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Glen McGuire

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Everything posted by Glen McGuire

  1. Glen McGuire
    Thanks, Keith. I hope you think the same thing when this beast is finished! It is proving to be a much more challenging build that I originally thought it would be. So much so, in fact, that I have placed my friend that wanted me to do a paddlewheel boat on SIB probation. She is not allowed to suggest any new project ideas for the remainder of the year! 🤐🤐🤐
  2. Glen McGuire
    You would think that a ship in bottle builder would have great attention to detail. Yet I continue to struggle with that. Or maybe it's attention span. I don't know, but here's another example. I was looking at that painting of the Banshee II again (after noticing the puffs of smoke steaming from the funnel pipes) and I found something else I had not paid attention to before. I think I was so focused on the wheels and their covers, that I failed to notice the fairings that spread fore and aft of the wheel covers. So I made some fairings and added them to the wheel subassembly. No big deal, right? Wrong. I felt really good about how it looked for maybe 2 minutes. Then I realized I had a big problem. The problem being that with the fairings added to the subassembly, it was now twice as wide as the bottle opening. Obviously it wasn't gonna fit. But I couldn't leave the fairings off because they are a prominent (and I believe elegant) part of the ship's profile. UGH! Back to the drawing board. UGH again. So here's the solution I came up with. Turn the subassembly into two pieces that would each fit separately thru the bottle's opening. I took a saw and cut it the wheelhouse right down the middle to make 2 equal pieces. Each piece will then be inserted into the bottle individually and dropped in place onto the hull. To facilitate dropping each piece into place, I drilled 2 positioning holes into the ship's deck and added a short tapered dowel to each wheel structure (2nd picture below). Here's what it looks like with the 2 pieces dry fit onto the hull. The gap between the 2 wheelhouses was bugging me, so I widened it to hopefully make it look like a walkway. I also made a structure on top that can be added after assembly which connects the wheelhouses, but I haven't decided if I like that better or not. I did find a model of this ship that does have a similar structure on top of the wheelhouse (maybe a pilot house?). See first pic below. So it might work.
  3. Glen McGuire
    I didn't realize they had made their way to North Carolina. Yes, nasty buggers! Thank, Rob. This will be my trickiest one yet since I am doing a lot of assembly inside the bottle instead of the typical insert the ship and raise the masts. My anticipation and anxiety is rising!
  4. Glen McGuire
    The only ants we have around here are @#$%!! fire ants. If they get on board, I'm dousing the boat with gasoline and lighting a match.
  5. Glen McGuire
    Exceptional work, Gary.
  6. Glen McGuire
    Oh Lord have mercy. Don't give them any more ideas, Pat! 🤐 I've been grappling with how to attach the davits/ship's boats and still have the whole thing fit inside the bottle's neck. I think I've got it figured out, but it's going to take a bit more artistic license. Here's the davits in the process of being cut and shaped from 1/64" (0.33mm) music wire. The artistic license is that rather than having the ship's boats hang above and outside the bulwark as they should, they must rest atop the bulwark. That's the only way for them to fit. Not a perfect look, but I can live with it. The second port side ship's boat will rest just aft of where the ratlines/shrouds meet the bulwark (you can see the 4 holes already drilled for those). The 2nd picture shows that this configuration will be a pretty easy fit. I don't know yet whether or not I'll add another pair of ship's boats in front of the side wheels like the painting shows. I've got another challenge I'm wrestling with that may impact that.
  7. Glen McGuire
    I agree with Wefalck. Well done on the jig, Pat. That is so much better than what I usually do which is use small strips of duct tape to hold down the pieces I'm soldering. Here's how neanderthals in Texas do it!
  8. Glen McGuire
    Looks like you should've saved that line for Monday! 😃
  9. Glen McGuire
    Hey Pat! Thank you for the explanation. My assumption was that the pipe was something used to add stability to the funnel. Wrong! After your comment, I went back to my painting of the ship and took a closer look. And, as Private Gnomer Pyle would say, "SHAZAAAAAM!!!" I noticed a small detail that I'd completely overlooked before - there is white smoke (steam obviously) pouring from the those pipes. So you are absolutely right, Pat! My pipes should definitely have a slight gap between themselves and the funnel. But at this scale, I don't think it will be a noticeable difference, especially when compared to the many hours it would take to remake both funnels. As for flaring the ends, at .6mm in diameter I'm gonna cry uncle and admit I don't have the skill to pull that off! I just hope @Keith Black and my son do not read this post and insist that I add smoke coming out of the funnels AND pipes like they did for my Aurora build!! I also just learned that locomotives have stacks and ships have funnels so I will use the correct term going forward!
  10. Glen McGuire
    Top notch work, Ian!
