DanielD

Good evening everyone, it’s been a while since my last post. This week I was working on the fore deck with all the extra Amerigo Vespucci inspired inlay. I’m happy with the final product and started to temporarily place the deck hardware. To hold each piece of equipment in place I’m adding a 1mm post to the bottom each piece and drilling a hole in the deck for placement. So far, it’s all working well. Thanks for spending a little time with me on this journey.

Good afternoon mates, I have finally finished the drawing my design of my Amerigo Vespucci inspired fore deck inlay pattern. Now time to start building.

1 hour ago, Dave_E said:

What is that and how does it work?

I really have no idea; however, from the hint Keith gave, I did some research. It appears that a “scuttle” can be a type of water proof hatch, use for various tasks, one of which can be escape. Other uses I found include loading coal, diesel or food and even be opened for ventilation. I presume that the hatch opens in some way allowing direct access to the deck below and easy loading/unloading of supplies. Also, it appears that scuttles can be installed on the side of the ship as well, but they are more commonly called…a port hole.

Good evening mates, I have a question for those more knowledgeable about ships than I am. In the image below, what is the area on the deck marked by the red oval? The Amerigo Vespucci has at least 4 of these that I have found so far, but I have no idea what they could be. Any ideas?

On 3/25/2023 at 9:02 AM, Mike Dowling said:

I appreciate that neither of us has got that far yet but are you aware that Occre have only allowed for two sets of steps at the side of the ship but only one set for the other side. I want the ship to have two sets of ladders on each side so, I have saved a pair of the supplied metal ladders from the main bridge house and made my own for that.

Mike, I appreciate you discovering this. I’ll keep it in mind. 
 

While working on my Amerigo Vespucci inspired fore deck, I discovered that OcCre has made a mistake on the deck equipment, that as far as I can tell the other model manufacturers got correct. There are two fore anchors on the starboard side but only one on the port side, but the OcCre instructions and kit contain two anchor kits for each side. I have double checked photographic images, and it’s true, two on the starboard but only one on the port side.

Good afternoon mates, I have finally finished the inside of the wheelhouse. Now that I have that out of my system, back to working on the deck and lighting so I can start the planking project…

4 hours ago, clearway said:

looking nice there Daniel- regards the wheelhouse windows i would glaze them as it will help stop those dust bunnies having an orgy in there 😁

 

Keeith

Keith, I am thinking the same thing…

Good evening mates, this week was spent working on the shell of the main bridge. Oh, and my helms wheels came in today. Sadly though, I need 5, but I only ordered 4. What was I thinking 🤔.  Also, I’m experimenting with some liquid brass leaf. Basically is like brass paint and supposed to have the luster of real brass…I think I like this stuff. 

Hello everyone, welcome aboard. Here is an update for my weekends effort on my main bridge. I can’t finish the inside as I had to order some eight spiked wheels as OcCre did not provide them in the kit. However, I did make some good progress.

Built some equipment for the bridge and started the woodwork over the bridge shell. I’m having a quandary though, maybe you can help. The AV bridge of course has glass windows. The OcCre kit provided clear thin plexi to use for the windows. Should I install the windows which will hamper the ability to look inside? Or just leave them out, will still look like windows, but easier to view the bridge?

On 3/18/2023 at 1:32 AM, clearway said:

nothing new with the ships wheels regards occre huh- i take it they are the standard offering supplied with all their kits😬

 

Keith

Keith, I think this case is worse than the Terror where at least OcCre provided an 8 spoked wheel instead of the historically accurate 10 spoked version. In the OcCre version of the America Vespucci kit, the real AV has four 8 spoked wheels, but what was included…well, see below… 😞 but not even a proper helm.

Good evening all, here is todays update on the main bridge. Added some bracing to make it look more like the real thing as well as lighting and the very dark blue/purple paint that makes the bridge dark to enhance visibility. It’s slowly coming along.

