Ras Ambrioso

In one of my previous posts I presented my method for creating the fire buckets that are shown on the boiler casing. The bucket that I did for testing was too big, so I used a smaller brass tube. This is the first one. This is the whole batch and the holding racks And the the final product: Before installing them I am going to simulate the legs of the racks and fill the bucket of some very fine white sand (like the one we have here in Florida) I also started the detailing of the life rings. These life rings are 10mm dia and I wanted to add hanging ropes in the perimeter. For this I used a jig to lay the rope between the nails and then dropped the ring over and glued (CA) the rope in the marked four points. I will make four life rings using this method and will try to tie the rope to the rings at the attachment points by serving a line round the ring. (Excuse the poor focus in the photo)

Holy cow, your ship looks incredible. We finally get to see the work in total. Love to se the forward view. Super WOW again

Thanks a lot Valeriy You have been a great teacher

Thank you Wefalck, I admire your precise work very much. I try to do the best I can with my shaky hands and my poor eyes. I think that the 1/64 scale is a small as I want to build in the future. For your information I am already researching my future project. I have two ships in mind. One is an armed trawler from the WWI period. These were both made with wood and/or steel hulls and were based on the British net trawlers. The other one is a 40 Ft fast armed motor pinnace name "Mimi"which has a very interesting story.

Have installed the propeller shafts and fabricated the supports but, due to my less than perfect symmetry and imperfections of in the hull, I had to order smaller propellers which are yet to arrive. In the meantime, I kept working on the deck accessories. Following is a photo of the heads (toilets) with the doors installed. I tried several methods to make the doors and finally decided on cutting the door out of 1/32" planks and glue 0.5 mm square strips frame. Later I will fabricate and install the hinges and the door knobs. Next came the companion ways I used a 1/64" plank to cover the curved area. Then , using the same procedure as the head doors I built the sides and front doors. Then using the 0.5 mm strips I laid the sliding hatch cover. Door knobs, handles and hinges will follow. Finally I cut the base for the small skylights out of solid pine. This kind of overworked my little MicroLux saw and burned the the wood in some places. I plan to make the frames and louvers out of the thin planks. Photos to follow. This project have been extremely rewarding to me as I venture in the fabrication of these miniature pieces. My results are far from the accuracy of the fabrication by Wefalck and Valeriy but my tolerances stop at +/- 0.5 mm. Thanks for watching.

Hope y'all had a great holiday. I did. Continuing my build, it was about time to remove the masking tape that protected the ships bottom while I worked on the deck planking. To my delight the waterline came perfectly delineated and the results show in the next picture. First time I use Tamiya masking tape for this job. I also installed the brass porthole rings that have been glazed with Gorilla glue. They came out all right but I had do a little of damage control with a wood filler wash. More pictures to show the progress to date. I continue working on the upper structures and started to use a mix media of cartuline and wood veneer to complete the trim of the cabins. Next I was looking on how to fabricate the miniature fire buckets. I tried using brass tubing been swaged with a punch. The one shown is about 3/16'' OD but the final set will be 5/32". And thats all folks! Thanks for watching and appreciate your comments.

First of all, thanks Wefalck for the tip to the Brazilian Museum. I will be contacting them to see about more information about my project. I do not speak Portuguese but I can understand their writing pretty well. Planking is completed and I have covered it with linseed oil and then finished it with a clear satin lacquer coat. When I was going to finish the upper hull I ran out of the paint I was using. The color is a Stone Grey Rust-Oleum Paint+Primer and for some reason was not available in my local stores. I went to five hardware stores to no avail, and finally ordered it online. While waiting for the paint to be delivered, I continued fabrication of several deck accessories. Unpainted are the crew heads and paint locker. Next I took my Unimat out and made, what I consider my microscopic mushroom vents. The paint was been delivered today but I will be taking a break for the Christmas activities. So, I wish y'all a very happy and merry Christmas.

You never fail to amaze me. On my Amapa, I am working at 1/64 scale and I am having trouble with pieces smaller than 1 mm. I Don’t have the right depth perception while using magnifying goggles and my hands tend to shake proportionally to the magnification. You are a master.

Truck ding aside, that is a fabulous piece of furniture and will sit perfectly with Magenta on its top.

