druxey

Exemplary miniature work as usual, Daniel! Looks like it was a great exhibition and meeting as well.

Ah! Flanders and Swann, those were witty entertainers, worth revisiting. But we digress.... Penultimate is a good word, Patrick.

Exemplary miniature work as usual, Daniel! Looks like it was a great exhibition and meeting as well.

Exemplary miniature work as usual, Daniel! Looks like it was a great exhibition and meeting as well.

I've also had this problem to solve. I cut a blank, longer than the finished ellipse, and PVA glued it to a backing block. This reduced the chance of breakage cross-grain. I then very carefully scratch molded the section. After soaking the piece off the backing, I was able to cut the joints with the straight sections of the moldings.
 
If there are any 'tricks' to this, a really good piece of boxwood is needed and patience while running the molding along it.

It was articles on builders like him in The Model Engineer that inspired me as a kid.

The main yard was finally also finished so far, here is an overview of the collection of all the blocks that have now snuggled together. Always seen from both the front and the aft. And as already written earlier, the stirrups and foot horses will only be smoothed and provided with gravity during the final installation.





The center of the yard with the chain sling ...





... and the yard arm, 9 blocks in 8 sizes :-0





Then came the exciting moment, the test hanging http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif

First the lifts.






Then the yard tackles with outer tricing line.



And usually as last the braces.





And there is another little tidbit that is not normally seen on models. According to Steel, the rope slings were replaced by chain slings in wartime, as can be seen in the pictures of the lifts. Consequently, the forward-facing preventer braces should also be fitted. These replaced the double pendant of the braces of the 1760s. For this purpose, the brace was attached to the rearmost shroud of the foremast, ran to a block on the front of the yard, back to a block on the rearmost shroud and from there to the forecastle.



Exciting.

XXXDAn

Well, what can I say. I'm only away for a few weeks because of work and already my tinkering room doesn't want to let me back in ...

"What does THIS strange man want here?!" was one of the nicer questions I had to listen to ...

After some persuasion à la "man cave whisperer", I was allowed to do something in there after all. In the meantime, I had revised my lists of blocks for the Victory again. I had noticed that McKay had left out some quite some blocks in the AOTS and that there were also some errors among them. I had therefore plowed through the entire Steel of 1795 and worked through the various entries, compared them and selected the most plausible variant, possibly adding variants. All in all, there were significantly more blocks added, both the standard blocks and the special types. But more on that later.

The last thing I did was to replace the square shoulder blocks, which are used on the ship today and which McKay also shows, with contemporary round ones. The main yard continues to serve as a model playing field. Here is a reminder of the last status.





Next came 3 x 2.5 mm blocks on each side for the belly and nock gordings.



Check on the tweezers whether the paint application is complete and either brush on the tweezers immediately ...



... or after the block has been pinned. Place a strop around the fixed block as described before ...



... and checked the length in place. Since the block hangs in front of the yard, the legs must of course be different lengths.



The pointed tweezers with clamping function do a good job here, first one side ...



... and neatly trimmed, and the other and you're done 🙂



Here is a comparison of the simplified version with a simple knot on the top of the yardarm and the more correct solution with a lashing.

Since the lashing is tricky to thread, a classic needle helps.



And this is how it should look 🙂



With this technique, I'm now just as fast for the small blocks as I am for the large ones 🙂

XXXDAn  

It was nice again and my little one with the black and yellow stripes really enjoyed the trip 🙂

As every 2 years there was a big meeting in Augsburg, around 70 modellers, some with their partners, met, chatted with each other, had a nice evening together and many even had a great Sunday breakfast together.

Here are a few pictures of my little one with her accessories.











I was also able to take part in and witness a Guinness of World Record attempt: Matthias registered his ship in a bottle as the largest free-hanging ship in a bottle. Now we're just waiting for the certification 🙂



Well then, a nice greeting from both of us, DAniel and Vicky

The next adventure and small intermezzo were the blocks under the fore fighting top. Here, leech- and buntline run colorfully mixed with the braces of the sprite sail yard and top yard through a wonderful collection of blocks.

