Glen McGuire

The craw or claw is coming to life. The first pic below is a still shot from the video mentioned earlier and is basically what I tried to recreate for the claw's base. My version is not an exact replica but fairly close. Here are the piece parts made from basswood scraps. I scored the wood to age it a bit similar to what @gjdale did with his Shipyard at Foss' Landing project. The workforce also showed up looking for some green grass since there's none left anywhere around central Texas. Here's the assembled base. Next was making a cap/fulcrum for the top of the main pole. The first pic, once again, shows the goal. To replicate, I cut and shaped a couple of brass brads and then silver-soldered them together.

Thanks, Pat. And yes, I plan on some a scum line or something at the base of the wall similar to the one on the left side of this pic. Although I haven't figured out the right color yet. The scum looks like a really dark green to me in this pic but in others look more of a charcoal gray or even black.

Can't believe how fast you got that first layer of planking done! Warp speed and it looks great!!

OK, Mark. I do remember Get Smart (mainly the closing scene every show where the automatic doors would close on his nose), but not that line so I had to look it up. That whole exchange was hilarious from the start: "I suppose you can guess what they call me."....."Lefty?" 😄 Back to the build. I've been chasing my tail for the last few days trying to figure out what to do next - the claw, the landscaping, the seawall rocks, the water, the penguins, etc. I finally decided I needed to get the main elements of the base configured and then start on the claw. So I did a little mockup to figure out the components and get a visual of whether or not I was on the right track. I thought it looked ok, so I began work on the real thing. I made a small wooden base for the sea wall to rest on and give it some elevation above the water level. Then I drilled alignment holes in the bottom of the wall, small base, and larger base and inserted dowels into the bottom of the wall. The dowels should give the wall additional stability. I also carved out a hole in the small base for the main vertical post of the claw. Here's the initial assembly. Next, I'll continue with the claw's construction. There are a lot of simplified illustrations out there of what the claw might have looked like. I found a video animation of a working claw that is more detailed so I'm going to try and mirror it to a large degree (although mine will definitely not have the release mechanism). Here's the video if you want to take a quick look. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1YrueoGlbE

Small waves and assorted whitecaps added to the epoxy resin. For the waves I use acrylic medium gloss gel. It has the perfect consistency to swirl around and make random waves and ripples. It's white when applied but quickly dries clear. To apply it around the ship, I dab a blob using a long prong made from a coat hanger (circled below). It works well except when I get careless and swipe it against the glass (see arrow below). Also, during application, it looks like I've made the sea a frothing, white-capped, overdone mess. But in the last 2 pics, you can see how the winds calm as the gel dries and the effect is much better. To apply whitecaps, I use a shredded brush affixed to a dowel at a sharp angle. It takes just a few tiny dots of acrylic paint at a time. Completed water effects below. The thing I really like about the gloss gel is how the light shines off the edges of it (in the picture above, you can see a bit of the glint). In the picture below, it's hard to tell the whitecaps from the natural shining of the light, but it's distinct when looking at in person and a reasonable look. And with that, the SIB portion of this build is complete and it's time for the claw! Every time I think of the claw, instead of Archimedes, I keep thinking of the movie Toy Story where Buzz Lightyear is trapped in the arcade game with all the little aliens who think the claw is a deity. They whisper "the Claw" in such reverenced tones. And then when one gets snatched, he says, "I have been chosen...farewell my friends...I go to a better place". 😄

Looks like you are off to a great start on this one, Bob! What did you use to darken the lines between each deck board?

Whoa, wait just a minute now. @Keith Black already awarded me the highly coveted penguin seal of approval, so I think I'm done with them for this build!

Thanks, Javelin. Although looking at it now, I think the ship would look better if it was pushed back in the bottle a quarter inch or so. But then again, with the way the water was angled in the bottle, that quarter inch would have lowered the ceiling of the bottle's inside and made it harder to get the mast inserted into the hull. Regardless, I'm glad to be done with the ship! The only thing left is to add some texture to the water along with a few whitecaps. Then it's time to put on my Archimedes hat and start building the claw! That should be fun.

That's some serious soldering skills, Pat. Well done.

This is such an intriguing subject. It's fascinating to watch you unlock clues to the build from the variety of mosaics.

