cdrusn89

Considering the rigging to come. I started a spreadsheet of all the standing and running rigging needed and found the rigging drawing somewhat confusing. Yesterday I discovered on sheet 3 (of 3) there is a drawing showing how the throat and peak halyards (one of each on all three masts) are supposed to be rigged. This drawing answered one of the questions I had about the throat halyard (raises the gaff to spread out the fore, main and mizzen sails attached to the respective booms). On the rigging drawing (sheet 2) it shows there is a triple block at the top of the throat halyard tackle. Try as I might I could not figure out how that would work and all of the reference material I have was. no help. From the ships I have built it was common practice to have the "jig" end as referred to in the drawing (I would call this the standing end but...) terminated at a becket on the upper block of a throat halyard. Not so on the Simpson - the jig end and the tackle on the hauling end terminate at the pin rail and thus you need a triple block at the top. Unfortunately I did not have any 4mm triples so I ordered some from Model Expo. I have plenty to do before I need them but I feel much better having solved what was to me a mystery.

After I looked at it enough I came to the conclusion that having the molding stripe stop at station 8 just was not going to work. So I created another 2mm X 2mm piece of boxwood and ran it through the same molding cutter I used for the first piece. Then I went back to the thickness sander and (making sure I kept the flat side against the sandpaper) thinned the piece down until it was just over 1mm thick. Doing this was to avoid an abrupt change in thickness at the junction. I think this looks much better IMHO. I also fabbed the four towing bitts and six just plain bitts from Swiss Pear. The painting instructions say these should be brown so I think varnished Swiss Pear will be close enough. Here they are after the first coat of matt varnish (from Vallejo). I also used cut off toothpicks for the "posts" The drawing indicates that the square posts would have to be turned to form a round portion for insertion into the deck. I think toothpicks into a hole drilled with a #48 bit is much easier as long as you can get the hole pretty much in the center of the bitt.

I added the molding stripe to the hull now that the painting is done. The instructions call for a 1/16" X 1/16" strip from bow to station 91/2. I found this less than satisfying. So I created a 2mm X 2mm piece of boxwood and used a molding cutter to form a "U" shape into the wood. I painted it ocre and glue it on but stopped at the overlay stripe at the stern. Had I looked more closely I would have seen that the overlay stripe was not supposed to extend as far down the hull as mine does but IMHO I think this looks "okay". Here is a closer look at the molding stripe The holes were from the pins I used to hold the strip ion place while the glue dried. I think a dot of paint will cover them.I am considering painting the cap rail the same ocre as the molding stripe but that decision is a ways off yet. The paint job does not look all that good this close, so I plan on having this model on the top shelf where it is hard to get really close. I decided to plank the bulwarks that form the forecastle since the machine that milled the hull left these areas pretty "rough". I do not have to do a really good job and chose to use two pieces instead of one since the Sampson post will be at the very front of this area making the joint more or less invisible.

Aft deckhouse is done except for the roof which is awaiting some grey paint due here Wednesday or Thursday. I cropped these to look better but the site refuses to upload the edited version so... Also thew binnacle box needed another coat of paint so it is not yet on the aft side.

With the hull now ready (still need to clean up the spillover from waterline) and the aft deckhouse almost ready I thought I would try a dry fit to see if everything was going to "work". I fashioned supports for the water barrel and meat box and they seem to work okay. The meat box lid will be painted grey to match the deckhouse roof but the grey paint will. not be here for a few days yet so.... FYI the water barrel is from Caldercraft not the Britannia metal one that came with the kit. It is a little larger than the kit supplied but not really out of scale IMHO. And yes I see that the door is a little "off".

Hull is out of the paint booth and looks pretty good. The green color is a little darker than I had thought but since you can only judge color by the cap on the can (at Walmart) I guess it will "do". Not the "Kelarney green" from the instructions but I am not sure what shade of green that is anyway. There are a few areas of touch up but since it is green on white I have the correct color of white to patch things up. If I had to add more green I would have to deal with spraying into a cup or similar container than then dipping a brush in the container. not very elegant and can be really messy. I got a nice sharp waterline using Tamiya masking tape and then painting over the junction between the tape and the white with flat clear acrylic. I was told it helps seal the joint to reduce the chance of paint seeping by. It appears to have worked this time. Working on the deck furniture and making a spreadsheet of all the blocks/deadeyes that need to be made up. Sometime to keep me occupied for more than a few days to come.

