CiscoH

Happy Saturday afternoon. I have met the challenge of making my own deadeye straps and strops headon, or possibly head first, and have emerged. Call it a draw. First off, the kit comes with perfectly serviceable laserboard? (a black plastiky looking material) strops and straps which look great and are easy. So you don't have to go down the road I did. The strops - I wrote about them in my last post. The hardest part, by far, is making strops that are the same size. I made at least 10 versions to get 5 that were close. The below jig helped and you can see all the different versions I made. The nail had to be adjusted 6 times. Also keep in mind that because 2 of the deadeyes are smaller, 2 of the strops will be smaller as well. At least silver soldering went fine. Thanks Greg (dvm27; his advice is a recurring theme in this post) for your recommendations posted under Silver Solder. I use Euro Tools inc silver solder paste SS 65 and it works great. The straps were straightforward. Hardest part was forming them; no one makes strips of brass in the size I needed. I had a length left over from my AVS used to make the rudder hinges that was perfect, but it wasn't long enough. Model Shipways doesn't sell the brass strips on their website that I could find. So I cut my own strips a little wide and filed them to width. Tedious but doable. unsurprisingly it was hard to make the strips the same length. And to drill the hole for the pin in the same place. And then it was time for my Arch Nemesis. Blackening. I had done several trys on my AVS rudder hinges. My recipe then was 220 grit sandpaper, acetone soak, and brass black diluted 1:10 ish. They ended up splotchy, the soldered areas didn't take well, and the blackening that did stick came off with any manipulation. Super frustrating. I ended up painting them all. But I really like the dull grey/blue/black colour of chemically blackened brass so I went at it again. Here's my setup, following Greg's post about blackening to the letter. 1) Sparex, which is I think an acid etch solution. I used distilled water for everything. Directions for mixing the Sparex are on the bag. I heated the water in the micowave until it was hot to the touch, then poured it into the heated crock pot and mixed in the powdered Sparex until it dissolved. I left all the brass pieces in the solution for 15 minutes. Any handling from here on out was with copper tongs. 2) washed with baking soda mixed in warm distilled water for a few minutes. The solution bubbles when you put the metal pieces in. 3) acetone wash for 10 minutes. 4) BrassBlack mixed 1:10 with warm distilled water (or maybe even more dilute) for 15 minutes, flipping the pieces every few minutes with my copper tongs. 5) and finally below, rinsing in warm distilled water and drying. THIS time I got 99% coverage and very good durability. The solder joints all blackened evenly and were invisible. Even bending the strops (I used a jeweler's pliers with a strip of tshirt taped to the jaws) almost no flaking. Nice! Next I attached the straps to the stropped deadeyes and drilled holes for the pins. Chuck's directions show the straps starting close to straight up on the right, then becoming more angled as you work your way left. Mine didn't cooperate. Some straps were a little longer than others and I re-arranged which one went to which strop several times until I got close to an even run. I pinned the first and last strap and then attempted to fill in the middle three in a fan pattern but ultimately they decided they wanted to be parallel. This led me to moving the pin hole of the strap on the far right so all the straps were parallel, which of course left me with a glaring pin hole to fill. Instinctively I knew anyone looking at my model would remark on this pin hole and snicker so the stakes were high. I used a scrap wood piece, below, which I had originally used to pick a method of trenailing, to test some repairs. First I filled the hole with sawdust and white glue, apparently a tried and true method. The awl on the far left below is pointing to that repair, which made the hole More Obvious. The file to the right is pointing to my second attempt. I drilled another hole and removed a strip of wood in the middle of the plank overlaying it and used a dutchman to patch. Its very hard to see in the picture and it worked well. Then in the middle (pointed at by the nail) I used some Elmers Natural woodfiller, same stuff I used to fill the planking trenails, and the drill hole disappeared completely. So low tech it is. I filled the hole with the Elmer's stuff and its fixed. Here's a shadowed, out of focus pic of the final result. To move things along I will cheat and paint the brass pinheads black. If anyone reading ends up making straps like I did I assume they will be slightly different lengths like mine. You can fool the eye by making the bottom of the straps even. Once the pins are painted black any irregularities with their placement will disappear. I hope. Thats it for today. I think the cannon carriage is next. I will probably try to make the hardware (for anyone smart the kit comes with perfectly serviceable black wire and some brass loops I think) and test my nascent blackening skills. thanks for reading Cisco

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

Mike- the Conference was in April in New London, CT. About 6 hrs from here.