Loved those Rocky movies!!

Your are correct Grant, I did some serious editing. The video would have been 6+ hours long and R-rated for language had I posted the entire hideous event! 😬😬😬 SDH commences in 3...2...1...

OMG! I am dying!!! I am soooo not worthy.

It was a good, solid start for the man at this point. But the model was about to get angry and start fighting back with a vengeance. The man's last triumphant moment for many hours was getting the mast stepped into the hull. But in doing so, you can see what a tangled, jumbled mess I had made of the rigging lines. The 2 lines of black thread are the stays, one for the starboard side and one for the port. Both are tied off at a sternward eyebolt, run thru a hole in the top of the mast, back down thru an eyebolt between the forward ballistas, out the bow and out the front of the bottle. The tan threads are 2 braces and 2 clew lines. Neither are tied off. I ran them thru eyebolts and out of the bottle so I could adjust the yard and sail afterwards (in theory anyway). The plan was to pull the threads and take slack out of the lines as I pushed the mast/sail into the bottle. Unfortunately, that turned out way harder than I thought and resulted in the hot mess seen below. Trying to sort out the lines and untangle everything inside the bottle was a disaster. The more I tried, the worse things got. And every time I adjusted a thread, it would drop and get tangled up in the oars. UGH!!! So I decided I needed to pull the mast/sail out of the hull and out of the bottle and try the whole thing again. Getting the mast/sail back out of the bottle was ridiculous but I did manage to pull it off. Speaking of pulling it off, I also pulled off a bow/bowstring from the middle ballista on the port side of the ship. UGH again. Back at square one, I reinserted the mast/sail, this time being super careful to try and keep the lines organized. Big fail. So I carefully extracted the mast/sail from the bottle again. Ugh. Try again. This time, I was super-DUPER careful not to tangle up the lines. Even bigger fail (if that was even possible). At this point, the model had put the man on the canvas 3 times. The man was woozy, couldn't see straight, and about to give this thing up and find something better to do with his time. The only thing left I could think of was a Roger Staubach Hail Mary. So I decided to unthread all the lines from the eyebolts and hole in the bow, leaving the back stays tied off and running thru the hole in the top of the mast. The braces and clewlines remained tied to the yard and sail, but I pulled their lines straight out of the bottle. From there, I separated everything and cut the lines down to a manageable length. Then I reinserted the lines 1 at a time and did something I did not think was possible. I re-threaded them back thru the tiny eyebolts that run along the inside of the bulwarks. If I had thought that was even possible, I would have done it originally. Now I know I can do it, so I won't go thru this nightmare again! The downside of doing this was that I could not get the braces and clewlines very tight. So they look like they are flapping in the breeze. But at least they are in place. However, the stays are nice and tight. So the man was back on his feet. Still staggering and a bit woozy, but still in the ring. Now it was time to revisit that bow/bowstring I'd separated from its ballista. A small dilemma - I needed long tweezers to reach the ballista since it was in the middle of the ship. But the ends of my long tweezers were too fat to pick up the tiny piece. So I found yet another use for duct tape by affixing my fine point tweezers to the ends of my long tweezers. It worked perfectly and allowed my to drop the tiny piece right in place. After that, it was a matter of adding the forward grating and corvus which was pretty easy. And suddenly, the fight was over. Shortly thereafter, the judges rendered their verdict - a controversial, split decision going in favor of the man. Whew!!

Here's the ship, mast/sail, and attached rigging lined up ready for the insertion process to begin. Starboard side of the hull getting dropped into place. The long tweezers have serrated ends so I wrap the tips in painters tape to keep from marring the surface of the ship. Both halves are in. as well as the brackets that will be used to push the halves together. The 2 halves of the hull successfully pushed together and brackets removed. Stepping the mast. I grab the lower end with tweezers and use a prong to pull the top towards the front to get it upright enough to slip into the hole in the deck.

