SiriusVoyager

Looks like a cool build. I look forward to seeing it!

Welcome to MSW!

Welcome to MSW!

Welcome to MSW! Look forward to seeing the build log

The upper capstan attached to the deck. 8 guns half way made. The guns just need the rigging and installation. A couple of the axles look like they need to be trimmed. If needed, I will touch them up with a dab of black paint.

Looks like quite the build! Looking forward to following this one.

That looks pretty good. I will have to see if I can arrange the wire in a similar way. I should be able to.

Good to know. Thanks! I was assuming the wire would be too tight to get the deadeye in or out, but I can give that a try. Thanks!

I can’t think of another way of doing it. The closest I can think of would be gluing the deadeye to the chainwale and making it look like the deadeyes are anchored to the hull. I’m not sure I could do it in a way that looks good. That may be the simplest solution. Thanks! Yes, with a torch. I will look into the Plum Brown.

On the kit I am working on, the brass wire needs a bit of bending and twisting. I want to blacken it, but I am concerned about working it after being blackened. My plan is to anneal the brass, blacken it, then shape it. My worry is that I will ruin the black finish by bending and twisting the metal. If I blackened the brass after working with it, the Brass Black will stain the deadeyes. Any suggestions on how to approach this is much appreciated.

Thanks!

I have been jumping around the instructions at this point. The capstan in the instructions didn't resemble any capstan I had ever seen. I am pretty sure they didn't use metal handles at the time either, so I modified it a bit. I cut out two circles and 4 wedges, glued them together and sanded them into shape. I also made 4 wooden handles. The caps were scrap pieces of laser cut sheets. The wedges and the handles are two pieces of scrap planking glued together and cut, carved and sanded into shape. I used "special" walnut stain to color it. I think I am slowly getting better at this. The capstan is simple and may not be totally accurate, but I think it looks better than how the kit designed it. I also started working on the hatch grating. I was hoping the piece would all simply fit together, but they do not. The space between the teeth is just a bit too narrow. I used a piece of 150 grit sand paper folded four times to floss between the teeth. It seemed to make the spacing just wide enough. I also attempted to blacken brass for the first time. I was a bit intimidated at first because I was worried about messing it up. First I cleaned the brass parts with a wire brush attachment on a dremel. I then soaked the pieces in isopropyl alcohol for a few minutes to clean off any contaminates. Next I used cotton swabs to apply Brass Black to the cannons. After about 20-40 seconds when they started to look black I dipped them in distilled water then let them dry on paper towels. For the wheels I placed them all in diluted Brass Black and then rinsed. I was pleasantly surprised that the blackening worked out pretty well, and was pretty easy.

Nice work on that tug! Looks great!

The tug look wonderful! Great job!

Great looking ship you made there Olli! I would never guess that was a first model.

The instructions call this the main yard support. I am pretty sure there is a better term, but I couldn't find it. I made this the same way as the stanchions for the fife rail. I enjoyed carving these out. Belaying pin rails made and installed.

Four gun port frames glued in. There were also some wales attached which were stained with a walnut stain. The gunwale was also put in place as well as the chainwales. The mast fife pin rail also needed to be made. There was no laser cut puts here. They had to be carved and drilled. They came out better than I expected.

Welcome to MSW!

I believe you have to have a minimum number of posts (not sure on the number) before you are allowed to add a signature. Before you reach that number, the option will not even appear in your profile to edit.

Very nice carrack you have there. Welcome to MSW!

This was an entertaining log to follow and the riverboat looks great! Nice job.

Great job on completing the pram. That was a good fix on the rudder. The brass fittings are definitely too small. Looking forward to the smack!

In your iphone settings at the top, search "camera format" and it should take you right to it.

Welcome to MSW! Looking forward to the build. Your photos aren't showing up because they are in a format that only iphones use. If you change the format to jpeg they should show up properly.

Continuing the work on the hull on the other side. Drilling pilot holes to cut out the gun ports seemed to work ok some times and not so good other times. I switched to a finger drill which was a better option than the dremel. As can be seen in the photos below, most of the holes were fine, but one caused some damage. Fortunately the frame seems to cover it all up, which I didn't expect. There isn't enough room to cut out the gun ports from inboard side because the knife handle is too long, so it must be cut through form the outboard side. This wasn't an easy task and caused some damage. I decided to build some frames to make it look cleaner. I tried to find images of gun ports from the inside of real and recreated ships and had a hard time finding any could be seen well. I only noticed one with a frame and couldn't really find anything on Spanish galleons. The inboard frames may not be historically accurate, but they look better. I don't like the shiny iridescence of the sapele decking and also wanted it just a bit darker so I experimented with some acrylic paint stains. I found that I liked plain ole brown the best. It is a subtle difference but I think it looks a lot better. Hopefully in the next update or two, once the cap rails are in place and the outboard gun port frames are in place it will start to look better.