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Kevin-the-lubber

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Everything posted by Kevin-the-lubber

  1. Kevin-the-lubber
    You've probably started a stampede for that chain 🙂. Periodically I go to the one remaining model shop in this neck of the woods, which fortunately is very good and covers everything imaginable. You could spend hours in there. Whatever I've gone for I graze as well, just to see what might come in handy, and you're right that there's a wealth of stuff for the model train community. Also RC planes and boats, some of which readily crosses over and is already well known to ship modellers i.e. silkspan, carbon fibre etc etc. It seems like mine is going to be a wool clipper - but only because I've stuck a load of wool bales in the main hold as cargo. I was going to put tea in there but tea chests at 1/96 just look like a miniature rubics cube.
  2. Kevin-the-lubber
    Shipman, you’re a goldmine of CS knowledge! Hemp-wrapped explains it. Even though the eyesight is not quite what it once was I’d expect to still be able to spot a hawser from a mile away. I can confidently say I’ll never take on any model less than 1:100. Even at this scale I’m challenged to make and use some parts, and grab every extra 0.1mm of size that I can justify. 1:168 would be a step too far. But I will see if I can get a copy of Hackney, I could do with something that explains things more succinctly and simply. KimW, you’re dead right that this kit lends itself to extra detailing, in part because there isn’t a heck of a lot to it so there aren’t too many critical dependencies I.e. you could easily lower the main deck without this throwing everything else out of kilter. I also have a second kit and, if I ever decide to use it, that’s where I’ll start. I don’t know how I’d make things like the cat heads and cat’s head without a resin printer though looking at the level of detail on Marc’s Soliel Royale (Hubacs historian), you could try carving them from styrene. I reprinted the cat heads assembly using a better type of resin this week and the whiskers are now much stronger. This was going to be the subject of my first foray into photo-stacking but I have a bit of learning to do there, it’s not as straightforward as I hoped. Now, I suspect I’m about to open a whole can of worms, but I’m still thinking of having furled sails hanging from the yards. I know furled on top is correct, Rob’s Glory had me noticing this more on historical photos, but models always used to have them underneath (didn’t they?) and, probably because that’s what my minds eye expects, I like that look. Is it simply incorrect, a fiction?
  3. Kevin-the-lubber
    There could be two things that I did wrong when I tried to clean the IPA. First, I used clear plastic bottles, second maybe I left it too late. One 2l bottle turned into an almost solid object. The others just didn’t work, I still had very cloudy IPA even after several weeks, with a lot of sludge in the bottom. I also tried filtering it through a double layer of coffee filter papers. Took ages. I’ll have to try again with glass, and also try using the wash and cure as described. I’d like to do it as much as anything because it feels bad to be putting this in the trash in a liquid state.
  4. Kevin-the-lubber
    That's more or less my plan. After testing the wire in the hole bit already and seeing how strong this is, I don't think it'll need glueing at the pin rail, just down at the bottom, which should mean the wire itself can flex at the pinrail and find the natural angle. Less risk then of the deadeye itself breaking, which is a real risk with very thing resin parts. That's the theory anyway, and I'll test this out over the weekend on a mock up.
  5. Kevin-the-lubber
    I've noticed that in the plans, but think I'll try rope. Not least because until I read that they were steel, after visiting the ship, it never occurred to me that they were anything but rope.
  6. Kevin-the-lubber
    Thanks again, and now I also understand the tpi. Gosh, I don’t think I’m going to bother getting that technical (the tpi), an ‘artists impression’ will do for me at this scale. Painting the strops is going to be hard enough.
  7. Kevin-the-lubber
    Thanks everyone, much appreciated. So for the lower gangs, roughly 0.5mm +/- 0.1 should be fine. I bet I find it printed loud and clear the next time I look at a plan or reference.
  8. Kevin-the-lubber
    That looks good. The white panelling gives it a bit more shape than the all teak scheme. I've asked over on my log but hope you dont mind me asking here too - what size rope should be used for threading the lower deadeyes?
  9. Kevin-the-lubber
    I'm falling at the first hurdle today: I need to do a test piece of setting up the deadeyes for the lower shrouds. Can anyone tell me what size rope should be used for the deadeyes, and how I could have readily figured that out for myself? I have plans and reference material galore, so must be missing something. I know the sizes for the shrouds, just not the rope that connects the deadeyes to each other.
