rlwhitt

That stern end is awesome looking.  Those curved planks are spot on!  

Gun Deck Complete

 

Big milestone.  Guns and main deck bits all in.  Now on to upper deck beams.  Sort of feels a bit like more of a downhill trek from here!

 

 

Hello Werner,

 

Your build is superb!  I have this in my queue and am reading your log with much interest.  I like your color scheme and have a couple of questions about what you've done.  In most of the pictures the decking looks almost like it's bleached.  Did you apply some sort of whitewash?  Or perhaps it's the species of wood if you've substituted?  I've read some information to the effect that an actual deck would probably look bleached out like this.  

 

Also, the red you use for bulwarks and deck fittings looks to my eye like it would probably be more accurate than the brighter reds that you usually see, as iron oxide paint can be pretty dull.  What have you used here?

 

Thanks and kudos for a masterpiece work!

 

2 hours ago, allanyed said:

Whatever water was in the bilge which could be fresh from rain water mixed in with the normal sea water that was found in the bilges. Certainly not fresh drinking water.

Allan

 

Right, I guess I could have clarified - non bilge water 

Thanks Gary, that makes sense, I hadn’t considered drawing up fresh water.

Hi All,

 

I've been wondering about Elm Pumps.   Usually sitting right next to the chain pumps (who's function IS clear to me), I'm not understanding what they are pumping.  Just another way to pump the bilge?  Or something else?   Why are they called Elm, and sometimes Elm Tree pumps, and which is correct?  Are they made from Elm trees? 

 

 

Guns and Other Bit(t)s

 

It's been a little slow going of late.  I have gotten to the guns and I find this part quite tedious, especially cleaning the britannia barrels.  I know there are options to buy better ones, but I didn't feel like spending the $$ on this one.  Maybe in future builds like the Confederacy.  I've made one prototype and all the rest (25) of the main deck carriages.  Still to finish the remaining barrels and breech ropes.  I will not be fully rigging the guns.   And to reduce the boredom have been alternating other parts.  I think it's safe to say there will be no 100-gun ships of the line in my future 

 

Shown is the one sample gun temporarily placed, retracted.  I've simplified a bit by just using a larger eyebolt instead of a small eyebolt and ring on the bulwarks and carriages.  Not exactly scale accuracy, but better for my sanity.  As for the holes in the bulwarks, I made a little jig with a wooden plug to fit in the gun port glued to a bit of heavy card stock with holes in the right places.  Then I put a small drill bit into the end of a dowel and reached through the opposing gun port to drill the holes.  This made quite short (and accurate) work of the job.

 

 

 

For a break, went ahead and made the 2 sets of bitts and installed them:

 

 

And also went ahead and did the non-fragile bits of the headworks.  A few of the supplied parts here I will call "fantasy parts", as only in a wild fantasy will they fit as described.  Had to roll some of my own here.  

 

Coppering Complete!

 

I was dreading this, but I've got to say it wasn't too bad.  Just didn't try any marathon sessions to get too burned out at one sitting.  Finished up being about 1200-1300 tiles.  Whew!  Couple of coats of shellac to seal some edges and corners to help keep them from peeling.  Now it's on to guns and other deck paraphernalia.

 

 

Wow, that is some superb fitment right there.  Kudos.

 

Awesome job Chris!

34 minutes ago, Roger Carter said:

Hi. Just bought this kit myself, and have to admit to already being confused by the instructions. There seems to be two set of keel parts, and one false keel. At first I thought you must have to glue the two keels together, but now assuming you only need to use one set.  Yours looks great by the way.

I don’t recall having 2 sets of the same thing, rather there was a keel and the bulkhead former, glued together, as in the second picture of my 1st post.

Copper Plating

 

I seriously considered painting the lower hull with Model Masters Oxidizing Copper Paint.  This stuff has actual copper flake in it and is supposed to patina naturally over time.  Or you can buy an accelerator to make green or blue patina immediately.  I bought a bottle of the paint and painted some samples.  I considered getting the accelerator, but by then I'd decided I didn't think I'd like the way it looked and that I would bite the bullet and go with the copper plating tape in the kit.  

