Bill97

Continuing the deck lighting with the LED’s on the stern wall and the side rooms next to the fire control room.

Working on building and wiring the fire control room. Following a plan using Daniel’s build along with the OcCre instructions and the online video tour of the ship. As I mentioned before I am going to step outside the box with my build and add some personal artistic license over complete authenticity. Since I will be installing LED lights inside the room I used the OcCre supplied doors with the small holes and further drilled the holes into the walls of the room. This will allow lighting from the interior to shine through these small holes as well as the port holes. Following the OcCre instructions I painted the vents gold. However after further review of the online tour I may remove the gold and paint them white just as Daniel did. The circuit that powers these lights will also power all the other main deck lights. I intend to add other elements to the outside walls of the room like fire hoses, etc.

You’re the best helper Daniel. I so appreciate you.

Oh OK Daniel thanks. Part 1: Did you just run around the ship by way of the virtual tour to find all the brass pieces? Part 2: Now that I know those are just LED lights I assume you made the little boxes they fit in setting on the deck? Bill

Thanks Daniel. That is kind of what I expected. Do you have any idea what they are in real life? By the way Daniel I have been searching online for a LED spot light for the AV signature lights that shine up in the mast. Would you care to share what you used?

Daniel I see you have added the piece circled in blue to the corners of the fire control room. They match why is in the corner in the online ship tour. Your’s are perfect little hour glass shapes. Are they something you made? I don’t see them as an OcCre part, nor do I see them in the instructions.

Did some work designing and building my lighting board. The board will for now set to the side of the ship while the ship is under construction. The wiring will run from it to the ship. Some time next year, or who knows when, as I get close to the need to design the base I will incorporate it. My lighting board includes 4 circuits with each having an on/off switch and each having a voltage regulator so that I can adjust the voltage for the LED’s on that particular circuit. I will power the board with a 12v power brick that I can plug in. The four circuits I intend to run are: 1) Deck Lighting 2) One set of cabin lights 3) Second set of cabin lights (will be able to turn on one set of lights or the other, or both) 4) The famous AV night lighting and maybe the marker lights included on this circuit.

Just a little bit of an update. Continue the planking of the deck sections. Finished the main deck. Also assembled and put primer on the white structures that will later will be put in place on the main deck. The back panel wall I divided it to produce the inset where the doors will be installed as it is on the actual AV. Following Daniel’s lead and the online virtual tour I filed grooves on top of the structures where LED lights will hang from the top of the walls. Also started soldering resistors to some of the LED lights I will use in this build.

Gentlemen I enjoy so much setting here reading through your conversation as it happens. I think this is evidence of the detail accuracy we experienced builders try to replicate in our models. This much thought and discussion about the accurate way to display these tiny features is impressive. With each of my builds I hope to improve my skills and determination to this level.

So true Johnny. It has always been a practice of mine to anchor the fife rails and any other feature that will have pressure on it. The Amerigo Vespucci I am building, and asked about, is my second wood model. Before this one I built the OcCre Endeavour. So I am fine tuning my wood building techniques. Wefakck what you say is very true and something I had not thought of. That is how the instructions should have been. I suspect they did not think the average builder could nicely fit the planks around the structures. The three deck sections are to be planked, varnished, glued in place, and then start building and adding features. I may consider carefully removing the planking under the structures. Thanks guys for your excellent comments.

Thanks again Gregory. I have used pinning solutions for fife rails and similar things. Small diameter dowels is an excellent idea. Yes please provide other examples you use. Always interested in adding new ideas to my notebook.

Gregory in the case of the Amerigo Vespucci there are several “houses” that are to be built and glued in position on the deck. The photos are the type of items I will be gluing to the finished deck.

Thanks Baker. That seems to work OK for you. I guess if I was to scratch away to much varnish I can always touch up around the edge of whatever I glued in place. Looking at your Finished list I can see you have experience to know the answer. Very nice completion list!

I am curious what other builders of wooden model ships do. I am build a wooden model ship kit. The vast majority of precut pieces or pieces I will make myself from the ship supplies are wood. The instructions directly me to coat the deck pieces with varnish after I apply the planks. My years of experience doing wood work tells me that once the deck has varnish on it I will not get good glue adhesion to the deck for other wood pieces. Do I switch to a CA glue instead of wood glue?

