Kevin-the-lubber

Once the anchor is catted I assume the chains would rest on the deck. Presumably the crew laid them beside the hatch and perhaps tied them off so they didn't move around in heavy seas. On a slightly different note, I was in Haugesund in Norway last week and spotted these beauties in an antiques shop. Unfortunately it was closed and I was only there for a few hours, or I'd have been sorely tempted. The funny thing is that I've only just finished modelling these myself.

Marsalv, I've picked up a signpost to this build and it's fantastic. I haven't yet read through from the beginning but you are making me very keen to purchase a CNC mill & lathe. That said, it's one thing to get the machine to cut the parts, quite another to bring them all together into such a gorgeous model. One question (which may be answered if I read the whole log) - have you got all of the critical design information from the monograph? I've never even seen a monograph but it sounds like something I'd like.

Marc, it appears that Marsalv is milling the parts i.e. the lower filling parts on Page 1. Although the methods and machinery are different, the engineering processes in milling (CNC especially) and 3D design & printing are not very different. Though to be honest I've still only had the quickest flick through his log as I always seem to have three or four things on the go at the moment. At 6 feet x 5 feet you might need to negotiate who gets to build what!

Interesting conversation here over the last week, I’ve enjoyed reading it! I was an absolute dunce at school, especially at maths (as we call it this side of the pond). The game changer was learning trig, which was an essential part of my trade (fabricator-welder). Nice link from Marc to the Le Gros Ventre build, which is indeed gorgeous and one which I’ll now follow too. I know I am meandering towards something bigger with my 3D work and that build log has crystallised my thoughts somewhat. What struck me straight away (apart from the quality of the build) was that he’s doing in wood what I’m doing in plastic. Interesting, especially as I’ve just bought a laser cutter. Looks like I need to start browsing monographs. Regarding masts and yards Bill; I’ve completed version 2 of these for my Cutty Sark (a version 3 is in the pipeline for reasons I’ll cover in my own log), but I consciously chose an ‘off the ship’ approach just because there’s less clutter, less risk of a sleeve catching on something elsewhere on the model. Your SR is looking fabulous, and I think you can easily afford to take risks now.

I’ll probably mull on this for a while and perhaps make some modification - at my current rate of progress I have about 15 years to think on it before declaring the ship finished 😃.

Re the chains ripping up the hatchway, my personal view is that we're all a little misled by some erroneous drawings by the likes of campbell. All of the plans I've seen so far have been, essentially, artistic interpretations rather than engineering drawings. I think that engineering drawings would have shown what any engineer would have done with this hatch, and shipbuilders were nothing if not engineers; they'd have done what the restoration team did, as per the photo below. A small hatch in between the chain pipes. There's a much larger hatchway forward of this but that also doesnt interfere with the run of chains. I say all this because, as an engineer by trade and nature, I would never have been able to do something as stupid as having a chain this big run like that! Johnny, I do the same, to the death, and in the interest of not being struck by paralysis through analysis, I'm now just committing and, as often as not, almost immediately uttering expletives when I realise what new but utterly obvious thing I've missed. There's probably some kind of existential law around this, that says it is physically impossible to see the looming error until you've made it. The other thing that now does my head in is breaking things. As I withdrew my forceps and tweezers from slipping that tiny chain into the real, actually working, release mechanism on the cathead, smugly thinking 'nicely done, sir', "ping", off snapped the tip of the jib boom, never to be seen again. It'll be with the hinge brackets for the spanker yards, the previous versions of the catheads, numerous stanchions and countless other parts that are a right pain to remake. How did I snap the jib boom tip from there, you ask? Well, if you can figure it out please do let me know because I'm damned if I do 🙂.

I managed to grab an hour today to work on the anchor chains. I have to say I'm deeply unconvinced by the chain running to the bollard; would any self-respecting sailor ever trash the rail or stanchion like that? I don't think so. I'm not going to move the bollard or rail now, but I might yet put an eyebolt in the hull aft of the aft of the flukes as that's how Campbell has it. Half the problem is that plate where the fluke sits (I've forgotten the proper name). When I altered the foredeck to match Campbell, I ought to have also moved that. Such is life.

I always enjoy looking over your recent adventures Daniel, they bring the ship to life. In my mind, I’m transposing all those little characters to the real ship as real people. Gosh but it must have been a living hell inside a warship, which is something I think we tend to ‘erase’ in our very pretty models.

