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Glen McGuire

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Everything posted by Glen McGuire

  1. Glen McGuire
    That is too funny, Keith! Along those lines, my grandpa would have called it a real hum Zhenger!
  2. 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.
  3. Glen McGuire
    Whoa. That looks like a busy freakin day yesterday! Lots accomplished!
  4. 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!!
  5. 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.
  6. Glen McGuire
    Same here. I have not tried that material either. Interested to see how it works and looks!
  7. Glen McGuire
    Glad you are back in the saddle, Keith. Looking forward to new pics of your progress!
  8. 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.
  9. Glen McGuire
    Fantastic job painting that coat of arms! Not sure how you managed to do that so well as the picture does not do justice to how very small the details are. How interesting that you have a backward N on the transom!! Mine was correctly oriented. So you have a true, visual palindrome! That adds a bit of intrigue and mystery to your model!!
  10. Glen McGuire
    Glad to have you looking in, Pat. I always appreciate your insight.
  11. Glen McGuire
    Don't forget your slide rule, Ian! 😀
  12. Glen McGuire
    @Keith Black - you had asked earlier about Shiloh and his transition from bull to steer. So in further research on this project, I discovered that Shiloh and the subject of my build, Zheng He, have something in common. Zheng He, sadly, was captured as a prisoner of war when he was a youth and castrated (as was customary at the time). But instead of a virtually painless band like Shiloh got, Zheng He lost his parts with a sword. Yet another reason why I am thankful to be living in modern times!
  13. Glen McGuire
    Regarding the warpage, how recently was the wood purchased and where did it come from (was it in a sealed bag that you just opened before install)? If the wood had a higher moisture content when you got it and then it dried out in your low humidity, that could potentially cause the warpage. Guessing like everyone else!
  14. Glen McGuire
    Keith - Very few of us can even begin to imagine the pain and heartbreak that you have endured over the past couple of months as well as the difficulty of doing those things that have to be done in the aftermath. As Dave said above, all of us in your MSW family are with you and hoping to do what we can with our blessings and prayers.
  15. Glen McGuire
    I've been pacing the floor for weeks waiting for an update! 😃 It looks fantastic so far, Grant! Very clean and crisp. I also remember having a war with that slot in the bottom of the hull to get the keel to fit properly. Looks like you got it to fit very nicely. Well done!
  16. Glen McGuire
    The patrol boat (or scout ship depending on the reference source) is complete. The mast is dry fitted for now and you will notice there is no hinge. I'm going to try something different this time. My plan is to secure the hull inside the bottle and then insert the mast with sail into the hull. Since there are no stays, and the ship is small and will be so close to the mouth of the bottle, I think I can pull it off. I've still got some thinkin and figurin to do on how to handle the small amount of rigging. But lots of time to figure that out as this will be the last of the 3 ships to go in the bottle.
  17. Glen McGuire
    Now on to the sail, which I believe gives the junk boat its signature look. The sail itself is red shirt cloth with a thread bolt rope attached to the edges with fabric glue. For the battens, I put a bamboo skewer into the drill lathe and smoothed it down to a 1/32” diameter.
  18. Glen McGuire
    Some additional work on the ship. Thanks to @Keith Black for astutely pointing out that my ship had no way to load the crouching tiger cannon. The patrol boat picture I’m using as a model looks to have a small platform protruding from the bow under the cannon barrel. So I added that. Of course, I also had to add cannon balls on a tray behind the cannon. I had a hard time figuring out what to do for the oars. Although I try to use wood for as many of the wood things as possible, the oars are just too small for me to whittle down. So I ended up using some small brass nails (more leftovers from the Alabama kit). I put the head of the nail into a vise and smashed it down. I think they came out reasonably well.
  19. Glen McGuire
    Amen!!
  20. Glen McGuire
    Rich - Thank you for sharing your manuscript in advance. It is very well written and provides a fascinating glimpse into the incredible depth of research that has gone into this build. I found the section about the Athena figurehead particularly interesting. So much investigative work just to confirm a small detail like Athena’s flowing drape actually forming an open loop! Remarkable. Congratulations on such fine work, Rich. I look forward to seeing the publication in its full printed "glory"!
  21. Glen McGuire
    Yes Mark, out on the ranch and thinking about ship modeling. Is that sad or what! Now if I could only find a use for barbed wire and cow patties...
  22. Glen McGuire
    Referring back to my picture of the patrol boat, the deck fittings are pretty sparse. Looks to me like there’s a cannon mounted on the bow, some quarters rearward, and that’s about it. I did a bit of research on cannons of the early Ming dynasty. They used one called a “crouching tiger” which is shown below on the right (cool name for a cannon). When I was giving my longhorns their yearly vax a couple of weeks ago, I got the idea that the hollow needle (18 gauge) just might make a good cannon barrel. So I cut a piece out of the middle to give it a try. Then I used some photo etch sprues for straps and mounted it on the bow. For the quarters, I did my best to carve out a little shack with a traditional Chinese roof and its upswept corners. Crude but passable. I think.
  23. Glen McGuire
    Thanks, Keith! I wish I was better at wood carving. Then I could carve one of these out of a single piece. But I have much better luck with layers.
  24. Glen McGuire
    Here's where I'm at so far with the patrol boat build. I'm doing another laminated hull. All layers are basswood except the middle one for the rowing platforms. It's a piece of .015" thick oak veneer I got from a site called "Cards of Wood."
  25. Glen McGuire
    While waiting for the epoxy resin to fully cure, I started work on the ships. The smallest one, the patrol boat, is first. Not surprising, I’ve found a variety of illustrations of what it may have looked like. So with full artistic license, my patrol boat is going to combine a few things from different versions. The basic profile I want is the ship on the left in the pic below. However, it’s supposed to be an 8-oar boat so I’m going to add the rowing platforms from the middle image. Side note - I could not figure out how the rowing platforms worked until I found the image on the right. That must have been so much fun to stand out there and work those oars during rough seas!

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