ScottRC

Spent a bit more time today working on the upper topsail.
 
Used my gator extender for the sail position...worked magnificently.

I haven't quit. Been slowly working on making the yards and rigging blocks on them a little at a time.  It's taking me a very long time. Hopefully I can get some pictures up soon when things get back to normal around here. Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!
 
Jesse

I finished all the staysail rigging before starting on the yards. My camera broke so I'm trying to use my phone. Having a lot of trouble with the phone and laptop communicating with each for some reason and it is about to make pull my hair out. The phone does seem to take better shots than the camera did, it's just a lot more trouble transferring them over.
 
Jesse
 

Fortunately we have not lost power even though a lot of people around me have. Good time to work in the shipyard. Hearing the driving rain and howling winds makes me imagine what it was like to be at sea on way back then in such a violent storm. 
 
Anyway, made the Gaff and the Boom. I have done as much pre-rigging as I can before they are attached. The instructions said you can paint them or not- your choice. I was going to leave them with a light golden oak stain but had to do some patch-up work on the Gaff where it got some wood marred and gouged from an accidental drop on the floor and got stepped on. At this point I saw that the paint would completely hide this so black they now are. This also hid where I had to re-glue both jaws because of the very poor wood supplied in the kit. I wish I had made them from better wood to start with.
 
Completed all the rigging for these two. Found it much more difficult to get into the tight places to tie off to the belaying pins than it used to be for me. My kit was missing the beads for the parrels but I had plenty from earlier builds. 
 
Jesse

Did something a little different for the cleats. I have had glued on cleats come off in the past so I wanted them more secure. I measured and marked where they are and drilled small starter holes for them with a small twist drill. I then used these small drill/reamer tools I got many years ago. They twist i and open the hole. Then you can use them like a mini file or rasp to remove wood. I slowly did this form one hole to another to open up a slot through the boom and gaff. I pre-shaped the cleats out of scrap I have.  When all is shaped and ready I put glue in the open slot and push the cleat all the way through so it is sticking out of both sides then shape them up down to proper size.
 
Don't know when I will get back to the shipyard. One of my Aunts died and I will be going out of town for a few days, leaving there and going straight to a Dr. appointment.  I will most likely be very sick from the travelling and my body will crash on me for a few days when I get back.
 
Jesse

Hello all,
 
after building the Dragon, I'm starting now the blog about building the Tiger from 1747.
 
The Tiger was a 60 gunner after the 1745 establisment. Last year I ordered the plans for the 60 gunners of the 1745 establishment, but learned later that all the 6 ships, build after that plan, where all a little different. So I decided to build the Tiger and that, because it was the only plan that shows also the artwork of the ship. Interessting is also, that they moved the captains cabin sometimes down to the upper deck! There was more space.
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections.html#!csearch;searchTerm=Tiger_(1747) Here you could see the plans.
 
Then last fall I went to Chatham to see two models of 60 gunners, the Centurion and a unspecified ship (SLR0442 SLR0472). Both ships from the 1730s, but the models are made ca. 1745/47. They will be my reference for the Tiger.
 
And because I had build the Dragon already with frames, I decided to be lazy and build in the bulwark technique. So I started early this year with the hull and that he is.
 

 

 

 
 
 
But before I started with the hull, I made the figure head. Just to see if I could do it after pause for a year. 
 

 
And before the questions come, with what did you do the carving, here is most of it to see. Just with hand tools. To the right you see Leo the second.
 

 
And here is Leo III. From toe to crown hi is 9 cm high, in reality he was 4,5 m high  
 

 

 

 
Here Leo did a sit sample. The guy in the background it's me. 
 

 

 
The next steps would be to close the counter and then made the cannon ports. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Last testing, and ... 😀
 
🤤

Another update - at last!!
 
Thank you all for your good wishes.  The treatment went well and I am currently 'all clear' with my next check in April next year.  Following the good news we took off for a holiday in South Australia - looking at the sights; checking out the maritime scene and photographing birds.  We had a really great time and arrived home very relaxed and ready for whatever the world decides to throw at us next!
 
My time in the museum since we got back has been limited, and even when I've been in I've been diverted by other things, so the 'Meteor' has only progressed by the addition of a couple more frames down aft.  This is by far the slowest build I've ever been involved with and the slow progress is beginning to frustrate me.  I'll bring the hull home next week to do a bit of serious fairing.  Too much fine sawdust being sucked into to ventilation system isn't good for the museum, but I'm reluctant to bring the model home as carrying a delicate model back and forth on Sydney's peak hour trains isn't good for the mental equilibrium!  This time of year is good as the trains are far less crowded over the holiday period.
 
Here are a few photos of the tiny amount of extra work done.
 
John 
 

 

 

Finally finished the model.  Didn't install as much PE brass add-ons as I had expected in the beginning; I just gave up trying to sort out what pieces on the PE Sheet went where and for what ships fixture.  I did do the brass railings around the ships main deck, but that posed its own problems. The bottom half of the railing has a cross-hatched mesh attached. Gluing that to the brass rails posed a major challenge. I tried using a piece of picture frame glass, laid the pieces out and applied CA (first the Gap filling 15 sec and then second set used the very thin 3 sec)  to glue the two pieces together. Unfortunately both types of CA filled in a lot of the mesh which got accentuated by the gray primer. Tried drilling some of it out but after a while my eyes got so crossed I had to quit. Have to find a different way of clamping/gluing for next time.
 
