capnharv2

Hi Carl
 
YES, was a bit easier than I thought.
Now the endcaps for the axels are soldered, and the whole thing is painted flat black. The blackening fluid did not work on the soldered spots, so I had to use paint instead.
 
I wanted to have the wheels moving, so I had to use baking paper between the endcaps and the wheel, and the same behind the wheels to the carriage.

 
The finished carriage, beneath that lies the boat carriage

 
Just the elevator screw missing, this little part will be set to the carriage with 5-min. epoxi. Soldering would not be good at that place, I`m in fear that the whole carriage would break into parts from the heat!
 
Regards, and thank you all for watching!
Gerhard

I filled the slight gaps in the prop cones and touched them up with a mix of Yellow Ochre, White and Black. I went over them several times with an almost dry brush to try and get a similar effect to the printing, and got it pretty close .
 
Then I fitted the legs to the bearing housings and glued the props to the shafts. I've also made and fitted the Rudder. It has a piece of 1mm wire inserted and drilled into the hull for strength :


Are they right John? I hope so, otherwise the pics in the instructions are wrong .
 
 
  Danny

Hi Pat
Thank you again
And many thanks too for all watching, hit the button, or just enjoying it!
 
The next step I made were the front wheels, just to make some progress. 
I printed 2 sheets of the scaled carriage for each wheel, glued them to 2 mm balsa wood, and cut the spoked part out from one of them. The inner and outer radius was then sanded to correct size.

 
Then I drilled 3mm holes to the centers of both parts, and glued them together to create the form

 
Then I cut grooves for the spokes

 
As next I made a ring from 1mm brass sheet, 2mm high, and layed it into the form. The 1mm was a bit too thick, so I used 0,5mm sheet later!

 
Some spokes are set to the ring, and a piece of 3mm and 2mm brass tube into the center, the inner 2mm tube is around 1mm longer.

 
First test wheel, a bit too thick I think!

The carriage with new wheels from 0,5mm sheet, barrel still not mounted

There are still 2 parts missing, the endcaps for the axels. I will make them from 2mm brass tube, 1mm logn, and solder them to the axels.
 
Regards, and thank you for you interest!
 
Gerhard
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Thank you to you all who support my efforts, and hit like button
One step more with Jolly Boat

This time I am not worried about relative messy and untidy work. Jolly Boat is only 6,5 cm long and 1,8 cm wide ( external dimensions), there are plates on edges and benches to be put over, couple of paddles, little mast, etc etc, and covering with half open canvas ... so, inner ribs (which are less than 1 mm width each) and grates on floor of boar will  not be really visible so much. Idea was just to sign presence of ribs
 
Ribs are made of regular copy paper, grates from the narrowest strips of veneer I was able to cut ( veneer less than 0,5 mm thick)

I has been forever since my last post but I have two excuses.  The first (painful) reason I back in December I agreed to restore a clipper ship model for a friend.  Yes, I know..."just say no".  But I was suckered into it, not realizing that every stick needed work and every piece of rigging needed replacing.  Two hundred plus hours later I am done and can concentrate on Atalanta again.  
 
The second excuse is that the next items to make are the main rails of the head.  This has been the hardest part to fabricate, bar none.  They are not finished yet and they are far from perfect but so far I have put in over 40 hours over the last month trying to get them as close to OK as I can.  The first step is to develop the shape for the main rail.  TFFM describes how to make a projection drawing from the plans.  Once the shape of the rail had been roughly determined, I made a template and fit this to the model.  I used cardstock which, in retrospect, was not stiff enough.  After the final shape is determined, the individual pieces must be cut out.  The main rail is comprised of five scarfed pieces.  There is a lining to the main rail which is made of three scarfed pieces.  First I made the main rail and then the lining was made by gluing the pieces directly onto the main rail.  This is the easiest part of the whole process. 
 
