Papa

They say necessity is the mother of invention.  I realized the other day that the drawers in my work bench make shelves of different heights just right for rigging the ratlines on my Granado.

They say necessity is the mother of invention.  I realized the other day that the drawers in my work bench make shelves of different heights just right for rigging the ratlines on my Granado.

They say necessity is the mother of invention.  I realized the other day that the drawers in my work bench make shelves of different heights just right for rigging the ratlines on my Granado.

They say necessity is the mother of invention.  I realized the other day that the drawers in my work bench make shelves of different heights just right for rigging the ratlines on my Granado.

They say necessity is the mother of invention.  I realized the other day that the drawers in my work bench make shelves of different heights just right for rigging the ratlines on my Granado.

They say necessity is the mother of invention.  I realized the other day that the drawers in my work bench make shelves of different heights just right for rigging the ratlines on my Granado.

I think I am finally understanding how the hull is supposed to go together.

I think I am finally understanding how the hull is supposed to go together.

I think I am finally understanding how the hull is supposed to go together.

They say necessity is the mother of invention.  I realized the other day that the drawers in my work bench make shelves of different heights just right for rigging the ratlines on my Granado.

They say necessity is the mother of invention.  I realized the other day that the drawers in my work bench make shelves of different heights just right for rigging the ratlines on my Granado.

They say necessity is the mother of invention.  I realized the other day that the drawers in my work bench make shelves of different heights just right for rigging the ratlines on my Granado.

Amazing detail.

Amazing detail.

Amazing detail.

Because the edges of the deck are so narrow, kit and aftermarket expects you to drop in PE railings. 
 
With the wooden stick on deck, there is even less room. You has see from these colourised postacards of a Fuso class, the edge is quite substantial and have individual stanchions. 
 
As such I've placed some plastic strip around the edges where the wooden deck will drop in. The idea is to fill the gaps with putty, then pre drill all the stanchion holes. Well, that's the idea. 
 
You can see there is also two brass strips amidships which may or may not drill requiring a PE railing. 

Thanks John. Just to blow your mind a bit more :
 

 
I had to cut the aft funnel back off the superstructure. When I went to fit the AA gun platform to it I realized I'd made an error in the construction of the funnel base - it was the thickness of the base too high . No harm done, just a waste of an hour .
 
A few posts ago I mentioned that the large pipe on the forward end of the aft funnel shouldn't have been fitted until this stage. You can see why below.
 
I've fitted the PE railing around the AA gun platform. It was a little tricky to get all the bends right, and as with the railing I'd fitted previously to the Bridge the stanchions are too widely spaced and don't line up with the marked positions. This makes it look a little odd, as the stanchions are in different positions around the bends. I can live with it though :
 



 
The railings after straightening and painting :
 

 
After fitting and painting I noticed that there are two rigging wires that terminate in eyebolts on either side of the platform . I was wondering about the two extra marked holes earlier. I should have checked the rigging plans before fitting the platform to the funnel base, as it made drilling the holes a bit harder. I made the eyebolts from 0.2mm wire in the shape of split pins, drilled 0.45mm holes for them, and CA glued them in :
 

 
  Danny

Your detailed pictures will help me a lot in building the SMS Helgoland.  The instructions are rather terse and I have been wondering about exactly how things are supposed to go together and if I should add some wooden reinforcements. I see that you have done so.  Thanks for taking so many great pictures.

Your detailed pictures will help me a lot in building the SMS Helgoland.  The instructions are rather terse and I have been wondering about exactly how things are supposed to go together and if I should add some wooden reinforcements. I see that you have done so.  Thanks for taking so many great pictures.

Full hull model.
haven't made much progress--spending time with the Admiral at Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia.
I have the keel pieces cut out and am cutting out and dry fitting the bulkhead pieces.

incredibly neat work.  This is a beautiful model.

Thanks for all the kind words and the "likes" folks.
 
Now that we’ve proved that she floats, it was time to (semi) permanently install the electrics and test functionality. I had previously built some racks to hold some of the gear, but it is still a very tight fit in that engine bay! Anyway, first up – testing the lights. I temporarily attached the bow and stern lights and gave all controls a test – all good!
 

