jct

the painting spree on the Agillis included the masts on the Clotilda.   I got the main parts painted in the flat gray I used for the inner bulwarks.  I have a couple more parts to paint,  and then I will cement what I have so far,  on the model.   perhaps I can even get to the channels and the pin rails.

the segments not painted will be flat black.  I hope to get more done soon

The cockpit is almost ready with only the leather headrest and messenger bag to add and of course the HGW seatbelts. Everything fits into the fuselage, where I had to do a lot of grinding with my last Corsair and the Brassin cockpit. With the supplied detail, there is no real need for resin substitutes. I'm actually considering, adding some lead wire, but I have to check how much can be seen afterwards.
 

 

 

 
Cheers Rob

The Big Reveal!
 
I'm not going to say much about the trials and tribulations of installing the canopy (ugh!) and the antenna aerials (ugh -- again!), because I don't want to scare off any potential card modelers. 😋  But, she is done now and has a seat on the shelf of honor next to the Oscar -- how fitting! Next up, I think I will drag USS England out and force myself to do some more work on her.
 
Enjoy the pictures!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Checking the body-on-chassis and ride height. This seems to be good to me. Not too high, not too low. Hits the sweet spot.

A little progress. I have rigged the yards for the fore mast.
 
Fore course yard.

 
Some topsail schooners carry a simpler spreader yard for the topsail, but I have rigged this yard so it can carry the large square fore course sail. The upper blocks on the yardarms are for the fore course yard lifts and the topsail sheets. The brace pendants hang from the yardarms. The larger blocks at the center inside the sling cleats are for the topsail sheets. At the outboard ends of the sling cleats are the fore course clewline blocks. Farther out are blocks for fore course buntlines. The yard sling and trusses will be at the center between the sling cleats.
 
Normally the vessel would have raised just the fore staysail. But in good wind from astern the fore course could be raised. These two sails occupy some of the the same space forward of the fore mast so they wouldn't have been raised at the same time. The yard also has irons for studding sails.
 
Fore topsail yard.

 
The lower blocks on yardarms are for studding sail halliards. The upper blocks are for the topsail yard lifts, and the blocks near the center of the yard are for the topsail clewlines. The brace pendants hang from the yardarms.
 
Now I need to "train" the footropes (horses) to hang naturally with some shellac and weights.
 
Some of this rigging would have been very difficult if the yard was mounted on the mast, and with the mast mounted on the hull.

Here is another small detail. Two hatches have gratings, and the books say this was common on warships (merchantmen usually had solid hatch covers). They had to have a way to cover these hatches in heavy seas. On mid-20th century US Navy ships we had small metal hooks called "lady fingers" welded in places where we needed to secure  tarps and such. However, I have never seen these mentioned for 19th century ships.
 
I looked at a number of references and a couple suggested there were eye bolts around the hatch above the coaming that canvas tarps could be lashed to. On some vessels metal bars with slots to fit over the rings held the canvas down, and wooden pegs were driven into the rings to force the bars tight against the canvas around the hatch.
 
I spent the day making very small ring bolts. They are made of 0.012 inch (0.3 mm) brass wire with 0.025 inch (0.64 mm) holes in the rings. After the loops were soldered closed they were blackened with Brass Black.
 
I needed 28 of these ring bolts and made 40. While handling them for soldering five disappeared into the void (12.5%). Another broke while I was inserting it into a 0.013 inch (0.33 mm) hole in the hatch. This was a significantly worse attrition rate than any I have had in past production of quantities of small objects, probably because these things were much smaller than other parts on the model.
 
But the real culprit was a pair of tweezers with tips that can suddenly twist to the side, launching parts into orbit. I need new tweezers!
 
Here are photos of the hatches in place on the model. This is the last detail on my list for the deck fittings before I start working on the rigging.
 

Hello MSW friends,
Well here it is...the end of the HM, she is complete.   I want to thank all of you who have followed along and offer compliments and words of encouragement along the way.  She is by no means perfect but I'm happy with the finished product...though it is a departure form my original plan, as she sits I believe she represents a good little working ship that is weathered but not worn.
 
This build it full of highlights, the launch and crows nest, and low-lights...those darn gunports, and things I would have done differently in hindsight, through all of it I could always count on your support, which made it  truly enjoyable. 
 
