SkerryAmp

Hey guys,
 
First - thank you all for your incredible patience..   I have not dissappeared nor have I abadoned any projects.   What has happened is a combination of Work (promotion, merger, reorg  you get the gist),  School (finishing my B.S degree, wraps up in September and rather than it getting easier the load is getting heavier) AND health (my wife and I are a bit on the heavy side so have been doing Thai Kickboxing and with the nice weather getting out when time permits:  Just got our yellow belts ).   Combine those with just the normal have to acknowledge my family from time to time and there has not been much time for much else.
 
I am so thrilled folks are using the  database, and priomise updates will be coming.
 
Sygreen - am very sorry,  those pages are coming and were on deck but have not gotten back to them.
 
Any way, these are not excuses mind you - just explanation ,  again thanks for bearing with the delay... but it is not a dead project and will be getting some life breathed into it
 
Thanks all!!!

Yep - still alive (me that is).
 
Checking in and hooo-doggie is that one fine looking model you continue to make finer.
 
Love the decking (I am a big fan of Pear)
 
And echo the thoughts on the ships wheel..... spectacular!
 
 
Enjoy the fishing sir!

Yep - still alive (me that is).
 
Checking in and hooo-doggie is that one fine looking model you continue to make finer.
 
Love the decking (I am a big fan of Pear)
 
And echo the thoughts on the ships wheel..... spectacular!
 
 
Enjoy the fishing sir!

Larry your paint job is fantastic.  Neat, clean and crips - I am jealous!!
 
Lookin snazzy!!!

Yeah, I am just going to sit here in silence and look on with stunned glee.
 
 
Just so tight and "cool" looking - almost a shame to plank up that art, but am sure it will be even more artful! =) (is that a word, I dunno.. heck, it is now!!!)

This may be a very stupid question .
I have been searching the Ship Kit Database  and every ship shows that the page is under construction
Are there ANY ships that have any real information in it???
 
What am I doing wrong??

Hi SkerryAmp,
 
Brilliant concept well executed.
 
I am a SQL and VB programmer so if need any help just shout.
 
Have just discoverd MSW now and your datbase was my first port of call.
 
Keep up the good work
 
Mick

Please check the entry for the "Wasa" from Billing Boats, the nation is Swedish not Swiss.

A disclaimer in a footer on each page should free the website and developer from legal issues.

Adam,    We all know that the only way to avoid mistakes, to say nothing of criticism, is to do nothing.  I think what you are doing is a great service to the model community and i, for one, appreciate it, expect to benefit from it and don't much care it it is not "perfect", whatever that means, since that is an entirely subjective term anyway.  Thanks for doing it.

Hi there! You going to be adding Aeropiccola and other defunct kit builders so that we might also seek out some old out of production kits?

thank you for doing this - there is a lot of information here

Great job. One mistake I found: the WASA is swedish not swiss.....

Yeah, I am just going to sit here in silence and look on with stunned glee.
 
 
Just so tight and "cool" looking - almost a shame to plank up that art, but am sure it will be even more artful! =) (is that a word, I dunno.. heck, it is now!!!)

Larry your paint job is fantastic.  Neat, clean and crips - I am jealous!!
 
Lookin snazzy!!!

Yeah, I am just going to sit here in silence and look on with stunned glee.
 
 
Just so tight and "cool" looking - almost a shame to plank up that art, but am sure it will be even more artful! =) (is that a word, I dunno.. heck, it is now!!!)

Lovin it Sjors....  looks nice and intimidating - beautiful!

Yep - still alive (me that is).
 
Checking in and hooo-doggie is that one fine looking model you continue to make finer.
 
Love the decking (I am a big fan of Pear)
 
And echo the thoughts on the ships wheel..... spectacular!
 
 
Enjoy the fishing sir!

It's been a while since I posted any progress and I planned on having more work complete before doing so but now seemed like a good time. I have to clean up the shipyard to set my reloading equip back up to help out a friend so I'll take a short break from the Niagara build.
 
Since my last post with pictures I've completed the following:
 
All twenty guns assembled and mounted to the deck​  Rigging blocks and tackle attached to the guns but rope coils need added to nineteen and jack-screws are needed for seventeen.​ The tiller rigging has been added. My tiller angle is too low, but I may just leave it as is. I also plan on adding rope coils for the tiller, positioned aft of the most aft guns. I installed the starboard and port pin rails plus belaying pins and if you look close you can see the tension rods under each pin rail. The stove smokestack has been assembled and still needs some clean up from painting. I did not like smokestack provided with the kit, so I made this up up using brass, wood, tape and styrene, plus CA glue to simulate fastener heads on the plate surface.
As she now sits.
 