 
Here’s a couple of close-up shots inside the engine bay. First the port side:
 

 
 
 
 
And the starboard side:
 

 
Although the motor/drive shaft and steering all worked, there was a considerable amount of radio interference from the motor, so I soldered in the three “optional” capacitors. That made a big difference. Here you can see them wired across the engine terminals:
 

 
 
 
The next job was to make the frames for the foot step-pads. Way back at the beginning of the build, I had some rubber stamps made up to use as inserts for a metal frame, rather than using the kit-provided cast parts. I made these by milling out the centre of some 2mm thick brass strip and then polishing and chrome plating it. It might be only a small job, but it took me most of the weekend to do this. Here is an overview of the step plates with the kit part provided for reference. In my custom built ones you can see the Chris Craft logo in the rubber.
 

 
And here is a shot with one temporarily placed on the boat:
 

 
As you can see, I’ve also drilled these to take 000-120 mounting screws. Some time ago, I orderd a gross (144) of these, along with the the 00-90 screws used on the cutwater and stern fenders. I will use the 000-120 on both the step plates and the engine hatch trim, so I spent quite some time individually plating 144 very small brass screws. Then I had another look at the number of screws on my engine hatch trim pieces….. it seems that my design calls for a total of 130 screws around the hatch trim, and I need a further 16 for the four step plates……total 146…..leaving me two screws short, even assuming the carpet monster doesn’t steal it’s fair share of them. The worst part is, that the postage for these cost more than the screws did and I didn’t fancy paying the better part of AUD $100 for a few extra screws. A little digging on the internet turned up some stainless steel screws of the same size. Although the individual cost was higher, the package size offered was smaller,  and the postage was only US $8.00 instead of US $40.00. I will hold off installing the step pads until the new screws arrive, just in case they look slightly different. I’ll use the existing bundle to install the hatch trims – coming up next.

Well I've been working on the Cruizer from Caldercraft for a while now as you can see from the photos attached. I've had some personal computer issues that have prevented me from starting the log until now. 
 
I plan to make some modifications and changes to the kit to try to make it more accurate. Some of the planned changes:
 
Copper plate bottom Replace supplied long guns with carronades Change some wood including maple for deck, and various other boxwood pieces, more for work-ability than show as most things will be painted. Revise deck fitting/structure plan and head structure Come to some type of conclusion on raised fore and aft platforms as were seen on many of the class Change the name-there are lots to choose from in this class! Replace line and blocks with Syren products There is a fair amount of information, and a great thread here on MSW about the class:
 
http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/1036-cruizer-class-brig-sloops-of-the-royal-navy/
 
It has been a bit of a challenge determining some of the things I want to do with regard to the above changes, mostly due to lack of documentation, so that will make the journey interesting. I'll have to make a name decision shortly, as it may have bearing on some of the modifications I wish to make. 
 
So...without further ado this is where things stand currently. She is planked all around and bulwarks have been primed. You may be able to notice that there is a wide variety of wood on the hull. As usual, the Caldercarft walnut outer planking was very splintery. I thought it would be fine, as it would all be painted, but that was not the case. I actually used the kit Tanganyika deck planks below the wale, which worked quite well surprisingly. Way down towards the keel I had to use some 3mm wide walnut as i didn't have enough of the Tanganyika. Again no biggie, it will all be under paint and copper. I used the same 3mm wide walnut above the wales. I can't remember where it came from, but it's actually good quality. The transom and wales were done in boxwood, as was the stern trim. 

Well, we officially have a planked hull. In the end I just held the shutter with my hands for 25 minutes each.
 

 

 

 
I edge glued every one so after the first sanding there isn't actually a ton of filling to do. It's remarkable how solid it feels at this point.
 
I will do a bit of crack filling, another cursory sand, and then comes the moment of truth: popping it off the building frame...

Full hull model.
haven't made much progress--spending time with the Admiral at Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia.
I have the keel pieces cut out and am cutting out and dry fitting the bulkhead pieces.