Now comes the real fun.  There is a reasonably complex molding cut into the main rail.  In addition, the rail tapers in width and thickness so the molding changes continuously along the rail. Finally, scrapers work best on a straight line, not on a curved object.  I made two scrapers, one for the aft third and one for the middle third of the rail.  The fore end of the rail was cut in with micro-chisels and needle files.  I spoiled a few rails before I finished two that look reasonable.  Since the port and starboard rails are mirror images, the whole scraping motion is different on the two sides.   There are two step-downs on the aft part of the rail.  The first one goes down to the level of the rail without the planksheer and the second is where the molding starts.
 

 

 
The ascending (aft) portion of the main rail is supposed to be perpendicular to the water line and the fore end blends into the top of the hair bracket.  You notice that I say "supposed to".  This is where I have gotten into a little trouble.  I believe my template was not stiff enough and the angle of rise of the tapering end was not great enough.  Consequently, my ascending portion is not quite perpendicular.  After so many hours of work, the thought of redoing them was more than I could handle.  The aft end of the rail has a score in it for the cathead.  Two drill holes are placed after temporarily gluing the pieces in place.  Later these holes will accept wire bolts for security.
 

 

 

 

 
The next step is to make the timberhead, now that I have the height correct.

Hah, that's nearly exactly what I did , and I also used a Q-tip dipped in Acetone to go over each one when the paint was almost dry. This took a little of the paint off, allowing some of the original to show through, and taking all the shine off it as well.
 
I've finished the red touch-up, masked the grey (which I haven't touched up yet) and gave the hull two coats of Testor's Dullcote. The difference is extraordinary - you really have to look hard to see any of the touch-ups. The only ones that stand out a little bit are a couple that I'd done with a slightly darker shade of red near the stern. I'm more than happy with the result .
 
I've fitted the Bilge Keels. I had to think a bit on a way of holding them in position and came up with the following. There is a thin printed line to follow, so I used some Tamiya tape to make it easier to see as it would have been hidden once the keel went on :

Next I shaped a strip of balsa to follow the curvature and taped it to the hull :

I taped and clamped the keel to the balsa strip and ran a bead of glue on the edge closest to the centre of the ship so it won't be seen when the ship is the right way up :

The finished job. You can see the touch-ups on the gaps (or not ) :



 
  Danny

Thank you Pat, Pav and Carl .
 
Pav, I spent a full day Fairing the hull - it was spot-on according to the laser-cut frames. Most of the gaps were the result of a slight miscalculation of the placement of the very first skins. They should have been 1mm further aft. The gaps between the grey and red sheets came from some sloppy cutting on the first few skins . I improved the cutting later on.
 
I've filled all the gaps, they have turned out rather well. The pics below show the sequence of my method.
 
Because the putty dried so quickly I needed to thin it with Acetone to make it workable. I did some testing to see if the acetone would damage the printing - I found that if I worked quickly enough it would flash off before it could get to the print.
 
I applied the putty with a toothpick, pushing it into the gap rather than trying to spread it to minimise the width of the filling. It looks lumpy and bumpy because it is :

Next I carefully scraped off the majority of it with a narrow chisel :

Then I used a Q-tip dipped in Acetone to remove the rest of the excess. Here's a finished gap :

There were quite a few to fill. I probably could have gotten away with doing about half as many, but they were easy enough to do once I started :

And the hull all filled and ready for touch-up paint :

 
  Danny

Thanks Pav. I did indeed experience a few more gaps, but I think I have worked out the cause of every one of them and it will stand me in good stead for when I do Bismarck's hull .
 
Speaking of hulls - I've finished skinning this one . It isn't the best job I've seen, but it's by no means the worst either . A bit of "Starving Cow" overall, but at least it's reasonably even in that regard. Halinski give you absolutely NO margin for error in the fit of the sheets - I cut each one EXACTLY as printed, but still managed to get a few small gaps. It was a good lesson for future card builds. Here are some pics of the completed hull :
 




The starving cow is not as pronounced as the pics indicate. I used a rounded piece of Castello on each join to press the cut edges down after the glue dried. This leaves a shiny mark which brings up the effect of a ridge where in fact the join is flat. The shininess will disappear later when I spray the hull with matte nitrocellulose lacquer.
 