Well Howdy MSW. Its hot and humid here in Middletown Delaware on Sunday afternoon. Most of this post is fixing my last post, oh well. I was not fully satisfied with my previous attempts at making moldings. The process was fine and good practice, but the wood I used (I think maple?) had a mottled pattern. It looked ... ok. After staring at it for a while I decided to hold off on making the upper molding until inspiration struck. In every misfortune lurks opportunity; this was the perfect excuse to order some wood. I'd heard good things about Modelers Sawmill in New Jersey so I gave it a try and ordered 2 billets of AYC and 2 of Boxwood (which I have never used before). Joe, the owner, was excellent and provided good communication and suggestions. The order took a few days to show up, was nicely wrapped on the outside, celophaned on the inside (to limit moisture exchange -> which leads to warping). An excellent experience - highly recommended. Joe even included 2 extra billets of AYC because of some discoloured areas. I normally assume 25% wastage from imperfections so this was above and beyond. Now that I had the wood I had to do it justice. I cut a strip from the boxwood and used the same scraper as before to remake the lower molding. Once it was scraped I trimmed it down to size. It was definitely better. Below the old molding is on the left. You can see the mottling/spots it has. The boxwood on the right is much cleaner. The old lower molding popped off distressingly easily. I changed from white glue to yellow in hopes the boxwood version would stick better. Next I made the scraper for the upper molding. My interpretation of the Battle Station plans indicated a double bead, the upper one bigger than the lower, with a small fillet at the bottom. This scraper took a lot more time to construct versus the lower molding; every time I had it almost right I tended to over-file. Here is the final result - the profile I used is on the bottom left side. The profile is cut pretty deep into the hacksaw because i had to redo it so many times. Then the same process as before. Scrape the boxwood, plane it down to the correct thickness, and yellow glue it in place. The upper molding sticks up a bit so next I added a strip (the cap rail?) to bring it flush. Now that I have my finished height I can make the inner molding next. And thats where we are. While waiting for my wood to arrive I had started on the cannon carriage but it can wait for my next post. I like Boxwood. Its hard, a bit stringy, and on the billets you can see the grain pattern but its not obvious once cut into strips. It will be my molding material of choice in the future on any AYC projects. Happy 4th of July weekend for those of you that celebrate thanks for reading Cisco

Beautiful Frank! Those 45 degree miters are challenging to get right. Even a little off and its glaringly obvious; I can't see any bad joints there atall.

the interior looks like a real, full-sized ship! astounding attention to detail Matthias

looking good Skibee. Getting the planking to fit around that very sharp curve under the transom strained my abilities to say the least. like you I used layer #1 as practice for the second.

Good Saturday afternoon MSW. Got a lot of pictures for you today. First up is finishing the treenailing. I got my Elmers natural wood filler in the mail and used a scrap of wood to press it into the holes I had drilled last post. Doesn't look great while drying. the I scraped and sanded and much better I dinged up the wales some but will touchup paint them at the end. Next up was the moldings. This took me a while. The kit includes a plastic material that has been laser-cut with all 3 moldings but I wanted to create my own. After lots of searching (both in Chuck's Speedwell instructions and David's and Greg's original Speedwell books) I was unable to find the exact profile in cross-section. So I winged it; the pictures looked like a simple double bead. The plan shows the lower molding to be 1/8" ish wide and maybe a little thinner than the channel. Worried that the channel I make might not be the same thickness as the channel shown in the plans I built mine early. Pretty simple- a sandwich of 2 thin laser cut pieces top and bottom, the middle is a thicker piece. Sand off the char and round the middle piece. I made pegs to align the parts and used white glue sparingly placed so it didn't squeeze-out. The channel turned out to be a bout 1/8" thick so good, on to the molding. AVC is soft for scraping as I've said in the past so I cut an 1/8" thick strip of what I think is maple. Then I cut the edge to follow the diagonally running grain. Next I made my scraper, going with a hacksaw blade this time. It took a couple tries. After clamping the hacksaw blade in a metal vise I used a cut-off disk in my dremel at low speed to make the initial grooves and refined with some small cheap files (not my nice Vallorbe's). The pattern I used is the lowest. And here I'm scraping the wood by running the blade gently tilted in both directions (it had a definite direction it scraped easier). then cut off the molded section with my Veritas String cutter. I cut it a little thick and refined with my veritas miniplane and then some sandpaper sticks until the molding was thin enough. To glue it in place I used white glue sparingly to minimize squeezeout. The tiny piece of molding on the other side of the cannon port was then shaped to fit the channel and then glued in place. And finally the painted frieze. The kit includes 3 strips and thats a good thing because I messed up all 3. The first two by not cutting evenly and tearing the edges. The third I sprayed on too much Krylon digital photo and paper protectant (Chuck had recommended this in his 18th century whaleboat kit that ModelShipways sells and it worked well for me). But it was too easy to "spray 1 more time" and ridges of solidified spray formed along the edges of the strip. Below you can barely see the ridges but they were there and bugging me. The directions recommend using a glue stick - the one I could find was blue that is supposed to turn clear when it dries, but my son (who is 10 years old) remarked while walking by that the blue doesn't truly go away. This seems to be his area of expertise so i practiced using one of my failed strips of frieze and some scrap wood with a very thin coat of white glue and it worked great. After taking this picture I scraped the painted frieze off and printed a bunch more (6 just in case) and sprayed them with ONE coat of Krylon and resisted with all my might spraying more. They look fine so I'll pick one and glue it on. And thats where we are as of 2:42pm today. thanks for reading Cisco

