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That looks nice and tight. Well done. Very cool how you’re cutting your own. As a photographer I use Photoshop but never touched anything to do with vectoring, looks like you’re on your way to mastering it. 

Complete Ver 2.0 in AYC.  Should have the cherry version to compare soon.

Thanks for the kind comments and all the likes. Onwards...
Initial Weathering
 The technique used to create the effect of weathered timber is both interesting and easy, not to mention quick!
 
We start by grabbing a half dozen of our previously “grained” boards, a pastel/chalk stick, a single edge razor blade, some isopropyl alcohol (IPA), a paint brush, and a glass work surface (in this case I’m using a piece of glass about 12: square). The technique is to firstly use the razor blade to scrape finely powdered chalk randomly over the boards.
 

 
Next, we dip our paintbrush in the IPA and wash the chalk powder into the boards.
 

 
The level of colouration is controlled by the relative amounts of chalk and alcohol, the key being to use lots of alcohol to ensure that most of the chalk is dissolved. Further tonal variations can be achieved by using a couple of different shades of chalk. The glass surface is not cleaned between batches, which also helps.
 
The alcohol evaporates quickly, so the boards dry in next to no time. Here is a random sample from different batches showing the variation in tone.
 

 
And a close-up of some of the same selection.
 

 
I also did some preliminary preparation of some laser-cut siding. These pieces will eventually be covered by the boards just prepared, but they are given an initial colouring so that any gaps in the boards will show this. The key here was to achieve a non-homogenous look. This is done by staining the boards with paint and thinner, and then adding a little chalk blotted into the surface using a paper towel wet with the paint thinner. Here is the result.
 

 
 
The next stage will be to add some details such as knots, knot holes, splits, insect damage etc to some of the boards.

Preparing the Strip Wood
The strip wood provided in the kit appears to be good quality bass wood. Before it can be used for the actual building, it must first be prepared through a multi-step process to add both texture and colour, as well as details such as knots and splits.
 
The initial texturing is done by creating “grain”. This is achieved using stiff wire brushes of the modeller’s choosing. In the picture below, you can see that I have commenced this process. My initial brush of choice was a brass cleaning brush (obtained at the local hardware store). Prior to brushing, the backs of each batch are marked with line across the grain to indicate the “back” side. As we are only texturing one side of these, this mark will help to identify which side is “up”. Brushing was then implemented in batches of five strips at a time.
 

 
This is the result after brushing. 
 

 
Despite the amount of “shavings” produced, I was not particularly satisfied with the result and decided a more aggressive brush was required. This is the brush I used for the second round. 
 

 
It is actually a File Card (used for cleaning the swarf from the teeth of files). The teeth are steel and quite hard. I found that around five to six firm strokes with this brush were sufficient to impart a grain-like texture.
 

 
To provide greater contrast, here is a photo of that same batch on a black background.
 

 
Note the amount of “fuzzies” left after this process. These were cleaned up by drawing each strip through some 0000 steel wool, first with firm pressure on the edges of the strip, then with light pressure on the face. Here is the result after this initial cleaning up.
 

 
This has removed around 90% of the fuzzies, which is sufficient for this stage. Next up will be adding some initial colour.

Thanks for all the encouraging comments and the likes - this is certainly charting new waters for me.

Advance Preparations (continued)
The instructions emphasise that a successful, appropriately weathered model relies on both colour and texture. Colour for this model is achieved in several ways: Paint, Alcohol/Ink washes, and “Chalk”. The Chalk adds both colour and texture. The chalks contain very finely ground pigments that do not totally dissolve when applied and leave behind a natural appearing texture (so says the instruction manual). These are applied by scraping fine artists' pastel chalk sticks to create a fine powder. Emphasis is placed on using high quality pastels for this and in particular, the Rembrandt brand is recommended. So of course, I followed that advice and ordered in a few sticks. I had to do a bit of digging through the manual and the website to find the actual colours I might need – the Rembrandt numbering system can be quite confusing – and I think I may have slightly overdone it. Here is a chart of the colours I now have – I made this up as a ready reference for myself.
 

 
We are advised to prepare two “palettes” of these in advance – a “wood” palette and a “rust” palette, each containing four colours. The wood palette contains three separate brown tones and a white, while the rust palette contains one orange, two red and a cool grey. To keep these palettes in a useable form, some sort of storage was needed. A quick visit to the local Spotlight (sewing/craft) store produced this:
 

 
This version has 30 separate containers, each with a screw-top lid, which was very handy as 30 happens to be the exact number of chalks that I have (so far!).
 
