Larry Van Es
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Everything posted by Larry Van Es
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I wish I'd have thought of this before I made my waterline again and again before getting one that was half right. A couple of day ago I was hanging a tapestry that we had bought in Paris and it was going to be hard to get it straight where it was located . Then I remembered a level with a laser that my kids had gotten me years ago. As it turns out I had a good waterline marker in my garage the whole time.
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Cherry is nice to work with and is also good for deck furniture. Ebony is hard to work with (very hard) and what works well for the wales is something else pre-stained with India ink. I had already painted my wales when I learned of this, but I used this method on the catheads and stern davits. Touch up is easy and transparent also.
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Yes. It is flexible and bends nicely around the bulkheads. I found it at a office supply. It is made to insert into a Day Runner® Planner Page Marker/Ruler. I just cut out the part that I wanted. http://www.dayrunner.com/dayrunnerstore/mwv/cat/Planner-Notes-Accessories/cat220009?pageName=catPage&rootCatId=Planner_Refills_9&isSubCategory=true&catId=cat220009&isEqual=true&parentId=cat220009
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I agree with Augie. I considered this first model to be training for the next, so I ended up with planking that I could have left un-coppered. But since I wanted to try the copper also, I went ahead and coppered the hull. I'm glad that I did. I didn't have much success with making tic marks on the bulkhead so I came up with a transparent planking guide which allowed me to make small adjustments on each plank as I went along. it worked good for me.
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Green Graphed/scaled work bench mat
Larry Van Es replied to Bill Hime's topic in Modeling tools and Workshop Equipment
Model Train shops are a good source for all kinds of things. That's where I bought mine. -
See - How can you fail to build a great model with the designer of the model helping you. I'm a very religious man but I don't get this good of response to my prayers.
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A little history for those building the Syren. The Syren was built specifically for the siege on Tripoli according to Naval History Vol. 1 by James Fenimore Cooper. Chapter XX. “The government soon became aware of the necessity of possessing some light cruisers, which to a marine, are what the eyes and ears are to man. Without vessels of this character, a commander could never conduct a vigorous blockade, like that required before Tripoli, in particular; an a law passed February, 1803 authorizing the construction of two brigs and two schooners. In the course of the spring of that year, these vessels were built, and the navy received an addition to its list, of the Argus 16, Siren16, Nautilus 12, and Vixen 12. The two former were beautiful and very efficient brigs, mounting 16 twenty-four-pound carronades, and 2 long twelves; and latter were schooners, carrying 12 eighteen-pound carronades, and 2 light long guns, each. They were all finely modeled and serviceable vessels of their size, and now intimately associated with the early traditions of the navy.” The Syren commanded by Lieutenant Commander Stewart played an important role in the siege on Tripoli.
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Welcome aboard. It's going to be a real challenge working on a the Syren with a 3 yr old about with the limited space that you have. I have 7 grandsons. But then again they're all hyper-active like me. Think about finding a place way up high where it can be stored when you're not working on it. One of my favorite parts of my log that has been lost on MSW 1.0 was when one of my grandsons “helped me” while spending the night. I put him to work sawing some scrap wood to keep him busy. I was planking the deck at the time. I glued several pieces of his wood to “shore up the bulkheads” under my planking. It can't be seen now but he and I know that it's under there. He refers to it as our model now.
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My build log from from MSW1.0 is lost but when I did this I made my glue blocks to where they were within a few thousandths of an inch of ideal. I'm really anal - I do everything with a digital caliper. But by doing this my glue blocks when placed in position would stay without any glue. This press-fit of all the glue blocks not only took the warp out of my bulkhead former, but allowed me to take out and then replace any bulkheads that needed extra fairing. I did this because I was new to ship model building and didn't know any better, but on the next model I'm sure I'll do it this way again. The little time that I spent in making the glue blocks more than made up for the time spent in straightening and fairing
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US Brig Syren by roger
Larry Van Es replied to roger's topic in - Build logs for subjects built 1801 - 1850
Roger, I received my Syren kit just before going on vacation with my wife to Hawaii. While there I found this website. I ended up researching all the 1.0 Syren builds along with many others in the 8 hrs a day that I spent waiting for her to get ready. Yours was one of the ones that inspired me to really get involved in this hobby. I am so glad to see you repost your photos. Your build will inspire a bunch more guys I'm sure. -
Augie - had a lot of fun in my time off watching your build. I only hope that mine ends 1/2 as nice as yours.
