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KurtH

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  1. Hi Gary. I varnished that deck with the recommended Vallejo Matt Acrylic Varnish to protect it. The fact that little of it will be seen was an advantage for me, as I am inexperienced when it comes to finishing, and I wanted to see what the result would be. I do not see why WOP would not do as well if not better, but what do I know? Fortunately there are many modelers who are expert finishers who would be glad to give you good advice.
  2. Gary - I have seen several other builds in which the boats were done first (I forget which). In most other boat builds, the frames serve as the ribs of the boat, and you break out a center piece. In the Sphinx boats the whole piece except the bottom comes out and ribs are added subsequently. I am guessing that you glue the planks to the stem and stern post and to each other edge to edge, avoiding gluing them to the frames. Am I right? Your boats look really good! I can only aspire to do as well.
  3. The next step is to remove the gates which strengthened the bulkhead ears because they are no longer needed, and because they will obstruct installation of the upper hull side patterns. Here is a before and an after pic: Time to construct and fit the jigs which will keep the bulwarks properly aligned as work on the upper hull planking details progresses. This composite photo shows the component pieces of the forecastle jig unit, and how the assembled structure looks when slotted into position. As you can see, the parts are all engraved with letters which guide you when assembling the unit. This parts fit together easily and precisely. but, as I was dry fitting the beams into the side pieces (#30) to check the fit, the port unit gave way at the "U" notch. It seems that these pieces are vulnerable at that point, so caution is needed there. I glued the joint back together with PVA, and reinforced it with one of the extra keys provided in the kit. The jig beams at the waist have notches which fit over tabs in the longitudinal gun port frames. The numbers engraved on the beams match the bulkhead numbers. The J stands for jig. Again, the fit is precise. The jig beams at the quarter deck are secured to the bulkhead ears with the afore mentioned ply keys. A number of extras are thoughtfully provided in the kit. I glued these into the beams to keep them from getting lost when the jigs are not in use. I was, of course, very careful not to let any glue get to the tongue which engages the bulkhead ears. The glue was allowed to set and dry with these tongues partially inserted into the ear slots to ensure exact alignment. It works. I checked. The numbers engraved on the beams match the numbers on the bulkheads the ears to which these beams attach. Here is the current state of play: No deck planking detail is visible in the photo but, as I have previously demonstrated, it is there. Like the Nazca Lines of Peru, these details look a lot better when viewed from above. Now to begin fairing the hull. I have no experience at this, so I intend to proceed slowly and carefully. It may be some time before I post again.
  4. The stern cabin bulkhead pattern and the stern cabin seat pattern are removed from their sheet, varnished, then glued into place: 1. The forecastle bulwark bulkhead patterns removed from their sheet. 2. Parts #16 are glued into notches in the bow curve pattern. 3. Parts #37 are glued into place. 4. Part #17 glued into place. Thinking ahead, I tried fitting the dowel which will be the bowsprit stub into the slot before adding all those little delicate parts. The dowel was a bit too big, so I widened the slot slightly to accommodate it. I dry fit the bowsprit step and fettled a bit until the dowel fit nicely. I figured that doing this now would be easier then doing it when the time came.
  5. Thanks for the advice. That makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately I am limited to water based products, as I do not have adequate ventilation facilities to use oil or solvent based products.
  6. One of my ambitions in working with this kit is to improve my skills at painting and finishing. The main bugaboo in my last model was the grain rise issues which made parts that looked OK from a normal viewing distance look ghastly when viewed up close. To that end, I adopted the technique of applying matt varnish as a base, lightly sanding down the grain rise with 400 grit sandpaper, then applying either a second coat of varnish or multiple coats of paint. A note to those modelers who, like me, have never worked with laser engraved parts before. This procedure will seriously compromise those engraved details. I am not sure what to do instead in order to have everything come out looking finished, but this I can tell you - there will be no more sanding of engraved parts in this build!! Back to the build. In order to accurately draw the line which divides the painted area of the inner bulwark pattern from the natural area. To get the angle right, I set up the forward cabin bulwark and the fore and aft dividing bulwark and drew the line: Having masked the unpainted area, I painted the inner bulwarks with Tamiya Flat Red leaving the top and bottom natural as well as the aft section: The planking detail in the deck does not show up well in these photos, but it is there: Here are the spirketting pieces: Here they are painted: Glued and clamped: Clamps removed: Here are the deck clamp patterns: Painted: Glued and clamped in place" Clamps removed:
  7. Thanks so much for the encouragement, JeffT. I know just what you mean HardeeHarHar. It took me a long time and a lot of effort as well.