I'm not sure what my next build will be, I stocked a few kits and scored on some nice plans for a scratch build...so time will tell, you can be sure I'll start a log when the time comes.   As always thanks for your interest, Pics follow
THX
J

Another detail to be added before starting rigging was swivel guns. Some references say some early 1800s schooners carried them. So I thought I should add a few at the bow and stern.
 
I ordered a package of "Resin Swivel Guns (13/16") w/handle and Yoke" from Syren Ship Model Company. The package included six molded resin guns with yokes and round plates for mounting them. It also included a handle for the back of the guns. However, you have to drill a hole in the rear end of the gun below the cascobel to mount the handle (not a problem).
 
I looked in Chapelle's "The History of the American Sailing Navy" (1949) and on page 89 he has drawings of swivel guns just like the Syren product. Furthermore, the dimensions of the Syren guns are perfect for a 1:48 scale 1 1/2" bore 1/2 pound shot swivel gun like those used in the American Navy!
 

The Syren mounting parts are OK, but I wanted to replicate something like the yoke on the swivel guns on the modern Lady Washington replica. These swivel guns look exactly like Chapelle's drawings and have the "U" shaped rest to hold the gun in position for loading.
 
They also have a wooden handle attached to the rear end, and Chapelle says this was common, along with several other styles of handles. I thought about adding a wooden handle to the Syren parts, but I like the handles supplied with the guns and decided to use them.
 
 
OK, how was I going to fashion the yoke and the "U" shaped fitting? Since I don't have a machine shop to make these pieces it would have to be pretty simple. I decided to  use brass wire. The yoke was made from 0.025 inch (0.64 mm) wire as shown in the picture below left. After making the small loops for the gun's trunnions at each end of the wire I soldered the loops closed. Then the wire was folded double and the upper "U" shape bent to the proper width. Then  the doubled part was soldered. These were cleaned up later with a file to remove excess solder.
 

 
The "U" shaped rest was made from 0.012 inch (0.3 mm) brass wire as shown in the picture above right. The wire was bent around a 0.125 inch (3.2 mm) drill bit (the cannon is 0.115" (2.9 mm) where it fits into the rest). Then it was folded back double to finish the "U" and the support arm was created as shown.
 
The wire ends of the rest piece were then wrapped around the shaft of the yoke and soldered in position. This was the only difficult part of the assembly. The two wire ends of the rest needed to wrap tightly around the shaft of the yoke, and the support arm of the rest should be aligned with the shaft of the yoke so the "U" was positioned correctly for the gun to fit into. But as I added solder to fasten the rest in place things wanted to move around. Eventually I worked out a way to keep everything in place while I soldered it.
 
You can see how things fit to the gun on the right, but the rest arm should be a bit lower and horizontal, and the "U" bent up a bit to cradle the gun.
 
 

 
After a while I had six yoke assemblies, six trunnion pins and the six guns. I drilled holes through the guns for the trunnion pins. The brass parts were blackened with Birchwood Casey Brass Black. After the guns were assembled I clipped off the excess length of the trunnion pins and touched up with a bit of flat black enamel.
 

 
I decided to duplicate the arrangement on the Lady Washington and add thin wooden blocks to the rails where the guns would be mounted, and a thin metal plate for support. After these were glued in place and painted the swivel guns were installed.
 

 
 

And now for something entirely different ...
 

 
Some time back there was a discussion on the Forum about anchor handling on small ships that did not have a capstan or windless.
 
https://modelshipworld.com/topic/27410-small-ship-anchor-handling/?do=findComment&comment=787942
 
You don't see fishing the anchor depicted on many models (bringing the anchor up to the rail when retrieving it is called "fishing" the anchor), so I decided to try to implement the strategy on this model. Remember that some of this is speculative, but it does follow what several references say was done.
 
First there is the anchor itself. I assembled this piece back in the 1980s when I started this build. The metal part appears to be a lead casting, and it had prominent mold seams. I filed it down to eliminate the seams, and it was shiny lead color. Now 35 years later it has developed a nice dull metallic look. The stock and ring are what came with the kit.
 
The anchor cable is attached to the ring with a fisherman's bend which Marquardt says was used with smaller anchors. While this one was relatively large, a vessel this size would have a "smaller" anchor. Whether the fisherman's bend was correct for this one I am not sure, but that's what I used.
 
