Gabek

Thanks, Bob! Much appreciated. (I normally sign off with "Clear skies!" But we both know clear skies in January mean crazy cold in Manitoba!🥶) Stay warm, Gabe

Barely hanging in there... After a little clean up on the ballast I dusted off the mess deck beams that I had made ...5 years ago! 😐 I'm still struggling with the correct order to install the beams, carlings, ledgers. Part of me wants to work off the model so I have room. Another part of me says to build it in place for stability and correct fitting. Well, it ends up I'm taking a bit of a combined approach... First, working off the model I notched the beams for the carlings. I have acquired some wonderful tools to help me here: Veritas Miniature Marking Gauges from Lee Valley. I managed the cuts using my resin saw and a very sharp Xacto knife. I then dry fit the beams and started on making some carlings. After much deliberation and an email to a learned friend ( @AON ) I soon realized that I really should install the beams to do a proper job of fitting the carlings. I decided to start from the centre and work toward each end of the cross-section - adding the carlings as I go. So, I dusted off the lodging knees and started on installing the centre two beams. It's a good thing I remembered that these would involve the transition from aft-facing to forward-facing lodging knees - as per HMS Trincomalee by Davies and Mudie: I primed, painted and matt varnished the beams, leaving the top clean for better adhesion for deck planks. I glued the lodging knees to the beams in advance because of the tight space that I will be working in. I then installed the two beams with a little shaping and sanding. Feeling rather good about myself I was about to go great guns on the carlings when I realized something...I completely forgot about the hanging knees! These had not been made yet and so I started the process to make them with a bit of ready-made stock I luckily had in my "lumber yard". Jeweller's saw, resin saw, x-acto, needle files, micro-chisels...you name it I likely used it to shape these little things: I was getting tired so I stopped after making two of these and gave them the old prime-paint-finish routine before calling it a night. This morning I woke up and as I started working on the model, my good friend @Knocklouder messaged me. We started chatting about our models and other sundries while I prepped the knees for installation. I felt quite proud of myself being able to multitask like this. Until I realized later that I glued these two hanging knees to THE WRONG BEAM! I had shaped them for the other beam and had scraped paint and varnish off the contact surfaces. Being my first attempts I also wanted to hide them in the middle of the hold. Instead they will be much more visible - in a tiny space - in the hold. Ok, they'll be virtually invisible. Fortunately, they fit quite well. I did leave them a little proud of the top of the beam so I can sand them flush before planking the deck. I sat down to make the remaining hanging knees but walked away after snapping the next two. Fortunately I still have a bit of the knee-stock and will try again - tomorrow. Although...printing them in resin is looking really enticing...just saying! Clear skies and sharp tools! - Gabe

Hello Michael, Just to put my mind at ease and for posterity's sake, I did a quick test of glazing with UV resin. I mixed a couple of drops with a tiny amount of acrylic yellow ochre ink. I then rolled a lantern I designed and printed (based on HMS Victory's) in the mix and cured it with my UV light pen. The nice thing with UV curing is that it takes only seconds. Nice to hear about the sunshine! Kind regards, Gabe

You are very likely correct with horn being used for glazing, Michael, much like the lanterns...https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2022/treasures-2/a-painted-tin-and-horn-lantern-from-the-gun-decks I believe that the resin would be easy to either dye before setting or inked afterward - I will play around with some and get back to you shortly. Clear skies and sharp tool! Gabe

It ain't done until it's done! 🤣 Looking good, Bob! - Gabe

Of course you had to put in the stern lantern! And nicely done, too. Did you try MicroGlaze to simulte the glass on the lantern? Here it is on (a much bigger) lantern near the bottom of this post: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/12417-santa-maria-1492-by-gabek-finished-artesania-latina-scale-165/#findComment-994346 Also, I have just used some clear UV resin to simulate water in a cask. Very clear and sets in seconds under a UV light. I can give you links to what I used if you're interested Clear skies and sharp tools, Michael! - Gabe

