HIPEXEC

Your ship gets better every time I look at it! Nice work! and thanks for all your tips.

Rich

Better safe than sorry. Wear a mask and eye protection for heavy sanding operations. You never know what's bad for you!

Nice work!

I'm enjoying your build. Nice work!

Did you pin the steps as well as glue them to the hull?

I haven't even heard back from Constructo?

In the meantime I'll start fabricating the channels for the rigging. They will be 9.5mm deep by 3mm thick. Any ideas as to how to strongly attached them to the hull? I assume some sort of pinning along with glue, but I must place them very accurately to avoid running a shroud in front of a gunport.

Oh well...I have to obey orders. I do have some small items I can attend to on my ship while I make my area ship shape. Oh, Sjors, thanks for the varnish removal tip. Do you sand it off?

I'll pass the time re-making my workspace. My Admiral doesn't like the giant mess I've created.

It would be great if everyone posted some photos of their work space. I'm definitely going to upgrade mine now.

Wow! I picked up a lot of good tips here. Good forum.

Construction has come to a halt while I try to get 2mm x 2mm Ayous (blond) strips to finish all trim. I seem to have run out and just e-mailed Constructo to see if they can send me about 500 to 600 mm.

Great job!

I love your rudder!

VARNISH?

Do any of you give your model a light coat of varnish before the ship is finished? Constructo's instruction book says nothing about it, but the pictures show a dramatic change in the finish right about the stage I'm at.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Wow! That lantern is great! What did you use for glass...I would like to do that for my skylight.

Nice work.

Rich

I managed to bend those small pieces and glue them in place. They are the anchor hawser reinforcing planks  I'll drill two 3mm holes in each side to take the anchor lines later.

Now I'm putting my plan into play by constructing the bow area. It seems to be working out....we'll see. It's requiring a lot of bending to get stuff to fit the hull. The blond wood bends real easy, but the dark Sapele is like hardened steel. This framework gets covered with decorative scroll work.

I'm going to copy your pins when I put the lids on my USS Constitution's lower gunports.

Since Constructo gave me no detail plans to construct this very complicated bow area, I'm drawing my own. I don't want to glue something in place now and find out I made a big mistake down the road. I'm interpolating between their plans, my model, photos and a little "Kentucky windage".

These windows will be permanently installed down the road. They will have clear panes installed and then the glued windows will be trimmed. I'm starting on the bowsprit next.

Here's the starboard side gallery fix so I can move the pre-cut window forward and make a small trapezoid shaped filler for the aft of the window to compensate for the angle error.

Here's the port gallery window rough fitted to my fix for the forward part of the gallery. I just shaped hull planks to match the shape of the gallery so I could move the pre-cut windows forward. Now I just have to make a trapezoid shaped piece to compensate for the angle error I made with the transom.

I'm bending starter planks for the construction of the bowsprit. Also I'm rectifying the wrong angle of the transom by making filler planks to match the hull so the pre-cut windows will fit. I've been "chewing" on a way to do that, when it came to me today!

I'm starting on the bow area and discover that Constructo gives no detail instructions or detailed prints to follow. There are no pre-cut parts, so I have to figure out how to fabricate complex, curved  pieces out of a dozen straight planks. They give no start points....nothing....very frustrating since one mistake and I usually run into a problem down the road because I didn't size or place something right.

Thanks! I'm going to leave it brass. I'm not going to paint anything on this model.