DSiemens

The frame looks good to me and I agree it will look nicer then the metal.  I wonder though are you planning on making them bigger than the metal fittings?

Rfolsom,
 
  I've just started using epoxy and I've found to be really nice once you figure out how to keep it from getting all over the place. 

Max black is a good color for the rigging and one I use often.  The reason these lines are black and running lines are tan is because the standing rigging doesn't move and is constantly exposed to the weather.  To protect the lines from wearing out they would cover them with tar and sap which turned them black.  The running lines on the other hand need to move through block and tackle and tar would gunk them up so they were left as is.  As the lines wore out they would have to replace them.  Which is why they keep big coils of rope below decks.  
 
Great work on your model she's really beautifully done.  

Seems as though I need to run into a rough patch before I hit some inspiration.  Or maybe I'm just better at the 1:300 to 500 scale.  In either case my current bottle build was giving me a lot of trouble and I hit a road block.  So while I was thinking of how to fix that I went on to another project.  I chose this one because I think I need to get back to basics again before proceeding.  Also like so many of my best work it's for some one else.  I may explain the story behind that later.  Here's the ship.  
 

 
She's simple but beautiful.  The only one in existence today is the Mariquita which I have based a lot of this model on.  Still debating if I should break down and just call her the Mariquita but we'll see.  
 

 

 
I actually tried some thing new and did some rough measuring.  The ship is a bit thin but she needs to fit in the bottle.  I'm off less then a millimeter so I think it's okay even for this scale.  This was actually pretty fascinating to see and I suggest trying it out just for fun.  I measured out the center line and then lines on the plans.  I counted twelve on the plans but the photo now shows more like 16.  It's 1:300 scale kind of hard to see.  Any ways.  I divided the ships length by twelve and drew a line for each section.  I then drew the center line.  From there I went back and forth from the plans measuring each line from the center line and marking it on both sides of the center line on the wood.  As I progressed the deck shape just appeared.  This is probably the most fun I've ever had with a set of plans.  
 

 
   
 I then carved out the hull and I apologize for not having more pictures because I tried a new technique for that as well.  I've been looking at pictures of some of my favorite ship in bottle builders for a long time.  One that has always intrigued me is Heather Rogers.  I've posted a few pictures of her work and if you would like to see more click link.
As I looked at her photo's I've found she carves ships very differently.  She also did a model of the Mariquita so being I had a reference I decided to try it her way.  What I found was incredible.  I cut out the large pieces around the hull and then went to my usual dremel work.  The proved difficult as the base got in the way.  So I looked back and found that she uses chisels.  I pulled out my chisels and started working with it.  The grove between the base and the ship created a perfect guide.  I place one end of the chisel in the groove, angled it to where I wanted to cut and slid the chisel against the hull.  It was almost to easy.  This hull is almost completely cut from a chisel and touched off with some sanding.  I noticed though that Heather uses what appears to be harder woods.  I think I may try that in the future as the bass wood is soft and dents easily.  
 
   
 

 
I then added the trim on the sides and the deck furniture.  The ships wheel is made from a piece of a watch I bought from a jeweler for the spare parts.  The deck house, hatches, skylights and dory are cut from match sticks.
 
   
 

 
What's also interesting is that I'm about four hours into this build and I'm ready for masts yards and rigging.  She's a quick fun build.  Actually if any one wants to try ship in bottle building for the first time this ship would be a good one to start on.   

Now that I've seen some doctor who I actually understand that.  Very clever.  

The  rigging is finished, chainplates too. The finishing work still continues
 
Jan

Hi Matti ( and all of my friends )
 
Sorry for the late answer,
 
I´m quite busy at the beginning of this year. Sails are finisher and ready for completing. Two of them are hand painted by me - but not completely by my ideas...  I hope to hang them through the next week.
 
Jan

First part of running rigging is completed. Now I have to prepare sails and sew them.
Anchors are finished - just hang up them.
 
Enjoy pictures
 
Jan

I wish you happy new year, my friends
 
 
Yards are finished, completed and hanged. Now I can continue with first part of running rigging. 
 
Jan
 
 

Thanks friends
 
Christmas time is over - and standing rigging is done, finally.
I´ve just started with yards, completing  another blocks...etc...
 
Jan
 
 

Hi again and well, I coundn´t hold myself that much. 3 days after finishing my caravel I´m beginning a new project and hope you all enjoy it. Took me 3 months and some days to my last ship to be finally complete, and, today I started a new counter ^^ (not that I want to beat it).
 
