uscharin

Decided to make the poop railing before I lost the extra turned posts I made. Pretty much the same drill as with the forecastle railing, except I turned the finials out of brass rod this time. The thick-bodied white paint I used made a mess. Looks fine enough so decided against a re-do. The fire bucket apron was a small disaster as I broke it in half twice trying to file the scroll work. Scroll work didn't turn out as I hoped but does suggest the original and adds interest.

Over the last few days (very time-consuming work), I fabricated and installed the wooden forecastle railing. I made extra posts for when I get to the poop railing. I kind of dreaded this as I own no micro/watch making lathe. This is the first occasion I wish I had more than my handheld Dremel and small files. Never-the-less, I found a way. For each pillar I used two 12mm "walnut" belaying pins that came with the original model kit. I was happy I could use them in this way. The stem on each pin chucked up nicely and was useful in handling the posts. I made the acorn finials out of 8mm brass belaying pins. The wood rails and blocks I made out of cherry and stained. On a separate topic, I ordered some 3mm studded chain from AliExpress (China) in hopes it would be useable. It was the closest to being scale and didn't find anything else that was promising. I think it will work out fine once painted and weathered. I was pleasantly surprised that the chain fit the scaled windlass drive pockets perfectly. Once the chain is prepared, I can wrap the windlass and install it permanently. I will also add a couple chain pipes that will deliver the chain to the alternate chain locker located in the former crew berthing area under the forecastle. All this, of course, will be almost impossible to see once the model is done. I'll have pictures 🙂

Thanks Peter, Glad to see you back at work on your CS. I have the same reference books you speak of, and they are indeed invaluable. While it will be some time before I can start rigging, I am watching your progress closely. Excellent work and will no doubt help inform my future efforts. Is it my imagination that your yards are a dark olive green? If so, I really like the look. Ron

Back to the CS after an all-consuming home renovation project. Produced a capstan, windlass, and two mooring posts fitted on/under the forecastle. From an historical point of view this was fun as none of these items are as they might have been when the CS was originally launched. What I have modeled are Portuguese owner modifications. Capstan – This was no mystery as I have clear pictures of the double-head iron pattern. I neglected to add whelps to my model but don’t think anyone will notice. I used greeting card stock to fabricate the iron head discs. Simply cut out the circles and apply water thin CA to harden. The pawl tray was built up by rolling up two widths of printer paper and then saturating with water thin CA to harden. Worked pretty well. The pictures below should help. Mooring/Towing Posts – These are for sure a carry-over from the original CS design. Would have also served to support the original windlass. Windlass – This was really interesting to research but very hard to decide what it might look like. I got clues from Longridge who described it as of an “ordinary” pattern with bevel drive gear and drum (band) brakes, installed by the Portuguese. I was also able to pull some detail from a Falmouth photo (see below) that clearly shows the anchor chain and pocket drive sprocket (wildcat). No brake drum outboard of the wildcat so that helped narrow it down. I eventually decided that some version of an Emerson/Emerson-Walker was used. Of course, I don’t know that for sure and it hardly matters as all my modeling efforts are essentially hidden. You can only capture a glimpse of it when looking at a shallow angle with illumination. Once the ship is all finished you will be hard pressed to see it w/o a bore scope or dental mirror. It seems like a terrible waste of effort, but it was important to me to have it there. The pigsty turned out good enough, but I used paint brush bristles for the bars, and they keep moving around as temp/humidity fluctuate. Not good. Will probably replace with something metallic for stability. Capstan Windlass Wildcats cut from small brass washers and backed with thin high-density polystyrene packaging rescued from trash can. Spacer between halves made from rolled up printer paper and frozen with CA Brake drums made with small steel washers ground down on Dremel "lathe". Cast iron supports made out of greeting card stock and frozen with CA. Made shaft bearings out of rolled up printer paper to make a tube and then frozen with CA. Worked well. The pawl wheel is made out of a steel washer and hand cut with small file. Warping drums are wood turned on my Dremel tool. Didn't bother with including a vertical drive pinion gear. As with most everything else on this part, there is a big reduction in detail as who is ever going to see it!

You will do it justice. Just don't hold yourself to a compressed timeline.

Just after my last update my basement shop area (where I do my modeling) was shut down so extensive renovations could be performed... stud walls, updated electrical, plumbing, foam insulation, etc. It has been a trying mess and not over yet. I expect by the end of December I will be back to work on the CS in much cozier and functional surroundings. Today I dug out my masts and deck houses to see what work they will need. A little nostalgic as this is all 40-year-old work. Thought a few of you might enjoy a closer look at my early efforts. Here are a few shots of all the masts and yards. The three mast tops were built to Sergal's plans and need to be completely redone. The three crosstrees were redone and are much closer to original but still look a little heavy to me. The jackstays were redone to bring closer to scale and are probably going to be fine after a little work. Sad to say all my stunsail booms will need to be removed. Even though Longridge included them on his model, I can find no evidence they were used at Falmouth. A shame as they really add a lot of interest. Never finished the deck houses, which I started to cover using cherry veneer. Lots needs to be fixed and the roof decks are wrong. I had only just started reshaping the poop and still has original skylight. My plan was to cover with more cherry and different decking. Lastly, I found an original Sergal-supplied walnut belaying pin. Here it is next to the blackened brass pins I'm now using to illustrate the difference in scale.

