yvesvidal

Beautiful model. Dare I say, it is the only model of the Titanic completed on this forum?
 
Yves

Dear all of you who are following this build, I would like to inform you that my build is momentarily on hold, because:
- in the last period, I am working on my ship build, although I don't have anything interesting to post yet;
- with my retirement, I resumed an old hobby of mine which is drawing and painting, see below;
- I am going to drive a long trip down to Italy to visit roots and that will keep me away from my hobby desk for several weeks.
 
About the Mosquito, the installation of the Squadron vac-formed canopy is concluded and the result is quite ok, I will show you that as soon as I will have some progress, when I am back.
 
About the other hobby, let me post here two exercises of mine that perhaps should please at least Chris, @ccoyle, seen the quote he inserted in the footer of his signature. These are drawings made by pencil and that I copied from pictures of the actors that I downloaded from internet.


Sorry for the digression,
Arrivederci,
Dan
 

@mbp521 Tow knees, thank you! Driving me crazy to not have a proper name. Yes, they're definitely there to provide maximum stable contact with a tow.
 
@steamschooner The first time, I decided to ignore the roller chocks since I thought they'd be barely visible between the narrowly spaced tow knees; they're not always visible even in photos (for example, look at the second vertical one I showed above where they're covered by the tow knee bracing).
 
@LJP I tried something like that and got the wire as straight as I could before installing. I also mounted it on the model in such a way that I could put a fair amount of tension on each section as I glued it in. Doing this actually demonstrated the engineering integrity of the hog chain system because those angled posts took all the strain without flinching! The result is the best I could do with that I had on hand and I'm fine with it.
 
And to everyone else, I'm convinced of the need to pop the tow knees off and start over, but it'll be a few weeks due to schedule overload. I can easily hide any slight scarring from the removal with ropes or something. I'd say this will teach me a lesson not to get ahead of myself, but if this build shows anything, it's that I don't learn that lesson easily. This time I'll demonstrate the new assembly before gluing it to the model.
 
Also, to hold your interest during the next interlude, here are a couple recent views of the Missouri River just downstream of Rocheport, the upriver home port for Peerless. You're looking upriver in both shots, with Rocheport tucked into the bend at right. First one is from a bluff a couple hundred feet above the river, second one is nearby but riverside. Peerless would have traveled this stretch regularly. When these were taken the river was as high it's been in several years and you can see that the surface looks turbulent with woody debris in the water.
 

This is my Nordkap trawler build started in April it is based on the billings plans but since I wanted a small model it is built at 1:75 scale instead of 1:50 like the billings kit. This is my second scratch build alongside zwarte zee also 1:75. In the second picture you can see the small size of Nordkap compared to zwarte zee. 

The completed deck ....

Thank you Keith,
yes, I bought a bunch of longer and broader rubber bands some time ago and now they come good to use.
The light mast (till unfinished) was one of the first parts I started with. There will be a ladder from boats deck to the light platform later on. That will be quite tricky to solder ....
 
Today I closed the long deckhouse with the deck on it, and first made a pic of the last possible look  into the hull. The moment the deck was glued on I realized that the cable from the hall anchor was only prefixed with a tape, so I have to find a solution for fixing the cable permanently, because I had unfortunately forgpotten to do so
 
Nils

last look into the hull. here one can see the cable I had forgotten to tie to the frames or somewhere else.
Also the turnbuckles can be seen. Bollards and Panama fairleads are also mounted on foredeck and along the long deckhouse
 

the chain end (of mushroom anchor) coming from the front bulkhead (on deck) is going to be fastened to the spring loaded buffer element

the underside of the boatsdeck is painted except  (taped off ) for spaces where the supports will be fixed and the deck to be glued on to the superstrcture below

On this build, I have discovered just how much bend you can put into wood, with proper prep and some patience.
I honestly figured "I'll give it a shot" and dang it worked great.  I added the boom buffer early, because I wanted to be sure it fit under the plate, and I painted most of it in advance. While some seams might show, I think adding these strips later, was easier than over sizing the top plate/monkey board, and getting the profile uniform and even.

Working on several aspects at once in a way.  Finishing the top rail details, and adding the chainplates. I'm also picking away at the hull painting.
 

As an aside, here is how I have used Sculpey in the past; for the cheeks on the bow of the Sultana and the decorative windows.  The cast pieces didn't look great nor did they fit against the hull properly, so I used Sculpey to fit them and bring some detail.

Titanic stern area complete. Now onto the boat deck and it's fittings. Then it's the ships boats and finally the funnels.
 
On another note I have always wanted to build one of the 1\200 scale Trumpeter Ship kits.But not Titanic,prefer to build her in wood. So treated myself to this monster of a kit. 
 

 

Again here is the switch that turns on the electronic speed control ECS. 
 
I think this is one of the coolest things about this build in that the switch just fit where the kit switch would have gone.  There was very little engineering that I had to do to get it together.
 
There are quite a few flaws on this boat, but they are not very noticeable to most people.  I know where they all are and I am not telling.  I do have to accept them and move on.

Beautiful model. Dare I say, it is the only model of the Titanic completed on this forum?
 
Yves

I have finished priming, filling, and sanding the various body panels.   A few of the seams or ejector pin marks are still visible if you know where to look but the worst, most obvious ones are pretty well fixed.  I'll let these cure a bit more, maybe do some very light wet sanding with some high grit and then paint with the Tamiya LP-1 gloss black lacquer.
 
Meanwhile, I'll start working on the main tub and front suspension.  You can see a few of the suspension parts in the upper right.

Thank you Craig, 

I think, the wire you refer to is shown in the manual in green It ends at the handlebar. The yellow one with the section 7 reference on the lower pic is the one in question, it´s the same like the yellow one in the upper drawing, labeled section 4.