  11. Glen McGuire
    Hmmm. May have to try that on the next project. Thanks for the idea, Gary!!
  12. Glen McGuire
    You are correct, Roel. I repurposed a stainless steel skewer from my backyard grilling stuff. It's very rigid, which is needed to hold the double bend in the surgical tubing (duct taped holds the two together). As for drilling and tapering, you are right again. I taper then drill. I've tried drilling first, but the area around the hole would get so thin and weak that it kept breaking off when I would put it the rod in my drill lathe to taper.
  13. Glen McGuire
    LOL! I guess it depends on when you go there! At least you didn't suggest I add a bunch of tar balls!!
  14. Glen McGuire
    I'm trying to keep pace with @Knocklouder and his King of the Mississippi paddlewheel build, but I'm afraid Private Gnomer Pyle (greatest name ever!) has him steaming far ahead of me. Part of my problem is that every time I look at my picture of the Banshee II, I see something new that I need to add. The latest is bands and a spine around the smokestacks. For the bands, I took a piece of 0.5mm brass wire, wrapped it around a piece of brass tube that I had cut the smokestacks from, and clipped it off. The spines are made from music wire that measures slightly thicker in diameter (.6mm) than the bands. In the 2nd pic below, you can also see that I added some gratings to the deck. Those were made from window screens. After finishing the smokestacks, I noticed a screw-up. On my Banshee II picture, the spines face each other. But I have both of them on the aft side of the smokestack, which seemed logical to me when I was making them. I went and looked at a bunch of pictures of dual-stacked ships. Most of them do have the spines facing each other, but I saw a few that were oriented like mine. So rather than redo it, I'm going to take a bit of artistic license here and leave it as is. Personally, I think it looks better with both on the aft side. I like the symmetry. Next, I got some work done on the ship's boats. I took some small basswood blanks, hollowed out the inside of each, and affixed them to toothpicks for final shaping of the outer hull and painting. Then I added a thin stripe (aided by some pinstriping tape) along the top edge. I'm still not sure I've got room for the ship's boats hanging from davits off the side. One more thing added to the TBD list!
  15. Glen McGuire
    LOL!!! 🤣🤣🤣
  16. Glen McGuire
    Two steps completed over the past few days - putting some water (epoxy resin) in Sailor Jerry's bottle and constructing the masts with booms and gaffs. Here was the setup for pouring the epoxy resin into the bottle. I tinted the water more greenish than usual based on my own experience visiting Galveston. There are 2 masts of almost equal height with the aft mast being slightly taller. Each has two steps, a gaff, a boom, and no yards. I started by making the hinge and lower step. These are small bamboo rods that start out at about 2mm in diameter before any tapering. Next, I shaved a couple of notches into the top and bottom pieces of the masts to help them fit together securely For the gaffs and booms, the trickiest part is trying to drill a tiny hole dead center near the base so it can be tied off to the mast. I use fly-tying thread (Uni 72D 8/0W) to secure the gaffs and booms to the mast. Here's both masts dry-fit into the hull.
  17. Glen McGuire
    That paddlewheel paint job looks great! And did you replace Marvin with a new ship inspector??
  18. Glen McGuire
    Also, happy Father's Day to all the dad's out there. I just got a wonderful gift from my son. Very cool reference book!!
  19. Glen McGuire
    Thanks, Pat. The answer to your question is yes (I think). The plan right now is for the ship to go in stern first as usual. Next, I'll put the aft smokestack in followed by the sidewheel subassembly. Then I'll insert the fore smokestack, then raise the masts. However, I may have to raise the foremast first to get it out of the way depending on how it lays down and how much it's in the way. TBD on that.
  20. Glen McGuire
    Nothing to add to the sentiments above, Keith, just prayers that Maggie will find her second wind and keep trying to push forward.
  21. Glen McGuire
    You ain't alone. I hate to think how many hours of my life I've spent looking for stuff I just had my hands on. Regardless, superb work on some detailed fitment.
  22. Glen McGuire
    In the close-up picture, it looks a little bulky. However, when I see as part of the whole boat in the latter pics, I thought it look fine. But definitely your call on that as things can look different in person vs pictures. Regardless of what you decide, the boat is really coming along nicely! Such a cool project.
  23. Glen McGuire
    You ain't the only one, Gary! You'll notice I only stuck it in far enough to make sure it would fit, then quickly retracted before I did something really dumb! Yes, it would've meant getting another bottle of that rotgut. I took a swig of Ol' Jerry's brew and I don't think it compares very well to the Bundy rum all the Aussies keep talking about. 😝😝
  24. Glen McGuire
    It immediately made me think of you and @gjdale. I'm counting on one of you to make a tiny working steam engine to spin those wheels for me!
  25. Glen McGuire
    Those golden arches are making my cow nervous, Keith. Remember, we don't use the "B" words around here (Burger, BBQ, Brisket, etc).

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