One note, I’m a little disappointed in the OcCre kit in that they didn’t even try to get the steering wheels correct. 😞 

Good evening everyone. I became tired of working on the deck, so I switched gears to do a little experiment. The goal for my AV is to have the doors open on the main bridge. The OcCre version of this ship does not plan for this, so on my own I go… The first image below is the real bridge. In my experiment I’m working on the floor. This is very small detailed work with my huge fingers, but I’m fairly happy with the outcome. The second image is my version of the floor compared to a US dime, our smallest coin. Third image displays the floor set in place in my bridge structure and finally a close up looking through the door/windows.

 Thanks a lot for stopping by…

And…this is how the aft deck will look with the hardware installed.

Good evening mates, this week I’ve not posted on my progress because well, it’s kind of boring. Made good progress on the aft deck inlay. I’m happy with the outcome.

Well mates, for those that have been following along as I have been looking for an image of the side marker lights on the AV…I have good news. Below is the very best image I have found including a blown up version with some photo enhancements. I don’t think I’ll find anything better. Now if I could only find some images of the bow bridge,

Mike, some of the wires can be visible, they are on the real AV. Just look at the aft marker light for one example. While I’ll do my best to hide as much of the wires as possible, I’m not worried about the ones close the the fixtures them selves. I’m also planning on the green/white/red night lighting the AV is famous for, those lights are strung together in series with the wires just laying on the deck surface. Let me see if I can find that image…

Here is the latest in my research on the AV side marker lights. It’s the clearest image to date I’ve found.

Mike, the daunting task of hiding the wires…I feel your pain. While we now have the location for the side marker lights, I see that it needs to hang off the side to allow room for the shrouds. Hard to see in this image, but it’s the best I’ve found so far.

Mike, do you have a build log for your AV?

Mike, now that I know where to look and what to look for, I have been finding the side marker lights in a lot of images. The main problem is that, unlike the image above by Mantua, the housing in all the pictures I have seen is black. This has a very profound effect of making it nearly invisible. And since it’s black, the details are obscured in all of the images. This is a close up zoom of an image I found, the best one that I’ve found, but still hard to make out what the housing looks like or how it’s attached to the ship. I believe it is similar to what Mantua has designed but painted in all black except for the lens when the light is on.

Good evening mates, this weekend I started the planning of the aft deck. I drew the AV inspired pattern on the sub-deck and started planking. A long way to go, but it’s a start.

6 hours ago, Mike Dowling said:

Thanks for that Daniel although I'm not sure I understand what you mean about 'behind the bins'.

By the way I hope you don't mind all my posts, I am not trying to steal your posts but I hope they might help us both.

The last image in this thread is of the starboard side of the ship from just outside the door of the chart room. On the right is the navigation station and on the left a chest like looking storage bin. Just behind that chest, from our point of view, is where I believe the navigation light is installed. Hope this helps.

Mike, now that I look at the night images above, I’m certain the lights are installed behind the bins. In the images, the compass stations are visible and the marker lights are forward of that… 

Mike, the problem I’m facing now is where to install the red/green marker lights. I haven’t been able to find any close up shots, and when I look on the wonderful virtual tour, I don’t see them where I think they should be. So options not visible are 1) under the compass station or 2) closer to the front of the chart room behind some storage bins???

4 hours ago, Keith Black said:

 It could be an elevated compass? That's purely a guess on my part but that is one strange looking device.  

Mike and Keith, this might help. The AV is of course a training ship and there are four of the stations on board to help train in navigation.

16 hours ago, Mike Dowling said:

Have you managed to work out if the ship has any navigation lights and if so do you know where they are? I can't find any.

Mike, I have searched for weeks to answer this very question. I am pleased to say that I now have the answer. The stern (white light) was easy to find in the virtual tour, link above somewhere in this log. There are actually 3 white and one amber light just above the small deck at the stern of the ship. Then there is also a lantern on the boom of the mizzenmast. Finally, there is a red (port) and green (starboard) light that is on the fore deck, just to the side of the chart room. To avoid copyright issues, I have only included a small section of the images, just enough to show what I found.