Kevin-the-lubber

It'll be a little, I think, while until I'm ready to 'show & tell'. The masts and yards are the final bit of 'making', other than blocks etc, and are a kind of gateway to finishing off quite a few other things. I've been looking at your sails - they are simply fabulous. I've only had one brief play around with the modelling tissue and didn't really get anywhere useful, so that's something where I'm still very undecided.

Bill, if you don't mind me saying so, one of the nice things about dropping in on this log from time to time is seeing how self-assured you've become - you seem to have a clear plan for this ship, know where you're going and are just getting on with it. That's an enviable trait, I always struggle with completing/finishing. Hope the COVID remains not so bad. I got it last year and the worst of it was that everything tasted of salt for a couple of weeks.

Vitus, there’s a lot to be said for 3D as part of the toolkit. Feel free to ask for tips, I’m no expert but I think I’ve probably travelled the main learning curve now.

Not quite, but he did give me some very expensive hardware that should make it fun going through airport security 😁

You're welcome Leo. In other news, I've had my ankle fused this week, ever worsening arthritis from a climbing accident in my youth which was taking all the pleasure out of physical activity, so I'm hoping the 2 or 3 month lay-off will see me finish modelling and making the masts. They've required a mixed media approach - some resin printing, carbon fibre stiffeners, wire eyebolts etc - and the cold winter has made this heavy going. Resin doesn't like being printed cold, paints don't like it either, and the failures/poor results get a bit exasperating after a while. So, I'll spend a few weeks doing all the remaining 3D work and resume the 'making' in the spring, when I'm weight bearing again.

Allan, I might have time as well. The barrels are quick and easy in Fusion 360, the fiddly bit is the decor on top. This is where it would be good to have a repository somewhere, for the drawings and .stl's.

Fourth & final set uploaded. https://www.dropbox.com/s/hqbl3se9q96kwjl/set4.zip?dl=0

Bill, interesting stuff - how brittle or tough is the epoxy casting? Sometimes you can get fantastically detailed resin prints but they won't bear being used, and I sometimes think I should try making molds for casting instead.

I haven't had much time for modelling stuff for the last two or three weeks. Set 3 of 4 is now posted. https://www.dropbox.com/s/pvovnu96bffc66k/set3.zip?dl=0. I may only leave this up there for a week as I'd like to be done with this now! I'll re-post set1 at the end, probably in two halves as it was so problematic last time.

Liquid bitumen of Judea… another art products lesson! Apparently used to caulk Noah’s ark. It seems to be readily available here in the uk (googling) so if you get stuck, shout out.

Have you looked at regular CAD type software e.g Fusion 360, Rhino, FreeCad etc? I may be totally wrong but when I started out myself a couple of years ago I got the impression that Blender wasn’t ideal for precision engineering, which is where you’re headed. What you described in post #1 is straightforward and quick in F360 or Rhino once you know how.

I don't want to muddy your water but can I ask what your end objective is? Is it to create purely virtual models or are you using Blender as a means to create components for 3D printing?

While waiting for the resin printing equivalent of paint to dry - a 10 hour print of the revised version of the lower topsail yard and topmast - I've been playing around with my recently purchased, second-hand Olympus OM-DE-M5ii. Trips off the tongue nicely, doesn't it, Olympus marketing staff definitely missed the memo about catchy names. Anyway, I thought I'd share these two pics to illustrate something which might be of interest to others. This camera has built-in focus stacking. That's a large part of the reason I bought it, as I also like taking macro shots of flowers, insects and whatnot, and it's always a little disappointing to have parts of the subject just out of focus, or a grainy (noisy in digital speak) result through stopping down too much. On the left is what stacking delivers - see how the yard is in focus for the entire length, without compromising the quality. On the right is the same shot without stacking. (The design of this yard has been re-done already, this one, with lots of errors, is just for illustration)

Thank you, I really appreciate the encouragement and interest.

I hadn’t heard of that before your mention, above. Also downloaded it and had a quick look. It seem intuitive but possibly a bit simple compared to F360, maybe one step on from TinkerCad. Anyone used it in earnest that could tell us more? I’m always on the lookout for a good alternative to F360, in anticipation of the day when it stops being free.

I found I was doing the same Ian, I was spending too much time reading and responding to build logs, which was often much more entertaining than the task at hand, until I switched to a weekly summary instead. That did the trick though it does mean I often miss stuff. The galley is coming on nicely, looking forward to seeing it evolve.

Photo set 2 is on dropbox, this is the link https://www.dropbox.com/s/qzgifbreac8850s/Set2.zip?dl=0 If you can't access/download I'm afraid there's nothing I can do about it, you just have to try again on another day. Dropbox temporarily stops allowing downloads after X many, then allows them again after a day or two. They would like me to buy lots of storage space to avoid this, but that's not happening!

