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Goodnight

Good evening everyone
 
all holes drilled for the steps
any mould lines that i can see have been sanded out
Hull sanded down several times with 1500 wet and dry
tonight i was playing around with the grill for the seawater inlets and outlets, the grill is over scale - but will support possibly some sort of netting over the top
 

Greetings,
 
It's a rainy, gloomy and windy day in Hampton Roads, (winds are gusting to 27mph, 23.46 knots, a perfect day to stay inside and work on a model.  
 
These are the latest photos of my work on the Schooner Atlantic half hull, as you can see she is taking shape rather well and I'm pleased at the progress.  The photos show me checking the shape at each point then sanding and rechecking.  At this point I'm too close to the correct shape to use a chisel to remove excess wood because I don't want to use any filler which would ruin the natural mahogany I plan to show below the waterline.  It's best to take my time and remove a little wood each time.
 
Cheers,
Tim
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well I did hope to get a bit of painting done the last couple of days
But things transpired against me

I've done some more digging and I found a very nice model made by Kerry Jang that has been painted in Nelson chequer - Black hull with a yellow ochre band along the gunports and red ochre on the inside of the bulwarks and the deck fittings. IT will compliment the Snake build nicely as well....!

Hi Eamonn,
 
My folks bought the paint set with the kit as it was 'recommended' by the website. I am actually trying to work out if there any areas that should be painted or not. Even to the extent of whether the hull was treated with 'white stuff' or not.
 
Certainly the front of the box shows a largely natural finish.

Norman,
 
Thanks for the reply. I know you mentioned this in one of our pm's a while ago. It's ironic that the Pontos PE also "seems" rather flimsy but I can't compare 'til I get back to the shop where the model resides. Pontos has done a really great job in all the areas that they provide parts for - actually in some way of thinking they may have overdone it - the complete brass top for the 16" turret is, well, necessary? While the underside of the turrets are spectacularly detailed in brass which is a big plus!
 
The kit parts + Pontos Details on the 40mm & 20mm guns  is the most detailed modeling I've seen on anything yet! I won't be using these, but installed into one of the super detailed tubs, they would look above museum quality IMHO. I may keep one of each aside for assembly and possible display for my own use. (I have another modeler interested in the balance of those mounts and assemblies)
 
One item that I may use the majority of the kit parts on is the aircraft crane on the fantail. I don't know at this point whether it was (on NEW JERSEY) replaced in the '50's or simply reinforced with triangular gussets between all the support tubing, but both the kit plastic and Pontos PE cranes will NOT be correct on my build without modification. I plan to use the plastic crane (due to it's being molded as round tubing which is more realistic than 1 dimentional PE brass) with added scratch gussets and the PE from Pontos for the extra detailing of pulleys and other parts. I will also add new scratchblt. red night lights that were added to the crane in '67. The Pontos PE for the crane operator console and so forth are really spectacular in their detail.
 
I could go on and on but you get the picture - this will be a long term project, to say the least.
 
Hank

Bulkheads attached. Glued with a spot of cyano and set to the correct position using the false deck. I have then added PVA and smeared into the joints using cotton buds. I will let these cure while I treat myself to a carvery...!!

]spent another good few hours on the build today, sanding out hull blemishes which appear on the external side of the strengthening struts inside the hull
 

 
at present i am drilling loads of 0.3mm holes for the stern PE steps, then i will be spending a couple of hours wet and dry with 1500 paper
 
much happier again now - thank you everyone
 
 

Thanks Jason -- beautiful! I can't speak for others, but from where I sit, the more pictures of this build the better!
 
I like the base too.  Does the hull just sit in the supports, or is it fastened to them?
 
Robert

Doug, John, BE, Jim, Robert, Sjors - Thanks a bunch for kind words.  Getting a lot of loose ends done and seems randomly capturing in my log.  I've suddenly started having issues imbedding pictures in my posts, not sure if its some site incompatibility itself or my PC.
 
Robert - your pictures are below.  As I've said before I don't want to bore people but please let me know if you want to see more!  The base is home made any still not finished but this was a good opportunity to see how it looks with the ship.
 
Completed the blocks on the tops, as I've mentioned previously the instructions only call for single blocks on the fore top.  However, even though I probably will not rig any buntlines, I did want this to be as authentic as possible.  Research didn't seem to provide anything specific but in general it seems that a couple of double blocks on each 'corner' was somewhat typical so this is what I went with.  Followed same method outlined earlier, these seemed to take forever to make, there were certainly rejects and structural failures during installation, as well as having to fill holes that I'd previously drilled.  Luckily these proved to be not too noticeable.
 