I'm impressed with your attention to detail and craftsmanship. Definitely will be making return visits. Keep up the good work!

A smallish update today. Lately, my pondering to fabricating ratio has been about 10 to 1. The copper tiles continued to darken slightly for a couple days as the fixative cured. An improvement, I believe, and now feel I can declare that effort completed and move on. Marked out, drilled, and installed commercially available belaying pins. I ended up using blackened 3/16" brass pins even though they are slightly smaller than scale, which is mostly to do with length than girth. If in doubt, go smaller not bigger. I also fabricated the 4 mini rail winches. I turned all 4 simultaneously on my Dremel-like tool using 3mm walnut dowel. I did them side-by-side which made it easy to judge their relative shape. Before parting the drums, I dipped them in shellac to seal and stabilize so they would be less likely to splinter during the parting process. Funny thing about adding details, I had drilled a small hole to add a pin to represent the winch crank handle stem, but then removed it. It looked terrible. Seems when you reach a certain concentration of detail the look you are going for collapses.

Having lived with my paint job on the copper hull I decided to simply seal it with Krylon workable fixative spray. After the initial paint application, it did continue to darken a bit over a few days as I expected. I finally decided all it really needed was a little sheen. The fixative provided just the right dull shine and also protects the paint job. While it seemed a shame to cover real copper, it isn't Muntz metal that has bathed in sea water for 50 odd years to the early Falmouth period I'm modeling. The model now looks balanced to me and less busy. Down the line I might consider adding some aftereffects, but it will be VERY subtle. Reality is the metal below the waterline would have been very monochromatic while in the water. There would be no verdigris below the waterline and only a little from the waterline on up in addition to sea salt buildup, etc., if sitting at anchor. I don't want the hull to look like it is in drydock nor display the model with a "bathtub" ring at the waterline... unless I am doing a waterline model. It would just look odd and distracting to me. Took this picture today right after applying the fixative. My cellphone camera is terrible and even worse in low light, so please forgive the poor-quality images and the distortion due to wide-angle shot (see below) I also tackled the wash/freeing ports. The existing openings are the size and position a la Sergal, which are not in the proper locations (not going to move them) or opening size. I decided to make frames to span the current opening that look similar to what you would find on the CS to which I would attach a properly scaled door. The doors are 10mm square made out of the same steel I harvested from an alcohol can (see post #9). The frames were made out of an aluminum beverage can I found along the roadside. The hinges are made from 0.025mm copper foil with acrylic adhesive on one side. The foil was designed for stained glass work but works nicely for model making. I added a little CA to the copper hinges to make them more secure and the final paint further locked it all together. I painted the interior surfaces white and the outside black to match the hull using Model Expo's Hull Spar Black, which is water based. I used my new airbrush to apply the color, which proved quite painful. For future airbrush work I'll stick with the Tamiya colors. You had to add a little water in order to spray it, but it was really hard to get the right ratio and cleanup was quite difficult. Never again. Still, I managed to get the paint on and in the process discovered that if I backed off on the air pressure, I could get larger droplet sizes that made the surface look like corroded iron; not that anyone is likely to notice. I then glued the whole assembly over the bulwark openings. The model doors can currently be opened and closed but I'll fix them into a position once I decide how I want them to look... open, closed, or something in between. Pictures I have of the CS that immediately follow the Dowman restoration at Falmouth show the ports mostly open at varying shallow angles and don't appear to be locked in place with any clips. My guess is all the hinges were so corroded that most of the doors would not close completely under their own weight. After studying late Falmouth pictures, I can make out clips were added to hold the ports open; the same ones you see today (see below) I believe these clips were eventually added for safety reasons. Afterall, the ship was a training vessel at this point and was no longer going out on the high seas. During an ocean storm waves might break onto the deck. When this happened the freeing port doors would open to let the bulk of the sea water out quickly. My guess is there was some sort of clip to lock the doors shut when the seas were calm. Just don't know, but it makes sense to me. Who would want to hear the doors opening and slamming shut if the ship was rocking?

Once blackened they look very, very convincing. So tiny. Great work, and how many do you need to make?