Photo set 2 is on dropbox, this is the link https://www.dropbox.com/s/qzgifbreac8850s/Set2.zip?dl=0 If you can't access/download I'm afraid there's nothing I can do about it, you just have to try again on another day. Dropbox temporarily stops allowing downloads after X many, then allows them again after a day or two. They would like me to buy lots of storage space to avoid this, but that's not happening!

That's very kind of you Bill. The world cup has been fun to watch, disappointing for England but, as I tell my colleagues, it's only a game 😁. One thing I never understand is this - when teams get knocked out, they pack up and go home. If it was me I think I'd quite want to stay and watch the rest of the competition!

Hi Bill, thanks for looking in. I see you're still racing ahead on the SR, at this rate (and I'm serious when I say this) you'll complete the two most difficult ships in the heller series while I'm still plodding away on the relatively simple CS! Having both the CS and Victory so close is a huge luxury and I ought to make more of it. I've just bought a new camera this weekend (well, second hand actually, but very good) and may do another visit to the CS very early in the new year. Now that I've worked on the foremast and yards in detail I have a much better idea of shots or areas that I missed. I don't think I'd visit Victory again now unless I really needed sight of some particular details. Without masts and rigging she's a sorry sight at present, but I guess it has to be done. I saw the most beautiful model of the 1765 (I think) Victory in the maritime museum while visiting the CS, but the area with the clipper models was shut that day. I'm not so sure the average person would even notice the difference between OOB and kit bashed, apart from the rigging, but in any case, from the photos way back, you did a pretty good job on it. And remember a lot of the time this is the 4th or 5th time I've built this kit as that's how many goes it often takes to get to the 'final' parts. I'm able to learn from my mistakes on the fly and make improvements as I go. You don't get that luxury if you only have the one kit part! Honestly, you guys would be horrified if you saw my scrap bin, in fact here's just some of the CS tests. The wastage does get less and less as I progress, I hasten to add. I've almost finished designing the foremast assembly now, it's taken a long time but the rest should be quicker as there's a lot of shared principles. I may take a little break or at least slow down even more after Christmas, as I may be getting a couple of 1;24 vintage car kits in my stocking and if one of them is a Tamiya I'll want to start on that straight away. I've wanted to try one of their kits for a while as I understand they are fantastic, and it looks like cars are much more 'paint and stick' than ships!

Like this https://youtu.be/ipibBzaByIU

Allanyed, as I understand it, it's like this: there is a bandwidth allowance which gets eaten into by each download. For my free account I have 2Gb of storage and an allowance of 20Gb of bandwidth, meaning the upload probably consumed 2Gb and downloads a further 2Gb each time. The inference is that the files have been downloaded 12 or 13 times since dropbox tells me I've consumed 26Gb of bandwidth. (Bored already by the tech stuff? Me too!). But it seems I can workaround this by renaming the folder and creating a new sharing link. This is fine if one really wants or needs to share with specific people but is probably a bit too much hassle for what you & I want to do, which is simply make freely available a load of reference material. And to be honest I don't understand or even care how dropbox monitor or apply the constraint - is it daily, weekly, forever? There is obviously some demand for a 'central library' for donations such as yours and mine but, setting aside all the copyright-type issues that would need managing, I expect this would need enormous amounts of server storage. Shipman, I think many would echo your sentiments about having to jump through hoops. To some extent I'm the same, but just accept that I have to do some jumping or forego freebies. I briefly considered asking if the rigging climb was open as there didn't seem to be anything happening in that respect, but given my level of decrepitude I went and had a cream tea instead. Really, it needs someone to go round and round with a drone camera at stepped heights but drones are forbidden. Though I wonder to what extent i.e. is that within a mile or just 50 feet.

Sadly Dropbox has suspended sharing of my account due to too much traffic. The suspension apparently lasts for 24 hrs, so anyone who didn’t manage to get the files may have more success later. If not, send me a pm and I’ll do workaround. I may need to handle the remaining photo batches a little differently, I.e. smaller sets. I suppose we can’t complain, it’s free!

Hi Shipman. These are all full fat photos, typical file size = 4Mbs, plus a few videos. When I follow the link myself it all seems to work as expected, I can download a copy of the original. There's no zipping at this end. maybe you have to submit to having a dropbox account in order to access them properly. I'm quite happy to upload to a different free portal if someone has a suggestion, it just has to be quick and easy. The folder is about 7Gb in total.

I made another visit to the Cutty Sark last week and took around 1000 photos. For obvious reasons these are all detail photos aimed at helping me with aspects of the model. They are largely focussed on the masts, spars & rigging. I'm uploading these to dropbox for anyone to download and do with as you will. Due to free storage limitations I'll need to do this in three or four. The first tranche is accessible via this link https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5xnj0nrvpfztcnj/AAAAgu-W1ZY5fpTL8c3hYcKHa?dl=0. I'm not at all au fait with dropbox so if that doesn't work I won't know how to fix it! I'll delete these and upload the next load in about 2 weeks time, and so on. If anyone reads this, say next year, drop me a pm if you want them.