Jump to content
MSW Spring Donation Drive

ERS Rich

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    597

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by ERS Rich

  1. ERS Rich
    Thank you for showing how this work is done. Inspirational!
  2. ERS Rich
    Wow, that’s amazing, thanks for posting.
  3. ERS Rich
    Hello Bill, greetings from Central Mass. Always around if you need a hand.
  4. ERS Rich
    Will you continue with the Puritan? The hull looks ok. Completion of any ship is a huge step. Checkout Tom Lauria’s channel on YouTube. He recently posted videos of how he restored a ship, Emma C Berry, built from a kit that may be similar to yours. Tom is an awesome mentor, his videos show how to do the work in simple practical ways. Find and study with the masters, they are here, the people doing the work, not just talking about it. Lookup Mr. Kevin Kennedy. @Kevin Kenny Next steps? Learn how to sharpen a chisel and your tools. Grab the book, https://www.amazon.com/Ship-Modeling-Simplified-Techniques-Construction/dp/0071558675. Tips and techniques useful when building any ship. Look at Model Shipways, Armed Virginia Sloop and the practicum by Bob Hunt. https://www.lauckstreetshipyard.com/product-page/armed-virginia-sloop This practicum is remarkable, Bob shows how to rig every line. And the kit is a larger scale and easy on older eyes. Best
  5. ERS Rich
    Hello Antonio and welcome to the World of Model Ships. Kits and Scratch building? Scratch build an entire ship. Add scratch built components to a kit. Every wood kit, even the simplest, requires skills used in scratch building. Wood model shipbuilding, scratch or kit, is using a plan, and measuring, marking the wood, and removing the waste with a tool. A saw, a rasp, a knife, a chisel, a file. Kits save time by providing pre shaped parts, that even so, typically must be worked to final shape, and the wood stock: dowels that must be shaped into masts and spars, strip wood that must be cut into planks that must be spilled and tapered. What you do in your “shipyard” is up to you. Like a real shipyard, your yard is an assembly point, which components come from kits (vendors in real life) or are scratch built by you (fabricated by the yard in real life) is up to you. A motto here is better modeling through research. The plan and the research bound creative imagination. Real creativity or imagination, is needed to devise ways to accomplish the work, to use tools and paint to transform a log, or a pile of wood components and stock, into a convincing rendering of the ship. It’s all about skill and execution, in the end kit or scratch build doesn’t matter. All the best.
  6. ERS Rich
    On vacation, resume in about 2 weeks. Up ahead is ship’s boats, anchors, rigging, and the case. Hope your summer is relaxing where you are…..
  7. ERS Rich
    Progress Photos Finally completed the superstructure. Painted the Pilot House a second time, a lighter shape of Vallejo Mahogany over a white base coat, followed by light coats of Vallejo Gloss varnish. Sheet styrene for the windows.
  8. ERS Rich
    Progress Photo Have been telling myself “next week it will be done”, for about the last six weeks. Itching to start something new…. Here is where we are. Notice the bridge wings were installed off the wrong deck, they were higher off the Flying Bridge, now relocated off the navigation deck… Brass frets just about empty, running out of parts to install, it’s all about the journey…..
  9. ERS Rich
    That’s the ticket! Thanks
  10. ERS Rich
    Hi Nic, could you share a few thoughts on how to get the foot ropes to lay so easy? They look just right…. Thanks
  11. ERS Rich
    My interpretation of the illustration is a single line attached slightly above the pole midpoint, passed through a block, to raise the pole, then, not shown, a single line attached to the pole bottom for tension. Cheers!
  12. ERS Rich
    Welcome to Model Ship World!
  13. ERS Rich
    Close Ups Dry fitting, adjusting, painting the details, working towards the superstructure glue up. Debating about the big gun barrels, leave brass, or paint black, probably black…. I just love the character of this ship!
  14. ERS Rich
    Welcome! Always available to answer a question. -Rich
  15. ERS Rich
    Thanks for joining, appreciate your kind words, and will keep the updates coming. Cheers!
  16. ERS Rich
    Flying Bridge Supports Had to give this some thought as these supports need to fit exactly through square holes in the Navigation Bridge. Precise bends are required. The supports are 1/16” brass rod. Note my first attempt was not successful and needed more bar stock. Called Bluejacket and the crew helped and sent out additional stock right away for a reasonable charge. Decided to make a jig, shown below. The instructions call for 1/8” radius bends. So measured the inside spacing of the square holes in the Navigation Bridge, and drilled 1/8” holes in the board so the distance between the outside edges of the bits correspond to the measurement - 25/32”. Also installed a third bit, to minimize the upward bow, midway between the 1/8” bits. Make a mark on the piece to bisect it’s length, and register the mark on the middle bit, to help get even legs. I used the vise (available at Micromark) to make sure the bar as fully wrapped around the 1/8” bits. Dry fit…. Stacked up the superstructure to get an idea of the leg length. First pass, about a 1/16” gap between the pilot house roof and the flying bridge deck. Used wire cutters to take a nibble off the legs. Evened up the legs with the Ultimation disk sander and a file. Dry fit on the model….
  17. ERS Rich
    Thank you Rick, tried to gear the information to show that ship modeling is doable. Cheers!
  18. ERS Rich
    Progress Photos Almost in the home stretch. Navigation and Flying Bridge assembly are major bits left….
  19. ERS Rich
    Forward and Conning Tower Catwalks It turns out I was too aggressive when flattening the conning tower. So during the dry fit found, rather than the two catwalks being flush, the catwalk deck was about 3/32” higher than the conning tower catwalk. I was able to reduce, but not eliminate the step, by making the grooves to accept the catwalk girders, as shown in the previous post deep. Here is the setup to check the dry fit. The long board in the catwalk is to square up the rail. And the block under the conning tower catwalk establishes the height, where the deck is 1/16” below the conning tower portals. It took many iterations of deepening the grooves, fitting the catwalks, and trimming the conning tower catwalk railing to get it nice. Blocks removed. Slight gap where the railings meet. Will try to close it up, but hardly noticeable and don’t want to snap off the catwalk railing, since that glue joint is hard to work with. Decided to use this brass bar to apply pressure to close the gap, then hit the joint with liquid CA.
  20. ERS Rich
    Hi Jacques, Your boat looks nice. A couple of ideas to consider. It is all about the finish. Wood fibers, in particular pine, because of sap, absorb paint differently across the board grain. So unprimed wood can appear blotchy, again pine in particular. There are products to “pretreat” pine prior to finishing, meant to even out the finish. However, blotching or uneven finish absorption, may not be a bad thing, depending what you are going for. This is a wood kit, if the wood is say completely primed and painted so evidence of wood disappears, the finished product can look plastic. On the other hand, evidence of wood, meaning the grain is visible, tells the observer they are looking at wood. I like both of the pictures above, the first looks like a boat that’s been in service a while, the second looks like the boat is new. Thanks
  21. ERS Rich
    Checkout Tamiya masking tape…. Cheers
  22. ERS Rich
    Installing the Catwalks Inevitably both catwalk legs are not entirely level, fore and aft, and side to side, and the deck is slightly uneven as well, so need to level the assembly on the deck. This assembly is fragile to say the least. Decided to tackle the problem by making a groove in the deck and recessing the legs. Practiced with a couple of pieces of scrap deck. First made a dimple in the deck on the outboard side of each leg. Then set the dividers to the leg width and made a second dimple. Then drilled out the dimples with a 1/64” bit, drilled several other holes in between and cleaned out the waste. Nice fit!
  23. ERS Rich
    Thanks a lot Rick, appreciate the encouragement.
  24. ERS Rich
    Deck Lights Revisited. The deck light rings filled with clear glue did not turn out very well, so decided to do something else. A picture of Maine on page 53 of the instructions shows the light housings protrude above the deck. So I decided to simulate this by using a rhinestone on the brass base ring. The rhinestone are from Walmart, and have a flat top and bottom. Glued the rhinestone to the ring, gave it a wash to cutdown on the shine, then painted the top brass. The first attempt on the left, with the new on the right.
  25. ERS Rich
    Coal Scuttle Installation A “story stick” is commonly used in cabinet making. In this case we can use the plan to make marks on a stick to help with locating the scuttles on the deck. Here the stick, of the correct width between the superstructure and the scuttles, is shown on the plan, with a pencil mark at the aft end of the superstructure and marks at each scuttle. Then it’s a simple matter of positioning the stick on the deck and installing the scuttles with CA.

