Greg Davis

One more question! Do you recall what saw blade you chose to do the cutting? thanks, Greg

Chris - Excellent subject and work! Would it be possible for you to describe / explain how you were able to part these rising wood pieces off? I have been struggling on how to tackle the corresponding parts on my L'Invention build. Thanks, Greg

Chris Thank you very much; I'm glad you stopped in because now I am aware of your beautiful La Renommee build (and log). Greg

I think that this is the best I can do at this point in time: I'll be putting the head / cutwater assembly in a safe place as I'm not interested in remaking the structure currently!

Yesterday I attached the forefoot to the stem structure. Today I spent some time adjusting the cutwater / head assembly to fit nicely to the forefoot / stem structure. I'm finding this to be a challenge; however, it seems like it is getting close. They fit quite well together when a small amount of pressure is used to pull them together. I think I can get a little better fit so there is minimal tension in the joint before setting the setting the head aside for quite a long time. I am glad that I decided to build this assembly now as this fitting process would likely have been even more challenging if I couldn't lay all these parts flat on the bench! So a little more time on the mating process and then I will start adding in the keel.

I've finally made of my mind on the way this model will be displayed - I kept going back and forth between launching ways and a minimal cradle. Launching ways won, so there will be the opportunity to compare ship and mounting method with the old 1:96 Phantom. I cut the launching ways I had made down in size by quite a bit and stained it Golden Oak. Several support beams will be fashioned to keep the 1:48 Phantom sitting nice and level on the slipway. Maybe time to bring the deck back out in the open?

The cutwater / knee of the head assembly is nearly complete. Lots of slow going to get all the graceful curves sanded. I am now making adjustments so that this work fits neatly with the stem / forefoot assembly. I also need to drill / mill a hole and slot for future rigging purposes.

Today I hung the rudder using the phot-etched parts provided. The result is quite acceptable (to me): I chemically blackened the photo-etch parts with Brass Black by Birchwood. Before attaching they were buffed as clean as possible with a Dremel attachment. I'm debating whether or not I should blacken / paint the heads of the brass nails that I used here. Since there was no explicit instructions provided for installing the rudder hardware I thought I would outline the way I did the work: There are specific orientations for the gudgeon and pintle pieces. You can pick up on the orientation of the larger gudgeon piece if you look carefully at the one rudder installation picture in the manual. However, the picture below may make it easier to see what needs to be done; i.e., the holes in the back plate need to be above the associated gudgeons so the pintles mount higher up as needed. The gudgeons should be bent to the side of the scores in the photo-etch part so the exterior of the bend is smooth. Pilot holes should be drilled to accept cutoff pin heads used to simulate bolts; similar for the three locations used to pin the rudder to the stern post. I inserted pins in the three attachment locations, cut them off leaving ~ 1/16" and pressed the rudder up to the pins to mark locations to place the pintles on the rudder. The pins were then removed. Holes were drilled into the rudder at these three locations and the mounting / alignment pins were CA'ed into the holes in the rudder. Pintles were then threaded over the alignment pins and attached to the rudder. Again the PE scores go to the inside of the pieces when attached. Care needs to be taken that the pintles are attached with the correct orientation on the rudder - there is an up and a down; if not respected the pintles will not fall just above their associated gudgeons. Pin heads were then used to finish the pintle installation. Finally, the rudder was glued to the hull making use of the three alignment pins that went exactly were they should!

Thank you for the support! I was looking at your list of future builds and I see we share Slo-Mo-Shun. I have the kit sitting on a shelf. A couple of years ago when I was visiting my son in Seattle, I had him take me to the Hydroplane & Raceboat Museum in Kent because I got the impression from their website that Slo-Mo-Shun IV was in their possession. Drove out there, had a great time, saw a lot of really cool stuff - and found out that Slo-Mo-Shun IV was hanging in Seattle's Museum of History and Industry which is located less than a mile from where he lives!

Thank you very much!

I've managed to copper plate the rudder. Fortunately the belts line up well between hull and rudder. Time to blacken some brass and get the rudder hung.