Hello again, Duck Yes, you can save DXF files in the free version of Fusion 360. Select the Sketch tool to begin your design. Be sure to Finish the Sketch to return to the design environment. From the browser along the left side of the screen, right click on the sketch you made and select Save as DXF. The DXF should be easy to import into any 2D software for printing. This short YouTube video may help: https://youtu.be/eKoJa2913cQ?si=BLWyLMSMlb2Fzqj7 Hope this helps, Gabe

Hey there, Duck. You can absolutely make 2d designs in Fusion 360. I use this all the time to laser cut and engrave parts in Lightburn. Select the Sketch tool and then pick a plane to draw on. You'll have a bunch of 2d drawing tools. Save the sketch to go back to the design environment. If you need to export the 2d sketch, right click on the sketch in the browser (the list along the left) and select “Save as DXF”. Hope this helps. Message me if you need help. Regards, Gabe

Roll out the barrel! (Ok, technically they're casks. I just wanted a kitschy 😆 title.) When I first thought of putting casks in the hold it was because of this photo from HMS Victory… The shingle ballast is greyish white. It just so happens that I had a jar of silica sand that my father-in-law gave to me years ago. I cannot recall what its purpose was…but it was for something I was doing and he advised adding a bit of silica sand. Unfortunately he passed away a few years ago and I thought this would be a nice tribute to him if I added some to my model. It matched the colour in the HMS Victory photograph and the sand grains could pass as shingle at scale. For quite some time I pondered how to model the shingle ballast that would stay put and hold the casks in place. I discounted plasticine with sand pressed into its surface because it will dry out. But Sculpey might work. I was sure I could press sand into it before baking it. Here's my experiment… While I could press it into shape, mould pockets for casks and push sand into it, it wouldn't maintain the curve of the hull when I peeled it off the model to bake it. Eventually, I thought of silicon caulk. As a test I built a mock deck from scraps and pieces lying around and it performed wonderfully. Pushing casks and sand into its surface resulted in a good, solid bond. Moreover, I could peel out casks and even peel the caulk from the wood (which I had varnished beforehand) without damaging anything if I needed to. (Which I did need to later!) Unfortunately I did not photograph this experiment. A short while ago I sawed some casks in half and filled them with varying materials to represent their contents. Water in the leaguer was simulated with clear UV resin. Having read many novels, I almost tinted the water green but realized that algae can't grow in the dark. Bacteria and moulds can but I chose to just keep it clear instead of cloudy. Casks with four, oatmeal, yellow and green peas were filled with caulk and then weathering powders pressed into them. Salt pork and salt beef were tiny cut offs from failed resin prints which were painted with reddish-brown for beef, pinkish-grey for pork. Allowing white primer to show through made them looked brined and salt-caked. These pieces were pressed into caulk-filled casks: Yesterday I took the plunge: I organized the casks and then masked off all the places I did not want caulk to mess up. I created clear plastic walls at either end of the area to provide a smooth barricade for caulk and casks. The first layer of caulk was laid down and sand poured over top. Gentle pressing with silicon-tipped clay tools set the sand into the surface of the caulk. Then the first tier of casks were pushed into place. I tried to make sure that the stoppered bung holes were on top. I baulked momentarily before I squeezed out a second layer of caulk on top of these casks. It seemed wrong, but I went for it. Pour some sand overtop and push in the second tier of casks. I realized very quickly that I was going to have to modify the layout…on the fly. The casks were not fitting according to the diagrams. Later I realized that the HMS Diana in the diagrams was not exactly the same dimensions of the HMS Triton or my version of it. I left everything to set for several hours. After removing the masks this is what I was greeted with… I liked the overall look of the casks, but there was a fair amount of clean up on the ends required. I was pleased and decided to attack the clean up in the morning. With a fresh cup of morning coffee in my hands I sat down at the model and spotted something… the outer row of casks on the second tier were pushing higher than the deck clamps! 😭 But, I didn't panic. In my testing I was able to pull out casks and remove caulk without too much bother. So, I rather quickly replaced the offending casks with smaller ones in my surplus. I dabbed fresh caulk on the bottoms to glue them into place. Because it was relatively easy I also changed a few other things that were bothering me. With a little clean up and some minor spot filling left to do, this is where the Triton stands (with a considerable list to port!🫢) Clear skies and sharp tools! - Gabe

