Auger

14 hours ago, bobandlucy said:

Looks great Auger! I have this kit but am waiting for confidence to build through other models. The staircases kind of intimidate me. . . 

 

Where did you find the human and animal figures? 

 

Bob

Hi Bob,

I purchased the figures on amazon.fr, by Preiser @ 1/87 scale.

On 5/31/2021 at 10:29 PM, Cathead said:

Welcome back to the build!

Thanks, happy to be back! And especially happy to be out of that itchy cast; I can type again!

Just returned from the vineyards of some good family friends, The Coulons in Reims. Their champagne is absolutely wonderful; planted on the same soil as Veuve Clicquot. In all actually, their vines are the very next row. Super, super friendly people who embody the spirit of France. I would attribute them to old school U.S. southern hospitality ( of all kinds ). Needless to say, the back of my truck was full upon departure from their house.

The Champagne of the world comes from the valley in my last photo. As we build model ships, they produce Champagne. Although, this year, they were hit hard by a late freeze in April and many houses suffered large losses. Last image courtesy of imgur.com (saving the vines). Not the Coulon house, but another house trying to fight the freeze.

Laying the 3rd Deck.

Adding bumpers to the 3rd deck. 

Well after a long, cold winter which is too cold down stairs, and then a broken left arm (mountain biking) last month, I'm finally out of the cast and able to manipulate some tools and small pieces of wood again. So, back to the build, albeit slowly. I've started planking the 3rd deck and added some small details to the first deck. 

Sawing and sanding are still a bit difficult, but good physical therapy if I go slowly.

First of the second deck guard rails installed and I started cutting the corner sections for the first deck support beams. The corner sections are difficult to cut because they're so darn small. 

I've started the first of the guard rails. For me the secret is careful bending and some CA glue for the metal parts. Concerning the posts, I used my Model Machines draw plate to draw down some bamboo skewers which where used as anchors for the posts, these make things a lot more rigid and less apt to break off if accidentally touched durning construction, just need to let the glue set overnight.

Been a while since I've posted, but I'm still around. I've added the port side wood rails and they took a bit of time to build-up. So here are a few photos of where things sit as of today:

Passengers starting to arrive:

New hand rails made from 2x2 Sapele wood:

Tonights tunes

I don't like the laser cut stair rails so I'm going to attempt to make my own. The first (easy) rails have been glued into place. Time to get bending and breaking:

The stairs as of today:

Had to fix one of the stairs. For some reason the balusters on the second set were too long and high, so I had to work some Dremel magic to right things up a bit. The penciled baluster in photo 3 is what I removed:

Truth be told; the wave catch looks good, but I busted 4 of these in the making. Luckily I found a hobby store in country that stocks Constructo woods. So I had plenty on hand to improvise.

Freshly oiled in this photo and, yes, I'm a mountain bike rider (the Crank Brothers sticker).

A little more done on the fist deck:

Urrrgh... These stairs are killin' me.

On 10/16/2020 at 8:14 PM, Cathead said:

Great progress. The colors complement each other well.

On 10/16/2020 at 9:50 PM, Moab said:

Looking fantastic!...Moab

Thank you, I appreciate the kind words. 

The paddle wheel installed:

The I'm going to venture to say that this is the most difficult part of the build. I'm glad that I'm down in the dungeon and don't have kids because the expletive details that filled the air during the building of this part, well, let's just say that I need to have little a sit-down with Jesus to put a finger on one of my many faults. I guess the test here will be the building of the second staircase.

Ever seen The Christmas Story? Alfie’s father and the furnace? It was kinda like that.

The built-up paddle wheel. I'm happy with the way it turned out:

On 8/27/2020 at 3:29 AM, mikiek said:

Auger - your sails appear to be like mine. Someone else commented here that the sails from their kit did not look like mine. Since you are in France I assume you bought your kit over there? I bought mine from Cornwall Models in the U.K.  Do you happen to remember if there was a sail upgrade option when you bought your kit? I sort of remember that but I can't say for sure. Otherwise we have been wondering why the sails in kits from the same manufacturer would be different. Only other reason I can come up with is maybe a US version and a E.U. version of the kit?

Yes these are the kit sails in my photo and I did purchase the kit here in France. Back when I built it, I don’t recall there being any sail upgrade kits available. I tossed around the idea of making my own at the time but just went with what was provided.

Starting to look like something:

These are actually pretty difficult to paint. I've been using a fine paint brush and a magnifying glass... and taking a lot of breaks.