The instructions suggest creating the powder by scraping a single edge razor blade along the stick. While this certainly works, I came across a tip on the SierraWest forum that suggested a quicker/easier way was to use a rasp. I tried this and it seems to have worked well. I used it a bit like a cheese grater, holding it over a sheet of paper that had previously been folded to create a pouring “funnel”.
 

 
I did this for the eight colours needed for the initial palettes. In the photo below, the wood palette is on the right, and the rust palette is on the left. Each jar contains about 1/3 to 1/2 of a chalk pastel stick.
 

 
All the jars have two labels on them – one on the lid and one on the body – to ensure correct identification. I went ahead and labelled the remaining jars while I was at it and will fill them with pigment as/when needed.
 
So here is my “ready use locker”, ready for action. 
 

 
Next up will be preparing the strip wood….

Introduction
I came across this kit by accident some years ago when a fellow modeller posted something about it on the forum here. I can’t remember now exactly who that was, but whoever you are, it’s all your fault! 
 
I thought this was a lovely diorama – something I had not tried my hand at before, and even though I’m not a “trains” guy, I was intrigued to learn more. My investigation led me to the SierraWest website, where I learned that this model kit uses a number of interesting and innovative modelling techniques that are certainly new to me. I just had to give it a try. And while I was at it, I couldn’t help myself and bought a “companion” diorama of Foss’ Landing – something for a future build… The kit designer and website owner, Brett Gallant, has done an excellent job of putting this kit together, including a substantial 106pg instruction manual that covers a lot about the techniques as well as building instructions. His website also has several videos demonstrating some of these techniques, and a forum area where there are several build logs of this and other kits.
 
When I broke the kit out the other day, I was thinking it was only a couple of years ago that I had bought the kit(s). When I thought further on this, I realised that it was actually in 2015 that I bought these, fully intending at the time that these would be the “next” model. Well, seven years later, I’m finally ready to start!
What’s in the box?
The box is well packed and organised, containing a number of individually numbered sealed bags of strip wood and other content, several laser-cut sheets of card, drawings/plans and templates, a box of resin mouldings and metal castings, and a substantial instruction manual.
 
Numbered bags indicate the contents of each:
 

 
Some bags specific to a particular part of the model:
 

 
The mouldings and castings:
 

 
Laser cut card:
 

 

 

 
 
Windows and mylar inserts:
 

 
Plans/Drawings:
 

 

 
 
Instruction Manual – wire bound “lay flat”
 

 
 
Advance Preparations
Construction begins with some advance preparations. Being a railroad model, there is reference throughout the manual to Floquil paint colours. These were discontinued some years ago, and the kit designer now favours acrylic paints from AK Interactive. However, there is no direct conversion suggestion from named Floquil colours. I spent a considerable time researching on the internet to try to get as close a match as I could to the Floquil colours. Try as I might, I could not find a conversion chart that included both the Floquil and AK paints. I ended up using a site that specialised in paint matching, typed in the Floquil colour name and then used the resultant screen depiction to try to match against an AK colour. Although there are certainly limitations on screen/monitor colour representation, I think I got reasonably close in the end. At the end of the day, an exact match isn’t important, but I’d like to be “in the ballpark”.
 
Three Floquil colours are needed for the advance preparation: Grimy Black, Boxcar Red, and Earth. My AK matches were Basalt Grey, Mahogany Brown, and Grimy Grey respectively. Why paint manufacturers use obscure names instead of a scientific identification system is beyond me!
 
First up, Bag #5 is called for:
 

 
From there we are instructed to extract the three sheets of 4” x 6: tar paper, the laser cut sheet of awnings, and the sheets of laser cut shingles.
 
The three sheets of tar paper are all sprayed with a coat of Grimy Black/Basalt Grey on one side. One sheet has the same on the reverse, while the other two get a coat of Boxcar Red/Mahogany Brown.
 
The laser cut sheet of awnings gets the same treatment, and the laser cut sheets of shingles get a light coat of Earth/Grimy Grey – “just enough to hide the white paper”.
 