Started the rudder work today. Before freeing the rudder from the wood sheet that it was laser cut into, I tapered the rudder fore to aft by nearly 1/16" each side. Actually I milled the taper by securing the rudder blank to my mill with a 1/16" plate lifting the fore side of the blank - this way I tapered off ~ 1/16 by the aft edge of the rudder. The blank was flipper over and a 1/8" plate was used to lift the blank - this way I could mill a taper that reduced the aft edge on this side also by 1/16". Next the rudder was freed from the blank and additional shaping / fitting was done. The fore edge is now rounded off a bit (may round it a little more), and the rudder post is a cylinder as it meets the hull. Minor height adjustments needed to be made for the rudder to fit close to the stern post. Soon the top will be painted black and the rest coppered. Just a comment about the instructions associated with the rudder installation. I hope I haven't missed something (I search for rudder in the PDF of the instructions for rudder several times); but there only seems to be one picture / paragraph dedicated to this part of the build: From the picture, I can see that the fore edge of the rudder has been rounded, and it also looks like the rudder has been tapered. My concern is that, I can't find any text in the instructions (nor an illustration in the plans) that speaks to shaping of the rudder. There should be some instruction / notes in the instructions given that this is a 'beginners kit'. Going back to the picture, the rudder attachment method is clever and should make for a nice mount. I'm definitely going to try out the included photo-etched parts here. The gudgeons are combined and spaced on a single piece of brass; however the three pintles are separate pieces. There are three holes in the gudgeon piece that need to align with holes in the pintles in order for the described pinning to work. It would have been nice, if the instructions had included a few words on how to get the photo-etched parts lined up so the pinning went as expected.

Finished coppering the hull and now have extra respect for those modelers that copper huge warships! Still need to contour the rudder before doing a little more plating.

Do it! Here's my 1:96 Phantom (2007) - safe, but not cased, on a shelf for now: The copper was not treated in any way; it is a bit darker now but still surprisingly shiny. Waterline is a little more wavy then my current iteration! I see that I used the copper tape right off the spool so the plates are 1/4" high and I did not have a separate belt for the aft portion of the hull - apparently I did not follow the Chuck Passaro Phantom Practicum very well. I still remember struggling with adding hooks to the very small blocks amongst other challenges. That kit was really was on the small side for a first build and I am glad that the larger 1:48 scale model is now available.

Finished plating the port side of Phantom today. I had placed a strip of tape to mark the water line / position of the last line of plates:

I marked off the first belt with Tamiya tape and plated the first belt so that it overlapped the tape. After making sure the copper foil was burnished quite well to the hull in a way that I could easily see the tape edge, I used a new scalpel blade to cut through the foil and pealed off the tape. Ready now to start the second belt.

I've started to copper the hull. This is only the second hull I've tried to cover in copper foil - my 1/96 scale Phantom was the first, back in 2007. I hope it doesn't look too bad when done! So here's what I've done on day 1: Keeping the detail level - no treenails in the hull planks (nor deck), so no fasteners in the copper plates.

Greg - I have a light box as well, but never thought of using it for that purpose - duh! Thanks for the great idea and supportive comments, Greg

Cleaned up / milled out some wood above gamming knee and lengthening timber (4 & 5). I didn't want to accidently catch something on one of the rough edges and / or slots that were along the top. Once that was done, using a spindle sander, I did a preliminary sanding of the back edge that will match with the stem. This actually resulted in a better than expected start to the final shaping:

Thank you so much!

I will be doing the re-sharpening first and see how long I can make the blade last. But making my own may come into play depending on the longevity of the provided one. Currently a single replacement blade is going for $10 plus $4 shipping on Amazon. I will say the cutting station is very nice, but pricey; some would argue overpriced for what I'm using it for - and therefore I shouldn't complain about blade prices! Truthfully, I could have built a simple jig (like used for making deck planks the same length) from wood and cut the copper tape with a razor blade or hobby knife for essentially free.

It feels good to be back on the build, there had been a lot of days where I would come into my workroom and see the hull on the shelf and an urge to bring it down to table level would occur! But finishing the Santos-Dumont Hydroplane had preference through early / mid May because it was going to a contest. That worked out well with the model earning the Best of Show award. Of course then there was a bit of adrenaline that pushed me toward my most ambitious current project - L' Invention! The modeling there is going good but is a bit more stressful / higher stakes type of build for me. The Phantom build is more on the relaxing side! Currently it looks like I should be able to make constant progress on Phantom for the foreseeable future. How much / fast is the big question as I tend to get involved in other builds readily. Not so much that I lose interest in a ongoing build as I find other models compelling as well. I have (at least) two other models eking along - the Occre BR-18 Locomotive kit, and a scratch built half-hull model of the skip-jack Carrie Price based on the plans and instructions in the Grimwood book "American Models and How to Build Them'. Greg

It's been a while since I worked on this model, but today I got back at it! Cutting copper plates - several hundred so far. The Dspiae cutter does a great job, I'm just wondering how long the blade will hold up. unfortunately, The blade appears to be proprietary (and expensive). Soon I will start attaching to the hull.

Another day, another joint! This will sit between glass plates through the night to insure it dries flat. I can then remove some of the excess material along the curved contour of 4 and 5. The flat on the top of 4 will be cut a bit later so that it matches the top of the stem. It also looks like I can start working on the joint between what is done and the stem.

It looks wonderful - feel free to hijack at will! Thank you so much for the complement on my work; it means a lot to me. Greg