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Kevin-the-lubber

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    Male
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    Leafy Sussex, UK
  • Interests
    Gardening, heroic fantasy, ancient history, astronomy, mountaineering (alas no longer), MotoGP

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  1. Bill, is everything so far part of the kit, i.e. the boards, ring bolts? The re-washed deck was definitely a good choice, it looks very much like the deck on the actual Cutty Sark and I think you’ve got the colouring spot-on.
  2. Over here you can buy decal paper by the sheet off eBay. But wouldn’t you want/need the setting liquids? In passing, my own recent foray into water slide decals hasn’t been particularly successful, they wrinkle and the ink rubs off, and I’ve parked it for a rainy day. I may be misunderstanding the exercise but couldn’t you make card or paper stencils instead? You can cut those using the laser for precision. Two or three masks (layers) with positioning points etc.
  3. About a year ago I bought a used Dell Precision 7720 17.3" Laptop: Intel i7, 500GB SSD, 16GB, P3000 for about £650, including a 1 year warranty. It copes just fine with Fusion 360 and the various graphics packages I occasionally use. I wanted the big screen for 3D modelling, so while it is indeed a laptop, I wouldn't want to be carrying this around a lot. But as a portable hi-spec computer its' great.
  4. I’ve found Inkscape is easier for getting what I wanted and it’s free. None of the graphics packages seem very easy though.
  5. Obviously I went to a better school 🤣. Gosh, I haven't thought about that for years, but yes, wasn't it amazing seeing the swarf coming off in a perfect spiral. Personally I loved (in later life) machining brass or bronze. The colour of freshly cut, un-oxidised brass is a little bit magical. Anyway, back to the point; I know nothing about galleons but wouldn't there have been a chappie or two on a steering platform at the stern, who could by definition see past the prow?
  6. That’s hilarious - I also have one of those, somewhere. Made at about the same age, 14 or 15, in the metalwork class. For some reason what always stuck in my mind was the magic of knurling, and brazing the head to the handle. Looks like you made a nice job of yours!
  7. Well done Bill, it’s an amazing achievements to do even one of these big kits in 3 or 4 years, but to do two, and to do both to such a high standard - I take my hat off to you. I really like the figure on the ratlines. That one in particular gives a sense of scale, and I must remember that for the future. I’ve just ‘followed’ your Endeavour and will be watching that with huge interest, partly because it’s a ship I’d like to one day build (along with the ‘Terror’) and partly because you’re venturing into wood.
  8. Ditto, great find Bill, I'll watch that properly this evening. I thought Patrick O'Brien describes things like the knock down walls and ductwork somewhere in the Aubrey/Maturin series but it might have been in the Bolitho series by Alexander Kent (who I've just discovered was actually Douglas Reeman, who also wrote gazillions of books set in WW2 books). Either way, when I last went to the Victory a couple of years back I was struck by how close-fitting all the officer quarters "walls" were, some seriously good carpenters back then. Look at the RH side in the photo, the brass bits are the hinges. I also remember feeling a bit of a cool breeze right down in the depths of the hold, though I bet it was hot as hell on a gun deck in battle.
  9. Those are wonderful looking blocks Dan, I was about to ask if they were CNC-ed wood, but saw from your site that they are resin. Doing them in sets is a clever idea.
  10. Many thanks gents. I have three small Victory "sub-projects" on the go right now; home made decals for the trophy of arms, lanterns, and the smaller cannons. The cannons are pesky creatures, there are very minor differences between the long, medium and short 12lb guns but I figure I better do it true to the figures as these are 'show guns' or I'll just kick myself later on for being lazy. Decals..... not quite there yet, still learning how to make and apply them. They are similar to kit decals but less forgiving in some ways, more so in others. Once I'm 'there' I'll do a little write up. The lanterns really are fun. The offset octagons make for an interesting little CAD exercise and, blessings, I can simply scale down the big one to get the other two sizes.
  11. David, I think you’ll see a glued, butt-joined kit deck early in my log, link below, before I made my own deck. I know I put a decent bevel on mine I.e a good 1mm, and glued some hefty styrene strips to the underside to make it stay true. It was pretty easy to sand the joined deck to disguise the joint. I’m also pretty sure I was able to spread the glued hull enough to get the deck in. I’ve noticed that unused deck a few times, lurking in my scraps box, and sometimes wondered why I even bothered to make a replacement; in other words, go for it, it’ll be fine 😀. If I was doing this all over again and wanted to stick with the kit deck without any overlay, I think I would sand off the positive plank lines and scribe negative plank lines instead, after joining the main deck sections. Why? Because you’ll get a much better ‘faux wood’ effect with negative lines as the inking to simulate caulking will have grooves to sit in.
  12. Never mind the printing, that's just button-pressing; look at the painting skills! What I'd give to be able to do that, let alone have the underlying knowledge.
  13. 4th Feb 2024 And so we resume... First batch of cannons, the 24lb and 32lb, more or less complete. I resin printed replacements for both the cannons and the carriages as this was easier than modifying the kit parts, based on the drawings in McKay. So, added cyphers, cap squares and breeching rings to the cannons. For the carriages I made these with just the trucks (wheels) separate. It wasn't such a good method and I'll try something different for the 12lb-ers. The brass pin in the bottom of the front bracket is, obviously I suppose, to fix the carriage on the deck so they can't get knocked out of place once the deck is closed off. The mottled and rough finish is intentional. As these carriages will be hardly visible I experimented with spraying a peat brown artists ink to give some shading and weathering, as doing it with a brush is very tedious x 80. That very mottled one on the left is unrepresentative, the assembled one is more typical. I also took a shortcut for painting the axle hubs black - I smeared undiluted black acrylic on a palette and drew the axle tips through this. From a distance the result looks okay, but here again I will try something different for the 12lb-ers, as they will be on show. I don't think I'll be rigging any of these, as they're hidden.
  14. Beautiful guns. Now I can see the real thing I can understand that unusual cascabel on the model part. Though I actually prefer the 'before' over the 'after'. I think it would be better if the restorers aged the carriages a bit. I remember a friend from years ago, who made replica antique furniture, telling me that when they made a table they would leave a chain on top in the workshop. Every time someone walked past it, they were supposed to give it a good whack with the chain. When 'aged' enough they'd polish it up and make it ready for sale. Roel, two words: selfie-stick 🤪
  15. There’s a very good thread here about painting to look like metal https://modelshipworld.com/topic/35788-painting-resin-printed-cannon-bronze-color/. I’ve used Vallejo metallic bronze and their Verdi Gris to reasonably good effect but I’m not in the same league as some of the stuff in that thread.
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