All the windows and one door are ready for the aft deckhouse. I changed to black wire (Artistic wire 24 Ga) instead of the phosphor-bronze. I thought the black looked more realistic even if it is a bit shiny. The door on the aft side needs to be constructed from"whole cloth" - not suitable for a Northeastern Lumber substitute. Now to trying to get them installed on the deckhouse along with the siding and trim pieces at the top and bottom. The forward door does not get installed until the deckhouse is on the hull so that will be sometime in the future. Also need to figure out how the siding transitions from the deck house to the hull. Maybe it needs to be the other way around although the sides/aft were probably done separately so it is possible that they do not match up row for row Some touch-up paint and then I will get the windows and siding installed on the three sides that are "open" and also build the door on the aft side.

The new stock of windows arrived yesterday pm so I cut out the ones I decided to use and painted them ocre. For the seven that have a sliding door I (by trial and error)m got the correct width for the slider and cut a big enough piece of 1/32" X 1/2" stock to make more than enough sliders for all seven windows. I then used my RP Toolz miter cutter to cut out the sliders to exactly the same size once I got one to fit. Here you see both an old window (bottom) and a new window. On the old ones I sanded all the framing off but decided to leave the framing in place on the new windows. Without the framing it is hard to get a good "joint" between the windows and the siding which I am adding to the deckhouse. Unfortunately the price you pay is the windows are somewhat larger in both dimensions now (11mm X 17mm vs 10mm X 15mm) but I think the crew needed more light anyway. Elsewhere it is finally time to "get serious" about the hull. The white paint has finally dried and it is time to mark the waterline in preparation for painting the bottom. I fashioned some blocks that fit over the keel and then are shimmed to the sk[light taper of the hull as it moves out from the keel. Probably not a elegant solution but I think it will work for purposes of marking the waterline. Here is the overall set-up taking advantage of the smooth more or less guaranteed flat island granite countertop to "host the ocassion". The angles are there to add additional stability to the platform and the waterline marking tool I got somewhere a long time ago but it has served me well. It usually has a sharp pointed scribe instead of a pencil but I find it easier to correct an error with a pencil line. I had to sand down the pencil to get it fit the holder. Before marking I checked the level and found it to be "right-on". It is not perpendicular to the centerline but at about a 45 degree angle for the picture. When perpendicular to the centerline it shows a .45 degree list - close enough for my purposes. And here is a portion of the drawn waterline which looks really close to what is shown on the drawing.

Clare, My first model was a solid hull (Bluejackets Smuggler) but since then until now it has been all plank-on-bulkhead. I have the Emma c. Berry, Model Shipways plank on frame on the shelf and hope to try that after Simpson. Given what I know now about this kit it is definitely NOT for a beginner. As I mentioned at the start of the build log there are no laser cut parts and the cut pieces provided are pretty rough although the machined hull was very close to the plans which helped reduce the amount of sanding/checking/sanding etc. If there were more choice on what you can build solid hull I might try them more. I seem to have lost the lust for the challenge of planking the hull now that I have done it a dozen or so times. I believe that the BlueJackets USS Constitution is a solid hull (from the gun deck down) but it is 1/8" per foot which is smaller than I like to work but given I live on Ironsides Ave I may have to build it anyway.

The four hatches are complete except for painting of the covers and adding eyebolts and rings so there is a way to lift them besides "Swedish steam". The hatch covers are 1/8" deck planking from Northeastern Lumber Supply. Sadly I had to buy a whole sheet but used less than 25%, even having to do two of them twice. Hatch coamings are painted Vallejo Flat Brown (70-984) and they probably need another coat which they will get when the hatch covers get their gray. I have several shades of gray coming later this week so there will be no hurry to get them painted. Whatever gray goes on the hatch covers will also go on the deckhouse roof and the forecastle hatch roof both of which will be made from ship deck planking. I just can't abide solid pieces of wood several feet across.

Hull is back in the paint booth so I decided to detail the lifeboat. I got the outside painted during the hull's late paint booth tour. As I mentioned before this is the 1/64th scale 18' cutter from Vanguard which is an almost exact match at least in length with what is shown on the Simpson drawings as the "lifeboat". Here is the more or less completed lifeboat positioned on one of the pages in the vanguard online instructions. I am going to add an ocre strip at the top of the gunnels on the outside as the white spra paint failed to cover that very well and the boat needs a bit of color. The boat kit includes four oars but they are so tender I am afraid to do anything with them but maybe paint and even that might be a struggle. I did find a set of brass oars (Amati) which are the exact size so I will use them once i get them cleaned and painted. Probably no more than four as there are only four openings in the gunnel for oars. And I am reluctant to believe that the Simpson carried the boat in the stern davits with the rudder "hanging in the breeze". Rudders are to critical to operating the boat to risk it being carried away or damaged by a rouge wave. I am going to paint the lower portion of the rudder white but leave it in the boat once it is in the davits.