Brett:
Like it or not, you just gave the entire world your email address. I would suggest you go back and edit your post to take out your email information and then send it through a PM which the entire world cannot see.
 
Russ

look at the detail at the lower railing...

Yes, Challenge is correct. Your turn Slog.
 
Challenge was the first ship to be built on three decks with iron bracing of her wooden hull and, at her completion, was the longest and largest displacement clipper afloat. She was specifically designed and built to set records and to beat Flying Cloud. Robert Waterman was hired as Captain to sail from New York to San Francisco with a $10,000 bonus for a passage of 90 days or less. He was famous for setting a record from Macao to New York of 78 days on Natchez in 1842, then improved on it by one day in command of Sea Witch in 1847. Then in 1849 he set a record of 74 days, again on Sea Witch, a record for sail powered vessels that still stands.
 
Challenge set sail from New York on 13 July 1851 under "Bully Bob" Waterman and First Mate James Douglass and arrived in San Francisco on 29 October, a voyage of 108 days. Reports of the brutality by Waterman, Douglass and other officers against the largely inexperienced crew of Challenge - including the beating of sick crewmen for being sick - incensed the populace of San Francisco to rioting in the streets. One newspaper called for Waterman to be "burned alive" and he narrowly escaped being lynched. The first 21 criminal cases of the newly established US District Court of Northern California were the nationally publicized Challenge "hellship" trials involving Waterman and his officers. Waterman was convicted for beating a sick man and Douglass was convicted of murder for beating a man to death. Eight sailors were accused of mutiny by Waterman, but only one saw trial and he was acquitted. Neither Waterman nor Douglass served on another ship.
 
In the following years, Challenge operated primarily in the Pacific and set many records until her sale in 1862 and name change to Golden City. She was sold again in 1866. She sank with all hands off Ushant in 1877.
 
more info: http://www.bruzelius.info/Nautica/Ships/Clippers/Challenge(1851).html  (ship timeline)
http://www.bruzelius.info/Nautica/News/BDA/BDA(1851-06-16).html  (a highly detailed description, inside and out, as newly constructed)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Waterman_(sea_captain)  (more on Waterman and the hellship he created)
 
 

Last nights progress:
 
All bulkheads are roughly beveled. I will do any fine tuning once they are glued in place, but I will also be adding some balsa blocks at the bow and stern to aid planking.
 
I have also added my bearding and cut a rabbet up to the top of the stem. Lesson learned from the Snake, this is so much easier before glueing the bulkheads in place.
 
Finally, dry fitted and pinned the stem and keel to the false keel. I will glue these in place today but leave the stern post until after second planking.
 
Nothing really to see yet as it's all prep work mainly. Will update once the bulkheads are in.

The baseboard is just a piece of thick plyboard with a couple of pieces of wood screwed into it.
I sandwiched the keel between the two pieces and then screwed them down.

Top Masts
 
These were made with walnut dowel rather than the supplied beech as I wanted to be able to leave these unpainted.  The kit supplied dowel was also a little undersize (5.5mm vs the 6mm required).
 
I found these to be tricky to make using only files as each end requires to be 'squared' and they need  their faces to match otherwise the cross tree will not align correctly.  The taper on the dowel was done on a mini proxxon lathe although I think using a regular drill and sandpaper would have worked just fine.  I tried to make the section below the cross tree octagonal in cross section but it could definitely be better.
 
The instructions call for the bottom of the top mast to be left squared of with smaller dimension than the rest of the mast.  Didn't like that so built up this with some spare walnut planking.  This was then shaped to be octagonal in line with what seemed common practice.
 
Need to be careful going forward, as taking this approach means that if I want to install the top mast cross tree off the ship (my preference) I'll need to ensure the mast cap placed first as it won't fit afterwards due the above modifications.
 
Overall, took a lot of time but was pretty happy.  I know it wouldn't hold a candle to BEs beautiful top masts but seems a simple improvement to the kit as supplied.
 
 

A few pictures to show the completed deck items before the masts go in.  Definitely seems to be a little more crowed than kit supplied parts and layout but I'm pleased with how its turned out.

Couple more repairs today.
 
All of the carronades on the port side of the ship needed to be glued back to the deck. Fortunately because the carronades were all rigged in, they were still held pretty much in place, albeit a bit loose.
 
Also, one of the fenders had been knocked of the hull. This was re-pinned and glued back in place.
 