 

I also experimented with this tool.  It's from Artesania Latina.  It comes in kit form, you have to put it together.   It looks promising because it combines fine edge divots, coarser mid plate ones in an alternating pattern, and seam markers.   Theory is you just roll this thing down the tape and make all your marks in one quick pass.  Much Time Saved!   It works, but my main issue with it is that it's VERY hard to keep it going in a straight line keeping things properly aligned.  Really no good way to run it in a guide or straightedge to guide it, that I could come up with at least.  Plus it's got so many sharp points hitting the copper all at once it wants to pull the tape away from the backing and wrap around the wheels.  Maybe this has promise, and someone will figure a better way to use it.  But I'm putting it in a drawer for now and going back to a bit more old school, but tedious method.  

 

 

I made a simple card stock and tape jig, that I can use to produce 9 tiles at a time. Using the straight edge to guide a fine pounce wheel (sewing tool, Excel brand) for one edge and one side of each tile.  Only marking one side and end because the tiles will be overlap jointed.  I made a little wood jig to poke the mid-plate lines.  That part is a bit tedious, but it's fast.  Could probably be made quicker by making a multi-pin stamp, but I've tried making one and can never seem to get all the pins straight and the same length.   Once all the divots are poked, just take a knife and cut each joint, careful to cut just the copper and not the backing.  This gives a really easy to use strip of plates that peel off easily.

 

 

And so it begins.  About 100 plates laid - only about 900 more to go 

 

Miscellaneous Upper Bits

 

Thanks so much for all the likes and comments!  

 

I could easily call this section  "stuff I'm doing to avoid coppering", but officially I'll say getting as much done now that will be OK to turn upside down.

 

Starting with some of the low, non fragile deck bits.  Mast surrounds, grates, capstan bases:

 

 

Adding cap rails, trim, and the little scroll trim bits at the hances.  Plus upper bulwark black painting.  Holding off on painting the tops of the fore and midships cap rails as they will have stanchions and upper rails attached.

 

 

 

 

.  

That looks awesome Chris!  Tell me you weren't tempted to slip some dowels into that  😉   Wood is just "paper ore" after all, amirite?

Outstanding!  

Stern and Quarter Galleries

 

First up, trim out the stern piece with some tiny strip stock, paint and decorate with the PE brass decorations, painted.  

 

 

Now for the Quarter Galleries.  As is common practice, at least with MS kits, these are provides as Britannia metal bits.  These are just sad.  They really don't fit together or with the hull.  Not sure how anyone manages to make these look good.  I don't think I can.

 

 

So I decided to scratch build the galleries.  I have the Confederacy kit from MS in my queue to do and Chuck's design builds up the galleries from parts supplied - a much superior design.  I'm going to shamelessly steal what makes sense from those instructions, modifying as I need to fit this model.  One of the main differences will be I don't need to make the windows clear because there's nothing to see back here on this kit - just a plank wall.  

 

Starting by making a "floor" piece.  This is sort of just eyeballed as to shape, taking the length from the plans.

 

 

Then added a slightly smaller piece of similar shape below it, attached to the bottom of the lower counter board.  These horizontal parts are 1/16" scrap stock.

 

 

Next I need to make a "wall" between the 2 pieces.  I could have made this lower section by laminating some thicker pieces, as I ended up doing with the upper part coming up later.  But I decided to try using some 1/32" stock to make a planking sort of deal.  I used the traced frog tape method to make a spiled piece to fit.  It is basically made tight enough to be a press fit in here - I did not try to make any framing behind it.  

 

 

I did however make a frame for the curved window wall, which is a bit of 1/32" sheet with the grain vertical for easy bending.  

 

 

This followed by another thin skin, this one cut out for the laser cut window frames

 

 

Moving on to the drops.  Used some suitably sized scrap to try to make an approximation of the shape of the bottom of the provided lower part.  This one has an eagle molded in, which I'll have to forego.  Oh well...

 

 

And here I've glued them to the floor and begun filling and shaping.  Need lots of wood filler here.

 

 

Moving to the upper part.  For these I laminated a thick and a thin piece, then carved and sanded down to a pleasing shape.