According to the instructions sheet #29, the last to be fitted in the mid-section, should have been a touch long and would need trimming to fit. Guess what - it was a touch SHORT and will need a bit of filler :

I bought a tube of Testors Plastic Filler (the model shop didn't carry Tamiya filler ) and tried it out on a test piece to see how hard it would be to use. Not too bad, although it dries VERY quickly and will need to be done in very small lengths at a time :

Here's a bit I tried on the hull. It takes watercolour very well and shouldn't be a problem to paint :

 
  Danny

Apart from the re-do on the small bow piece I've skinned the upper part of the hull. It all fitted well, apart from ........
 

 
....... where the sides met the already fitted front skins on both sides :
 

 
I cut a couple of thin strips of spare card and glued them into the gaps. Pretty good, if I say so myself :
 

 
I had a feeling I was going to have a problem with this. The point of the bow was a bit long and needed trimming back about the same amount as the width of the gaps. If the instructions would have said to skin from the stern to the bow instead of vice-versa this would have been avoided. It was a bit difficult working out exactly where to align the first two skins I fitted, and apparently I got it wrong.
 
  Danny

Stage 2 - digging - done
 

Fig- 80 - We move now to the deck Stringers and plating.  As can be seen the centre 20 Frames have already been linked together with the cross Stingers, so we are dealing with  just the Stringers for the 10 Frames at each end. In this way one can see what is being done, and how it is at the same time.  Here we see the two plates - actually one with an engraved line across and a hole in the centre - that forms the area where the Main Mast passes through the tween deck.  Again aluminium plates are used to exactly locate the brass plate for soft soldering to the Deck beams.
In all of  my writings, be it on the car miniatures or the ships, my aim is not to show how to build this or that subject, but to show the techniques that can be used to build any subject, hence moving along a seemingly half built model, rather than going from A to Z, which would mean a great deal of rapidity in the writing.

Young America - extreme clipper 1853
Part 213 – Ratlines
 
I decided to do at least the lower ratlines next, mainly so the height of the shroud fairleads can be set and those installed early on.  If I need relief from this repetitive work I can (and probably will) begin other things – like the bowsprit.
 
At 1½", the ratlines are among the smallest lines on the ship.  In diameter they measure about 1/2", converting to about .07" at 1:72 scale.  I am using No. 80 crocheting cotton for these, dyed black with dilute India ink.  The ends of the ratlines have spliced eyes that are lashed to the outer shrouds. Attachment to the inner shrouds is by means of clove hitches in the ratline itself.  The first picture shows eye splices being put into the ends of ratlines.
 

 
One end of the line is first passed through the line with a needle to form a loop, like the one on the left.  This is then pulled tight around a pin, looped over and glued with darkened PVA glue.  The two-faced carpet tape on the vise jaw holds the two legs until the glue has dried.  The splice on the right has been glued.  When dry, the short leg will be cut off flush leaving a simulated eye splice.  Two of these are shown in the next picture.
 

 
The next picture shows the first few foremast ratlines secured.
 

 
After lashing the eye to the aft shroud, clove hitches are used on the next three.  The forward end is then lashed and the eye formed in place as was done above.  In the picture the glue has dried and the excess rope is being sliced off.  Uniform tensioning of these ratlines may take some practice – as can be seen at the left.  The next picture is an ultra-close-up showing the forward lashed eyes and the intermediate clove hitches.
 

 
This picture also shows the lashings on the one of the staves across the shrouds after every five or so shrouds.  This was made by stiffening a larger thread size with glue.  The next picture shows the installation up to the first stave.
 

 
The staves extended forward to the first shroud.  Their purpose was to maintain shroud spacing.  The picture was taken before the ends of the various lashings were trimmed off.  In the last picture these ends have been trimmed.
 

 
The fairleads will be lashed on the inside of the shrouds, just above the lower stave.
 
Ed

GUN DECK CANNONS - UPDATE....
After 150 hours (logged build time), I am happy to report "completion" for the installation of all 30 of the gun deck cannons.
Although still slightly over sized, the smaller rigging blocks turned out noticeably closer to scale on the port side guns.  "Close enough for horse shoes." as the old saying goes.



Haven't decided where I will now begin building out all the gun deck details.  Either have some fun with the little furnishings within the captain's study, or go for the bowsprit instillation.
Just happy to finally be at this stage of moving forward.

