Ship_Right

Thanks everyone for all your comments. Nothing new to report until now. There must be a better way to do the chain plates! After the first 20 I thought I should be getting good at making the brass wire parts ... but not so. It's interesting that the pictures in the OcCre instructions (and I have come to realize that they are pictures, not the photos that they appear to be) show loops at each end of the brass wire on some pictures, and no loops at the bottom end in others. Doesn't show an alternate method of fastening them though - just pins. I couldn't get them straight, consistent lengths to the bends. Ah well if I ever build another one I will invent a new approach 😬 This photo shows my version of the capstan, and the Caldercraft 10-spoke wheels installed (but not yet cabled to the rudder). On this - as on all the metal components - I am having difficulty making paint stick, even with metal primer applied. It seems ok , but if I rub my finger over it it flakes off. Is this because water-based acrylic paints are just not as sticky as the ones that fume off and give you headaches? Oh for the good old days .... I did find some brass belaying pins at a "local" supplier (Montreal - only 500 km away). I had already ordered 10 mm ones before the discussion above suggested 8mm might be more appropriate, but these ones do fit in the holes I have already drilled. They are made by Dekam in Italy, distributed in Canada by UDISCO - found them on eBay. Size is not 100% consistent but it looks like any given batch is the same.

Do you know what the correct size is Keith? I found some 10 mm brass ones, the OcCre ones are 10 mm long. My best guess from the plans is 6 - 8 mm, but I don't know how accurate the drawings are for something that small.

I had never looked at your Terror build, Keith, just the Erebus - Wow! So much good information and tips. Had I looked at it earlier in my build I probably would not have understood a lot of it, and since this is my first ship build I would likely have been overwhelmed! Your capstan looks great, and is along the lines of what I was thinking of attempting. Where did you get your silver-coloured belaying pins - or are they from the kit but painted that way? Just a follow up on the stern davits - as you can see in the photos I went with straight davits, no tapering, no joins. I'm happy with the result, it looks mechanically correct to me.

I am working through all the deck furniture components. Most have gone well, but bending the pump handles gave me some trouble. The piece that drops from the handle into the pump is too short at the location that is at top dead centre. I am not trying to modify these, just going with the kit. I did purchase two Caldercraft 10-spoke wheels which I have assembled and am just about to paint. They are not yet installed so don't show up on the attached photos. I am trying to decide what to do about the capstan. Looking at the ship drawings I believe the height of the one supplied is about right, but the diameter is small and the top is shaped improperly. I won't go too far with this, but I am wondering whether I can just beef up the top, and possibly use 2x3's instead of 2x2's for the barrel to give it a little more diameter. I have just finished planning where to put the bottoms of the chain plates so the angles are correct - OcCre keeps it a secret. I worked it out by scale drawing the plates with respect to the tops of the masts, following down where the shrouds will go when they are rigged. We'll see how the installation goes ...

Kudos to OcCre! I contacted them through their website regarding the missing Sapelli strips, and on their instruction filled out an on-line warranty form. I received 3 replacement strips by Canada Post within two weeks. This was an amazing response, for which I have thanked them. (In fact I may only have been short one strip, because their list of materials had an error in the length of one of the components.)

This makes more sense to me than putting a joint in them Keith.

Thank you for your praise Jon. I didn't find the aluminum too difficult in the end - I made a jig to make marking the pieces for cutting a little faster. I did make a mistake with the layout. The pieces closest to the bow should have been shorter (I made them "full length") which left some tiny triangles further aft. Not a big deal. The glue worked out ok as far as I can tell - nothing's fallen off yet!

Another decision to be made - the stern davits ... The kit calls for a compound angle so the davits point almost horizontally away from the stern, and parallel to the ship's fore-aft axis. I found drawings in the original ship plans section in Matthew's book that show them as straight in all directions. This means they point towards the ship's fore-aft axis, and point slightly skyward. This makes sense from a structural point of view, because not having joints in them gives them more strength. I can't see any reason to make them change direction - but perhaps there is some reason from a sea-going point of view? I'm getting conflicting signals from all the different sources (even some of the pictures of the models in Matthew's book suggest both simple and compound joints, but the camera angles distort things too. My impulse at the moment is to go with the simple, straight davits...

Just ran into a problem: There is not enough 2x4 Sapelli wood in the kit to make all the parts that call for it. I only have one length of Sapelli 2x4x400 mm. The parts list calls for a total of 822 mm. Have written to OcCre to see what they can do about it - I've never seen Sapelli wood in my local hobby stores in Canada, otherwise I would just buy some and swallow the extra cost.

Today I arrived at a point where I believe the hull to be finished. From now on, the work is for deck fittings, davits, pumps, etc etc. It's an arbitrary milestone but gives me a sense of satisfaction. The "ironwork" around the rudder drove me crazy and I think there is a fair amount of skin from my glued fingers and thumbs still buried in the varnish. I was also disappointed that the rudder movement is so limited. On my model the pintels are very slightly off-centre, and the rudder will only turn in one direction - and not very far at that. The model design is a limiting factor here. There are 12 panels glued to the inside and outside of the hull towards the stern whose purpose I have yet to discover. I have not found a reference in Betts' book. The kit calls for 5 of them, and when I questioned OcCre they agreed it should call for 12 - three each on the deck side and the outside, port and starbord. Anyone know what they are? When I asked OcCre where to place them, they gave me a vertical dimension (2mm below the taff rails) but said to estimate the horizontal placement from the drawings. So I did. Of course, Murphy was on hand, and when I came to install the 4 pillars on the bulwarks two of them interfered. I was able to pry them off with minimal damage and install the pillars in the proper places.

Reinforcement complete, and I painted the hull black down to the waterline. The reinforcement is a matt black, while the rest is satin. Not as much difference as I would have liked, and you can't really tell from the photo. Still - time to move along.

Well the Aluminum Black experiment is over. After I had let it sit overnight, I rubbed my finger across the surface and most of the black finish rubbed off. Possible that a varnish over the top would have worked, but I decided that I preferred to have a more durable base. I did find a bottle of "Metal Primer" at a local store (who had previously told me they didn't have any 🙂), so now I am brushing that on and painting. Will post photos when finished.

Completed the aluminum bow reinforcement pieces today. Now grappling with the question of how to colour them black. Aluminum is notoriously bad at accepting paint, and the old primers (zinc chromate) are not available because they were so toxic. The most readily available self-etching primer is in spray form only, and I am reluctant to spend the time I would need to to mask the whole ship while I spray the reinforcement. There is a brush-on "metal primer" listed in most hobby stores - but every hobby store in the city is out of stock. I am testing Aluminum Black - does anyone have any experience with it? I might have to varnish over the blackened aluminum to protect it - but I don't know how well the varnish is going to stick. An alternative may be to spray some of the self-etching primer into a jar and then paint it on. Thoughts and advice from this knowledgeable community would be most welcome!

Thanks Keith - proceeding with the aluminum bow reinforcement using (thick) CA glue - seems to be working so far, one side completed today.

A question about glue for the aluminum bow reinforcement ... What kind of glue have people used for this? Does CA glue work ok? Or PVA? I haven't been using contact cement, don't like the smell - but there is a water-based contact cement available, not suitable for veneer so I didn't use it for second planking. Any advice would be appreciated.