Kevin-the-lubber
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Everything posted by Kevin-the-lubber
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Italy - me too, twice this year, though not as far south as you went. Turin first, in the spring to visit a friend, then an interrail redux from Milan to Rome over a two week period, via Cinque Terre, Lucca, Florence, Perugia and Spoleto. I don't think I'll ever tire of Italy, though I'd take Turin or Perugia over Rome every time. I'll also do the train thing again, found it much less stressy than driving and ridiculously cheap. Nice work on this old boat. It looks like you did a pretty decent job first time round, and I love the note. It's a bit like finding old newspapers when you lift floorboards, or messages on walls when you strip very old wallpaper. I'm back to finishing off the stern on the Victory that I parked 3 years ago. As I'm sure you're finding with this project, everything's a little easier with a bit of added experience and I think I might make headway now. Happy Christmas to you too, I hope 2025 turns out well. -
You may be on to something there, see below. There are also numerous plugged circular holes at each end of the counter as well as a few below it. Though none, including the one in this photo, that look big enough for the purpose. Mark, I accidentally deleted the important bit in my earlier post: what you're doing in wood and by hand is extraordinary and extraordinarily beautiful. While it's erroneous to think that CAD makes everything simple (I have spent many hundreds of hours on the Vic stern), it does reduce the task to solving a set of geometrical problems and then making the software do one's bidding; but while we converge in the design phase, when you have to turn the designs into shapes by hand, I do more or less get a free pass and only need to hit 'print'. Even though I can see the shapes in my mind and even on the screen, I'm not at all sure I could make these by hand. And also, it's really encouraging to see that you've been working on this for years and years! I mean that in a nice way of course, that it gives me a bit of belief that I will get there eventually.
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There is a lovely bit of scrollwork at the base of the Victory's quarter galleries, as per the photos below, terminating in an inverted, 3-leaf, semi-circular 'thing' which doesn't seem to have any particular emblematic significance. I'm wondering now whether the 'thing' is actually an ornate pipe cover. Though the photos don't show this, I'm 80% sure it's hollowed, as this is how I subsequently replicated it, based on my first photo-visit, and I must have had a reason for that. I'm also fairly sure it's big enough to conceal a large diameter waste pipe (maybe 3" - 4") and is placed at the lowest point of the QG, so well situated to get a natural rinse from the sea from time to time 🙂. I'd have thought chamber pots would have been a risky business as the steward would have had to traipse through the day cabin (mind the rug please) within one of the 'rockiest' parts of the ship, all the way up to the heads, another bouncy bit of maritime real estate. Fine on a nice calm, sunny day off Malta but I wouldn't fancy my chances in the Bay of Biscay with a lively swell. By coincidence I'm (re)working my HMS Victory QG's, picking up where I left off two or three years back. Briefly, I'm using 3D modelling to make a better stern for the Heller 1:100 kit and the development process is very similar to yours, Mark, minus your meticulous research and model-making skills.
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Beautifully done, John, and I hope you'll keep notifications switched on for when some of us want to ask questions.
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Sorry but I have no idea how you’d do that.* If I wasn’t told otherwise, I’d assume the draughtsman for that picture had both the photo and a lines plan or similar, worked up the latter in CAD and married the two together for the picture. * long shot: if the Penguin was 3D scanned, the scan may have included skin photos and it is relatively straightforward to slice the scan output to get those station lines. But that doesn’t help you with your problem.
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You might be thinking of lithophanes, where light and shade is sometimes used to confer depth to a photo. Have a look here https://lithophanemaker.com/. Otherwise, I think you could probably get a reasonably true side projection via trigonometry, although I’m struggling to remember how to do that!
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Pretty amazing, well done.
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I’m afraid I can’t offer much advice on this Bill. Funnily enough, the sequencing was giving me quite a headache on the Cutty Sark, and I still have to resolve this and finish her off. My gut feeling, applicable to both of us, is that you should go with a plan where breakages are least likely and/or least heart-sinking. I parked the CS partly because my heart did indeed sink when I broke a part for the second time which meant I would have to make a whole new set of that mast and yards. I think breakages when rigging are almost inevitable, when you consider there are so many small parts and lines all over the place. Especially when most of us probably now wear specs so don’t necessarily have everything in the field in focus. In answer to your comment about my SR, don’t hold your breath! Since ‘retiring’ in August my life has exploded into a festival of arty things I’ve always wanted to do, so my ‘making’ time is increasingly taken up with experimenting and learning different media - e.g. I spent much of yesterday learning how to soften and flatten wood veneers, as I want to have a go at basic marquetry, and next week I’ll be trying to apply and resin coat dried, beautiful autumnal-red and gold leaves onto a 3D printed vase. I’m also polishing up previously made objects to go on eBay as it’s nice to have a little trickle of beer money (or cider money in my case). And then I’m making a concentrated effort to progress on the Victory. I’ve almost completed a lovely set of deadeyes and blocks, even if I do say so myself, as per McKay but will be moving back to the hull shortly. But the SR is always on my mind and I’d like to start on this next year.
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That’s quite an achievement Kurtis, it looks highly detailed and convincing. Is there a way to let people see it in 3D? You know, rotate, zoom, all that kind of thing.