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I finally was able to retreive my old pictures from my old computer, so I can now re-post my Syren build. This is my first ship model and I've made a ton of mistakes, but I learned a lot. Especially on how to cover up mistakes. When I got to this point I was contacted by a member of the Ship Modelers Association (SMA) in Southern California. http://www.shipmodelersassociation.org He invited me to a meeting. He said that he had built 54 ship models and was also starting to build the Syren. I attended the meeting and was amazed by the number of people just as crazy as me. He invited me to his house and I accepted . I told my wife that he was either a genius or more full of crap than anyone I had ever met. Life's not long enough to build that may ship models. Well I counted them. Yep 54. I agreed to join the club and present my Syren at the next meeting. Darned if he didn't present his and he had done in 2 months what it had taken me a year to do. I decided that covering up mistakes was more time consuming than not making them in the first place. So I took a step back and bought some equipment and started experimenting with different techniques. Bought some books and studied them and visited the Constitution, CW Morgan, Annapolis Maritime Museum, Victory and the Greenwich Maritime Museum. I'm starting to work on my Syren again so I'll be posting some more photos in a few days.
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I used Titebond and tried every clamp in the book and in the end I found that my fingers and three games of Solitar did the trick best.
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After seeing your model last Sat. I went to Old Town for lunch. They had a piece of driftwood like yours there but too oddly shaped for a base. Darn! I really like that effect.
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Thanks for the link. I agree completely. I've wore out my paperback and will now replace it with a hardcover.
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My wife spends a lot more than any or yours and I rarely buy anything for my self. Christmas before last I thought hey, what's up with this, so I bought everything that Jim Byrnes makes along with a Sherline mill and lathe. To heck with "do I need it". My wife doesn't "need" what she buys. I have the Rattlesnake kit along with the Syren which I am building now. These are my first builds so I'm no expert. My suggestion would be to skip the Rattlesnake and upgrade to the Syren. I would also spend the extra money to replace everything above the waterline with boxwood & cherry and the deck with holly from HobbyMill. Of the Jim Byrnes machines I would say the order of importance would be: table saw, thickness sander, disk sander. Of course after buying all that I thought that I would to fly to London and take a train to Portsmouth for a couple of days to see the Victory while my wife and daughter went to Hawaii. Although for 40 years she would never go anywhere besides Hawaii, she said that she would go along for me. Well, it turned into London, Portsmouth, Paris, Orient Express train to Venice, Rome and back to London. Darn! She still out spent me! Oh well. We had the best time of our lives. In fact we're going again in 6 weeks. Adding Chatham but skipping Venice and Rome. I created a monster.
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Weathered decking
Larry Van Es replied to MD11pilot's topic in Building, Framing, Planking and plating a ships hull and deck
I found a test that I did using a scrap of basswood. The bottom is straight Weather-It. This is not the results that I got with the holly however.
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Weathered decking
Larry Van Es replied to MD11pilot's topic in Building, Framing, Planking and plating a ships hull and deck
I used holly for the deck of my Syren and didn't think that the pristine look of the deck matched the weathered look of the rest of the model. I tried to stain it lightly to give it some character but holly didn't seem to take stain easily, After looking at a lot of the decks on MSW, I settled on the look that you describe so I used the weather-it to create the look. It worked well but because of the previous stain it was a combination of tan and grey. I'd tell you to look at my build but I haven't reposted it yet. I'm hoping that most of my photos are on my old computer -
Yes I talked to Jim before posting this. He doesn't see it as a problem. You just need to start out a little faster but can then quickly slow it down to almost nothing. Once you get going you can then gradually speed it up.
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I found a Hoover vacuum cleaner belt the fits over the knob that you hold with your left hand thus freeing up the left hand. This allows you to adjust the speed and turn on and off the machine with the free hand. I bought a pair of them at Ace Hardware for about $4.50. The package said Hoover Genuine Parts style 160 part # 38528-033
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If you merely grab an end of the rope in one hand and about 8 inchs over with the other and pull, you can feel the rope stretch. Do this repeatedly to the other end. Repeat until the rope no longer stretches. The rope is then hardened.
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