gieb8688

The issue with this technique  for making blocks is all the char.   You cant throw them in a block tumbler to clean it all off.  That would destroy the shape of them.  This is quicker than how I make my regular blocks and the shape is more consistent.   But once you over tumble them to remove the char they look awful.  Even  if made from boxwood.   So this is a great technique however for those who want to stain their blocks and even ebonize them.   Then you dont have to tumble them at all.   Those fancy Ebony blocks you see for sale are so expensive.  But you can have some just as nice if you dip these sticks in Ebony stain or black ink and let them dry.   They polish up beautifully.
 
 

Look what arrived today, as promised by my printers!
 
We will spend all weekend finishing the Sphinx kits, and making sure all is packed well, ready for shipping. All orders will be shipped next week.
 
In the meantime, I have still been working on the new fishing boast designs, and have gone almost as far as I can with my pre-prototype models of Erycina and Nisha.
 
I received samples of the 3-d printed castings for them yesterday. I decided to have the tow posts drawn in CAD and 3-d printed because I wanting it to be as true to the real thing as I could, as it has many shapes, coupled with a bracket with holes each side at the top. The winch drums are also 3-d printed castings, as is the chain pipe. The forward winch drums are new turned brass parts I had made. The rest of the kits will consist of laser cut and PE parts - but have to wait for the PE until next month...

I have done some dry fitting of gun barrels. Aggy starts looking mean. This leads into a question. As I understand by mid eighteenth century  gun barrels were made i steel instead of bronze. An untreated bronze gun barrel is dark grey with a slight greenish tone. What was the color of a steel gun barrel at the time? We modelers tend to paint black or blacken the brass but what was the color at the time? When you look at pictures of gun barrels from HMS Victory gun barrels look painted black but that I suppose it is made to protect the barrels from rust. What did Nelson use for corrosion protection? What effect did that treatment have on the appearance of the gun barrel?

 

 
Best regards
 
Henrik

My build has been slow because of house renovation. The builders took over the garage and I moved Aggy into safe storage but now I am building again struggling with the bow. 

 
Best regards
 
Henrik

Thanks Rob,
The bow cheeks are laser cut and comes with the kit. I am not sure what you mean with with grates but if it is the grating you mean 🙂 they are made from combing strips coming in a bag with the kit. They are made in wood with a fantastic precision. I combine the number of strips required to size and cut away the rest. I glued combing strips together with water diluted wood resin glue (to a watery consistency). The last finish is from sand paper and then a layer of satin varnish.

 
Best regards
 
Henrik

Thanks for all comments and "likes" . On free time during Christmas I have been working on the rudder. Hinges are still to be fixed to the hull but this is how it looks like for the moment.

 
From a model building point of view 2020 has been an exiting year. A year ago I had finished the first planking. During 2020 I did gun ports, second planking, some painting, coppering and some detailing of upper gun deck. How far will I come in 2021? I have said to the Grand(e) Admiral that Aggy is a five year project. In April I am two years into the build....
 
Happy New Year!
 
Henrik

Greetings to all fellow model boat builders around the world,
Working on Aggy has been part of my corona safe Christmas celebration. I realized a couple of weeks ago that I had missed to open up two gun ports in the stern. I do not think it is mentioned in the instructions but I saw them on one of the drawings. My first thought was to leave them out but I finally decided to cut them out anyhow. Painted black they will not be seen but at least this post is a proof of their existence 🙂.
 

 
Best regards
 
Henrik

Have been working on the upper gun deck four the last couple of weeks. Here is the result.

 

 

 
Best regards
 
Henrik

Thanks for likes and comments. Copper sheathing is now finished (except for the rudder...). Started painting a bit of yellow ochre. The paint is not covering very well as yellow often tends to do. I will probably have to do 4-5 layers before it is ok. The white line is Tamiya flexible masking tape which works very well.
 

 
Best regards and stay safe
 
Henrik

It has been a while since my last post. Copper sheathing is almost finished after three months. Port side is finished and starboard is only missing some filling of gore lines. It feels fantastic!

 

 
Regards
 
Henrik
 

Just been working away on my two new prototype (well, pre-prototypes) fishing boats. Thought I'd share some (bad) pics. They are now both double planked, with decks in place along with the bulwark timber frames.
 
Nisha, the smaller vessel, has just had her gunwale fitted, with Erycina (the larger, ex cutter turned fishing ketch) about to have hers fitted.
 
I have gone a little further with these, compared to the Fifie and Zulu, with the outer bulwarks pre cut and etched (as well as the inner bulwarks, which have the timberhead positions pre etched). So planking starts at just below deck level. They are also easier to plank. 
 
I note that some who built the Fifie and Zulu added detail below the main deck, so with these two, I have included the lower deck platform to the correct height, and included ladders for the companionways, if you wish to show companion door open.
 
Pic not great, and builds are quick and a little rough but these, like my Sphinx pre-prototype are 'throw away' models, and used only to make sure designs work as they should, and change where required. The real prototypes will be made later, once I am happy the designs are nailed down, which is now pretty close. No varnish applied, and both have just been sanded, so look a little dusty.
 
As with the Fifie and Zulu, they will have optional pre made sail sets, 4 for Nisha and 5 for Erycina. 
 
Oh, I used that flexible masking tape for the white boot topping, it was great!

A large part of that is down to James hatch, who has helped build the final prototypes and taken all pictures for the construction, plus text. This really does help with continuing new developments while that last one is still being worked on.
 
Regarding larger kits in the future, today, this is one giant step closer, as I have ordered a second laser machine. This is not cheap, but I know it is exactly what I want, and I did promise that any money from sales is invested straight back into the business. The laser machine has a larger bed, so I can cut material of 800x600mm, rather than 600x400mm, and it is twice as powerful, being 80w. It is due for delivery in October, after the refurbishment of our garage next month, to make it into more of a proper unit that dilapidated hell hole..
 
