cog

Also,  I made a quick bowsprit at about 37+ inches diameter (Ree's says it is 36" diameter) to see how it would look.
I am not happy with the gap and so will make it a little larger.
No one will be taking a caliper to it!
 
Then I researched the finished shape of the cap end of the bowsprit to accept the BEES and made notes.
I'll be making a good bowsprit soon enough to have a change of pace... after all they say a change is as good as a raise!


 

Hope everyone is having a great St. Patrick's Day!  
 
I completed the installation of the hawse pieces moments ago.
Also completed the installation of the chocks at the head of the aft cant frames.
 
Time to start on the forward cant frames... not today though.. because my name is Uá Niáll and it's St.Patrick's Day!

Finished all the Stuns'l booms on the Yards. Forgot to take a picture of them finished before I started adding them. Have added the Main and Fore Lower Main Coarse Yards. Lanyards, Jeer Lines, Lifts, Leech Lines and Bunt Lines.  I'm not very good at photography so I'm not really able to show all this detail like I want to.
 
  Rigging the falls and tackles for all this is becoming much more difficult for me with the nerve damage in mu hands and fingers so it takes 4-5 times longer than it should but I get through it. I do find it fascinating to actually see haw all this rigging works and where everything is belayed.  I think about how they had to figure all this out over time in the History of sailing. 
 
  I tried to rig the lower Yards without pinning them to the masts like the instructions say. Wanted to let the rigging hold them like the real thing but found out that with a model gravity is not the same and the rigging pulls the Yards upward and they wont sit facing forward like you want then too without pinning them in place.
 
   Beginning the Main and Fore Topsail Yards Rigging now.
 
Jesse

You'd better keep your wits about you when you use your mat/mate ... oh which ever ...  I'll leave you to your build. Oh, one advice: Measure twice before you cut to length ...

Vossie, she doesn't, and hence doesn't need those, she has a cutting mate whom will cut or chop off his fingers, wish those were sold here ...

Masking the funnels for painting must have been interesting! The finished result looks far superior to the brass rod stealth versions.

Thanks Steven
 
by the way, stricktly taken "dinkum" is not limited to you Aussies mate. I like the sunny prawns

Dan
It is always a good Sunday afternoon when one of your updates appears. Lovely work on the funnels.

Hi again, and thanks as always for the likes and compliments.
 
Druxey, those are stealth funnels. . .
 
Continuing with the build, now that the uppermost deckhouses were framed out their sides were detailed.  First the camouflage scheme on the troop ship was carried up and over the sides, even over the angled louvers and the rounded cover over the large salon.  Doors, windows, portholes, moldings and handrails were added with their locations taken from the plans and photos.

All of the large structures on the ocean liner side were left or painted white with brass handrails.  The decals for the double-deck height windows of the Winter Garden were carefully lined up, even though it is difficult to see the lower windows unless the light is just right since they are deep under the overhanging deck.  Railings were added to three of the open spaces that house boats on the troop ship.

The next elements to tackle were the three funnels.  Size and location were taken from the plans, but they are not very detailed, and what they show is confusing.  I work better from photos so here they are.  They are oval cylinders with no taper and rake back at 8 degrees.  The liner funnels were painted red up three quarters of their height, with the top quarter divided equally between a lower white band and an upper blue one.  The forward two have four ancillary pipes spaced equally around them, though the third funnel does not have them.  Other photos show that the last funnel has one pipe that runs up the back just to port of the centerline.
 
In this close-up you can see that there are two reinforcing bands for the attachment points of the guy wires.  One is halfway up, the other just below the white band.  There is a rounded lip at the top of each.  A steam pipe runs up the front of the second funnel to a platform where a foghorn is mounted.  This does not appear on the last funnel.  Other photos are a bit unclear, but seem to show a double foghorn on the front of the first funnel and ladders leading up. 

Construction began by carving a mold out of pine.  The best image of the plan view of a funnel was cut from the plans, then resized to be 1mm smaller than full size in both width and length.  I copied it six times and printed them on one page.  Two were cut out and glued to the top and bottom of a rectangular billet that was a bit taller than needed.  Care was taken to be sure that they lined up with each other.  The excess wood was removed with a coarse sanding drum in the Dremel, then a medium grit belt sander, and finished with a fine sanding block.   

The resulting cylinder was sealed with several coats of clear finish and sanded smooth.  I wrapped it with waxed paper, then two layers of 0.010” sheet styrene.  The four total thicknesses of the plastic add up to 0.040”, or 1mm, bringing the outer dimensions back to full size.   To make the plastic to permanently take on the right shape I tried a technique I read in FineScale Modeler magazine.  I wrapped it all around with several rubber bands, then dunked it in simmering water for 20 seconds, then cooled it in cold water.

With the rubber bands removed I could open the outer layer slightly without taking it off the mold to feed in some thin Tamiya plastic cement, which had enough working time that I could close it back together and secure with rubber bands until the glue dried.  The exposed edge was ground and sanded smooth and flush.

After sliding the plastic off the waxed paper, and despite the boiling and cooling, the funnel returned to a much too tubular a shape.  I was a bit disappointed but I always planned to use the mold to shape and stiffen the funnel.  However, it had been quite a long process to shape the mold, and I would have to do two more.  Then I had the idea to cut the mold into nine pieces.  For each funnel I slid one piece into the middle of the tube and glued it there.  Pieces were secured in the top and bottom, the top one set down a little.