Model came out pretty good for a first time attempt at P&PE (plastic and photo-etch). Learned a few things I can use on next build.
 
Attached are the photos: (Even tho I took these outside in daylight with the white balance set for daylight the colors still look wrong - maybe it's the monitor)
 

Once installed I then added the relaxed lifts....




 

Spent a little time roday working on the topgallant and royal yards.

Once all the yards are mounted, then I will add all the relaxed lifts in sequence.
 
I began the topgallant yard by adding all the eye bolts and the sheet block...now I'm getting ready to rig the foot ropes and stirrups.
The sheet holes have been drilled and chamfered.
 
Rob

Thank you for the welcome back and kind words, it means more than you'll ever know. 
 This is supposed to be the stern of the Tennessee. Anyone know what the element is directly next to the eagle's port side wing tip? Bath? The two elements below the eagle in line with the officer's latrines above? Flags? Thank you........Keith
 

First and foremost, to any that I offended during my first visit, my most sincere apologies! I came here loaded with an abundance of ignorance and I didn't try to hide it.
 Approximately three weeks after my original posting on January 14th, 2017 I had a stroke. I lost 30% of the vision in my right eye and my left hand was completely paralyzed. In fact, my stroke occurred while I was working on the Tennessee lifeboats. 
 Through the grace of God and dedicated physical therapist, I recovered the full use of my left hand. The vision in my right eye will remain at a negative 30% the rest of my life. 
 During recovery I vowed that should I regain the use of left hand, I would set about to make the Tennessee as right as I possibly could given the short comings of the hull, 10 inches too short and an inch to wide at the beam.
 For a year I tried to learn as much about the Tennessee as I could pouring over the Hatton and Hart photographs of scenes onboard the Tennessee, seeking out photographs other wood hull screw frigates, models, books and picture postcards. January of this year I stripped the model down to the bare hull and started over. This has been my therapy and what's kept my juices flowing
 Coming back two years later is just as awe inspiring as was my first time here. What you folks can do, the magic you fingers work leaves me in utter amazement!  
 I post a couple of pictures of my efforts to date, not so much as "look what I've done" but to complete a circle, to apologize, and to thank each and everyone here whom it was my pleasure to meet. 

I'll post pics shortly. I failed to mention the scale is 1:120. If there's fault with the original modeler it was his lack of maintaining scale which has lead me to think that that the model may have been created somewhere other than the US?? I'll leave that to discussion. I've tried to correct that by reducing the size of the cannon. I fought with this battle with myself for months. If all the original cannon and carriage had been there, I probably would have used them for the sake of originality. But because I would have had to make 50% of both for total complement I chose to go with smaller guns and off the shelf carriages (though I've had to modify them to make them work) As they say, pictures are worth a thousand words, shortly. Thank you for making me feel welcome......KB

Some updates:
 
Got the main superstructures glued to the deck along with the tiny deck apparatus and then glued the deck to the hull.  After totally mangling the PE Brass stairs (only 2 on the PE strip) I ended up using the molded plastic stairs from the kit.  Now to tackle the PE brass radar mast and the stern depth charge racks, then figure our where the railings go, if any.  A fellow modeler sent me a pictorial book on the Fletcher class destroyers, so I do have a ton of reference photos from the time period to look at.  I'm not drilling any new holes in the deck until I complete the railings and depth charge racks.
 
Got some messed up glue joints to clean up and repaint and some other minor touch ups. And I even used a sewing needle to apply the glue so it wouldn't smear and it still smeared anyway.
 

 
 

No help . 

Workbench cleaned and clear . 

Fitting for a moment the furniture without glue just to see how it looks on the yacht

Build me a boat to sail on my dreams! 
 
This one is a magnificant ship. Great work Cyprian, love the colourscheme.
 
keep building, I’ll keep dreaming.  

I agree about priming under just about any paint. I build a lot in 1/700 and use acrylics. I will do a light base coat primer, usually Krylon flat white or Tamiya gray primer, then will either brush or airbrush light coats of thinned base color.  It's important to keep the coats light and thinned because it's so easy to get the paint thickness to appear out of scale and cover up details.  Priming does a number of positive things; it brings out any blemishes that can be corrected, it gives a good biting surface for the paint to adhere to, and it allows you to adjust your base color hue from light to dark.

I agree about priming under just about any paint. I build a lot in 1/700 and use acrylics. I will do a light base coat primer, usually Krylon flat white or Tamiya gray primer, then will either brush or airbrush light coats of thinned base color.  It's important to keep the coats light and thinned because it's so easy to get the paint thickness to appear out of scale and cover up details.  Priming does a number of positive things; it brings out any blemishes that can be corrected, it gives a good biting surface for the paint to adhere to, and it allows you to adjust your base color hue from light to dark.

I agree about priming under just about any paint. I build a lot in 1/700 and use acrylics. I will do a light base coat primer, usually Krylon flat white or Tamiya gray primer, then will either brush or airbrush light coats of thinned base color.  It's important to keep the coats light and thinned because it's so easy to get the paint thickness to appear out of scale and cover up details.  Priming does a number of positive things; it brings out any blemishes that can be corrected, it gives a good biting surface for the paint to adhere to, and it allows you to adjust your base color hue from light to dark.

Your deck coloring is spot on, good job!