Thank you to Grant, Mark, Pat, Keith, John, Steven, and Javelin for the well wishes. I needed them more than ever for this one! @John Fox III - The tissue wrap idea for the lines sounds brilliant. I wish I'd read your post before I dove head first into the insertion process. It might have saved me a lot of time and angst! @Javelin - I've actually added water texture both ways you describe. For my Independence, I put a fake hull in the bottle, then textured the water with acrylic paint all around the fake hull, leaving a nice open spot for the real hull after the fake one was removed. For my Adventure Galley, I had a split hull (like this project), so I needed a really wide bare spot on the water which meant I'd have to apply texture after the ship was in anyway, so I decided to do all the texturing after the hull was glued in place. I used bent q-tips and prongs to maneuver around the ship. It ended up being easier than I expected, so I don't think it will be too difficult for this one. On to the main event, man vs model. The insertion and final assembly process was a 15 round title fight that carried on throughout the weekend. The model put the man on the deck a few times and had him on the ropes thinking about throwing in the towel. Against better judgment, the man kept crawling back up and staggering his way back into the fight. After the fracas was over, it was a tense moment waiting for the judges, but in the end, the man squeaked out a narrow, split decision. Whoa! Following this post, I will do a couple with pictures and descriptions of the process. Actually, most of it went ok, but I made a historic mess of the rigging lines and that's where the real hours-long battle took place. I took 3 fairly short videos of the process (7-10 minutes each) if anyone wants a front row seat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm8UEENgyj4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ4hzk_aKkU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF5HEW64x-c&t=2s

Somehow I missed this whole project! Dang! But caught up on it now. Well done, Bob! Fantastic job on the entire fleet. And once again, I must say how much I like the clamshell name plates. So creative and a nice decorative touch!!

Ship modeling vs going to work. Hmmmmm. A difficult choice but I like your decision! 😃 Looks like a very interesting project. However, I'm concerned that I don't see Marvin the Martian overseeing your work again. Is he ok?

With the ship almost complete, I circled back to the issue of how to join the 2 halves of the hull once they are in the bottle. I experimented with the noose idea from @Keith Black and @Javelin as well as my first thought of building little platforms and sliding them together. Those proved more difficult that I was comfortable with. I came up with another plan which I believe is more manageable. I made 2 small frames which fit around the oars and press against the tapered part of the hull just short of the bow and stern. Then I'll use 2 prongs to press against the frames pushing the hull halves together. Strings are attached to help me retrieve them from the bottle after usage. See below. Next was adding the rigging. With only 1 mast and sail (not counting the 2 little tringle ones at the top), the rigging is pretty simple - 2 back stays, 2 front stays, 2 braces, and 2 clewlines. The 2 back stays are tied off to an eyebolt short of the archer's tower. All lines run along the base of the bulwark, thru small holes in the bow, and out the bottle. I almost forgot to add the decorative tail pieces on top of the stern post! They were the last pieces of the puzzle. Here are pics of the complete ship with everything dry-fit in place. And with that, the moment of truth is at hand! This one will be unlike most of my previous SIBs where squeezing the ship inside the bottle without destroying anything was the make or break moment (literally). The 2 halves of the quinquereme fit thru the bottle opening fairly easily. The real difficulty comes from having to insert the 2 halves of the hull with all the rigging lines attached to each piece, while the mast/sail remain outside the bottle. There will be a lot of slack in all the lines so when I push the mast/sail assembly inside the bottle and into the hull, it will be very hard to keep the lines from tangling up and/or pulling off the oars or ballistas. This has the potential to turn into a real mess. Adult beverages will be nearby and ready for the result, good or bad!

Yes, the penguins live on and somehow find their way into each project regardless of the subject!!

Excellent build! The working lights are a very nice effect!

Good question. I will not pour another layer of resin. I will glue the ship directly to the resin and then add acrylic gel on top of the resin around the ship for water texture.

Thank you, Pat, Mark, and Bob for the kind words! As for the last part of Pat's comment, I did give consideration to adding a "buffer" which is an ornamental piece on the bow. In the picture below, you can see it in front of the eye, directly above the spikes of the ram. The buffers were usually some type of animal head. Hard to tell from the picture above what animal head was used so I zoomed in:

Welcome, Boerscht! Looks like you did a great job with the Goletta Elisabeth. I hope you will start a build log for your Endeavour so we can follow your progress.

Hey Thierry! I don't know what a Froggy is, but glad to have you on board here at MSW!!