A half-round strip made up the lip at the top and narrow strips were added for the eyebolt reinforcements.  The bottoms of the funnels were shaped to the 8 degree angle on a disc sander.  All three were primed with dark grey before being tested in place for angle, lean, and symmetry.

Once their overall shapes were acceptable a set of tiny eyebolts were twisted up and installed.  There are eight evenly spaced along each of the reinforcing strips, a total of 48 on the three funnels.  Then the troop ship sides of the first two funnels were sprayed light grey and the camouflage pattern hand painted according to the plans in dark grey.  The third funnel was painted with the blue-green color.  Then the centerlines were located and masked with the Frog tape.  The top of the liner side was painted white, then masked so the lower area could be sprayed with a medium red and the top brush painted Navy blue. 
          The outside pipes were made up from 1/16” brass rod with small sections of brass tube fitted to the top.  They are secured to the funnel with five eyebolts.  I found some commercially produced ones in my spares drawer that fit perfectly.  To line them up I laid on a narrow strip of tape and drew a straight line on it.  Eyebolt locations were marked and holes drilled. 

After removing the tape and gluing in the eyebolts the pipes slid in without a hitch where they were secured with dots of epoxy.  On the front face of the first two funnels I added a dark painted PE ladder on the troop ship side and a thinner steam pipe on the liner side of center leading up to a small railed platform to service the foghorn. 
          The top of the funnels does not appear clearly in any photo that I have, so I took some guidance from the interior structures seen in the cross-section plan and gave them a large central ring protected by a PE grating.  On the forward two funnels there are also four smaller pipes epoxied to the wood plug, while the last funnel only has one.  Then the tops were painted flat black.

The external pipes were brush painted to match the background colors.  Here are the liner sides.

The forward faces.

And the troop ship sides.

There was one final detail.  At the base of the third funnel the photos show a series of flat plates rounded top and bottom.  I did not know what these were until I located a photo of the original funnel on the SS Vaterland.  There they are open holes, probably for air circulation.  They were closed off during the war and left that way later during the liner incarnation.  I thought that they made a nice detail, so I made them up out of 0.005” strip.  They were painted off the model before installation and the different tones make them stand out just enough to see if you look for them.

So here is my usual final double photo.  All of the structural elements have been built up from the waterline and in from the bow and stern, finishing with the center funnel.  Now begins the fun work of detailing the ship from the top down and the center out.

More soon.
 
Be well
 
Dan

A test for the rigging: Shroud deadeyes...1mm across...  I was almost going to give up with this idea, but they look very nice on the ship like that... So  I go with this, it is an overkill for such a scale, but there is no turning back now
 

Again, you are too kind! Here are today's photos, hull painted and all. So now we reached present day! so no more lighting fast updates 😭.. Tomorow I'll start with the rigging, hopefully that will go smooth and fast as well. Perhaps it will be ready in a week's time, if no troubles are encountered. 
 

Guns' completion:  We are reaching the present day with this built, these were just yesterday: 
 

Thank you! It is a mystery why Ι took this built so patriotically. Maybe because there was so few photos of a completed model of this kit, and most were simple assemblies. 
 
Perhaps I spent more time on it than this kit was worth it, but it seems worthwhile. Here are the guns! 
 
 
 

You are producing a silk purse from a sow's ear, George! (It's an old English expression.)

Thank you all, once again. I have Drake's Revenge by Lindberg, which is an old repackaged Pyro Kit as well.  That one is actually very nicely detailed, far better than this, despite being even smaller. 
 
Here are the masts. I had the mizzen mast rebuilt a second time, so it has same difference since its first iteration.  Especially the yards are very thin and frail, despite being larger pieces filled down. The rigging should be done with care so they wont bent 

I closely read Lawrence Mott's thesis. the poop superstructure is based solely on Veneziano's Pala Feriale transport of St Mark, as is the bow structure (to follow soon). The length of the rudders is 1/3 of keel length (Fabrica di Galere and Michael of Rhodes)
 
Having fun.
Dick

Looks really good  and very workable, Dick. I like the "aerofoil" rudder, and the poop superstructure is really impressive.
 
Steven

Started today by laying down the keel and building the frame. Easy start  only just  taking care that the sections are fitted to the keel in 90° angle.
 
 

Thanks, Alberto for the links to Twitter. They did work and I have had a good look at the mediaeval merchantman from 13th century. The rudder mount seems to tally with mine and I feel somewhat encouraged. The Contarina I wreck upon which I largely based my reconstruction has been tentatively dated to 1300 and so can really be regarded as a 13th century vessel contemporaneous with the Black Sea example. Unfortunately Amazon wont ship the video to Australia and Amazon Australia has never heard of it. It will turn up somewhere, I suppose.
I am now turning my attention to the bow which is more bluff than the Black Sea vessel.
 
Here are pictures of the quarter rudders in the down and up position.

 

 
Cheers
Dick

Nicely made and very well explained.
Always a pleasure to follow.

Beautifully made.
And the new lower fore castle fits perfectly

Slow.... but fine work and excellent results!  
Christos

Vossie, she doesn't, and hence doesn't need those, she has a cutting mate whom will cut or chop off his fingers, wish those were sold here ...

Vossie, she doesn't, and hence doesn't need those, she has a cutting mate whom will cut or chop off his fingers, wish those were sold here ...

so, show us the weathering ...