  10. Kevin-the-lubber
    I suspect most of us make almost all of these mistakes early on, I certainly did! I hadn’t thought of adding a scrap print when cleaning the FEP, that’s a good idea. Elegoo’s have a ‘tank clean’ function that prints a thin raft across the whole FEP for removing failed prints and I now always use this rather than trying to pop them off by hand. It also saves having to drain and clean the tank. I don’t change the IPA after each print session, that would become way too expensive but also way too annoying. I keep using it until the prints are starting to have a residue on their surface, then for a while I rinse them in a smaller tub of clean IPA, and then eventually I replace the dirty IPA. I tried both filtering and sunlight cleaning, neither were very successful. At some point I’ll probably buy another washing tank and do a two stage clean, first wash while dirty, second to remove any fine residue.
  11. Kevin-the-lubber
    Bill, I think modelling is just like the trades; when you know exactly what you’re doing from the outset, you do it all way quicker and better, and it wouldn’t surprise me if you got to rigging stage on another Cutty in a week or so, given the speed you work at. But everyone, no matter how good, seems to spend ages on the rigging. If I was to start over, one thing I would do is lower the main deck.
  12. Kevin-the-lubber
    Much the same here - although I’m trying to do the best CS that I can, as a build in it’s own right, it’s still all aimed at gaining enough proficiency through these less complicated kits to build the Victory that’s in my minds eye, and being a detail person, it would niggle if I thought I could have done better by buying or making really convincing rope. And part of it, I’m sure, is what the rope is like to work with. Fortunately the Heller rope (I think) appears to be cotton whereas the Amati is polyester, so that’s one comparison I can make early on.
  13. Kevin-the-lubber
    If my experience is anything to go by, listen to your gut feeling Richard. I've been the same with my tiny (by comparison) Cutty Sark until I got fed up with myself and got glue-ing, and of course almost immediately realised why I wasn't ready. On the brighter side, my heel dragging was all about the (pointless) quest for perfection, that I could have done X, Y or Z just that little bit better, but in the grand scheme of things the difference will be insignificant. Maybe also try heating the styrene and then rolling in the pattern? It might give more predictable behaviour. If that works you could stick a batch in the oven and pre-pattern it in one session, then use a smooth roller to press it into the grooves when cold and firm again. I don't even know if styrene glue will stick to wood but I'm sure slow setting, thick superglue would do the trick..
  14. Kevin-the-lubber
    I think I'd best get some from Chuck and compare. I'm quite hesitant about embarking on making my own, a little related to it being another rabbit hole, which as you know I'm very good at going down, but mostly because my forte is getting or making machines to do things for me. From what I've seen on line, short of making a motorised ropewalk, there's still a fair bit of manual skill required to get the consistency. I've seen a motorised design that wouldn't be very expensive to make, given I have all the kit to make my own gears etc, so I might explore this as and when I want a break.
  15. Kevin-the-lubber
    That's the one, I bought two at the same time as you but couldn't remember what lpi they are. Hopefully 4 lengths will be enough.
  16. Kevin-the-lubber
    I think the revell Beagle is a reworking of this, isn't it.
  17. Kevin-the-lubber
    Yes, I've spotted that. I'm not sure yet what I'll do in respect of the cables but provided I can source small enough chain I'll use that where indicated. I revisited the discussion, possibly on Bruma's build, last weekend, so know 40+ LPI is out there. I'm kind of planning on furled sails; not tight to, and on top of, the yards as per Rib's Glory but reefed (?) up loosely underneath (there's probably a term for this). But this is the loosest of plans, hinges on whether I'm able to make a fist of Maurice's (Blue Ensign) method of sail making.
  18. Kevin-the-lubber
    By the way, I did a little experiment; drilled a small hole in the bottom of a deadeye and superglued in a piece of thin brass rod. It's rock solid, so having the rod/wires glued into a similar hole in the waterways at the other end should mean there's no strain at all on the pinrails. I don't know how I keep missing things in the Campbell plans, the fourth boat (a little jolly boat) is upside down inbetween the two lifeboats. I may have a go at scratch building this presently.