Need to add rope coils and maybe raise height of tiller handle
 

You have to look close to see the rail pin tension rods. I used 0.017" dia wire. I wanted to use smaller to scale it better but could not find any locally.
 

Sitting loose over a mast hole due to dowel sticking out of the button
 

 
Bashed (with primer) next to OEM provided smokestack 
 

Sitting loose over the mount hole

My painting is pretty bad.  should have used the air-brush.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Your welcome Brian. Don't forget to use Chuck's picture for reference, on how he rigged them.

I just installed the block and tackle on my third carronade and thought maybe I should share how I rig the tiny 3/32” blocks, 3mm hooks and 0.008” dia. lines. My results are not exactly what I would like to get, with my knots being the biggest issue but it does not look too bad. Sharing the process may be beneficial to others and also hopefully provide feedback on how to improve my results. The sequence below is not what I used. That detail varies depending on a lot of variables, including personal choice.
 

First, how small is it really??? The parts are small enough I could not hold them by hand and even getting them in a tool could be challenging with some slipping out and going to the unknown location we all have in our build areas.
I tried using tweezers to handle the hooks but smooth jaw duck bill pliers worked best for me after I figured out how to get them into the pliers. A small piece of tape folded over exposing a small are of the sticky side works well for picking up the hook so I can transfer it to the pliers.  
 

Transfer to pliers completed.
 

Once in the pliers, I chased the hole and then inserted the rope. The first 1/4” or so of the rope had to be soaked in CA glue first to stiffen it up so it could be shoved through the hole of the block as well as the hook. I also clipped off the glued end to an angle so there was an actual point which also helped a lot.
 

Chasing the block hole. I used a clothes pin for holding the blocks for some of the work. I glued two pieces of wood to the clothes pin so it opened and closed evenly. This reduced the number of tiny blocks being flipped to who knows where (Sjors have any of my missing blocks showed up at your place? They certainly are not anywhere here to be found.    )
 

 I stick a piece of tape on my work bench so I can place a drop of CA glue to pick from with a needle on a stick or exacto knife blade point.
 

From this point it was just a matter of stringing the rope to the configuration needed. I always applied a very small amount of CA glue to each knot using the pointed end of a no. 11 exacto blade. The blade allowed very good control for the amount of glue as well as placement. I would clean the build up glue on the tip by simply scraping it off or burning it off from time to time. I also applied CA glue to the tiny grove on the side of the block to hold the rope in place.
 


Rope coils to be added later. I may end up placing a small amount of CA glue into the block where the pull rope exits, so the block?tackle stays tight. 
 
 
 
 
 

Thanks for the likes and comments.
 
Dan,
I'm absorbing all I can.... Your post is big help.  I rechecked the Belle Poule and La Venus monographs as they have the same planking style as Licorne.   The pics show the re-positioned (this morning) batten.  Not much from the red pin back but definitely moreso at the bow. 
 
My dead flat and the widest frame is frame 20 (black arrow in full length picture below). The batten at that point is 41 mm which is 8 planks wide.  I examined the planking schemes and did some rough measurements from the plans and moved the bow piece towards the wale.  This flattened the plank out so there's not a nasty twist/bend in it. It's 17.5 mm.   I measured the last strern frame and I get 37 mm.  The area between the batten and wales is for the wider planks of 5/32" (5mm).
 
For reference, the dead flat frame dimension from keel to wale is 129mm, first frame forward is 80 mm and last frame is 123 mm
 
These plans also show that the fore part of the garboard doesn't taper down like an English ship but goes up.  I need to double check this as could just be a drawing distortion. (see the red line).  Nor does it appear that they used a broad strake next to the garboard (which was wide) but a wide stealer near the stern. <scratches head> The other oddball (to me) thing is that the planks are not uniform in width at the midsection for those but the NMM cross-section plan for Licorne is.  
 
I'll give the tape method a shot and see what it does... sounds like a good idea.
 

 
 

I think you're right, John.   Better now?
 

After reading all the theories and "how-to's" where the rubber meets the road....  I'd like some feedback on my batten.  I'm planking from the wales down to the batten first.  The batten represents where the wide wale planks will end... or should end.
 

Like seeing an old friend again !