So, first thing first, I´ll say my impressions on the kit. I bought it from an e-bay auction. The box is a little bit worn, with some small scratches on the fringes. Since the kit is from the 80´s, there´s that look in it:
 

 
Opening we can see a good care with pieces and wood, all arranged in a practical manner. My last experience was a bit disappointing regarding opening the box, cause the fittings and everything else were almost thrown in the box, with no preoccupation about the pieces´ overall look. AL, in other hand, do know how to sell it´s fish.
 

 
Unboxing the fittings box I found a beaultifull set of small wooden and metal parts. Loved the distribution and care. Didn´t like the brass fittings for doors and windows, or even the lanterns - decided those will be made by me.
 

 
The wood planks with pre-cut parts are easy to cut. It´s not laser cut, since in 1989 it wasn´t that common, lol. There´s a fine selection for woods, all woods. I detached the first parts to take the false keel and mount the structure.
 

 
For this build I just designed a holder - Big change for better, for my last ship was builded almost in my lap, or on the kit´s base, which devastated my hull, as I saw sometime after the mistake. So, false keel on holder ready to receive framing.
 

 
After cutting and sanding the frames, got numbers to them so I could follow the instructions - and make no mistakes.
 

 
So, I took care to align all frames with the false keel, since some of them needed some fixing to go smooth with the keel. After that I glued them and the girders, as follows
 

 

 

 

 
I got the impression that it was a little bit crooked and drawn a line to compare, but was just an impression. Began first planking but need to buy a small hammer, so, all paused till I buy one.
 
Other consideration - after studying the plans I found it easy to give the ship some cabins. With a little modification on the castle I can put some nice furniture inside the ship and, following Doris inspiration, will let the windows and doors show the inside (after scratching my own windows and doors, of course).
 
Well, that´s it!

I present, for your inspection and critique, my completed rendition of the Canadian Schooner Bluenose.
 
I tied the last knot at 1730 hour MST this evening.
 

 

 
Just to add a bit of authenticity and acquire official approval of the model, I asked my neighbor to come over.  He, being from Canada, inspected the model and gave me a thumbs up.
 

 
From start to finish this has been an adventure.  I am very pleased with the Model Shipways Kit and the quality woods and especially the building manual.  Granted, there are a number of improvements that can be made to any kit, but overall this is a well thought out product.
 
I’ve learned to bend and shape various woods, sew sails, and above all patience!
 
My next step is to complete the display case and mount the Bluenose.
 
To all of you that have followed this build and provided instruction, and inspiration, I thank you.
 

The time has come for the tedious part of the build.  The Ratlines!  This is probably going to take me longer than I am anticipating, but I want to make sure that at this stage of the build I don’t do something that is going to detract from the overall appearance of the model and I sure don’t want to damage any of the other structures or rigging.
 
I used the jigs I made for the Deadeyes and glued a horizontal guide to them to provide uniform spacing for the Ratlines.
 

 
I did a little research, both here in the forum and in two of Lennarth Petersson’s books on rigging, to get an idea of just how to properly tie the Ratlines.
 
I have also secured the expertise of a Ratline expert.  He assures me that he is the one that put the “Rat” in Ratline.
 

Sorry its been so long since my last post. Since my last post I have made the weeping angel figurehead, there's nothing more intimidating than a twelve foot tall statue of an angel covering its eyes. the figurehead is made from Sculpty. After I took the pics I did some work on aging.




 
 
Lextin.

Fenders
 
The Fenders assist in loading the ship, especially from a boat. Barrels could be more easily loaded as the fenders make a smooth run over the rails below :
 

 

 
Unlike the Chesstrees I fitted earlier, the fenders don't play any part of the rigging so I'm only fitting them to the Port side.
 
  Danny

Great build she looks wonderful!  Can't wait to see what you have planned next.  

So from Tichy came a small box with a dozen coal chute kits. This may seem a bit odd, but in each kit there are two open spoked pulley sheaves. Exactly the style I was looking for. And there's also a good assortment of other industrial odds and ends that could prove useful later on.
 
I got right to work on assembling the sheaves. I worked out I need 11 sheaves on the boom itself, and 10 on the headblock, at the "A" frame. There is also a block with 2 smaller sheaves, hung below the top of the A frame, that direct the cable down to the luffing winch drums.
 
The sheaves all sit on a phosphor bronze axle, that came with the chute kit.
 