  8. I'm back at it again. The task at hand is the preparation of the gun deck planking pattern for installation. I used a 64 pound card stock to make a template. I found that this got me into the ball park, but that more fettling was necessary to get it to fit exactly. In order to get the planking pattern into position, I found that I had to bend it quite a lot. I wondered if I could bend it enough to get it in without breaking it. Nope. This is most embarrassing. It seems I am the only one to have this happen. Obviously, my pattern bending skills need improvement. I considered ordering another from Vanguard, but decided against it for two reasons: First, it is likely that I would break the new one as well, and second, when I laid it out on a flat surface, the cracks disappeared. Unfortunately, when I did finally get it into position, the camber and sheer of the deck opened the cracks up slightly once again. Nonetheless, I decided to go ahead and glue it in. I used highly diluted Elmers filler to repair the cracks, and replaced the bits that broke off during handling, and ended up with this: Gluing the pattern in now is a departure from the instructions, but it seems to me that since I will be limited to brush painting because I do not have facilities for spray painting, and since I will have the model on its side while I am painting the inner bulwarks, the risk of getting paint on the deck will be minimal. I can also varnish the deck and lay down the varnish base coat on the bulwarks all in one go. I realize that this will mean that I must use CA rather than PVA when gluing things to the deck.
  9. The next step is to install the forward inner gundeck bulwark patterns: In order to do that the inboard surfaces of the frames need to be faired: Here is the port side forward inner gundeck bulwark pattern glued in place. Much clamping was needed to make if conform to the curve at the bow: I thought that it might be easier to apply the masking tape in preparation for subsequent varnishing and painting while the pattern was still off the model. The quarter deck beam spacing patterns are the next to be glued in. Here is the starboard pattern: I forgot to photograph these until after I had glued in the port pattern. The larger notches slot into the bulkhead ears. The smaller notches are for the quarter deck beams. The letters engraved on this pattern will correspond with letters engraved into the ends of the beams. They snapped nicely into position, and needed only one clamp to hold them in place. Here they are installed: Once these are in place, the aft inner gundeck bulwark pattern can be fitted: Here is the port aft inner gundeck bulwark pattern installed: Here is the current state of play: Tis the season to be doing things other than modeling. I expect to resume after Xmas, or possibly New Years. 'Bye for now.
  10. First of all, thanks so much, gentlemen, for your likes. They mean a great deal to me. Time to fit the gun deck patterns. In most other kits this is called the false deck, so I will depart from my usual practice of duplicating the terminology in the manual to avoid confusion and call it that. Unlike the planking pattern that will overlay it, it is split longitudinally into two halves to be inserted individually. In preparation for that, I faired the stern counter frames. As the outboard frames canted inward, considerably more material had to be removed than was the case for the inner frames. For no particular reason, I decided to install the port half first. As stated in the manual, it is important that the outer edge of the false deck be fully inserted into the slots as the base of the bulkhead ears. Since the fit is quite tight, it is hard to judge by feel when it is fully inserted. I found that if the outer edge of the false deck is flush with the outboard surface of the bulkhead ears (circle), the inboard edge will be correctly centered. I then inserted the starboard half of the false deck: As you can see, the two halves fit tightly in the vicinity of the forward hatch, but diverge slightly at the bow, and considerably at the stern. Using a ruler, I checked the inboard edge of the port half, and found it to be true. I am not sure how I managed to edge bend the starboard half. I have always thought that edge bending a piece of ply that wide should be nearly impossible. What future difficulties this may cause I do not know. However, as I managed to work may way out of problems far more dire than this in my last build (BJ Constitution), I am hopeful that I will be able to do the same here. The next step is the installation of the vertical gun port frames: These are numbered from fore to aft. I found that they were a fraction too wide to fit into the notches, so I sanded down the vertical frames just enough so they would fit in on the port side, and filed the char out of the notches on the starboard side, which worked a bit better. Obviously extreme care must be taken not to over do it. There must be no play once they are inserted. Here they are in position: I hope I did that right. I guess I will find out when I fair the bulwarks and the hull. On to the planking patterns: Here they are dry fitted and marked... ...and here they are beveled and glued into position: This seems to have gone reasonably well, which hopefully bodes well for the successful completion of the quarter galleries. Th-th- th-that's all folks.
  11. I was going to wait until a bit later in the build to post this, but since it is germane to the preceding conversation, I will do it now. I have just bought a saw toothed razor blade cutter from Micro-Mark (#85853 and #856084) hoping to make cutting parts out of the thicker sheets easier. It may also be dandy for cutting off the gates on the bulkhead ears. It has 70 teeth, and is .005" thick, so it can fit into the slits made by the laser cutter and saw through the material holding the part in the sheet. I have found that it works well if the slit is straight enough. The cut is smooth and clean. No nibs to file down afterwards. I used it to cut free the stern counter frames: These frames fit into their slots so tightly that I found that glue was unnecessary. They are not going anywhere. I glued the spacer parts to the outboard surfaces of the outer frames as shown in step 71 of the manual: The ply spacer piece had to be filed down a bit to make it fit into the notches in the tops of the frames. Here is a shot of what I have done so far:
  12. That's odd. I did not insert the spacer into any notch. I just glued it to the outer surfaces of the outer stern counter frames as shown in step 71 of the manual. No fettling was needed, only careful alignment.
  13. Thanks! I put them in today and found that they fit so tightly that once they are in position, they are not going anywhere. That spacer on top was a bit of a challenge for me. It would not fit into the notches in the tops of the stern timber pieces so I had to file it to make it thinner. I got it done though. It will be pictured in my next post. Meanwhile, on to the installation of the gun deck.
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