About us

Modelshipworld - Advancing Ship Modeling through Research

SSL Secured

Your security is important for us so this Website is SSL-Secured

NRG Mailing Address

Nautical Research Guild
237 South Lincoln Street
Westmont IL, 60559-1917

Model Ship World ® and the MSW logo are Registered Trademarks, and belong to the Nautical Research Guild (United States Patent and Trademark Office: No. 6,929,264 & No. 6,929,274, registered Dec. 20, 2022)

Helpful Links

About the NRG

If you enjoy building ship models that are historically accurate as well as beautiful, then The Nautical Research Guild (NRG) is just right for you.

The Guild is a non-profit educational organization whose mission is to “Advance Ship Modeling Through Research”. We provide support to our members in their efforts to raise the quality of their model ships.

The Nautical Research Guild has published our world-renowned quarterly magazine, The Nautical Research Journal, since 1955. The pages of the Journal are full of articles by accomplished ship modelers who show you how they create those exquisite details on their models, and by maritime historians who show you the correct details to build. The Journal is available in both print and digital editions. Go to the NRG web site (www.thenrg.org) to download a complimentary digital copy of the Journal. The NRG also publishes plan sets, books and compilations of back issues of the Journal and the former Ships in Scale and Model Ship Builder magazines.

Our Emblem ®

Modelshipworld - Advancing Ship Modeling through Research

Nautical Research Guild ® and the NRG logo are Registered Trademarks, and belong to the Nautical Research Guild (United States Patent and Trademark Office: No. 6,999,236 & No. 6,999,237, registered March 14, 2023)

×
×
  • Create New...