 

 

For the tops, the plans show this one has a little roof like thing with "shingles".  I decided I wanted to show these.  Luckily I happen to have a nice Japanese screw punch (it's a bookbinding tool) from my card modelling days.  It makes nice little circles (or holes, depending on what you need).  Cut in half and glued on makes a nice shingle effect.  

 

 

Fast forward a little after some finishing and painting.  There are some PE brass decorations that will go on a couple of places, but I'm going to hold off on that until near the end.  I'm pleased with the way these came out, and MUCH happier than I'd been trying to make those metal parts work.

 

 

Bulwark Planking and Some Paintin'

 

Finished up the major planking duties with the inner bulwarks.  Feels good to have all the major planking effort done!   Also visible are the beam pocket strips for the top deck beams.   I would emphasize to spend some extra time on making sure these are situated right.  There is really not much leeway for error here.  The instructions point this out, but I would amplify it.

 

 

 

Started some painting.  The outside planks at the ports was a shellac mix, 1/3 each of clear, amber, and alcohol, 3 coats looks about right to me.

 

 

Put in the window frames.  They went in with a perfect fit - but only because I took my time at the framing step to get the dimensions right.

 

 

At this point in the planned sequence, they start into the coppering of the lower hull.  I'm dreading this just a little bit 

 

I have ordered a tool from Artesania Latina to hopefully make the process of marking the copper tape a lot faster and easier.  We will see how that goes.  It's coming from across the pond so it'll be a bit before I see it, so in the meantime I'm going to work on hatches and other low profile deck stuff while I wait...

 

I’ve got one on order and am fast approaching time to copper the Essex.  I will certainly post my thoughts on the build thread.  I hope it helps to retain some bit of sanity in the process!

She looks great Chris, and she makes a nice hull-only subject.  Congratulations - I bet it feels nice to get a 17 year old monkey off your back! 😁

31 minutes ago, Canute said:

They also supply tools for working with PE.

But nothing from Artesania Latina, unfortunately.

On 7/10/2023 at 5:09 PM, chris watton said:

OK, the updated Speedy is now live:

 

HMS Speedy – Version 2023 – VANGUARD MODELS

 

Hi Chris,

 

Do you have any plans to update the Flirt kit in a similar manner, as they are sister ships?  I’m shopping what I want to do on a model to fully rig and the brigs look much more doable for me.  I really like the color scheme of the Flirt and the fact that it has no coppering.  I know at the end of the day these are aesthetic choices and I could just easily get Speedy and use the Flirt scheme.  But I thought I’d ask about update plans.

 

Thanks!

40 minutes ago, allanyed said:

Hi Rick

Sounds like it should do the trick for you.  Please post pics of the end results.   I looked at the Excel pounce wheels on Amazon and the small (1/4") wheel does 24 points per inch so really close to the spacing for your scale on the one long and one short row at the two outer edges and the larger wheels look good for the punch marks in the center row.  They quote a 2 day delivery so really good.

Allan

 

Yeah, I have those and they really work well.  Pretty labor intensive for a full size hull, so I'm thinking this tool would help preserve my sanity a little bit.  

@allanyed, I feel like this tool I've linked is sort of misnamed.  As long as you use it as prescribed (from the front of the tape), it does indeed make depressions in the correct direction, not like rivets.  Much like using a pounce wheel.  Basically this thing is several pounce wheels on a shaft with some bars interspersed to make the "seam" lines.  

Hi All,

 

I know about Ages of Sail, but they have a subset of AL tools only.  I am keenly interested in this one:  Micro Riveting Tool.  It might be too new for AoS to be carrying it yet.  Wondering if anyone knows of other vendors in the US for their tools.  It's $25 shipping from AL and otherwise I'm seeing only UK and Euro vendors in my Googles.  

19 hours ago, allanyed said:

The finish on your hull planking looks very nicely done!   Regarding the wales at the bow in the pictures in post # 12 above, you may want to see a recent discussion on the tapering of the thickness of the wales.   https://modelshipworld.com/topic/34868-wales-diminishing-thickness-at-the-bow/    

Thanks for sharing your build!

Allan

 

Thanks for the reminder Allan.  I did see the thread and thought I'd do that, need to remember to do so before the outside paiting starts.