The first attempt was the classic way of doing the strop first ...



... and then pull it through to the top from below and push the toggle through the upper loop.



It worked, but it was a rather messy and uneven act.



Then prepared another block, but didn't tie the top loop ...



... and pushed the free end from the bottom to the top, tied a loop there with an auxiliary thread and brought the free end back down.



Now I was able to pull the loop at the top tight from below, insert the toggle and adjust the length with the free ends of the binding, knot everything and neaten the whole thing.

It looks much better http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif



You can see the 3 different blocks, with the outer one having two differently sized wheels.

This is due to the fact that there are four rope thicknesses in use at this point, resulting in simply beautiful details.





And it also looks very tidy from above.



And if one wonders about the different layout of the battens, very simple: the Admirality Order from 20. Nov.1802 defines the tops of great ships to be done out of fir instead of oak and to be fitted in two halves http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif
This made the tops less haevy and far more easy to be exchanged if damaged.

Yay!

XXXDAn

Sooner you than me, mate 
 
"Penultimate" = second last - the one before the last one.
 
"Antepenultimate" - third last - the one before the one before the last one. As in "her antepenultimate breath" at 2:04 in the Flanders and Swann song "Have Some Madiera M'dear"
 
 

Thank you for the nice comments.
 
The planking at the bow has been further sanded and fitted with treenails.

Back to the rear castle.
Smaller wales (4) are placed on the clinker planking. Of course, none of the four have the same dimensions.
The drawings and photos are partly used to determine the "right" location. The dimensions between the wales are also taken into account for future painting works.
According to Mary's remains, the Wales certainly continue as far as sector 10 (the penultimate cannon port)
 
"penultimate"  A new English word for me (hopefully Mr. Google translate is correct 😳)

After applying these wales I have to read my books and think first.
The "frames" of the rear castle are much too thick. And the clinker planking on the transom also feels wrong.
This means extra sanding and cutting, probably a redo and a   smiley.
 
Thanks for following
 

Excellent result, Marc!

Excellent result, Marc!

So, I had a small pocket of time to snug and snip the fore, port channel. I was able to finesse that first knot up a little higher. Really - and considering that they do tighten up just enough more under slight tension - I am very pleased with this experiment. Black touch-up paint to follow:


I am at least confident that these long links would not look better as wire. I may have over-calculated the angle of the two furthest aft preventer plates, but I was just following what the test line told me to do. Also, technically, the preventer plate links should span to the lower wale, but the first batch I made just looked over-long. I can live with this compromise. It is still a vast improvement over the stock kit. The important thing is that the chains no longer interfere with the port lids.

There are three backstay deadeyes that I have yet to prepare, but I will get to them in the next few rounds of deadeye prep.

Are those wooden plugs in the hawse holes?

Lovely curves that you've cut. I also enjoy your sense of humor. Building one of these models requires that, I think!

Well, you got there, Aleksandr! An unorthodox method, but it worked for you. Well done!

Don't laugh at these batchelors: many if these rather eccentric but highly skilled men men were PTSD sufferers from WWII. This was their self-prescribed therapy.

But, if the second set is the correct thickness....

Big guns are brought in for assistance...

better control and results but also lots of noise from machine itself and vacuum..

Happy modelling..
 

This business of learning to make the chains continued to confound me as I discovered yet another mistake in my process.
 
For anyone who may also be new to this aspect of the hobby - BEWARE: jewelry wire (brass/copper) is coated with an anti-oxidation layer.  Brass black will not take without first stripping the coating (acetone bath, 99% purity - available at the pharmacy), and then roughing the wire surface with ScotchBrite.  I failed to do either of these things.  For your own sake, just buy untreated, soft copper wire.
 
My first dipping in JAX brass black almost didn’t take at all.  Whatever oxidation there was, was very spotty and wiped away easily.  After thoroughly rinsing the parts in acetone, my second JAX bath did much more to blacken the parts, but the depth of oxidation was highly irregular, there were still lots of completely bright brass patches, throughout, and the oxidation that was present still rubbed off too easily.
 