  19. Kevin-the-lubber
    Received my Amati rope set from hismodel today. It all looks quite rope-like to me though at the smaller sizes you'd need the eyes of a hawk to spot this. It's all polyester as far as I can see, apart from the very, very thin one on the white reel which is nylon. It looks much the same as the smaller white rope that came with the Heller Victory (the larger one on that kit is more braided), and much the same as the two beige ropes that came with this CS kit. I wouldn't say I'm blown away but neither am I disappointed. I think Bill (Bill97) went for similar quality on his Victory and that looks great to me so I'm sure this will be the same. However, I think I will probably get one or two of the smaller sizes from Syren just to see if there is that much difference. In other news, I'm messing around with photo-stacking (not very successfully so far) and picking up on the pinrails again as I'm a bit bored fiddling around with the deck furniture, which I know is just a subconscious device to avoid the tricky pinrails. I'm glad I've delayed though, as all this procrastination has spawned a plan.
  20. Kevin-the-lubber
    Re' the deadeyes, I'm planning to reeve these off the ship, using some sort of jig, and then dropping the wires (that we've discussed previously) of the lower deadeyes into their respective holes in the pinrail. Is that not going to work?
  21. Kevin-the-lubber
    I’ll second that. It also had me looking again at the museum model you posted; I too want a fairly busy looking deck by the end of the process but haven’t yet given much thought to how I’ll achieve this. I’m not too keen on making loads of figurines but they do give the model some life. About as far as I’ve got is to have some random coils of rope and other ‘stuff’ dotted around. What are your own plans? In that vein, I’ve wondered and wondered where the fourth, missing from the kit, ships boat would have gone. On the quarterdeck cabin roof perhaps?
  22. Kevin-the-lubber
    I have more pairs of glasses than model kits and only this morning have been re-trying random pairs to see what works best this week. I’d almost give my right arm to not need glasses for close work, but as I actually need three arms, going down to just one would be a major setback. If Darwin was right, maybe we’ll eventually evolve a spare: one to hold the piece, one to hold the screw, one to take the drill from between the knees while not dropping the screw or piece. And if it could be an extra long size that’d be nice. Marc, I think where you are really making the difference is in your eye for the part, and then the finishing. Even I could probably rough out some of these parts in a 2D fashion, but seeing the compound angles and relationships is a special skill - I for one would probably have a workbench littered with discarded attempts, if I even had the patience. And then the finishing, because all of that careful smoothing is what brings it to life, makes it a miniature sculpture rather than a small block of hacked plastic, along with the paintwork. As I’ve said before, I could certainly make these parts using 3D modelling, but I’m not at all convinced I could give them any life with that as the process. It’s that engineering vs art conundrum and your work is very much in the latter camp.
  23. Kevin-the-lubber
    Leo, if there's one thing all of us modellers must have in common it's patience. We'd go mad otherwise 🙄. I'll feed back over on my log when it arrives. My own thinking was that until I've seen what's on the market I'd have nothing to compare with, but also, if good rope is not too expensive, I'd just be giving myself another distraction for no good reason.
  24. Kevin-the-lubber
    I very much doubt you'll be disappointed. While there, note how cheap the amati rope set is for the Cutty. I don't yet know if it's any good, until it arrives in another few days but it seemed like a very good deal to me.
  25. Kevin-the-lubber
    I thought he might but didn't like to presume. I like dealing with people like him, micro businesses, would much rather buy from these than keep lining Mr Bezos pockets. This is the transfer sheet. As you can see, the yellow backing peels off from the translucent film. This is tacky rather than sticky (as would be the case for scotch tape). I wouldn't mind betting that you can get a few placements done with it. I guess you could also use that tacky-but-not-sticky translucent tape you see in stationery stores but this looks better. It also appears easy to source more transfer tape or paper. I like the thinking behind this, I also have fat fingers and this process should make it a little easier to get the placing just right. But I'll practice on scrap stuff with CA gel first as I'm sure you need to get the smallest dots to avoid it squeezing out. I expect too that you can use this transfer sheet to hold the ornament in place while the glue sets i.e. the glue can have a longer setting time, which is good. I use medium setting as my default but still have to be quick about it.

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