Today I finally found both the time and nerve to paint my hull tiles. I purchased a Paasche H model airbrush and a couple Tamiya paint colors for this job. This was my very first time holding an airbrush so did a little research before the purchase. I have to say, now that I have one, I kick myself for not getting one years ago. The airbrush I purchased is a rather simple single-stage high-volume model. It can go down to about a 1/16" coverage to upwards of about 1.5 inches. I was surprised by how efficient they are with paint and how completely controllable the applications are. My goal has been to achieve a deeply aged Muntz metal look. It has been very illusive. After some experimentation on small non-copper targets, I decided to mix 1:1 FX-9 to FX-64. I then thinned 1:1 paint to lacquer thinner. I used the H-5 head and HC-5 aircap that came with the airbrush, which will throw the most air and paint. I ran it with my pancake compressor set to output 30psi. The job took so little air volume my compressor only cycled once at the beginning and that was it. As you might notice I simply plugged the airbrush line directly to the compressor. I plan to get a filter for future work. The paint is fresh when the pictures were taken, and I know it will darken over the next day or two. Even after it darkens, I think it will need more work to deepen the brown. I also want to "dirty" it up a bit as it looks too clean for my liking. Now that I have an airbrush, shading/adjusting the base coat I put on today will be easy. I just need to stare at it for a few days and try to figure out next steps.

Been away from the boat for the last 3 weeks to work on my house exterior before the fall weather closes in. I'm back. While I was away, my new air brush and paints showed up. Once I have had a chance to set up the air brush and test some paint options, I'll be painting the copper tiles to look, hopefully, like aged Muntz metal. I'll cover that topic once I have some results to show. Decided to work on the deadeyes over the last few days. Modeling them was a bit frustrating as the details I wanted to execute were far too hard on my mental health. Still, I feel that I was able to catch the spirit of them while making fabrication much easier. Even though there is a range of eye sizes on the original ship, practicality gets in the way. I decided to go with 4mm and 3mm eyes and chose Syren's 3D printed versions. I was pleasantly surprised by how nice the eyes are. Good job, Syren. I used brass rod for the iron stays and soft copper wire to make the straps. I burnished the copper wire to somewhat flatten it for effect. and then wrapped the eyes and soldered to brass rod. I don't know what polymer the 3D printed eyes are made of but was worried that they might melt during soldering. Turned out not be a problem and I didn't ruin a single one. After soldering I bathed the assemblies in ethanol for a minute or two to clean off flux residue. Here again, I was worried how the eyes might hold up so tested first. After a couple minutes I could see pigment getting leached from the eyes and after drying down the eyes shrank slightly. Not a problem for me in either case. I painted the eyes black using an acrylic enamel spray and then scuffed up a bit with 0000 steel wool to soften the look. My first attempt using a water-based paint failed as the paint would rub right off. After painting I used an appropriately sized drill bit to ream out paint residue from the eyelets. I then hand painted the white areas with a water-based paint that adhered nicely to the enamel. All 4 existing pin rail bump outs were according to Sergal plans, which were not correct. I replaced all 4 after which I located and drilled all the stay locations, which is a tricky and time-consuming process. There is a small rectangular iron plate at the bottom of each stay that attaches to the iron bulwark. To simulate that I cut little paper squares from a paper dinner plate and glued in place and then saturated/fixed with CA. During this whole process I discovered all the wash/freeing ports are in the wrong locations. Not even close. Oh well, add this to the list of things that I will not be attempting to remedy. My cellphone camera takes really crummy pictures in low light, so removed the poor ones and adding these for a better look...

Rob, tried to pull some of the color back out of your old picture. Yup, that is definitely the look I'm going for. Time to experiment a bit before taking the plunge. When my airbrush arrives and have chosen some suitable paints, I'll begin the selection process. Makes me nervous but I'm now convinced paint is the only way to go.

Rob, what can I say. I love doing things the hard way. Your Great Republic hull looks fantastic. I searched your build log to find that you used Rust-Oleum Flat Chestnut right out of the can? I would probably have never tried that, but the results look terrific. My hull copper has darkened a fair amount over the years so not sure of color choices I might try but paint it will be. Deeply appreciate your help and guidance! Ron

A quick update. Spent the day feverishly mixing up all sorts of Cu patination recipes. The book pictured below provided most of my recipes and has been a reliable reference for many years. I have some experience in the patination of bronze statuary and gun metals, so not a neophyte. I could achieve something very close to what I wanted but had to apply to the work hot (200+degF) with many, many coats, and then oil at the end. Absolutely not something I'm going to subject my model to. Other than the heat involved, a great deal of corrosive chemical would most likely get wicked up between the tiles and be hard to neutralize. Just not worth the risk. If I could go back 40 years, I would patinate the copper tiles and then apply. Another "old work" issue that is a hill too far. I'm putting away the chemicals and will order an airbrush. Never owned or used one but feel with a little experimentation I can come up with a semi-transparent coloration that gets to where I want to be. Arg.