What to do, now?  I quickly decided that I absolutely was not going to re-make all of these fittings, as I had at least bent them into nicely uniform parts.  The only reasonable solution, IMO, was to spray-prime the lot black:
 

After inserting the deadeyes, and any necessary touch-up, the deadeye strops looked like this:

Quite satisfactory, I think.  On the inside, bottom edge of each deadeye, I placed a drop of CA, in order to fix the orientation of the deadeye.
 
I needed to make a run of split-rings, both for the gun out-haul tackles, and for between where the chains attach to the middle wales.
 
For these, I really like how tight a twist I get with galvanized steel wire.  Given that I was going to paint these, as well, it didn’t seem quite so important what the material was, but how it behaved.


I found it quite easy to close the eyes with my parallel pliers, a decent set of which are essential for this work (Thanks Druxey!), and I sealed the rings with a spot of common, brush-able CRAZY GLUE.
 
The eyes on deck:


In preparation for the deadeyes, I made ready the channels.  Because I found it necessary to shift a handful of deadeyes, so that the chains do not interfere with the gunport lids, I found it necessary to widen a number of the channel slots.  I then drilled for short sections of .030 styrene rod, so that I could favor one side of the slot:


Next I made capping strips for the outside edges of the channels, and simulated the nailing with shallow slices of triangular styrene rod.  I used the same “heat flashing” technique to dome over the heads:

With my masts in-place and a guide-string, I penciled-in the preventer plate locations.
 
The important thing, I think, was that the join of the preventer plates and the small loop-links be in a consistent plane, along the upper middle wale - just slightly higher than mid-wale.
 
Following a tip from fellow SR enthusiast Eric Wiberg, I purchased the following dome-headed rivets:
 
https://www.eugenetoyandhobby.com/products/plastic-rivets-round-head?_pos=3&_sid=320937e14&_ss=r
 
My idea was to use these with plastic cement to secure the preventer and loop links.
 
After drilling the top preventer plate/loop-link hole, I secure the position of the preventer plate with a common sewing pin in the top hole, and then swing a short mechanical pencil arc for the bottom hole location.
 
There are very slight differences between preventer plate links, so you do have to drill specific links for a given location.  It is very fiddly to fix the plates with these tiny styrene pins, but it can be managed from the bottom up with plenty of patience and a sewing pin to guide mating eyes into alignment.
 
Now, my hope for some time and results redemption depended upon whether or not I could make appropriate diameter thread look like the long connecting links.
 
Among my stash, was some really nice line that Dan Pariser very generously donated to my cause.  Although light in color, I found I could “paint” lengths of line with two passes of a black sharpie, which also gave the line some stiffness when dry.  I found that a single bow-knot gave me the ability to introduce tension to these links:
 
Obviously, it is important to ensure that the loop links and deadeye strops are in the correct orientation to each other.
 
The proof of concept on this first link gave me sufficient confidence that this idea will produce a nice result.  It is only important that one wait to stiffen the knot with CA until after you have pulled the knot up close behind the deadeye strop loop.  On this first one, I glued before doing so, and the knot is less perfectly concealed than the others will be:

This picture above was before pulling the knot up.  Eventually, when the lower deadeyes are lashed to their corresponding upper deadeyes, these chain links will pull fully taught with just the slightest tension.
 
Here is where things stand as of now:

I quickly learned it is wise to cover the gun ports, so that you are not continually losing links into the hull.  After pinning the links in place, I brushed over the link assembly with thin CA, to give it a little extra holding power.  I then left it to dry overnight.
 
Next, I will draw all remaining loops taught, and then the whole of it will receive a thinned acrylic black wash to homogenize the assembly and touch-up any bright spots.
 
There are, of course, many better ways to go about all of this.  For me, for now - I’ll take this all as a learning experience and move-on with it.
 
Thank you all for looking-in!
 
Best,
 
Marc
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

But, if the second set is the correct thickness....

Superb work, as ever!

Lovely curves that you've cut. I also enjoy your sense of humor. Building one of these models requires that, I think!