popeye the sailor

very nice planking Bob......very clean and neat

rigging these plastic ships can be a bother.......over tension can bend the yards and masts. I did a test long ago into what I call 'zero tension' where the lines are taught, but have little effect on the masts. most folks know that there is some stretch in most rigging thread. simply....take a piece and hold it in your fingers.........now pull it taught. you'll feel the stretch. now slowly release the tension and you'll actually see the thread relax.......then start to go limp. tighten it back up again..........now release the tension slowly. the point where you see the thread taught.....just before you see it start to go limp, is the zero tension. do this as many time as you need to, to get a better feel of where it is. it will help. you can find rigging thread that is pre-stretched. I've done all the 1:96 Revell kits {that I've done} with the supplied thread. I like the thread......it doesn't fuzz out very quickly...takes a bit of abuse before it will begin to do it. the kit isn't too bad in this respect, since it does supply thread in different sizes, in both the black and the tan. I tried to get some from Revell when I ordered the sails and decal sheet for my Cutty, but it seemed they didn't have it to send or purchase. I believe Revell has stopped the practice of replacing parts......I think only Revell/Germany does it still. some folks opted to replace the eye bolts with metal ones, complaining that they break easily. I have used them, experiencing only minor problems...but using the zero tension method, might have helped with that. I never 'spined' the masts either.......didn't know about it then, and never saw a reason for doing it. one thing to take into consideration as well......is that with sails, the lines will be taught and serving a purpose, and if your going with no sails, most lines will be somewhat limp anyway, since they are not being used and at rest.

what a sweet looking hull you have there Doug! very nicely done! rudder and props look great too.........very well done, I must say

glad to see 'er Bill! I think you did a splendid job .......your learning, and that's the big thing! your enjoying the process, and that's what counts! yup.......fill in the gaps and define the contour better on the stern......'bout all I can say at the moment. sorry to hear 'bout you an' the admiral......hope it's not serious. keep at it....your doing great!

sounds like something good that went terribly wrong......my admiral wouldn't dream of me doing anything I may be able to do my own sails......but I'm at first base with everything else. I recall when I was a lot younger......before I ever got married........I had a pair of star spangled striped bell bottoms. I wanted more of a 'bell', so I sewed in pieces of blue denim to make them bigger. cripes.......I looked like Bozzo the clown!.......if you can remember him anyway.......mine wouldn't dream of trying, so you have a 1-up there I got my order.......ages of sails is great! I got the belaying pins.......and the double blocks......but the ship's boats.......well, they'd look better on a sailing ship so, I will make do with what I have........at least I'm adding them in

hull looks nice!

I have a bottle also........friends on another site use it on their aircraft and car projects. haven't used it all that much myself.

welcome back Carl! glad to hear your mind and back are doing better

I've heard of that.......had good luck with it as well. another tip to give folks with older decals, is to invest in a can of decal bonder. older decals tend to loose their elastic, and when put in water, will splinter in thousands of tiny shards. I bought my second Revell Cutty from E-Bay.......I used the reorder option Revell used to have, to replace the decal sheet and most of the sails {tried to get more of the rigging thread, but they wouldn't play ball with me}. the decal sheet was perfect.......I thought, no problems.........that is, until I dipped them in water. even those decals were the victim of aging, and they broke up before my eyes. giving them a light coat of decal bonder will rejuvenate the decal sheet.....the only thing is, you'll need to cut close to the decal, to avoid decal flash. Testor's sells this bonder......they also sell a decal maker program. I have the basic and standard edition.....saved me from many decal woes since purchasing it for the Cutty......I ended up making my own decals for her.

we all wish our admirals shared in our madness.......mine lies in the middle. she very supportive and will help me reason out problems when I become vocal about them. she's not a fan of plastic, especially when she saw how the wood kits look. she won't make sails........the envy of all around me, whose admirals will for those, whose admirals are willing to pick up an x actor and join in on the fun, you have my utmost respect!