Andy

So now that the lower rollers are all in place, I can turn my attention to the cross bracing at the bottom of the boom. Nothing really fancy. I've sent the cradle rollers off to be copied, so hopefully before then end of the month I should have them in hand, and along with my still MIA parts I should be able to get this unloading boom out of the way, and get on to the rest of the detail work about the ship.... oh yeah... and finish the hull.... enough of these dry-fit overall photos.
 
Andy
 
 

Max black is a good color for the rigging and one I use often.  The reason these lines are black and running lines are tan is because the standing rigging doesn't move and is constantly exposed to the weather.  To protect the lines from wearing out they would cover them with tar and sap which turned them black.  The running lines on the other hand need to move through block and tackle and tar would gunk them up so they were left as is.  As the lines wore out they would have to replace them.  Which is why they keep big coils of rope below decks.  
 
Great work on your model she's really beautifully done.  

Hi all
 
another little update... the rigging needs ist time... it is not as difficult as I thought, but to tie the knots and to keep everything under tension - but not to much - is quite tricky. I decided to color the standing rigging in black as it is seen on many pictures of origins and models. The shrouds of the foremast are almost ready, on one side I did the ropes connecting the shrouds (sorry did not find the english word, in german it is "webleinen"). I read that this ropes were used in a way like rope ladders to climb up the mast. So there should not be too much tension... hmmm... but I am not sure if I like the result as it is now. I used knot on every junction, perhaps the second side I will only tie the rope to the shrouds - without knots... perhaps this will look more as I want.  Any suggestions, tips or comments (pls be honest) are welcome
 
Thats it for today... my ship calls me
 
Cheerio
 
Max
 

Hello my fellow friends...
 
I finished the masts - and now will start the great adventure with ropes, lines and a lot of Fittings... also called rigging
 
But I admit that the building up to now is not as difficult as I expected. I thought there would be much more problems but everything became good.  I had so much fun and joy and relaxing moments - and the few problems were great to find solutions. I learned so much about modelling - not only put some parts together but more and more create the model. Ist amazing, great and really fulfilling. I promise - the Half Moon will not stay alone in my living room... At the moment I feel dashing to build the Derfflinger by Euro Models as next model... Has anyone any expierence with this model?
 
Well - the bowsprit is glued, he foremast also. I will do like Popeye recommended: From bow to stern and starting with the standing rig.
 
 
Cheerio
 
Max

Thanks for the great replies everyone. Micheal, do you want to part with any of that wood? It would be great as part of a base.
 
Seeing the increase in clipper model interest on this site I thought it would be good to include several pics of where the masting and rigging is going.
 
I'm tying to post a pic of her real figurehead too. It's rotting away in some old guys garage down under.

Here are some pics of the yards being built. I made the cradle to help hold them still as I worked on them. Also, here are some details of the tops and crosstrees.
 
My methods are the standard ones. The masts were shaped from square blanks of lemonwood taken from bow staves. Yards too. It was a lot of shaping. Timely, but really not too difficult. It gave me a lot of control.
 
The deadeyes and bullseyes were made using standard jig techniques.
 
There is a lot of metal work involved. There will be a lot of chain rigging too. I've measured a need for about 9 feet. I've made some chain, but decided to use some 40 link per inch stuff I've found. Making this much was just too much for me. So far this is the only thing I've bought ready made except for thread.
 
I'm making the 11 1/2 inch and 8 inch standing rigging size line right now on my rope walk. This is for the lower shrouds and stays. I'll need a lot of the 11 1/2 as the Lightning had this huge stuff all they up to her topgallant back and forstays! It may look a bit heavy, but McKay really layed on the strong stuff for some of his ships. Especially the ones for the Australian emigrant ships like Lightning.
 
By the way, I have a list all of the laws layed down by the captain for the passengers. PHEW !!! I'm working on a book too.
 
I'm still trying to load that photo of her real figurehead that's rotting in a garage down under....
 
Bruce
 
 

Hello,
 
capstan prepared for installation on the gun deck.
 
Karl
 
 
 
 
 
T e i l  42

Harv,
I'd really appreciate any info on this topic that you could post here !!
 
As a fellow-member of the FakeCaptainsClub, with no actual naval experience (as per Rule 1.00a), I am considering lashing the tiller-arm along the back of my rudder, and then "lazily" laying it on the rear bench, against the wall of the cabinet.
 
Kind of like this, with lashings to come ...

 
EDIT: Another idea could be to do something similar, but hang it off the back stern of the pinnace (ie: instead of mounting vertically, it would be lashed horizontally).
Yes, that rudder DOES look kinda rough. Only one coat had been applied when I took this pic. Sanding down and a couple more coats of paint to follow.