Hi Kurtis - apologies, I follow threads via a weekly highlights email, hence it can be ages before I see replies! Anyway, back to the point: if I was you I’d be wanting to turn this into a hard copy that was sat on a shelf, that’s all. And because it’s currently soft copy, you could do that at whatever scale you wanted. True about the sails, unlikely that you could get something good via printing, and of course you’d have to do all the rigging by hand.

Kurtis, I think this has been touched on before, but is it not possible to take this project through to STL’s? I know from my own work that this requires a lot of engineering thought, to make a kit, but you’re doing such a fine job here!

Ps.I’ll get in there first - the whisker booms are upside down. I can’t believe I’ve done that twice now. Remakes in process, easily corrected.

Thank you, I did indeed. I noticed the stepped boat supports during my last visit, liked that and replicating it is straightforward in CAD.

Quick question, friends: what would be the 'correct' or, from a modelling perspective, nice way of tying on the boats? As you can see, I have provided a generous number of rings to tie to (tiny twisted wire rings), as I'll be adding boat masts, spare yards etc presently, but I'd like to use a pretty method for tying on the boats rather than completely fudge it. A sketch, however crude, or link to a build log would be appreciated. Obviously it doesn't have to be a CS. I know how I'd do this when tying a load onto my roof rack, though I don't know the name of the knot! In other news, yesterdays damage repaired, complete with detachable whiskers. I also dug into my reserves of courage and applied the draft decals. I have been ducking this for ages as it's one of those things I felt sure I'd mess up, but I just about got away with it.

I could be talking nonsense here, it won't be the first time, but one thing I've discovered (among many things) over the last couple of years is how possible it is to drill tiny holes in plastic for tiny wire hinges - I'm talking 0.2mm diameter here, or 0.010" in old money. When I started out I thought this would be nigh on impossible but have found the hardest part is to avoid sticking the drillbits into my fingers 🤪. Anyway, I have it in mind to try that approach when I resume work on the Victory (there are of course no gunports on the CS) in the expectation that the wires should be virtually invisible.

You're doing some fabulous work here, Haze.

Hi Bill, the one thing Charles & I have in common is we both like cruising holidays - the difference being, he has an entire ship at his disposal, I have to make do with a cabin 🙂. I did take quite a break after surgery. I thought I'd be able to do a bit on a laptop while loafing with my leg up in the air, but that became boring quite quickly. It's not the same as being sat in the workshop surrounded by tools, paints, all that stuff. Anyway, back on the job now. It’s funny how you can think there’s almost nothing left to do or make and then that ‘almost nothing’ takes weeks and weeks to complete. It turns out I have a whole list of small but essential jobs to do before I fit the masts and start rigging. I’m now well and truly into the ‘fix one thing, break something else’ phase of this model. I seem to break something or other every couple of days and I’m becoming quite good at running repairs. Yesterday, I decided to remove the bowsprit assembly while working on the fore railings as I could foresee the dolphin striker getting broken (again). Of course in the process I managed to catch a whisker boom on my sleeve and snap it clean off, beyond all repair. I've been fearing this since glueing the catheads in place so I’m kind of glad that’s out of the way. It’s given me enough reason to remake the fore rails, which were always a bit wrong, sort out the knightheads, which on revell are a bit strange, and change the design of the catheads so the 'sticky-out' part can be added only when necessary. This allows me to fit and finish the rail and add the outer section of the cathead when I start rigging. Otherwise, I'm working on the railings. This photo is from a few days ago and is a trial fit, while I shape the wire, especially those end bends. It helps that I can easily make formers, which means all of the ends are identical. At this moment in time I'm intending to use brass-coloured stanchions and leave the wire unpainted, as I like this look. However I could easily change my mind by tomorrow and make it all white! You're continuing to make great progress on your SR - I also check in regularly and you'll probably finish that before I finish this! That said, I'm content to plod along, I think this is my pace and trying to speed up would be a mistake.

Ian, the programme I looked at was Daz 3D. It allows you to create a few figures for free. I haven't really tried it yet, just skimmed the front end but from what I've seen (I think on one of Patrick Matthews logs) it's pretty good. Blender is one of the apps where you basically start off with a round ball of 'clay' and somehow turn that into a figurine. That does my head in 🙂

Hi Ian, I haven’t really got to grips with modelling figures. I struggle with the most common platform, Blender, as the tutorials seem to be orientated towards producing virtual product rather than objects for printing. I do also have access to an app that is specific to creating and dressing figures but haven’t given it a proper go yet. For some reason I can’t get excited about doing figures, possibly because this is where it all starts to become more art than engineering and I don’t have an artistic bone in my body!