The next part of this anchor retrieval method was the "nipper." Lever says the anchor cable was lashed to a messenger cable with nippers. The picture shows how this was done - the nipper is the small line that loops around both messenger and cable.
 

 
The messenger is the part that was actually hauled upon, pulling the larger anchor cable with it to lift the anchor. On ships with capstans or winches the messenger was pulled by these. But when a vessel had neither a tackle was used to pull the messenger. In this case the messenger was just a short piece of rope with an eye spliced in one end for the hook of a block to fasten to.
 

 
 
For this job I used my "Quad Hands" mechanism. I bought this a year or two ago after seeing one in another post on the Forum. It looked like it would come in handy when there were a lot of loose ends to manage. I have been using a simple two arm unit mostly, but here I had to pull the anchor cable taut while wrapping the nipper line around the cable first, then the cable and messenger, and finally the messenger only (six ends).
 
I keep a bottle cap with a drop of white glue handy, and occasionally apply a small drop of glue on the windings with a needle point to prevent everything from unwinding. And the tweezers are essential tools for this kind of work.
 
Here is the anchor and cable with two messengers and nippers in place.
 

 
 

The next part of the puzzle is the fish boom and fish tackle.
 
The boom is a small portable pole with a sheave in the outboard end and a hook on the inboard end. The hook catches an eye bolt in the deck to secure that end. The fish tackle runs over the sheave.
 
The fish tackle is a rope with the fish hook spliced into one end and an eye in the other. The real thing would have a thimble in the eye, but fashioning a 0.020 inch (0.5 mm) thimble is just a bit too much of a challenge (I used white glue to stiffen it).
 
 
 
Here you see the fish tackle in use. The hook catches on the flukes of the anchor while it is hanging from the anchor cable. The eye on the fish tackle is hooked onto the fore tackle. This heavy lifting cargo rig is used to raise the anchor. The fish boom guides the crown end of the anchor outboard of the hull.
 
Here the head of the anchor has been "catted" up to the cathead with the cat tackle, but the tackle is still attached.
 
After the anchor is hauled up a stopper rope or chain (not shown) is looped through the anchor ring to support the head end and the cat tackle is unhooked from the ring.
 
 
In this model two retrieving or in-haul tackles made of double sheave blocks are used to haul on the messengers. One is hooked to a ring bolt just aft of the hatch (normally used to rotate the pivot gun). It has been drawn back to pull the nipper almost to the hatch.
 
The second tackle hooks to a runner line with an eye in one end and a hook on the other that is attached to another ring bolt in the deck (or any other secure hold). The second tackle is run out to the forward messenger. While it is being hauled in the first tackle will be unhooked and run out again, and the messenger will be untied from the cable and moved forward again to receive the first tackle, and so on.
 
 
Here is a view from the bow showing all of the parts of this anchor retrieval rig.
 
Note that the falls for the cat tackle and retrieval tackles are secured to whatever stout attachments that are handy. This is a temporary setup so the ropes are not belayed in a more secure fashion.
 
Since the anchor is hanging from the cat tackle the strain is relieved from the in-haul tackle.
 
A "shank painter" rope or chain would be looped around the crown of the anchor and secured to timber heads or cleats on the bulwark. Then the fish tackle would be unhooked and it and the fish boom would be stowed.
 
The stopper would be attached to the anchor ring to take the weight of the anchor head and the cat tackle would be unhooked. The anchor was stowed to the rail as shown in earlier photos of the starboard side anchor.
 
https://modelshipworld.com/topic/19611-albatros-by-dr-pr-mantua-scale-148-revenue-cutter-kitbash-about-1815/?do=findComment&comment=1011922
 
Normally on long voyages the anchor cable would be detached from the anchor and the cable would be stowed in the cable tier below the main hatch.
 
All of the parts shown here are documented in period publications like Darcy Lever's "The Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor" (1808). Marquardt's "The Global Schooner" shows similar rigs for schooners. But the places I have shown the retrieval tackle and falls to be belayed is just speculation.
 
I think this may be the last "deck work" that has to be done before starting the rigging of the mast and sails. But I still need to build the ship's boat and hang it from the davits on the stern. That is a separate modelling project in itself!