 
Cheers Rob

I am not familiar with this particular motorcycle, but I suspect this may be part of the spark advance/retard mechanism as the old bikes used mechanical means to perform this function. On old Harley Davidson bikes, the left hand grip twisted one direction for retard and the opposite for advance.

I have one question for the classic bike experts. Which function has the marked wire, which leads from the distributor to the area of the tank. The other two are the ignition wires, but the third cable, I have no idea of the function. The MFH manual doesn´t show either. The cable just ends under/in the tank area.



Cheers Rob

After airbrushing the frame with Tamiya LP-1 gloss black, I continued with the engine. I added the carburetor and some fuel lines, which are hard to reach later. The engine is more or less finished now and will be mounted into the frame next.


 


Cheers Rob

I built up the frame from it´s various parts, which again included lots of drilling and leafing through the manual, to see, which diameter is needed for a hole and what´s going in. Luckily the precision of the casting is fantastic and there are only minimal irritations in the parts.

Here is a mock up with the engine mounted into the frame. Meanwhile said frame is primed and the missing carburetor parts got airbrushed.





Cheers Rob

Update
made the boat`s deck and planked it, also coming for edges and aft stair outcuts. The fastening points (turnbuckles) for the mast stays were mounted. It would be difficult to mount the bottlesrews after the deck is on.
The blanc patches on the deck in the areas for the boats will be plated with a profiled anti slip layer
 
Nils

the card template for the boats deck

start with the planking. Deck and planking strips are both 0,8mm thick, so the total thickness is 1,6mm. That is flexebil enough for sheric bending down when glueing it on.

 

measures to bring the curvature into the deck

 

 

supports will be mounted (10 on each side)  between deck and bulwark
 

She is ready for a test in my hot tub.  I think everything that needed to be done is done.
 
If that goes OK then I can take her to the pond.

Those spokes look pretty good against a dark background…

Waited to respond until I had something to show. 
 
Sorry for trying to put years of operations and many courses and manuals in a single post... I guess that was a bit much. 
 
In any case, as mentioned before, the first liquid line was the hardest as I had to line it out, get a good length etc. Once this one was done (and for those paying attention, in the last picture it had already its end flanges and orange painted extremities in place), I could continue with the others. 
I was very reluctant to glue it in place, due to so many things that need to line up at one time, that I didn't glue it in place for a long time. Although I wanted to continue aft with the vapor line next to my finished liquid line, I decided not to do that. 
Although everything is far from perfect, I had a feeling that the longitudinal distance between the manifold flanges would be very important for the overall view of the model. I therefore went ahead with the aft liquid line. Once that was done, I could go towards the center and make sure those distances were at least symmetrical. 
Again everything was laying dry fitted for a very long time, until I was sure that I had at least the space to cram in the other lines. 
I then glued the two liquid (orange tipped) lines in place and continued inward with the vapor lines etc. 
 
Here you see how I lined up all manifold flanges to be at a straight line transversally. Because I had the two liquid lines fixed, I could use a straight piece of styrene touching the flanges. I then marked the edge of the "new" pipes and cut them off at that mark. 

 

 
Once I had the flanges on on one side, I then used that piece of styrene against all flanges (with the white pipes still dry fitted) and used the same trick to mark out the other side. Then I cut that side and glued the flange. Up till that moment I had the "flanges", small rings, that I needed for valves, loose on the pipes. Once the flanges were in place, I could measure and glue the first flange for the first valve and so on. 

 
And a bit of extra. As you can see on the liquid manifold ends, there are two valves. 1 is manual, with a wheel (inboard), the other is hydraulic (outboard), with a big actuator. The manual valve is called a double shut valve and is installed because a single valve can leak, chances of having two valves leaking at the same time are much smaller. Since the liquid lines can go quite high in pressure, this is a requirement for liquid lines only. On the vapour line you can see there is no more manual valve behind the hydraulic actuator. 
The high pressure line also has a double valve (more work for me again). 
 
I've been thinking of making the manifold flanges bolted, in a similar way as the strainer lids. But eventually I decided against it. It would probably be out of scale, take a long time to make and I had already used blank discs as end flanges on other parts of the vessel, so it would be out of the normal to have them with bolts here. 
 
And last but not least I tested with a paper template, the walkway that's supposed to come on top. To my greater surprise (I had to make some things slightly out of scale and expected the accumulated error to be quite large), it fitted quite well. 
I will make a cardboard adapted version of this catwalk before I make the final one in the same way as I made the driptray gratings. 

 
 

First, thank you ALL for likes, I very much appreciate it!
 
 Shaped the deadwood and added the wedges. Sanding down to shape was an all day affair, lots of patient sanding. Not 100% happy with the results, it’s a little too thin at the base of the wedges. Hope that won’t be a problem down the road. 
 
This morning I glued the deadwood to the keel. It needs to be perfectly vertical and  since the keel is so long naked eyeballs won’t cut it. In anticipation of this build I had bought a cheap laser level a while back. I built the jigs to hold the keel assembly and laid everything out on my building board. I first aligned the plan to the laser line and then the jigs, which I had drawn center lines on. Nothing is secured yet, just some weights for now and I know when I secure the plans and jigs, I’ll have to go through this exercise again, but it this gives me a feel for where I’m at alignment wise. All I can say is Wow! Once everything was in place the laser line lined up almost perfectly with my center lines. Never would have thought something this long would be straight. I took some photos but it was very difficult. 
 
Best Regards …. Rick

Another minor update. The scratch-built mast has begun. I took some Evergreen I-beams and split them. Also cut a ring off a pipette and used styrene rod as support. I know, looks like crap. Thoughts? 

After many months I have finally finished one my big ships despite being a wooden ship witch I always struggle with I think I have a decent result