GUN DECK PROGRESS....
First, thanks Piet, Mark, and Patrick.... and all the mates who keep popping in.
 
I should note that it quickly became obvious to me that the blocks used to rig the long guns seen here, now mounted on the starboard side, are noticeably out of scale....too large.
I did consider scraping the attempt but decided, the rigging will never be seen once the spar decking is added to cover about 70% toward the port side.  I plan to leave roughly 30% of the spar deck along the port side as a cutaway revealing the gun deck details below.
Here's where we are now....


Having said that, since the port side guns will be visible through the cutaway deck, I have spent the last two days working on developing rigging that will be more in scale....i.e., smaller blocks and hooks.
The biggest challenge was creating blocks that I could drill the double sheaves into.... solution - hard rock maple.
Seen below, the new rigging shows the comparison of the over sized blocks used on the starboard side guns.
Note, I also went to a slightly smaller rope, and created hooks from brass wire, which I will paint black.

 

Frames assembly and gluing on a flat surface in 3 layers:  a plexiglass sheet, wood glue does not stick well on it and it does preserve the next layer under the paper pattern.
Under a Russian, multi layered. It is difficult to find a large very flat surface made of wood because stability and wood do not go together. A good flat surface need to be made from a harder material like high density plastic, glass or a mineral like table pool table slate or granite flat surface.

Sorry to hear of your medical issues Mark. I'm glad you're on the mend.
 
Harvey

Sorry to hear of your medical issues Mark. I'm glad you're on the mend.
 
Harvey

Sorry to hear of your medical issues Mark. I'm glad you're on the mend.
 
Harvey

Hi Sam, better late than never .
 
While Fairing the frames I had a little Oopsie (or four ) - a bit of a slip with the sanding stick :
 

 
This sort of thing can lead to bigger problems down the track when I skin the hull, as the panel could get "sucked" into the dip when the glue dries and shrinks, leaving a dent. Rather than using some kind of Filler to fix the problem I sanded the whole section down to the thickness of a piece of paper and glued a strip in :
 



 
The Fairing is turning out to be the best I've ever done, even better than Vulture's . It needs to be, as there's no going back once the skins get glued on without some major dramas.
 
  Danny

Thanks for the comments guys.
 
I used Spyglass's idea of splitting the "cockroach" one step further. I'd already established that "cz." means "part" and "Sklejamy" is "We glue" - the Polish destructions are full of those words - so I tried "Sklejamy kolo wroty cz." and came up with "We glue the faces" (of 47/50 ) which DOES make more sense than "We glue the cockroaches" .
 
Using the same idea I broke "dalocelonik" down to "dalo celo nik" which came up with "gave the viewer" (parts 43) - the assembly is a Range-finder .
 
And I thought that getting into Card Modelling was just all about how to handle thin paper and roll tiny tubes from it . Isn't learning Polish fun .
 
  Danny

Decided that I needed to build out one yard to learn was was needed after doing some detective work between the instructions, plans and other sources and did my best guess. But first the kit supplied blocks, all sizes needed help. All needed to be sanded from square to an oval shape. The singles were easy but the triples really needed a great deal of fixing.
 

 

 
Next thanks to Johnathan I sorted out the stud sail booms with the lash line inserted in the inner hole since it had to stay in place for both stored and rigged positions and the end hole getting an eyebolt for the hook to set or retract the boom as needed. The lashing was tied off with a square knot and ends tucked under the boom and cut off.

 
I then added the sling after turning thimble rings from brass and darkened. I also added the triple blocks as well. It took a couple of fittings to get the length of the rope correct fitting over the cap as well as the lashing rope tied to the end loop. 
 

 
Here is a test fit of the foremast yard in place. Now I can finish up rigging the jeers temporarily. I am using 1/32" removable pins to locate the yard in position on the mast. 
 

Hopefully by now I know what is needed on the rest of the yards.

Sorry to hear of your medical issues Mark. I'm glad you're on the mend.
 
Harvey

Another side done
 
 

On the way to ...
 
 

Sorry to hear of your medical issues Mark. I'm glad you're on the mend.
 
Harvey