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Glen McGuire

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Everything posted by Glen McGuire

  1. Glen McGuire
    Hey Roger, you nailed it. I think the only way I can pull this thing off is to assemble the boats inside the bottle and slide them backwards to their spot. I'm going to try and do the assembly in the first bubble as I've learned that the further back I go in the bottle the less precise I am with the tweezers. The assembly will take some precision since I'll have to keep the hull still with one tool while I hold the mast with long tweezers and try to poke the bottom of it into its proper hole in the deck. Using my highly sophisticated CAD-like software (aka PowerPoint), I’ve sketched out the basic build plan for the main treasure ship along with the dimensions for each part. It’s going to require some unnatural acts on my part to make the ship as large as I think it needs to be and get it where it needs to be: 1. I’m going to do a split hull longitudinally so I can insert each side separately and then glue together inside the first bubble. Never tried this before. 2. With 9 masts, there will be a mix of hinged and non-hinged masts. Because of the hourglass shape, I will have to hinge the 3 main deck masts so they fit thru the narrow waistline. Even though the forward 3 masts are short enough to fit thru the waistline, they will need to fold down to make room for the folded main deck masts. 3. I’m going to try folding the masts forward and push them up with a tool rather than folding backwards and raising them with a pull string. 3. For the hinged masts, I’m going to try and replicate the amazing wireless hinge that @John Fox III did for his Endurance ex-Polaris build. I stole a picture from his build log and included below so you can see his incredible work. So for the first time ever, the moment of truth will not be squeezing the boat thru a tight bottle neck. Rather it will be the assembly process inside the bottle. Anxiety awaits!!
  2. Glen McGuire
    WOOHOO!!! She looks fantastic, Grant!!! The silkspan sails unfurled very nicely. Well done. Now I can't wait to see what you do for the display base!
  3. Glen McGuire
    I hear you, Ian. I bought one for my son when he was young, but once he got a Gameboy, the Erector set hit the back of the closet and never saw the light of day again! 😥
  4. Glen McGuire
    That is so cool. I bet you had an erector set when you were a kid, didn't you?
  5. Glen McGuire
    Thanks, Pat. I've still got a bunch of things to figure out with the main treasure ship, but so far so good. In fact, I'm a bit nervous about how well things have gone up to this point. Usually by now, I've screwed up royally a few times. So I'm past due for a major fiasco!
  6. Glen McGuire
    You are right, Grant! Kind of like a cat - easier climbing up a tree than coming back down! I got each mast/sail out of the hull without too much difficulty. But to get the mast/sails to fit back thru the neck of the bottle, I had to carefully scrunch up the sails and angle all the battens relative to the mast. Not easy to do inside the bottle. It took a while, but the whole test assembly was worth it for the peace of mind that I can pull it off when the time comes.
  7. Glen McGuire
    Excellent work recovering from that snag with the sails moving along the lines. The moment of truth is at hand! I can't wait for the next update!!!
  8. Glen McGuire
    While I work thru my anxiety issues on how I’m going to tackle that main treasure ship, I decided to try and alleviate another big anxiety issue - installing the masts (with sails attached) into the hull while the hull is inside the bottle. That would be a first for me since all my previous builds used masts with hinges. So before starting on the big ship, I decided to take the first 2 ships and do a test run. I put ship #2 in the first bulb, added all the masts, and slid it into the middle bulb. Then I did the same with ship #1. I had to put a custom bend on the ends of one pair of tweezers to make things work, but after that it was not too difficult Whew! One less thing to keep me awake at night! Now back to the main ship and trying to figure out what the approach will be.
  9. Glen McGuire
    OK Keith, you got me on that one. Some how, some way, there's definitely gonna be a mini-Shiloh on the deck!
  10. Glen McGuire
    Thank you for the comments and the likes. I’m pretty happy with how these first two turned out. But they were definitely just a warm up. Time now for the main event which is the main treasure ship. A site called The Model Shipyard has a finished version of the main treasure ship for sale. I've attached a few of their pictures below. It looks like a beautiful piece of work. The pictures also make it clear that the ship is going to be a doozy to try and replicate for this bottle project. Seriously, look at the dang thing. It’s like a floating farm! The quarter deck has plowed furrows with row crops growing. The main deck has various animal corrals (and before @Keith Black asks, there’s probably a refrigerated hold below where the penguins hang out). On top of all that, there’s 9 masts to deal with. OMG, what was I thinking! 😵