This was my first experience of using AK Interactive paints, so I was somewhat apprehensive about leaping in. My research suggested that for airbrushing they should be reduced with AK’s own thinner at a ratio of about 70/30 thinner to paint ratio. So that’s what I did. I took a little while to do some practice and fiddle with air pressure and paint delivery. With the air pressure dialled down (about 15-18psi) and the paint delivery shut almost right down, I was pleasantly surprised at how well it sprayed, with absolutely no tip-dry occurring. Here’s a picture of the completed painted parts. I’ve turned one sheet of the shingles over to show the original state. I’m pretty happy with the colours as they’ve turned out.
 

 
 
The other advance preparation was to make up an alcohol stain using non-waterproof black ink dissolved in isopropyl alcohol at a ratio of 1 teaspoon (5ml) of ink to one pint (600ml) of alcohol. More to be revealed on how this will be used, along with plain isopropyl alcohol, later.
 
Okay, we’re off and running – or crawling, anyway!
 

You guys and your software and expensive tools amaze me. You take modeling to a crazy higher level. My hat is off to you for your knowledge and engineering capabilities! In a prior life you might have been a shipbuilder? 😀

Gregory,
Your version two is much better.
A question; what software are you using? It looks like a photo editing software if it is pixel based.
You want a vector based drawing package such as Illustrator or Rhino to truly get smooth curves (Read $$$). We use both for our cnc files where I work. There may be others out there that are more budget friendly or even free, I am not aware of them. Many people use Sketchup, but you still will not get true curves, you will get facets and your laser will have to start and stop at each of those facets even if you have so many facets they are very hard to see. That just gave me a thought, if you were to use sketchup you should be able to nest the facets together and get a better match?
Thinking out loud here.
Sam

nicely done.
Broken parts are so frustrating. I found on the T'Gallant masts for my Enterprise scraping with a recently honed chisel or scalpel gave me more control and less pressure on a fragile part.
Sam

Gregory,
Your version two is much better.
A question; what software are you using? It looks like a photo editing software if it is pixel based.
You want a vector based drawing package such as Illustrator or Rhino to truly get smooth curves (Read $$$). We use both for our cnc files where I work. There may be others out there that are more budget friendly or even free, I am not aware of them. Many people use Sketchup, but you still will not get true curves, you will get facets and your laser will have to start and stop at each of those facets even if you have so many facets they are very hard to see. That just gave me a thought, if you were to use sketchup you should be able to nest the facets together and get a better match?
Thinking out loud here.
Sam

Main mast done, so 2 out of 3 completed.  I've found that the tapering on the topgallant masts makes them incredibly fragile where they taper back to 3.5mm in the middle.  After two breaks on the main topgallant, I had to sink a pin in while re-gluing it.
 
Regards,
David

A tale of two pixels, or minutiae madness.
I have been trying to refine my drafting process for using a laser for cutting parts.  My goal is to get nice tight joints where the various pieces go together.
I'm sure the pro's have different/better ways of doing this, but this is how my work flow has evolved with the tools I have .
 

These are the stem parts I developed, loosely following the MS plans which loosely follow the NMM plans.

Separating the parts out by color is fairly simple, and I'm using a .bmp format which should provide a pixel to pixel match.

But no matter how much I tweaked my drawings, down at the pixel level, I was not getting the tight joints I wanted.  ( See Ver 1.0 )
( This was after accounting for the difference in kerf angle as discussed above. )
 

I finally discovered that the squareness of the scarf corners was making the difference in how my cutting software was tracing my images, to make the vector drawings to drive the laser.
The difference in these two drawings is very subtle, and you might wonder why it would make a difference.  I sure did wonder why..
 
 
 

The blue image on the left above was being traced like this ( red line), which produced the slightly rounded corners seen here.
 
 

After I tweaked a few pixels I got the square corners seen here.
 

To recap: Ver 2.0 is the result after refining the corners.
 
Hats off to the guys out there using chisels and coping saws who get these results and better, without a laser in sight.
 

Jay, they sure are. This one more than most it seems. She is 11 years old last July and still chases gremlins through out the house.
 
This week was slow build wise. Last weekend I bent the Fore Top Sail to its yard and as mentioned above started another sheet for more sails. I will not bore you with repetitive picture of lines on silk span. Today will be a good day f I can get bolt ropes on at least one sail.
 
 
I re-re--re-did my foot ropes, they are kind of better:

 
 
 
 
Bent and ready to mount and furl. or furl and mount, don't know which yet, probably both until I find a method that works for me.

