Ship_Right
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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.
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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 ...
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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.)
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This makes more sense to me than putting a joint in them Keith.
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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!
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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...
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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Thanks Keith - proceeding with the aluminum bow reinforcement using (thick) CA glue - seems to be working so far, one side completed today.
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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.
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Thanks everyone for your likes and comments. Quite a lot of progress since I last posted; The planking is complete... ... and the windows installed. I put some clear plastic behind the frames to have some reflectivity. The OcCre instructions are sadly lacking, not just for the transom/stern post mismatch as I mentioned earlier, but for the dimensions of the parts for the windows. Lots of head-scratching but I think the final result is ok. I spent a couple of days building the deck houses, using Matt Betts' book diagrams - put them into photoshop, then printed them off to scale, made it easy to fabricate the parts. They're shown here temporarily in place for the photo. Next I will turn the ship over to install the bow reinforcement, so no deck furniture or protrusions while she is sitting on her wales. Also will wait before installing the tafrails.
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I spent a couple of hours at the reference library leafing through the James Lees rigging book. I scanned the chart of mast and spar dimensions so I now have a ready reference for finally selecting the mast and yard sizes. Tapering these remains a bit of a mystery to me - even when I found references to the amount of taper, I couldn't find any explanation of how to apply them. I find many of these books to be lacking in explanation - even Matthew Betts book - expecting the reader to know the terminology. Just my personal rant 🙂
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Second layer planking has been in progress for a while now - and I think can see the end! Being very careful to try to use only full length planks through the whole process. I use a spreadsheet to calculate the required plank widths at 5 cm intervals along the hull. After I have installed a few planks, I recheck all the dimensions and adjust accordingly. Details of how to finish the transom, with the stern post installation, were sadly incomplete in the OcCre kit instructions. I have done the best I can with the help of others' build logs. The Stern Post did not fit on my build - I had to sand it to shape and hope it works out when I fit the rudder. It puzzles me as to why, having supplied a nice piece of oak for the stern post, OcCre then requires the builder to sandwich it between two pieces of plywood; then sand the plywood down, exposing the glue between the plys (is that the plural of ply?) which don't absorb stain. I will end up planking the stern post for this reason alone. Despite my earlier comments, the keel turned out to be just 2mm short. I suspect I didn't quite adjust the pieces properly when I modified the kit position of the bowsprit. I inserted to 2mm pieces of oak between two of the keel pieces at one of the joints. Not perfect but it works for me.
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I've just finished installing and sanding the Ice Buffers. I had some problems lining them up so the port and starboard buffers were at equal height at the bow. I was also daunted by the amount of sanding required, so with much trepidation used my recently acquired Dremel to help. I was very careful, and am happy with the results. The picture here has the keel pieces temporarily taped in. I have a problem with the keel, because the keel seems to be about 5-10 mm short, and the part that the rudder will attach to doesn't quite fit properly. Not sure yet how I will line it all up. I have enough of the Oak sprue to make a fill-in piece if that's what it takes, but the alignment at the stern is going to be critical for the rudder to fit properly. Will attach photos when I am closer to finalizing that part. I have just located a copy of Lees' Masting and Rigging at our reference library (snowstorms permitting), so will be spending some time there next week to fully understand what they say about rigging, and how all the different spar sizes fit together.
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So the bowsprit should be 7.6mm dia, ditto the foremast. My foremast is 7mm, but my bowsprit is only 6. I'll have to revisit these.
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I will celebrate appropriately in the tradition, with Canadian Rye!
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? Sorry Keith, but could you expand on that? More in what way? Does this show in Matt's plans?
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Been away from this log while I completed the first level of planking. My first time doing this, and I guess the results reflect that. However, I'm not unhappy with it. There are some small gaps, but I managed to complete it using full length planks throughout. Broke a few with my impatience in bending ☹️ but fixed them. I'm expecting it all to work out after sanding, and then the second layer will cover it all up anyway.
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I used the dimensions in the kit plans to cut the length, keeping the same distance from the bow forwards when mounted in the original location. When I measure it now, it is 105 mm. I could cut a new one, but I'm not sure what that will do to other parts of the kit rigging.
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I'm part way through the first layer of planking. A few things I have learned along the way: My planking tool was way too hot (you can see the burn marks on the planks closest to the keel). I purchased an 1800W fan controller from Amazon, and set to the high end of the middle range it seems to be working well. The low priced compact iron I purchased also does an excellent job helping bend the planks. A trick I came up with for tapering planks, and in some cases cutting them down for their full length, is to lay a piece of double sided sticky tape down on the cutting mat, and stick the plank to it before cutting it. This prevents it from sliding when I am halfway through the cut. I just can't see filing down the pin heads the way OcCre describes, so I am pulling the pins out once the glue is dry. Sometimes the OcCre pin pusher was pushing the pins in too far (difficult to control the amount of force) making it hard to extract the pins later. Putting a thin piece of brass strip right next to the pin before pushing it in stops the pin head from being buried in the plank. Pictures below show current progress ...
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I fitted the wales which now overlapped the transom by just enough. Painted according to the Royal Navy scheme - i.e. yellow on the inside of the wales - I used the Yellow Ochre paint from OcCre. All ready for the next challenge!
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