With the dividers I do one strake, then measure the remaining distance to the end of the band with the dividers set for however many strakes I have left to do. This allows for easy corrections after each strake is laid. For me, they have been very helpful.
 
I have come up with an action plan for the garage. I am going to insulate the front garage door - this is metal and faces west. Then I am going to pick up one of those portable AC units. I'm not expecting miracles, but if I can get temps into the 80's with some dehumidification I think it will be more comfortable. Probably also a better environment for all the modeling materials. Gotta do something or I will have to pack up everything and wait for fall.

Sorry about the power outage. A modeler a work must continue ! Have fun planking!

Speaking of weather, we had some hellacious storms Tuesday nite. Power was out all day Wednesday. Finally came back on about 3:30AM today, so just about 24 hours without.
 
Of course that won't keep the ship-o-holic from his appointed duty. Don't need power to plank a hull, right? I even diverted power from the generator to the table saw for a little while so I could cut a jig to help with shaping planks.
 
My problem with marking band B was resolved. I knew band A was off at the bow so measuring and marking band B from the end of band A would just make band B off as well. So instead I lifted the measurement of band A + band B off the plans and marked that on the bulkheads placing the tick strip at the wale (the start of band A). This gives me a mark where B should really end. Now I have to figure how much extra tapering is needed to get things back on track.
 
The jig I made allows me to place to plank strips side by side. After I shaped 1 plank I use that one and a new one in the jig so the new just has to match the shape of the first one. The idea was to shape all 8 strakes and then cut and glue them. The jig made shaping easier, but I have my doubts about "mass producing" a bunch of strakes at once.  So far, my experience in building has led me to believe it is better to make pieces one by one and install it before moving to the next piece. I tried to mass produce a bunch of deck planks and got burned. So I've made 4 out of the 8 strakes in the band. I think I am going to go ahead and cut & glue those before making any more. We'll see how it goes.

So, I should probably upload some of the completed served shroud lines with attached deadeyes. I ran the completed shroud lines around the masts and through the Fore and Main Tops down to the lower attached deadeyes. Then what I do is cut off a length of lanyard. I tie a knot at one end and I harden the tip of the other end with CA. Once hardened I cut a sharp angle on the thread so I can "thread" it through the deadeyes by hand. Once the deadeyes are all rigged up, using tweezers I pull the line taught getting the deadeyes in line and making sure the masts are all straight. While I didn't see this done on pics of the real Morgan (so not sure why I actually did this) but I pull the line up behind the deadeye and push it through the top of the deadeye and served line to the front. I then wrap it around the shroud and use a cow hitch to tie it off. I put a tiny drop of white glue on the knot (drys clear and doesn't crack like CA) that will hold all in place. And, if you mess up or want to change something... like I did, you can pull things apart without destroying everything! 
 
After I installed my lanyards I kept looking at pics that John took of the Morgan. I personally felt like I used too thin of line for the lanyards. I kept looking at how they tied the line off above the deadeye (cow hitch) and it just looked like fairly thick rope. So, I decided to remove all the lanyards and use a thicker twine that I had laying around. I like the way it looks but retrospectively, it now may be just a tad too thick!. Oh well. 
 
Then I really got a wild hair and decided to use some of that Doc O'Brien's Dusting Powders to give the deadeyes and lanyards some character. As you may recall, I aged much of the deck items and wanted to also do something with the deadeyes and lanyards. So far I only did this to the Foremast lanyards and also a few of the ratline boards )I added a couple just for fun even though I'm not really at that step). I was also able to practice a bit tying the ratline boards. So anyway, the jury is still out on the powder/ aging stuff. I might try to wash some of it off but do want some light aging...maybe just not as much as I have added. I'm open to suggestions! 
 
 

So I've been working on the shrouds for the lower level masts. Serving those lines was a real patience-practice, and after serving they were stiff and a bit of a pain to work with.
For the "full size" deadeyes for the fore and main mast shrouds, I made a couple simple jigs from a piece of scrap wood and four fine metal wire pieces to hold the two deadeyes the correct distance apart while I determined the length of the end without a deadeye attached. This worked pretty well. For the mizzen and its smaller deadeyes, I just eyeballed it with acceptable results.
I think next, as per John's advice on his website, I'll make and mount the various bits of cutting in tackle, before I continue with the standing rigging.
As always, my eyes always go immediately to what I could have done better!
Here's what it looks like now:

Very nice job Bruce! I set the ship aside for a little while as I have been building cabinets for the garage. I'm just about done if I don't build any more! Then, back to the Morgan. 

I've reached a milestone, with the masts completed. I haven't glued the sections together but all the construction is done and the platforms/crosstrees attached.
I did remember to put the parrels on the fore and main topmast before fastening the crosstrees - thanks for the heads up on that John - I would have missed it too!
Scratched my head for quite a while about how to do the lookout rings and have them robust enough in the attachment to the very small diameter mast section to survive the coming months of construction.
I made rings of copper wire by wrapping around a mandrel and cutting at the overlap. I glued the opposing ends into a very small piece of wood - thin side to side and several mm high - drilled thru to accept the ends, and used accelerator on the CA glue.
Then I milled a slot into the mast side to side - John, the proxxon x-y table and drill press can do almost anything - and by fussing with sandpaper and file convinced the piece of wood to enter firmly into the slot, one on each side, with liberal dab of Tightbond inside. A bit of card on either side to give the appearance of a band. I used an enamel for metal on the copper rings. As long as what you are painting is either black or white and you don't mind waiting 24 hours for it to be really dry, it works much better than the water-soluble paints. Quite durable once its dry and no rubbing off.
I'm pleased with the appearance, and the attachment is very firm and should stand up to having lines attached.
 
Now it's time to contemplate the shrouds.

Hey Dave, good to see you back, I'm just catching up. Hope all is well in Charleston with you and Fran. Your details as usual are always outstanding and fun to watch...must be the Dr in you...lol
John

Hmmmm,, well that could be a problem, perhaps a ceiling fan???

Mike, Harbor Freight in Humble would probably have a fan and their shipping is cheap and fast so you could probably have it in a couple of days as well as not having to drive the 50 miles to go get it.
John

Hi Mike, looking very good and making nice progress. Boy, you were right about yesterday...what a perfect day. I spent my time cleaning up my collector cars - took a nice ride up and down 1097 with the targa off...it was a great day.
John

Hmmmm,, well that could be a problem, perhaps a ceiling fan???

Mike, Harbor Freight in Humble would probably have a fan and their shipping is cheap and fast so you could probably have it in a couple of days as well as not having to drive the 50 miles to go get it.
John

Hi Mike, looking very good and making nice progress. Boy, you were right about yesterday...what a perfect day. I spent my time cleaning up my collector cars - took a nice ride up and down 1097 with the targa off...it was a great day.
John