Jay, they sure are. This one more than most it seems. She is 11 years old last July and still chases gremlins through out the house.
 
This week was slow build wise. Last weekend I bent the Fore Top Sail to its yard and as mentioned above started another sheet for more sails. I will not bore you with repetitive picture of lines on silk span. Today will be a good day f I can get bolt ropes on at least one sail.
 
 
I re-re--re-did my foot ropes, they are kind of better:

 
 
 
 
Bent and ready to mount and furl. or furl and mount, don't know which yet, probably both until I find a method that works for me.

thanks to all who replied and liked    there is something I may change,  adding a washer to the screw head.  since I drilled the hole larger to accept the screw head,  I'm concerned that over time the head will go deeper causing it to become loose.  should have something to report soon  

Gregory,
I understand now.
I completely understand what you are saying about the laser, somewhere I missed the fact that you are cutting your own pieces; the perils of coming in late. We work with both water jet and laser cut parts where I work. Laser cut parts are usually very thin sheet metal and waterjet parts are thicker structural parts to be welded, so usually the kerf is not an issue for us.
Thanks for the explanation.
Sam

Gregory, looks good.
I seem to be missing something, I am assuming you are referring to the bottom piece when you say flipping for the laser cutting. if you flip that part wont that just make the alignment issues worse? Your curves will be off.
Sam

She is a big Girl indeed Popeye.
The Iowa is (was?? she doesn't show up on Google anymore) berthed in San Pedro Harbor in LA, right by the cruise ship terminal. Better Half and I took a cruise in 2018 and the Iowa was right in front of us. As big as she is she was an ant next to this 4500 guest cruise ship. Was pretty cool looking down on her and getting an aerial view.
Sam

Gregory,
I understand now.
I completely understand what you are saying about the laser, somewhere I missed the fact that you are cutting your own pieces; the perils of coming in late. We work with both water jet and laser cut parts where I work. Laser cut parts are usually very thin sheet metal and waterjet parts are thicker structural parts to be welded, so usually the kerf is not an issue for us.
Thanks for the explanation.
Sam

Gregory,
I understand now.
I completely understand what you are saying about the laser, somewhere I missed the fact that you are cutting your own pieces; the perils of coming in late. We work with both water jet and laser cut parts where I work. Laser cut parts are usually very thin sheet metal and waterjet parts are thicker structural parts to be welded, so usually the kerf is not an issue for us.
Thanks for the explanation.
Sam

Sam,
I apologize in advance if I am assuming what you may know or not know about laser work , so I will go over a few of  the basics.
Also, I am 'flipping' the piece in the drawings to be used by the laser.  After cutting the piece will be  flipped before gluing together.
 

This image is somewhat exaggerated but it shows that the laser beam is cone shaped above and below the point of focus.( this is a C02 laser that uses infrared energy )
 

 
When I refer to flipping, I'm flipping the part in the drawing that the laser uses.  It is like a mirror image.
 
 
 

The gap without flipping is not as great as shown above, but  enough to be noticeable as I will show later.
 
 

I like this example from Chuck's Winchelsea.  The parts with an X were flipped in the drawings for the laser.
Chuck uses a much higher-end laser than I do, and he is able to minimize the cone shape kerf with finer power and focus adjustments than I have.
 
Please let me know if I can explain or illustrate it further.
 
 
 

Gregory, looks good.
I seem to be missing something, I am assuming you are referring to the bottom piece when you say flipping for the laser cutting. if you flip that part wont that just make the alignment issues worse? Your curves will be off.
Sam

David,
Round looks good to my eye.
If you decide to try shaping octagonal parts again in the future I found a small violin makers plane works wonders on these small parts. That and being extra careful with the layout. even so it is still a bit fiddly.
Sam
 

Not a lot of progress to show, but I spent a lot of time re-doing the stem.  I knocked this out in 1/8 Bass. Just a test to see how the parts go together.
I'm looking to make those scarf joints a little tighter.  Flipping the piece for laser cutting should take care of that.

Finished the foremast.  Some notes:
 
1)  Painted the boarding pikes after they were mounted.
 
2)  I completely gave up on trying to shape the masts as octagons.  Much of that shaping is painted black and doesn't show anyway, but the real reason is that I just don't have the skills for it.
 
So it's round masts (and yards).
 
Regards,
David