On the Sphinx front, my wife, Chantelle and made up the 50 kits (that's a lot of boxes)! and now we wait for the printed manuals, plans and box label to arrive.
 
I would have loved to have a full printed box for all my kits, but the costs are frankly comical, and no way worth it when considering they would add £100 to kit price! What Sphinx does have is a very strong double walled box, which will keep the parts safe during shipping. That, coupled with Chan's careful packing of the parts should ensure the kits arrive in perfect condition (We have learned a lot since our first Alert kit..)

After attaching as much rigging as I could to the masts it was time to attach the yards to the masts and step them into the deck.  I had a lot of trouble getting the yards secured to the masts.  The yard cleats in the kit were so tiny and fragile.  You can't really see it in the picture but I ended up wrapping safety wire around the junction of the yard and mast to keep it in place.  It turned out to be almost invisible when I was done.
 
Also in the pic below you can see a little more "kit bashing" (my new favorite term).  The kit instructions did not have ratlines running from the cross trees to the top of the upper main and fore masts which I guess would have provided access to the top gallant yards.  And the picture on the box didn't show them either.  But in my research, pretty much all the paintings I saw of the ship showed upper ratlines on the upper main and fore masts.  So I decided to add them. 
 
 

Lashing the yard arms to the yards and adding footropes.  I don't think the footropes turned out all that great but I could not figure out a good way to hang them.  Any suggestions?

Deck fully outfitted.  I may have gone overboard with all the cannonballs but I wanted my ship to be ready for a rematch with the Kearsarge.

By now I was beginning to figure out that there were a lot of things the kit did not include and it was up to the builder (and builder's skill level) to decide how crazy to get with the detail, historical accuracy, etc.  I didn't take on anything too tough but continued to add some minor customization like the hinges on the gun port doors in the first pic.  That said, I was pretty incredulous that the Mamoli kit did NOT include cannon balls.  WTH!  How can you have all those cannons without ammo.  So I measured the inside diameter of the cannons and ordered some ball bearings that would just barely fit inside.  Then I built some trays along the centerline of the deck to hold all the cannonballs.  I also added the little white hammock rolls inside the bulwark railing after seeing those in various pictures.
  

Now to start outfitting the ship with all the cool stuff.  After so many weeks of planking and plating I was really looking forward to this part.  Below are the life boats and the 100lb and 86lb Blakley pivot guns that were mounted fore and aft on the deck center.  Carving out the little paddles was a challenge but fun. 

Copper plating finished (except for the keel which I plated much later).  Another 3 weeks of my life gone!

Next step was applying the copper plates to the hull below the upper second planking.  The kit came with a long roll of 1/8" wide copper tape.  I looked at a lot of pictures of other models with copper plating to get an idea of what to do here.  I didn't really like a lot of what I saw so I came up with something that was probably not historically accurate but I liked the look.  I cut the strips of tape into pieces that were 15mm long.  Then I dimpled 2 rivets into each end.  I wanted the copper to stand out vs seeing a million rivets all over the place.

At this point I decided to take a break from the body of the ship and work on some smaller things.  The kit just called for gluing the rudder in place but I saw some other model ships with really cool strap hinges where the rudder could actually move back and forth.  So I created some hinges out of the excess photo-etched framework around the chain plates.  For the skylight glass, I used 4 layers of wax paper to give it an opaque, smoked-glass look.   
 

Next step was the deck.  I borrowed a tip from somewhere to use a carpenter pencil and rub it over the edge of each deck plank to give it a dark accent between the strips to simulate caulking.  I thought it worked quite well.  However, as you can see, as I glued the planks on the 1-piece deckboard, the whole thing began to bow upwards.  So when I went to glue the whole thing onto the boat, I needed some weight to hold it in place hence the assortment of every small, heavy thing I could find in my garage.  

The second layer of planking was applied to the upper half of the hull starting slightly above the water line using darker wood.  The color does not matter since it is painted black later.  It was quite a chore for me to get all the pieces fitted smoothly (sort of) around the stern.  I really struggled with the angles and curves and transitions.  Copper plates go below the second planking layer down to the keel.

First layer of planking done and sanded.  It went ok but was incredibly tedious taking a couple of weeks of repetitive work.  There are probably better ways to bend/mold the planks.  I soaked them in warm water, clamped them in place, let them dry, then glued 'em up.  Rinse, repeat, rinse repeat...  I also used some wood filler to cover some of my bad technique since it would be covered later with another layer of planking as well as copper plates.

Quick update: the Hull is now finished !!! Portholes have been filed and markings added. I am just missing the measuring ladders and will probably go with the decals recommended by an earlier post.
 

 

 
I need to work on a display board, to present the model and protect it, at the same time.
 
Yves

A quick update on the portholes and hull. As mentioned before, when the hull is printed, the portholes are solid since the kit is created for RC usage and navigation. In my case, I drilled all the ports with a 4.5 mm bit. Now has come the time to fill them up. I am using an almost magical chemical, that has the capability to fill up a hole up to 6 mm diameter with a white goo that turns crystal clear after a few hours.
 

 
You also need a tooth pick and with a rotation of the hands, you create a ring of the goo, inside the portholes. Below you can see one that has dried and one porthole that was just filled up: 

 
Because the hull is very thick, I used a second application of that magic goo, after the first application dried. It filled up quite well the holes and looks a lot like the heavy glass used on the real ship.
 

 
Finally, for the decals, I went with one of the suggestions and printed the decals on thin paper sheets, carefully cut them, soaked them in PVA diluted with water and applied them carefully to the hull. A little sponging on top and voila.... It is not too bad overall.
 
Yves