It's been quite a while since I posted but I've now picked up where I left off, so here's a brief update. I've remade all the masts, yards, bowsprit, jib boom etc. At the moment it's still the case that the only parts I've used from the revell kit are the two hull halves and rudders halves. I still have a lot of work to do on these (masts and spars) and will do detail photos as and when. Right now the white is too white, I need to paint the tops, make a decision whether to copy the real thing and red ochre the topmasts, etc etc. And then rig them. I'll be doing all that off the ship, I have a dummy rig that helps avoid me breaking bits every 5 minutes. I've continued to add detail - here, it's the salt water pump on the side of the port WC. Tricky to print! New bower anchors. As with most things now, my new parts are a mixture of resin print, brass or steel wire, carbon fibre and whatever else I need to achieve the objective. Bumpkins. Mostly because the revell one's are too simplistic, when you look at the real thing you realise the lugs are orientated to their respective tie points. Davits. These are made using 1mm brass wire, I found the kit parts too chunky. I'm working on the philosophy that, if I reduce everything I can to be more in scale, there will be a greater sense of how large the ship is and how enormous are things like the lower yards jackstays on the main and mizzen masts. 0.2mm brass wire running through miniscule brackets. I've used much the same approach on all the yards. A random shot of the wool bales in the main hold. The plan is to, in due course, rig one being lowered into the hold via a hoist . A shot showing the re-profiled foredeck and more imposing capstan, as I don't think I ever showed that in situ. I have work to do on the fore rails, one of many outstanding jobs. See the crack in the crane below? If you look very carefully, you'll see a tiny pinhole in the centre of the crane, this is where a brass rod runs through both crane and mast as the crane breaks so easily. Consequently it doesn't matter that it got broken, the yard is supported by the pin. The yellow stain is some super phatic glue, I'll cover it up when I finish the paintwork. I've used this method in quite a few places. Resin is good, but resin stiffened by CF or brass rod is better. Here's a case in point: this dolphin striker is made as two almost mirrored halves, glued together with a 0.5mm brass rod in the middle. The overall diameter is 1mm and less chunky than revell. I found it impossible to print a 'tube' of these dimensions, but two halves was okay - you just have to have the lightest imaginable touch when handling the prints, until everything is glued up. (I was very glad to have some acetone to hand when doing this - I needed to 'roll' the parts between my fingers to get a nice tight joint, using CA glue, and of course managed to well and truly glue my fingers together in the process). As ever, 3D is great for adding micro-detail. While I haven't yet started to count them, I do like to add rivets every now and then 🤪 So, that more or less brings me up to date. There's not much 'making' left to do now, it's mostly small fiddly bits and blocks, but there is still a lot of finalising / finishing off and then phase 2, the rigging. I found it very necessary to make more or less everything before I could confidently screw or glue things in place. Re' rigging, I suspect that will be a long job so I might pace myself and start another model to avoid boredom.

I’d endorse the Kevin Kennedy videos. He gets to the point and explains/demonstrates things very well. I also use the F360 community forum from time to time, most people are helpful. The downside of vids is that it’s harder to skim through - I sometimes play them at x2 speed, which helps - and there’s a fair bit of poor quality rubbish out there.

Hi Allan (and anyone else looking to dip in a toe), this is what worked for me: https://diyodemag.com/education/exploring_3d_part_1_beginners_guide_to_fusion_360. If you work through the set of 6 tutorials you will learn all the essentials.

Pricey stuff, here in the uk. I guess I’m also missing the obvious - it’s probably flaking because the Vallejo primer is water-based, whereas, since these are metal parts, if I just used normal car body primer it should stick just fine. Or the little humbrol spray cans, which I sometimes use anyway for convenience.

Very tidy paintwork, you’re making me itchy to get back to the Victory. Yours is the first time I’ve really noticed the front two gunports left closed, I like that. I don’t think I’ve yet opened them on my second hull, might keep it that way. And those chains do look good, don’t they.

Interesting discussion. A few months ago I made railings for a model out of 0.5mm steel wire. I can't remember if I primed before painting white but in time the paint flaked off. What products or methods work best here?

So... I've run a test print, and indulged in a bit of colouring. These are 32lb-ers at 1:48 and 1:96. Druxey is right, the cypher stands too proud. It's lovely, but not right. At 1:48 you can clearly make out that it's George II, but if you didn't know the letters are interwoven I doubt you'd spot it. At 1:96, you can just see that it has a cypher but it could be for Genghis Khan as much as King George. Consequently I'm reducing the height by 50% and embossing as per PietFriet. That should make it a little quicker to get through a set.