I have completed the pivot gun rigging. I decided to loop the gun tackle falls on the sides of the carriage. I have seen drawings and photos of this configuration. I added the pivot table tackle - a luff tackle configuration, and just looped the falls on the deck inside the circular rail. For this I have started adding the ring bolts to the deck. There will be a couple dozen more for the standing and running rigging.
 

 
Some builds show four sets of tackle for the pivot table - one on each corner - but a bit of thought will tell you only two are necessary. They are shown in a stowage position with the gun aligned on the center line. They can be unhooked and reconnected to any of six ring bolts arranged around the gun to position it at any angle.
 
I will unhook the pivot table tackle and remove the gun assembly (and all other deck furniture) while I am working on painting the hull bottom.
 
I found another problem with using the alcohol based leather dye on the blocks - a very bad idea! On the lower left double block of the pivot table tackle you can see where I brushed on some shellac to stiffen the rope. The dye in the block wicked up the rope, leaving a nasty brown stain. This has been a learning experience! I should have used the white glue instead of shellac. Better still, I should have painted the blocks!

I have been working on the pivot gun tackle. It is a 12 pounder, so the blocks and rope are larger and easier to handle than for the 6 pound carriage guns. The blocks are 5/32 inch (4 mm) and the rope is 0.018 inch (0.45 mm). The hooks are 4 mm. The breech line is 0.035 inch (0.88 mm).
 
The method for rigging the blocks was pretty much the same as for the 3/16 inch blocks used on the carriage guns. First I ran a short piece of the rope through the eye of the hook and then tied a knot of small stuff (0.0025 inch/0.6 mm silk thread) around the rope as seizing. A small amount of white glue (school glue or PVA) was added to the knot and allowed to dry. Then the excess small stuff was cut off.
 
Then glue was applied to the sides and end of the block and the rope was pulled tight around the block. After the glue set a drop of glue was added to the other end of the block and the rope strands were folded over. After the glue dried the excess rope ends were cut off.
 
 
The procedure was similar for blocks with an eye opposite the hook for the standing end of tackle to attach to. After the rope ends had been glued to the sides of the block, one end was folded over the end and glued. After the glue dried the excess was cut off. The other end remained straight.
 
A "U" shaped brass wire tool was inserted in a hole in the block (see picture). The remaining rope end was looped around the longer end of the wire and  back across the end of the block. The loop was then secured with a knot of small stuff. A drop of glue was placed on the knot and on the end of the block to hold the rope end. After the glue set the tool was removed and the loose ends were trimmed off.
 
 

 
The standing end of the tackle  rope was looped through the eye on a block and secured with a knot of small stuff. Then one end of the small stuff was wound around the rope and tied off again to form the seizing.  The seizing was covered with white glue and allowed to dry.
 
Edit: I think it isn't necessary to tie the eye on the end opposite the hook. You can just use a pin to create an opening between the block and the strap. Then you can run the standing end of the tackle between the block and the strap and create an eye in the standing part.
 
Here is a photo of the pivot gun tackle and another of the entire pivot gun. The falls remain loose because I haven't decided how I will secure them.
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I prepared the breech rope cut splice for the cannon cascobel as described earlier in post #59:
 
https://modelshipworld.com/topic/19611-albatros-by-dr-pr-mantua-scale-148-revenue-cutter-kitbash-about-1815/?do=findComment&comment=650378
 
The other ends of the breech rope were secured to ring bolts in the pivot slide with double seizings.
 
 
 
 
I will rig the tackle for the pivot gun turntable similar to the gun tackle after I have painted the bottom of the hull (I don't want the gun sitting high on the deck while I am working with the hull inverted). I think I will use a luff tackle (single and double blocks) instead of a gun tackle (two single blocks) because it would take a lot more force to drag the turntable around than to just move the gun on the slide.
 
Here is a photo of the (almost) completed guns.
 

 
 

I decided to make a tumbler to finish the blocks. I had 39 blocks that needed the edges rounded. It would take several minutes to do each one by hand, or at least an hour and a half to two hours. My fingers would be very sore and the hands would surely start cramping before they were finished.
 
It took less time than that to make a simple tumbler. I glued some 80 grit sandpaper into the interior sides an old peanut butter jar. Nothing special about this sandpaper -  I just had some on hand. But the coarse grit is important.
 