  11. Glen McGuire
  12. Glen McGuire
    Finished up all the sails and now Junk ship #2 is complete!
  13. Glen McGuire
    I'm getting nervous already! Good luck, Grant!!!
  14. Glen McGuire
    Amazing accomplishment yesterday - I managed to drill about a hundred holes with my #80 drill bit without breaking it! Normally I break one about every 5 tries. WOOHOO! Afterwards, it took an adult beverage or two to uncross my eyes from all that tiny drilling, but then it was time to spend a few hours up close and personal with the drill lathe and a pile of bamboo skewers to make the masts and sail battens. The 1st picture kinda shows the stages of how the battens for the sails are made. I cut the skewers into lengths that will cover 2 battens, drill 4 holes in each for the rigging (#80 bit), slap it into the drill lathe, sand it down to a little bit less than 1/32", and cut it into the 2 pieces. Rinse and repeat. The masts are dry-fitted in the 2nd picture.
  15. Glen McGuire
    Those sails look very sharp, Grant! I particularly like the way you did the reef bands. Well done! I am anxious to see how they survive the smash and un-smash when you put the ship in the bottle. If they come out looking good, I am definitely going to try that material and your method. Fingers crossed!!
  16. Glen McGuire
    On to the deck fittings. Like ship #1, there's not a lot happening on top. I'm going with the 2 half-pipe structures on the forecastle and quarter deck as mentioned above. Also, I'm adding a narrow shelter in the middle of the main deck. And then ladders to reach the forecastle and quarter deck. In previous builds, I made chumpy little ladders by just drawing horizontal lines (for steps) on a narrow strip of wood. I tried to do a little better this time by making ladders with actual poles and rungs. The ladder poles are .15" music wire and the steps are the inside strands of flexible 12 gauge copper wire. In the 3rd pic below, everything is dry-fitted. I'll secure them after I figure out what I'm doing with the 4 masts. I have not decided yet if I'm going to hinge them or try to install inside the bottle.
  17. Glen McGuire
    Great start, Dave. This is going to be fun to watch!
  18. Glen McGuire
    That is too funny, Keith! Along those lines, my grandpa would have called it a real hum Zhenger!
  19. Glen McGuire
    Good progress on the hull for ship #2. I pretty much got the profile and bulwark curvature I was hoping for. My original plan was to put the forward-most mast on the forecastle, but there's just not enough room for it and one of those half-pipe structures from the picture above. So I'm gonna go with 3 masts on the main deck and 1 on the quarter deck just in front of the half-pipe thing there.
  20. Glen McGuire
    Whoa. That looks like a busy freakin day yesterday! Lots accomplished!
  21. Glen McGuire
    I spent time over the past week or so trying to figure out what to do for the middle ship of my mini treasure fleet. With 250-300 ships in the original fleet, I gotta believe there was a lot of variation in not only size but shape and characteristics. Which means I’ve got a lot of latitude in deciding what the ship #2 will look like. I want all 3 ships to be unique because they served different purposes in the fleet, but still have some commonality so they look like they belong together. At this point, I'm thinking the commonality will likely be the color scheme of the boat and color of the sails. As you can tell, I’m kind of making this up as I go. So after looking once again at a variety of ancient junk ship illustrations, I’ve decided on another composite build for ship #2 that uses features from several different ships. The main shape/profile will follow the one on the below left. I like the prominent quarter deck and forecastle plus the unique half-pipe structures on each. However, I want a sharper curve in the bulwark like the one in the 2nd picture as this seems to be a common attribute of many ancient junk ships. Last, I’m gonna try for 4 masts like the boat on the right with sails of a similar shape to my small patrol boat. That’s the plan anyway!!
  22. Glen McGuire
    Really impressive rework in a very short amount of time, Rob. Just so I could fully understand what you're doing, I went back to a prior post and grabbed a screenshot for a before and after comparison. Well done.
  23. Glen McGuire
    Same here. I have not tried that material either. Interested to see how it works and looks!
  24. Glen McGuire
    Glad you are back in the saddle, Keith. Looking forward to new pics of your progress!
  25. Glen McGuire
    I poked thru the Amati Hannah build logs on MSW and found 3 other builds where you could see the transom. Two were correctly oriented and one (by DelmerModels) was like Grant's. Interestingly, DelmerModels has a couple of crystal clear pictures of the transom with the backwards N and nobody in the comments (myself included) mentioned it! And BTW - all the pictures in my instructions have the proper N.

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