I agree the lowered topmasts look most interesting and least obscuring. Gets my vote, if you were looking for opinions

I found the stern window assembly to be the most challenging part of the build (so far anyway). mine never looked exactly right. once the fashion pieces are added everything flows a bit better. yours is looking great

Howdy MSW. Tonight's update, I got a goodly amount done last 2 weeks. First up, I planked the front. The kit includes a laser printed piece of AYC that could have been glued in place with some bending and minimal frustration but wheres the fun in that I like complicated. I wanted this planking to be AYC so I cut my strips from the original printed piece and turned them over so the printed side was in. The run of the grain wasn't perfectly even with the edges so I had to trim some and would have run out of material before I got to the top except I substituted some basswood strip for the wales which were painted black. The planking is subtly curved which I also tried to preserve in my replacements. Next up was forming the oar and cannon ports. I took a 1/4" (I think) square strip of basswood (make sure to measure yours if you do this, mine was extra strip from my AVS and while it looked square one side was 1/16"or so thicker than the other). After squaring I trimmed the end so I could fit it into the hole and sneak up on the correct opening size. It helped marking which side was up. The oar ports were straightforward. Then I got to the cannon port and got confused. Somewhere I had messed up. On the plans Chuck provides there are two "to scale" pictures of the bulwarks; one of the inside and one of the outside. On the Exterior picture the cannon port measured 5/8" high and 6/8" wide. There is a molding that fits tightly between the top of the cannon port and the bottom of the cap rail. Ok fine. On the picture of the inside planking the opening is smaller, 9/16" high and 5/8" wide. I didn't realize this size difference at first and was going nutts figuring out how the distance from the top of the cannon port to the cap rail was somehow different front to back. After some staring and measuring I eventually figured the inner picture is probably the rough opening in the prefab piece (which i don't have anymore as I cut it apart into planks). Once that was sorted out and the openings finished I added the oar ports. These were cut from a strip of AYC and sanded down very carefully until they fit and the edge reveals seemed even. Here they are glued in place. The strip I cut them from is infront. Next up was trenailing, trunelling, whatever. I didn't attempt this on my AVS (the thought of ruining the planking after all the work that went into it was too much and I chickened out). But here is the perfect place to practice. I tried a bunch of different techniques on one of my rapidly diminishing stock of AVS spare planks. The 10 lb black fishing line in drilled holes looked not right to me for this scale so no go. Eventually I settled on Chuck's "drill a hole with a 72 bit, twirl a #2 pencil in the hole, and fill with a neutral coloured wood filler." I first used some wood putty, which it turns out stays flexible (and therefore doesn't dry), and I suspect is solvent based so will probably stain the wood. So now Elmers wood Filler is in the mail; for some reason neither the local Home Depot or Lowes carry it. I had a lot of complicated methods in mind to mark out my trenails; tape strips, rulers, math. Turned out it was easiest to use my compass held against the bulwark sides to trace vertical lines. I poked an initial hole with my awl and drilled it out with the 72 bit. KISS is still a good rule to live by. And finally. My inner bulwark planking ended up lower than the exterior so it needed to be extended a little. Here I added a small strip of wood which should also give the cap rail a more secure glue surface. OK thats enough for one night. Thanks for reading, g'night. Cisco