A 0.375" (9.5 mm) wooden dowel served as the shaft. A strip of the same sandpaper was folded double and glued to the dowel. I also fastened the sandpaper to the dowel with small brass nails. A few staples held the sandpaper together and pulled it tighter around the dowel.
 
I drilled holes in the bottle cap and the bottom of the jar for the dowel to rotate in.
 
Then the blocks were put into the jar, the lid screwed on, and the thing was chucked into a 3/8" hand drill.
 
I ran the drill at medium speed and checked the progress every few minutes until the blocks were rounded to my satisfaction. It took about 8 minutes to process the smaller 9/32" double blocks and about 12 minutes for the larger 5/16" single and double internally strapped blocks. Neither the drill nor the jar heated noticeably during the operation.
 
After tumbling I finished them with  220 grit and then 600 grit sandpaper to remove any surface marks left by the saw/planer on the original sheets of wood. I think the results speak for themselves. The tumbler produced more consistent results than hand shaping would have done.
 

Thank you...appriceate it

Thx much Sam...got my fingers crossed

Thx much

Sorry I’ve been away for awhile, been having trouble with my eyes… cataracts and a neurological issue.
May be abut before I’m able to resume any build activities.
 
Harriet is complete though and the log is up
thsnks much for your interest I appreciate it
J

Dear
I'm making the same model. I'm currently in the phase of making masts and sails. If you can have some help around the deployment of the yacht rope. A few more detailed pictures.
Thank you

Jay, they sure are. This one more than most it seems. She is 11 years old last July and still chases gremlins through out the house.
 
This week was slow build wise. Last weekend I bent the Fore Top Sail to its yard and as mentioned above started another sheet for more sails. I will not bore you with repetitive picture of lines on silk span. Today will be a good day f I can get bolt ropes on at least one sail.
 
 
I re-re--re-did my foot ropes, they are kind of better:

 
 
 
 
Bent and ready to mount and furl. or furl and mount, don't know which yet, probably both until I find a method that works for me.

Seems cats are attracted to Enterprises 🤪

Thank you all for all the likes and comment...appreciate them all,
Just a short update...great weather here today and I'm trying to take advantage and get a lot done, so I'm running between projects   
 
The skylights have been strengthened and trimmed to their final size

 
The deck houses were prepped by just blacking out the interiors and the skylights were painted with a couple coats of white

Well that's all for now (told you all it was short) hopefully more tomorrow
THX again
J

The Pilot House project has come to a satisfactory finish...least its good enough for me...
 
 
The aforementioned screen was glued in from the bottom

 
Microscale Kristal Klear was applied to the windows to simulate glass

 

 
The finished Pilot House...

 
...still needs to have a coat of sealer applied and the roof detailed and painted, as you can see I went with the traditional white...the ivory I planned to use was bit to yellow for my taste.  I'm currently debating whether to weather lightly or not...
 
Well that's all for now... thanks for looking in
J

Seems cats are attracted to Enterprises 🤪

Thank you...appriceate it

OK this next move may prove fatal to the Pinta build...I really hated the look of the lower hull with the clinker effect, so I figured since I was gonna tone the lower hull anyway to closer match the finished pics of the kit cover sheet I'd attempt a fix...so each step was filled with ca to harden the edge, allowed to dry, and attacked 180 grit!!  
 
Once I got the hull fairly smooth, fairly being the operative word, I mixed some paint to closely match the keel and rudder tones and slapped it on...I didn't want to totally cover the bottom just cover the bare spots and tone the rest  so a lot of wiping the excess and applying thin washes ensued.
 
Is it 100%...not even close but my hope is to distract the eye enough to make the clinker effect not as noticeable, hoping once the rest of the ship's details go up the hull won't be such an eye catcher.
Thx for your time and attention...Pics follow
 
Sanded hull (some of you are thinking 'Is he nuts'  well, ya, kinda)

Color ready to mix...burnt sienna, raw umber, and yellow ochre

the test (close enough)


Done ( I know still looks kinda crappy)

Well that's it for now, I may get more done this afternoon, the Admiral has a bingo game to attend so I'll be left to my own devices
 
 
 
 

Thank you...appriceate it