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That’s a clever way of dealing with the cap squares. It must have taken huge patience to get them all so regular and the results look very convincing. I also prefer it to the ‘all red’ effect. When I come to do my SR cannons, even though it is probably not historically correct I will most likely leave the trucks with a weathered wood colour. The rims at least must surely have become a dirty grey in no time, just through use.
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Ahhh, you take me back a few years, to the utter frustration phase of printing 😄. Before you know it, it’ll all be second nature.
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Thank you! I continue to work on the Victory when I get time but, alas, I always seem to have many more immediate priorities.
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Yes, all iron as far as I know. I meant when I get to the SR!
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Looks about right to me too. When I was working up the resin printed Victory cannons a while back, I did a weathering trial on a few, using Vallejo Model Air cockpit green (71.331) diluted even further with a bit of water. It came out okay, but no better than that. With the paint being so watery, it was very difficult to get it 'just so'; it would run and sit in the corners but run off the surfaces, and when I look at those test pieces now, I can see that the results varied from cannon to cannon. Yours looks much better and, when I come to it, I'll try that citadel paint.
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Just to add to Ian’s wise words, I would fill and sand the gaps where the flats meet and also blend in the hex at the ends, so that it all looks like one piece of timber. If you look back at your Victory you’ll see that hex centre on the lower yards, and I think the distance across the hexagon is only very slightly larger than the diameter of the yard where it meets the hex.
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When you get your machine feel free to message for tips etc. I'm no expert but I have learned a few things through trial and error! ps. Just remembered an important thing worth mentioning before you buy. These budget printers are great for printing common materials like PLA and PETG. You will struggle to print ABS and exotic materials which require higher hot end or bed temps, or high ambient temps and so on. So while you’ll see lots of advertorial around different filaments, it’s as well to be aware that most of these will be outside the scope of your machine, regardless what the blurb implies.
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I hadn't heard of Mingda before, but when I googled earlier, their background seemed to be high end industrial printers. I can't find that page now, but no matter, for the price, the X2 seems to be a great buy. Self-levelling, quiet steppers, direct extrusion, these are great features. The max temp for the hot end and build plate are a little higher than my creality ender 3, this is good. I have no experience of a steel build plate, I only use glass, so it may or may not be good and, even if it isn't, a glass plate + 3DLac is cheap. A quick read of reviews suggests the main complaint is that printing is slow. I can't see from the spec what this translates as, nor for that matter have I seen or used any of the supposedly fast printers on the market, but would add this: print speed is largely determined by the print medium. There is an ideal print temperature range and the right speed is whatever allows fusion within that temp' range. In other words, I'm ever so slightly sceptical about 'fast' printers, but I could be wrong to be so. For what it's worth, if I decide to buy a bigger FDM next year, I'll be taking a close look at Mingda. Bambu labs are well known here, posh printers. If the Creality (and Mingda) are the Toyota family saloon of FDM printers, the Bambu's are the Mercedes. I don't know if the extra cost is worth it but I'm sure owners would say it is. My tip is to get a filament dryer box from the outset. They cost about £40 but will save you hours of frustration. I reckon 90% of FDM print issues and failures are down to moisture in the filament and there is no substitute for temperature controlled drying. When I started, I tried everything under the sun to cure all my printing ills, largely to no effect, but they went away overnight once I started using a dryer. In my case it's the original Sunlu, but they are all much of a muchness.
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If you mean those ubiquitous dark grey ‘wet & dry’ sanding sheets, which I believe are coated with silicone carbide, you can still get these just about everywhere relevant in the uk. But as we’re on the subject, can I make an additional recommendation, that being sanding mesh. If you are familiar with it, it’s really good on wood as it doesn’t clog and stays ‘sharp’ for much longer than normal sanding paper.
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Method 2 is much better, isn't it. One of the many reasons I parked the CS was that my knots were plain ugly and you've saved me some hours of research for when I try rigging again.
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David, I think you’re on to something here. I had fleetingly wondered about using the plastic sails as formers but parked my build, largely because I still don’t have a sails solution, before trying it. Anyway, I agree with Keith, they look very promising in the raw but need a bit of paint and weathering.
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Sorry about the lack of response Bill, a young chap just sent his little motorbike into a hedge in our road when I was about to look at your photo, and once it was clear he was okay I had the pleasure (really, I loved it!) of straightening out all the bent and broken bits on the bike. Took me back 40 years, to what back then seemed to be a weekly occurence. 🙂 Anyway, I was going to say tapered to go through the deck, but as Ian shows, that would have been wrong. I can't see how it's held in place on the real thing but imagine there must be a hefty lump of something pinning it down. That is one bluff prow, isn't it. That also takes me back but nearer 50 years, I remember that shape on the airfix kit now.
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In what sense, Bill? Taper-wise?
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But it’s not, really, is it Marc. I think all of us are as one in recognising you have a talent that many of us don’t, and while we may attempt the same, there’s no guarantee that spending more time will yield the same result. You are an artist, it’s as simple as that, and it is always - absolutely always - a pleasure to watch an artist at work. As mentioned elsewhere, watching yours and John Ott’s work on this model is like doing the very best arts degree going. People pay to learn this stuff! Anyway, enough of the praise 😀, down to business. That is such a well observed change, the remodelled figure now flows with the rest of the decor in that area and just looks right. I’d love to see a side-on view as well, when you have time and inclination.
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