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Glen McGuire

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Everything posted by Glen McGuire

  1. Glen McGuire
    I think your simulated hull plates turned out very nice. Love the creative method of achieving that look!
  2. Glen McGuire
    Nice soldering skills, Pat. Love the jigs you've made to hold things in place, which is something I always struggle with.
  3. Glen McGuire
    Superb work, John! Congratulations on a job very well done!
  4. Glen McGuire
    Here's my attempt at a new manufacturing technique for the sails. I wanted to get something resembling the first pic below, which is a painting of the razee version of the Independence. For the sails in my previous bottle builds, I cut the sails out of muslin and glued on thread for bolt ropes and panel seams (2nd pic). For this build, I wanted a better look for the bolt ropes. Also, instead of highlighting the panel seams, I wanted the reef bands to be more prominent like they are in the razee painting. Sooooo. I dug out the seldom used sewing machine from the bottom of the closet to see if I could overcome my pathetic sewing skills and make some better looking sails. I tried a bunch of different things and finally settled on regular thread and a very narrow zigzag stitch for the bolt ropes and a straight stitch with fly tying thread for the reef bands. I did ok at sewing straight lines but, as you can see, I had some difficulties turning a smooth curve in such a tight space for the bottom of the square sails. They did not come out perfect, but I like them better than the glue-on thing I was doing before.
  5. Glen McGuire
    Thank you, Grant and Keith, for the commiseration! Like the song says, some days are diamonds, some days are stones! But I'd say any day working on a model is a pretty good day regardless!
  6. Glen McGuire
    Y'all ever have those days where you just keep screwing things up? Stepping the masts and adding the yards should have been a relatively simple job. But no, I kept fumbling and stumbling and bumbling. First, I measured some of the yard lengths wrong and had to make new ones. Ugh. Then I put the main mast yards on the fore mast. Ugh. Then I mixed up the gaff and boom on the mizzen mast and had to pull them off and reattach. Ugh. Finally decided I had to do stop for a while and do something different. Something real simple - like put the button on the end of my cannon barrel (bottle). I found a cabinet pull at Home Depot for $3 that sort of resembles a cannon button. An old work boot was the perfect jig to hold bottle while the epoxy set. After that small victory, I was able to regroup and finish the masts, yards, and stays. Sails are up next. I'm going to try and do something different with them, so we will see how that turns out.
  7. Glen McGuire
    I'm thinking a smaller version of your Tennessee in a Tennessee whiskey bottle! That should be next on your list, Keith!
  8. Glen McGuire
    Thanks, Grant. But what I'm really excited about is the new listing under your "Current Builds". Heading over there now!!!
  9. Glen McGuire
    WOOHOO!!! I've been anxiously waiting on this build for months! Can't wait to follow along and see how you how you put this thing together. Looks like you are off to a great start. I like the way you used the brass pins for alignment.
  10. Glen McGuire
    Brilliant work, John! Love the creativity for the mast hinges and the laminate spars. I just finished up a much cruder version of the Aurora in a bottle. The Antarctic exploration vessels from the heroic age are fascinating ships with incredible stories!
  11. Glen McGuire
    Masts completed and upper shrouds and ratlines added. Pictures show the basic process. I use standard Gutterman thread for the shrouds. The ratlines are 72D 8/0 fly tying thread glued to the shrouds with Aleene's fabric glue and clipped close with cuticle trimmers.
  12. Glen McGuire
    As my son and all the millenials say, "picture or it didn't happen!" 😄
  13. Glen McGuire
    Moving off the deck now! The next small challenge was the dolphin striker. The sail plan drawing of the 1814 Independence shows it being split like the Constitution. I like to build as much of the ship as possible out of wood, but for the split dolphin striker, I just could not put any little pieces of wood together that looked good and had any sturdiness. So I soldered a couple of small pieces of wire. Don't tell anyone I cheated! Next up are the masts. With each of these builds, I'm trying to improve on the last build by adding a little more detail and/or improve a component where I can. I figure that's the fastest way to get better at this stuff. So for the masts, I decided to try a first for me and make them 3-piece. The overlapping sections add precious height to the overall structure when they are laid over, so I notched the ends where each section meets the one above it. I am determined NOT to have to rework things to fit the ship inside the bottle when it's time. I'm also trying a mass production of the mast tops.