The model is looking gorgeous, Michael! And a few lanyards and bowlines missing here and there could not be spotted in the fine skein of rigging you're making. Wishing you all the best in 2025, Gabe

Hold on a minute! After months of thinking and itching to get back to the Triton the time finally came last week. I'm going to put the casks on the model! But then it dawned on me: I wanted to have one of the scuttles in the shot locker open so cannonballs would be visible. Will I be able to work on the shot locker with all the casks set into the hold? Ah well, let's get these cannonballs over and done with now. I returned to Fusion 360 to create a bunch of cannonballs. First, by a "bunch" I mean a cluster. At 1:96 these 9-pounder cannonballs are too small to print individually. So, I had to make the individual model large enough that it wouldn't fail in the printer. I chose to make a cluster of these in a somewhat random pattern thinking that a shot locker of iron balls wouldn't be highly organized (I could be wrong). Second, by a "bunch" I mean several clusters so I could stack and arrange them to fill the space in the locker. I have read about sailors knocking the rust off of cannonballs so I decided to use a weathering powder over black primer to simulate scale on these scale cannonballs. 😆. I toyed with the idea of filling the entire shot locker with cannonballs but thought it would faster and less stressful to just fill the void with closed-cell black foam and just top it off with a bunch of cannonball bunches.😆 I added a bit of rust powder to the foam, inserted it into the shot locker and glued the cannonballs in place with UV resin. I had so big a bunch of cannonball bunches 😆 that I decided to fill both sides of the locker even though one will be closed up. Next up…the hold is no longer on hold…🤣

Wha'? Whoa! I can't believe it's been two and a half years since I posted to this log! Let's see…built the Santa Maria, welcomed a grandson to our family, been designing and making lots (and LOTS) of printed parts for other people…I guess the poor Triton just kept being held up. …going back to February 2024: I have been working, sporadically, on the adornments to the hold. Here's an overview of the casks I designed and printed. I would have preferred to find suitable casks that someone else had designed but couldn't find what I wanted. So, I designed hollow casks with staves of scale thickness and separate lids. I posted my design in the 3D section of MSW and you can download the .STL file: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/33934-casks-hollow-with-separate-head-lid/ Once I had a digital file I could easily scale and print all the sizes I needed. Here are water leaguers at 1:48 and 1:96 with Number One at scale: Using AOTS: HMS Diana as my reference, I printed up and painted enough casks of various sizes to fill half the hold of HMS Triton. To simulate different ages of casks I varied the painting and weathering. To colour the hoops black I used a felt pen. Painting Hoops.mov You may have noticed that some casks extended beyond the cross section of the ship. I decided to try and create cross-sections of casks with various supplies inside…here's my attempt at simulating salt pork using cuts off failed resin prints. I have found 3D-printed resin parts to be notoriously bad at holding paint, so priming is a necessity. An added bonus: The white undercoat makes the pieces look like they've been brined! And then there was a bit of a delay in continuing with the Triton…

Excellent work, Bruce! Sharp tools and clear skies, Gabe

I don't have any familiarity with Linux versions - but the print dialogue in Adobe Acrobat has color management tools in the Advanced Print settings. Check the advanced tools in the software you're using to print PDFs to see if they have an equivalent. Hope this helps, Gabe

Great work, Bob! I seriously don't think the actual Duchess had as much adventure as yours! Looking great. Clear skies and sharp tools! - Gabe