After looking at the information that Valeriy found, I saw that the Monthon had the whole deck wood planked. So I decided to go that way. Started by laying the waterway on the aft deck. Also decided to leave the fantail un-decked. The plan is to set grating in this part of the ship. The railing stanchions and the mooring gear will be sitting on the waterway. On the forward deck there is a wave dodger in front of the gun. This took a little thinking for its fabrication on account of the multiple angles but the problem was solved using hard balsa and sanding nail files. The results was an acceptable dodger. The plan is to leave this forward deck without planking to mount the anchor winch and its accessories as well as the forward mooring gear. The un-planked deck areas will be painted a darker grey as well as some of the superstructure roofs. I am still undecided about the the color of the stack. Will appreciate your ideas. Ships on the old "White Fleet" were white and buff but this one (1907) is a little past that time, more a pre WWI, and the base color is a "Navy Ship Grey". Thanks a lot for you likes and comments.

Building continues. I am concentrating now on finishing the hull. After the portholes the next challenge was the anchor chain hawse pipes. I had to remember my descriptive geometry lessons in order to calculate the proper angle for the pipe. At the end I used my eyeballs and slowly drew a sharp needle punch and, amazingly, I hit my marks. I followed with a drill bit rotated by hand. Unfortunately, I did some damage to the hull surface due to the multiple paint layers being king of fragile but there is always Miliput. I inserted a brass tube and marked the cuts at the hull and the deck with a black marker. A little more filling and then the finished paint.

Thanks a lot Roger and Flying Fish. Valeriy, Thanks for the information on the Suriya Monthon. It happens that another MSW member was looking for information on my Amapá. He is from Thailand and send me a note asking me for copies of my hull lines plans. We have been in communication since. He is building the Monthon who was a sister ship with Amapá. Your information will add to my files. It appears that these ship class was popular for coast guard duties overseas

After I dry fitted some of my commercial scale portholes (See Post #52) I found them to look a little out of scale. The plans I have shown only a thin outline of a frame not a full flange. I used brass tubing and cut sections a little longer than the diameter to assist in getting through the hole in the hull in a straight way. This tip was taken from Wefalk's fantastic Wespe. I then made a jig to allow me to polish the edge of the tiny cylinder. Setting the rings on the sticky side of masking tape, I filled them with clear gorilla. The results were amazing as you can see in the jig and in the section of the plans.

Great work Sea Hoss.

Again my that goes down to you. I am learning a lot from you and admire your craftsmanship.

Wefalck thanks a lot for your reply to my inquiry regarding the wood decks on steel hulls. You knowledge is amazing and you are my "to go guy" for information. The following sketch shows what I decided to do. In the plans they show the mooring bollards and chokes at the edge of the deck and I figured that they will be more secure bolted to the steel deck rather that to the wood deck. Also at this scale I am using 3mm wide planks and will use a thin waterway to protect the edges of the planks. The sketch shows my plan. I plan to use an appropriate coaming around all the other structures on deck such as companionways so that they don't looks sitting directly on the wood deck. Also decided to paint the wetted surfaces in black. Could have been red but, with the grey hull, it looked kind of loud. Next I tried to replicate the skylights at the engine room roof. Now a look at the boiler casing the galley and engine room access installed in the lower deck midships. Lots of work still to complete but I am enjoying the journey.

I went back to your build to gather more information about the ships of this era. My Amapá is growing and I always learn something when looking at your outstanding micro scale workmanship. Still amazed and learning new things about this era of shipbuilding every minute.

Success. The experiment with the Gorilla glue worked as you can see in the photo. I intend to use these scale portholes on the model. Slow progress on the hull. I think that I am being stubbornly obsessed with perfecting the hull surface. I am going to take it as it is now and proceed with the rest of the build. This is the beginning of the superstructure. I do have a question for the forum about the deck planking. This ship has a metal hull but specified wood planking on the three decks. My question is how close to the edge of the hull should I place the waterway? Do I need space to place fittings such as stanchions, bollards, etc. directly to the steel deck? And finally, how about things like the gun or the winch, should they be anchored directly to the steel deck and the wood decking be worked around these bases? Your comments will be appreciated.