thanks for the good word Pat........your supposed to be enjoying your holidays, but glad your poking in to see have fun! thanks for the good word Rob.....I'm still a ways away from rigging yet. I've ordered more belaying pins and 3 mm double blocks.....and I've ordered another type of ship's boats. I hope they are more correct. if not, I will go with what I had previously planned. just the idea that I want to include them is good enough for me the anchor issue is settled......I'm going to try and scratch build a pair. I looked at Chuck's tutorial for making them, and I'm sure that I can make a convincing pair. I was also looking at the yards.......plastic models are so deceiving......I was under the impression that some are movable and some are fixed in place. I'm finding different bits of information. another aspect I wanted to add was a couple of cannons.....I saw what Nenad did, and they look cool. that idea may come to fruition.....all because of me and my silly tangents. this week, I really didn't feel like mess'in with them. the trawler is still on the table, waiting for me to continue with the roof of the helm room.......the boulogne is still on the table, waiting for me to flesh out the cap rails and repair the bottom hull by the stern.......and I made the fore stanchion racks for the Thermopylae, but need ti fit them. I need to drill all the holes for the belaying pins, but I want to wait till I get the order in first. then there's the ship's boats and the davits. Tuesday was a complete bust....didn't do anything.......Wednesday, I was going stir crazy.....so I mowed the lawns. later in the day, I couldn't take it anymore, so I brought out one of the plastic models to play with, in the hopes it would joggle something loose in the idea department. I figured to play with the Jolly Rogers........since the kit has so many problems, I thought I'd just throw it together with little paint. now the Thermopylae is 1:124 scale.......the Jolly Rogers is 1:130.......one look at the cannons, and that wonderful light came on! I closed off the bridle ports to the J.R. and set a couple of cannons aside for the Thermopylae! the scale is not too far off.......no go with the anchors though, the smaller anchors are about 26 mm {still too large for my taste}. as for not painting the Jolly Rogers.....come on, who are we talking about here?!?!?! oh yea......there is paint.......the hull is a wood brown right now. I'm going to try and overlay it with a diluted wash of flat black, to perhaps get a wood finish . for all the craziness of all this, I may post a log.....but it might depend on how the wash job goes. I appreciate all your interests in this project {everyone}. when I get the parts and weigh out the options........I hope to have an update soon stay tuned!

nice looking hull......nice contour at the bow

good start on the build Hennie. I can get similar type of planking from Billing / ages of sail.......love using that increment of planking

hey there Adam! how did this one miss my radar? glad to see your making it back to the table {when you can}......you've had a few bumps with her, but she's look'in great through it all hope to see more of this fine project.....and maybe your others too

hi Piet........not to worry my friend glad you could pop in. I'm probably confusing the heck out of everybody ........working on this......working on that. I'm just glad I was able to finally fix some of the problems with this project thanks for the good word !

I use a run of the mill soldering iron.......the solder I use is for electronic work. what happened to the netting material?

nice progress.......armament and stack looks real good !

they can be a pain. when I did my Connie and the first United states, I cemented them all in place, then did the rigging part. I don't have any pictures of the Connie.....it was for my mother. they kept it by a wood stove......................yea....you guessed it. after many repair jobs and burnt holes in the sails, it was ready for scrap. here's a picture of the United States though....it'll give you an idea of how large this model is. I have the studding sails on her too, which really adds to her width. the galley quarters looks really nice........as I mentioned earlier, it's not supplied in the U.S. kit.....but I intend to put it in. don't know why.....it won't hinder anything. check out other Connie builds...there are several here on the site. you may notice {and I hope someone will chime in and confirm this} that the bridle port {the one closest to the bow stem} doesn't have a cannon in it. it can either be closed up or left without a gun port lid {I'd close it up....personal taste}. it would only be used in extreme emergency......mostly it was used as a port to access weighing in the anchor. you'll notice in this picture......there is a cannon in it. it was built back in the 90's.......long before I came here and learned all this wonderful stuff! I'm a land lubber......what did I know!

WOW! super looking ship....love the weathering I'm glad you kept at it too........

very well done Piet......neat fix you did there glad to see the 019 in your sig.......

look'in good Jesse. I tend not to worry too much about the belaying pins.........if I do paint them, I wait and touch them with a like color with the rigging. most will not be seen anyway

your getting the hang of it it looks great!

is there to be any type of fastenings done to those brackets? I'm imagining the dead eyes are attached to them.

looks very nice I've been toss'in around the idea of posting my Guillow's Dr 1 project. not as much detail as yours though. super job!

lots of other folks here on the site, are far better than I. I just like to have fun.......I've been doing this a while. if you haven't looked, dig up my log on her.....it's in the scratch build forum. you'll see how I built the model. there's also plenty of ideas you can try for your model. keep at it.........your doing fine