  14. Glen McGuire
    The micro mesh that @Keith Black suggested arrived this weekend so it was time to decide on the fate of the hammock netting. I really wanted the netting to work because I thought it made for a unique look. I took the micro mesh and cut a small section out and gave it a very light dusting of black spray paint, then cut it into a couple of tiny strips. Despite being stainless steel, it cut quite easily with small scissors. I really like the way it turned out - way better than the mesh stuff I used earlier. So huge thanks to @Roger Pellett for pointing out that my original netting was far out of scale and to Keith for finding that micro mesh on eBay! I never thought of ship modeling as a team sport, but I'm beginning to think it is!
  15. Glen McGuire
    Thank you, Grant!
  16. Glen McGuire
    On to the deck fittings. Since I have no deck plans for the Independence, I'm making it Constitution-ish. Based on what I've seen in Constitution build logs, the spar deck is not near as busy as the decks of my previous Aurora and Morgan builds (not counting the cannons anyway). So besides the cannons, I'm outfitting the Independence with 3 vent pipes, a double captains wheel, a capstan, 4 gratings (with cannon balls of course), and 2 ship boats. And I immediately ran into problems. First, the barrels on my spar deck cannons did not stick out of the gun ports quite as far as the barrels on the middle and lower gun decks. Those stick out about 1/32", so we're only talking 1/64". But it was noticeable to me. Ugh. So I scrapped 14 of the cannons on the display side and rebuilt them with barrels of the proper length. The 2nd problem was my gratings. This is the first time I've tried to actually make something resembling gratings at this scale. I spent a lot of time building 4 of them using the same mesh that I'd used for the hammock netting, gluing it over a small black square for depth. To my surprise, I thought they came out looking pretty good. Unfortunately, I failed to consider how much of the deck would be taken up by the the cannon carriages. As a result, the gratings were way too big. Ugh again. So I scrapped them and made smaller ones. For the capstan, I used one of those tiny little beads and stuck it on the end of a toothpick. I know the cannon balls should be black. But then they just get lost and are not even really visible. So I'm using a bit of artistic license here because I want them to stand out just a bit.
  17. Glen McGuire
    Glad to have you on board, Todd! You're gonna enjoy the ride!
  18. Glen McGuire
    Don't worry about the close-up pictures showing too many flaws. We are all way too familiar with that around here. Really nice work so far. I think you are doing a fine job on a very interesting subject!
  19. Glen McGuire
    He will be part of the family. The only dark side for him comes at 8 months when he goes from bull to steer. 😀
  20. Glen McGuire
    Baby Bevo (Shiloh) is doing fantastic! He's already sprouting little horn nubs! Here he is with his momma.
  21. Glen McGuire
    @Joe100 had a Churchill quote in a recent post that I wish I'd read when you and @gjdale wanted me to carve a penguin for that Aurora build. Churchill said, "When all the sick and wounded have been tended, when all the impoverished and broken hearted homes have been restored, when every hospital is gorged with money, and every charitable subscription is closed, then and not until then will I concern myself with those penguins."
  22. Glen McGuire
    That looks so cool!
  23. Glen McGuire
    While I await the micro mesh order and ponder the fate of the hammock netting, work continues. For the quarter gallery, I added windows. a gold eagle, and a tiny bit of decorative paint. I also added a ship boat storage platform to the center of the deck between the hammock rails. The 2nd pic shows some decorative paint added to the prow and the 3rd pic shows the cathead and anchor assembly.
  24. Glen McGuire
    I did. But obviously I did not do enough searching last night. I found one this morning with the April 18th delivery. So I cancelled my previous order and placed a new one. Thank you, Keith!!
  25. Glen McGuire
    Thanks, Mark, Roger and Keith for the comments and suggestions. I just ordered some of that micro mesh. I really like the idea of having some kind of netting look. Unfortunately, the micro mesh won't get here till June. I'm too impatient to wait that long to finish this build, but it will be a nice addition to my box of stuff for future work. So I'm going to play around with some things based on the collective input and see if I can come up with something I like that has a good look. I appreciate the creative help from y'all!!

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