Thank you Daniel for your advice and recommendations. Here are a few new requests for advice. This where I am. First photo shows the holes I drilled in the bulkheads before I assembled them to the false keel. I plan to light my portholes as you did. Two separate circuits. I ran two raceway set holes the length with the holes separated the height of the lower decks. I used a 3/16” bit. You suggested larger. I was concerned about light bleed through the larger hole. Did you patch around the hole after the wires were run through to prevent light bleed? Secondly you recommend making a list of what I want to light. I am curious in the second and third if the lights are on the same circuit or if the two lights you have in the floor are on the lower deck port hole circuit? Maybe all the deck lighting is on the same circuit? I will need to go back and read through your circuit inventory again. By the way did you find the LED spot lights that shine the colors up into the mast? I have searched for such things to no avail. Lastly based on your previous recommendation I also plan to power my lights with a power brick. I have my power brick, switches, voltage regulators, resistors, and LED lights(except for the mast spot lights). I am currently planning 4 or 5 circuits. Not exactly sure yet. I am not smart enough to try the USB-C so I plan to just run the four or five wires directly into the bottom of the hull and maybe incase them together in that heat shrink tubing.

Daniel I continue to read through your build log (several times in fact) to pick up tips and pointers from your experiences before I get to those points in my build. Correct me if I am wrong but it seems I definitely need to determine my wiring plan in advance of adding structural elements to the ship. I need to know where I want to add lights, inside and outside of structures, and which circuit I plan for those lights. It appears that it could be difficult to add a run of a circuit into an area that was not previously set up for a light(s). I notice in some of your photos you have a rolls of wire that will eventually run and connect to a circuit. I am thinking I should draw up my ship plan showing each circuit before I even begin running wires and LED’s instead of deciding I want to put an LED somewhere and try to find a connection point to a circuit already run. Your thoughts?

Daniel I continue to read through your build log (several times in fact) to pick up tips and pointers from your experiences before I get to those points in my build. Correct me if I am wrong but it seems I definitely need to determine my wiring plan in advance of adding structural elements to the ship. I need to know where I want to add lights, inside and outside of structures, and which circuit I plan for those lights. It appears that it could be difficult to add a run of a circuit into an area that was not previously set up for a light(s). I notice in some of your photos you have a rolls of wire that will eventually run and connect to a circuit. I am thinking I should draw up my ship plan showing each circuit before I even begin running wires and LED’s instead of deciding I want to put an LED somewhere and try to find a connection point to a circuit already run. Your thoughts? P.S. I am going to post this comment over on your build as well. I would not expect you would be looking here at mine that often.

Starboard side lower deck herringbone deck planking complete. 5m x 15m planks. Eyes crossing but very enjoyable.

Here in the very early stages of my AV build I want to take a brief pause here to give credit where credit is due. As I progress through my build and post my updates there are a number of bashes to the kit I have planned. The vast majority of these bashes are inspired by my following another AV build here on MSW. It is often said imitation is a great form of flattery. DanielD is building this same ship and has his log here on MSW. He is miles ahead of me on his build. He is doing an amazing job of lighting his AV and an incredible source of information and advice on my future attempt to do the same. So as I move along if I copy something DanielD did I intend to say I got the idea from him. No plagiarism of his work. Thanks so much Daniel.

Call me crazy but I think this is going to look pretty cool. I have started planking the main deck. I used walnut strips to border the sides and structures and run a band down the center of the deck which will be furthered copied on the fore and aft decks. The area inside the borders is being filled with the lighter planking supplied with the kit. I am laying this planking in a herringbone pattern. Nothing at all authentic about this. Just something I want to do to add additional visual interest.

Daniel I know it is still a while before you will get into rigging and very long time until I do. Most likely sometime mid to end of next year for me. In preparation for that have you given any thought or research to the size of blocks and thread you will use? OcCre provides two block sizes (single and double) and two sizes of dark and light thread. Which we know would not be accurate throughout the ship. In my past builds I was able to use an Anatomy of the Ship book for the particular ship and find the actual size of the blocks used on the actual ship and then just use my conversion table to arrive at a block size close to authentic. I have not found any such reference material on the AV. As a last resort I am thinking I could use my conversion table to match the actual size of the AV to other ships and use some formula to get close.

Today I am getting into dry fitting the main deck structures so I can begin the layout of my future deck planking. My plan is to go way out of the box and do a herringbone deck pattern with the included deck planking material but also outline the structures with walnut planking left over from my Endeavour. Will dry fit a bit of the planking to see how it looks before I proceed with the scheme.

Daniel my build log is up. Come on over and lead me by the hand my friend. 😊

And so it begins. Built the ship skeleton. The deck sections are just in place to hold everything square. Once the glue dries the deck sections will come back off for a good while. During the weeks, and maybe months, ahead the deck sections will get planking then be reinstalled. Some of the ship structures that will be on the deck will need to be built as well to determine their deck placement. Similar to the real AV I plan to outline deck structures with a different planking pattern around them.

An so it begins. The unboxing, sorting, and identifying the pieces. I always enjoy this part. Looking at all this and imagining what it will all turn in to over the unpredictable amount of time I will spend with it in my ship yard. Always feels like Christmas morning.