While waiting for the (hopefully) last little bit of filler to dry on the hull I started on the hatch coamings. The drawing shows a total of 7/32" height for the coaming which implies a 1/32" "topper" on the rectangular blank provided which is 3/16" thick. I have a bunch of Swiss Pear that has been looking for a home so I ripped come pieces to 7/32" and ran them through the molding cutter to get the top 3mm rounded off. The plan is to paint the hatch coamings brown along with the deck level moldings around the deckhouse so the choice of wood is more or less whatever is handy and easy to run through a molding cutter. My first inclination was to miter the corners but before resorting to that I thought I would try a somewhat more elegant and I am lead to believe more historically correct construction method where the corners are joined vertically rather than horizontally. Here is the "small hatch" with the coaming drying in my "deck furniture assembly shed.

Thanks Pete - that is one fine looking Eagle. I added the "thick overlay strip" to the port side which completes the work on this side before a return to the paint booth to get the white sides "done" (again). The yellow strip you can barely see below the scuppers is 1mm masking tape to provide a landing point for the "molding strip" which runs under the scuppers. My plan is to add this after the hull is completely painted as it will be in ocre instead of white. Hopefully this will add a bit of color to the sides which would otherwise be all white. I will add the additional timberheads and paint the interior of the bulwarks after the hull is completely painted. I looked at the windows that I have mounted on the aft deckhouse and decided two things. First that the sunflower yellow I used on the window frames is too bright - They will be ocre when the new windows (and a larger selection of them) come in from Northeastern Scale Lumber in a few (hopefully) days. Second that the deckhouse is not actually rectangular, that is just the way it comes in the kit. So after removing the existing windows I cut out the roof pattern then reduced that to what I believe are the deckhouse outline and then marked the rectangular block and used the disc sander to round the after third or so to match the plan. It is not all that obvious but the deckhouse tapers toward to bottom. I also decided that the plain flat roof (one solid piece 1/16" thick) provided in the kit was not really how the roof would look. I got some 3/16" pre-scored decking from Northeastern Scale Lumber (I love that place). It is 1/32" thick so I replaced the kit roof with a sandwich of 1/32" basswood and the pre-scored decking. I have to keep in under weight as it wants to curl up some. It will. not be a problem (I hope) once it is glued down to the deckhouse but... It will be painted with a gray wash to preserve the plank delineations. Now on to the starboard side "thick overlay strip" and then the paint booth will not be far behind.

Thanks Rick! Very nice looking Eagle there Peter. Probably harder to break them off since they are not thinned down by being "doweled". If I might ask; how tall are the hatch coamings on your model and what scale? The ones provided on Simpson are 12" tall at full size. As it turns out there is a covering board 1/32" thick outboard of the bulwarks covering the entire side a bit above the scuppers and, as it turns out the junction between the bulwark plank and the solid hull quarterdeck and forecastle so no real sanding and filling required. I did consider planking the bulwarks but since I chickened out planking the solid hull I did not want to draw attention to the lack of hull planking by planking the bulwarks.

In preparation for adding (actually re-adding but that story has been told already) the timberheads to the Starboard side I decided it prudent to trim the port side timberheads to a first approximation of their final length. Although they are glued to the bulwark I thought it wise not to tempt faith by having a convenient place for something to catch. I also adding masking tape to protect the "waterway" plank from overspray when I spray the final coat(s) of white on the hull. It will also provide some protection while the inside of the bulwark (and any timberheads needing touch-up) are painted before the deck is laid and after the hull is finished with the spray booth. I still need to find a flat green spray paint for the underwater hull - Walmart should have something since my local hobby shop (mostly model train "stuff") does not carry much in the way of canned spray paint. With the port side more or less protected from mishap I drilled the starboard side holes and glued in the timberheads. At the end I decided to drill all the holes to 5/64" since after the first two timberhead dowels were to large to fit smoothly in the 1/16" hole I thought they would mostly all be too big and a snug fit makes it easier to break off while trying to remove to add glue . (Don't ask me how I know this). Here is the starboard side ready to dry fit the bulwark when the timberheads are dry.