Thanks, Roger and Mark for your comments. I thought of using a hand drill but what I have are very small pin drills. The portholes are 1/8" diameter. Roger's idea of a cutter made from brass tubing looks promising and I will be trying it. Today I did an experiment for glassing up the portholes. I drilled 1/8" holes in a piece of wood and filled them with the Gorilla glue. It worked. It dried very clear and shinny. I also dropped some glue over wax paper in the result was a clear and very flexible blob. Next, I will try to fill a couple of portholes and see how they look. I continue the filling and sanding getting ready for the final paint coats. Thanks for following.

Attached the three decks to the hull and had to do more filling and sanding. While drilling the portholes I had several issues with the drill breaking the thin planking. Looking back (a good thing) I should have reinforced the backside of the planks. The drill was too fast. Today I am doing a little experiment to add glass to the portholes. The other day I noticed that the Clear Gorilla Glue does dry clear. I am thinking about placing a drop of the glue in the holes and, again on the after thought, I need to watch that the glue does not drip down. More thinking ahead. More sanding and filling ahead. Next I will install the bulwark stanchions in the well deck and finish the hull painting with more coats of light grey after which I will paint the wetted surfaces a rusty red. After this, I plan to fabricate the superstructures on the bench and install them after the wood decking is done. One of the reasons I chose to model this particular ship is the amount of detail on its deck which, I will try to reproduce either by fabrication or by using available accessories on-line. A few months ago a friend of mine retired from modeling (suffers from Parkinson's) and gave me his hand tools and boxes of fittings, most of them brass, that will be used on this model. I don't know if this will disqualify me from a "scratch" building experience as I see the original handiwork of most you guys. But I am a practical engineer and, a these small scales, I could not build every piece of the ship. But the gun will be scratch built, in brass, by me for sure. As a matter of fact I would like to make the same gun (a 3 pounder QF gun) at a larger scale with more detail And speaking of accessories, today I received my order from Shapeways for the crew of Amapá. These are incredible detailed 3D printed figures which will require a very little modifications to become my officers, gunners and seamen.

This has taken longer than I thought. My planking mistakes required a lot of sanding and filling. I wanted to obtain the smooth finish that this metal hull requires. Originally I was going to do a paper plating but my trials were not too successful and I went back to the fill and sand routine. This has required numerous layers of sanding, filling and priming. Finally I found that Elmers wood filler can be diluted with water into a paste with which to "paint" the hull. This is working fine but still presents small defects that will probably not be noticed when the whole ship is completed by but that I know they are there. The following photo shows one the filling/sanding stages. Today I finally achieved an acceptable finish and will be ready to join the half hulls. Pictures will be available next week after I finish with drilling the portholes.

Ras is back. With an almost completed Fifie, I took a leave from this build to address my other project Amapá. I had decided to scratch build Amapá and that, with my now vast experience (???) in planking, it wouldn't take long. I thought that in a couple of weeks I could finish the new hull, take another break and come back to finish Fifie. Was I wrong! This week I finally decided (or rather my wife asked me when I was going to finish Fifie) to come back and tackle the numerous details that I want to add including fixing some damage to my rigging that occur when I moved Fifie from the shop to the apartment. Today I started to assemble the skiff and it looks so cute. I expect that the planking will be a cinch(??). Remember that this skiff is barely 6" long.

I agree with the idea of showing a glance at the ships interior. As mush as possible, I have been adding details to the inside of my Fifie such as leaving the companion ways open to show the ladders going below, having the inside of the hold with floor planking and doors in the bulkheads and having the pilot house inside details visible from the windows and the partially opened door. This is in addition to the lot of deck details which will include boxes and crans full of herring. Good job Roge.r

Excellent work Roger. Your research has been very informative. Carry on.

Following the Valerliy recommendations I filled the bow and stern sections. Then proceeded to shape both ends. I removed the half hulls from the mounting board and temporally connected them. It may no look as neat as Valerliy but, the planking is done. Then we started the filling with putty. And now my ship looks like my first wife while putting on makeup in the mornings. Ugh. Sanding comes next. I have had these plans since 1996 and thanks to the examples in this forum and your kind advise I can see my Amapá taking shape.