Finally, the main channel isn't badly damaged, so I have replaced the eyelets and sanded the channel down. It now needs painting again and pinning back on the hull.

Jason - The Ballahoo/Haddock build will provide a change to the rigging on the snake and keep me fresh, although once my repairs on the Snake are complete, I will not have too many ratlines to complete.
 
The instructions are around the same level as the Snake instructions although obviously more simplistic due to the nature of the ship being built. Couple of minor improvements; the eyelets on the deck have been specifically labelled as such. They were very simple to overlook on the Snake. Also, the mast plans also show the cleats to be attached. These were only shown on the belaying plan for the Snake.
 
Eamonn - The build area has now been fully 'upgraded', there will be no more feline / heavy object relating incidents....!
 
Patrick / Sam - Good to see you both on board. Hope we can all learn from each other.
 
Today's progress has been to make a build board for the keel. The keel is not warped at all and is one less thing to worry about, Waiting for my Dremel to recharge and will make a start on bevelling bulkheads.

Here she is , went to the Seaport yesterday and took about 200 photos. There wasn't a lot of people there, actually it was empty, so i did my best to get pics of all the nooks and crannies on all the big vessels. I really wanted to get pics of the fish hold on the Emma C. but i couldn't at that time. 

Having purchased the Pontos Detail Up Set without Deck for the 1:200 Trumpeter MISSOURI last week - I received it today - WOW!!! There is SO MUCH to this set.

First - the machined parts are bagged separately (gun barrels, bitts, mast parts, antenna, etc.) and the 16" barrels are really so much better than the Trumpeter Upgrade that Trumpy should remove that set from the market - it ain't worth a crap in comparison. All the barrels were included as stated in the instructions. (Other modelers have stated that they did not receive the correct numbers of 20mm/40mm barrels).

There is a separate bag of resin cast parts - bloomers for the 16" and 5"/38 guns and other parts. I'll have to compare these to the kit supplied bloomers and use whichever is more realistic. They are both comparable, I think.

Then there are the various sheets of brass etched parts - more, much more than I will be using on my build (67-69 NEW JERSEY). I guess the more unusual aspect of this set is the very nice colored instruction sheets (7 sheets - doubled sided) that would make an Egyptian hieroglyphics researcher jump with joy . I guess that since hiring an English translator to actually come up with Printed Instructions (to accompany the photos) is out of the question, this is the next best thing.

OK, criticism aside, the parts themselves, seem to be very well etched and detailed. I will, however, compare them with the PE included in the kit and use the better of the two. In some fashion, I don't see at this point why Pontos chose to redo everything that Trumpeter included in the kit, but I'll go through this with a fine tooth comb once I get back to my shop in early January. I will note one other item - the waterways - while this set does include them, they are not what I would consider as totally correct. They are one dimensional and to my way of looking at this detail they should be at LEAST a brass angle with its short leg being inside as the very edge butting up to the teak decking. I may have to explore this a bit more before I make a yea or nay on it.

One thing I do like about this set is the rung hole patterns for the correct placement of hand rungs on the stern of the ship as well as elsewhere on the superstructure. I'm not sure if they include enough to put them in the proper locations at the stern as were on NJ in the late '60s, but I'm sure there's a workaround if not.

So, my initial assessment is that this Detail Up Set is probably a big plus for the model - whether it's worth the retail price may be up to the modeler to decide.

Ballahoo log up and running..... See sig for link.....

Made it back from my folks today and got to checking through the Ballahoo contents. Unfortunately the 2mm walnut sprue is missing from the box. Tried to call Caldercraft today but haven't got any answer. I will try again on Monday and see if I can get an answer.
 
As for the contents, the quality is reasonable but not amazing, but then the kit is only £60 so I won't complain. Lime first planking and walnut second planking. The contents list shows 0.5mm Lime for the decking but the manual states that it is 0.5mm maple. The two sets of wood look very similar (other than being 0.5mm and 1mm) and I am no expert on differences between Lime and Maple. Are they of similar appearance?
 
First steps so far have been to cut the keel, frames and cradle from the 5mm ply sheet. All pieces have been sanded and a basic check of the fit has been made. Over the weekend I will make a start on bevelling the frames.

Hi all,

Today received my Christmas gift of the HMS Ballahoo kit by Caldercraft. In the Ballahoo class I have only found National Maritime plans for the HMS Haddock, so I will try to base my build around these plans.

Still at my folks so will not start the build until tomorrow. In the meantime I will post the kit pictures.