CiscoH

How do you Chuck, of all people, have time to build puzzles? and I like the second image the best

great job Chris. your longboat looks professionally built. i got this model as an intro to ship building because i figured it was small and would be quick to build. as youre finding out it's actually very complex and not ‘easy’ atall; i think mine took me 6 months to build.

excellent explanation

Well its been a bit. The summer has been flying along! We went on vacation to England earlier this month for 9 days and saw lots of touristy sights in the Southwestern parts; London, Stonehenge, Bath, Land's End, many others. Then with 1 day to go before taking the train back to Heathrow I was let off-leash for the day in Portsmouth. We all did our own thing (wife and kids went shopping); obviously I bee-lined for the Historic Dockyard. So so cool. Here's Victory, who is under intense refurbishment. My modeling buddy Jason was hoping for some rigging pictures but nope other than the fore and mizzen its all been taken down. Here she is from the front. I noticed the bottom of the wales don't line up; not sure if thats purposeful. You can take a self-guided tour which I recommend; it was set to music and followed along the weeks before Trafalgar and helped set the mood. There were a lot of boxes of equipment on the inside decks that would be great details to add to a model. Since this log is about the Speedwell battle station and I have a cannon to model in my future I got a lot of carriage pics. But I'm not sure how accurate the equipment is; the barrels were mostly wooden and I assume a lot is recreated. I hope the pics will at least help me get the size of rings and bolts proportional. Next up was the Mary Rose museum, about 1 block away in the same area. While I don't have as much interest in this era it was an amazing museum mostly due to all the personal effects found on the wreck that are very artfully displayed. The ship apparently was overburdened (if one deck of cannons about the poop is good, 2 decks must be twice as good - it turns out no) and turtled in a gust during the Battle of the Solent 1545. Many/most of the crew was trapped in place, and anything below the sand that wasn't prone to rusting was well preserved in the occupant's cabins - trunks full of clothes, personalized belongings, and many many bows and arrows. Ironically the wreck itself wasn't as exciting as all the stuff in it. Then the Naval Museum. It tried to cover a long era of naval history and managed to skim over most of it. I did really enjoy seeing 2 Geoff Hunt paintings (no ropes or anything to keep you from touching the pictures. Europe is very trusting) from Patrick O'Brian novels. And finally, running out of steam haha, I toured the Warrior, a transition steam and sail powered iron hulled warship. Its a bit past my era of interest so I didn't take many pics. Interestingly it had the least number of tourists of anything I visited at the Dockyard. Here's me looking tired and windswept. The ship felt very steampunky. Check out this row of cannons; very menacing. I needed a week to recover from vacation. And work, as it always does, came out swinging when we returned. Today was the first day i could summon the energy to work on Speedwell. Chuck includes black plastic deadeye strops. They look convincing and the deadeyes are easy to insert. Obviously this would never do and I set out to further delay my completion date by making brass ones. It took a bit to get the old brain running again and there were some false starts. I think I recall most people make a jig of some sort to make the strops the same length. I drilled a hole for a dowel and placed a nail next to it to construct an oval-shaped brass wire loop; on the left of the below pic are the first 2 versions that turned out to be too big. On the right are 3 of the plastic kit strops for comparison. 2 of them I tried to cut open and heat over a candle to bend them straight and measure their length. They both immediately stretched and melted so no go. Silver soldering went pretty well (for once) and on the second strop I moved the site of the joint more downwards toward the smaller loop so it would be hidden in the chainplate. I made a brass deadeye strap (lower part of below pic on left) to test it out. Works well and looks pretty much identical to the kit plastic one on the right. Below, on the left, is Version 2 of my deadeye strop with deadeye in place. You can see the lower loop sticks out too far compared to the plastic kit version in the next chainplate slot. But getting there. And thats where it stands tonight. for those of you that managed to read this far, thank you, and have a calm evening. cisco

i’m definitely not doing sails now. All this fine rigging looks suspiciously like work

really really nice planking job. i used my first boxwood a few weeks ago and i found it to be a brittle wood as well. i think its just the way the wood is, especially compared to the kit basswood.

either a long sliver or make a new plank from wider stock and trim it to fit. but my vote would be for the sliver. i dont think anyone would notice unless you pointed it out

Good Thursday night MSW. A brief update tonight, more fine tuning than impressive progress. I finished the cap railing and moldings and sanded down the cross sections of the planking on the sides. Then I added the channel, which had to be sanded down thinner to match the width of the molding. I wasn't confident it would stay put with only glue so I pinned it as well. I managed to drill all the way through the bulwarks with all 3 pinning holes so beware future builders. I used epoxy and 20g brass wire which fit the holes loosely allowing me some wiggle room, and yellow glue. It's pretty solid now. After it was fully dry I realized I put the channel in upside down (the edge slots for the deadeye strops are not the same at each end, one is closer to the edge than the other) but I can't easily unattach the thing so its staying. I noticed in the Speedwell book (Vol II, pg 47) Greg and Gave show the deadeyes all the same size. They also chose to add a swivel mount directly over the channel, in between the 2 bolsters. I don't think I'm doing the swivel but maybe my brain will betray me. Again. We'll see. It might make the model a little too busy. Then I made the bolsters, which were straight-forward sanding exercises and pinned them as well. I used superglue for the pins. Both feel secure. And finally I manned up and attached the base pieces. They were not perfectly square to each other so I have some sanding in my future before I add the curved molding to ease the transition to the base. I also added the waterway piece, which in hindsight should have been holly so it matched the decking instead of the AYC i used but oh well. I also drilled out the scuppers and used #2 pencil to darken them as per the directions. They don't connect and you can't tell. and now I started on the cannon carriage. Thats it for tonight. Tomorrow the family and I are flying to not-sunny old England for a week of vacation. I bargained hard for a day to see the Victory and in return had to give up all control of the other 6 days. Pictures will be posted. thanks for reading, Cisco

Nothing is more rewarding than dealing with the public. And i too hope Chuck produces the Battle Station as a regular kit. Its small but packed with detail and perfect for introducing the use of Syren rope and other Syren materials to rig a practice cannon. I won mine at the CT conference and could have gotten a mini table saw but picked the kit instead. And I have so far really enjoyed building it.

I really liked the Old Blocks. Very Minecraft-y

excellent planking Jeff! the Confederate is a big ship and your smooth run of planking looks very even and tight. i’ve only planked one ship so far so i’m no expert but like you i had numerous re-dos. i felt like i didnt get better at planking, instead i got better at fixing mistakes. keep up the great work cisco

that looks great SkiBee. my AVS hull looked like a different beast once i sanded for the first time. and i’m glad my build log is helping you out

signed up for the print and digital option

I was thinking of trying to start a Northern Delaware club in the next year. The closest club I'm aware of is in Philly but thats too far for me. Also, its in Philly. I saw the post about a southern Delaware club and was thinking about it but realistically I would never go because its 1.5 hrs away. When/if I finally free up the time I'll post here and see if it gets any traction. My shipmodeling buddy Jason (JLong) lives in Newark DE and we hang out every month or two so I guess its already a club of 2 people.

i just got an order from him this weekend. Joe couldnt have been quicker to respond so he must have missed your email somehow