druxey

I notice you've left gaps in the planking for the rails. You may find bending them around the bow difficult. Usually the rails are applied over the planking: much easier to bend. Your model looks terrific so far.

I held off on fabricating the brake pumps because of their fragility and small size.  I know I will lose them so they will be made when I am ready to install them.  My approach to the rhodings is not quite prototypical.  Because they are black and the axletree is also black, detail is difficult to see, so I went for ease of construction.  The rhoding on the main jeer bitt is a simple brass strap that has been cinched around the axletree and glued to the bitt.  There is a spacer block between the main topsail sheet bitt and the rhoding.  The spacer block is wood that has been shaped and painted black.  The rhoding is another brass strap.  I have drilled the bitt to represent the bolts holding the spacer block/rhoding assembly.  In the picture these have not been blackened yet.
 

 

 
I put together another short length of chain and inserted it into the port pump tube.
 

 
There are two athwartship bulkheads aft.  So far, everything on the starboard side has been left open to highlight the structure.  I am changing course and building the bulkheads port and starboard.  I am toying with the idea of furnishing these cabins.  First, stubs of deck planking are laid to support the bulkhead. Then, card templates are made.  The bulkhead will be made sandwich fashion, with outer wood planking and a "meat" of template. There is a big color difference between the old and new planking.  All this planking came from the same sheet of holly.  The rest of the planking was installed in July, 2014 (page 29 of this log).  Since I will not be  permanently installing the bulkheads for some months, hopefully the colors will blend together.
 

 

 

 
 

Before I bought stdio flash, I did a lamp with 2  adjustable LED spots. I took it out of the closet  and installed it over the working table. You can see on the table top how it illuminates. The last picture is done with these 2 spots.
 
I also did a table for the next exposition.  I tried a new receipe for fast dying  and waxiing wood :
 
Drop Bee wax shavings  in a pot cover with odorless turpentine This will make the wax liquid and it will be very easy to apply  the wax, and the turpentine will then avporate in the air.
To intensify the color  and also to give a greater aged look,  add bitumen and mix. Again turpentine will do the same action as it did to the beewax.
 
For a final ingredient,  double the quantity  already mixed with tung oil which is also going to help the look of the wood grain m making iti look richer.   

And I say: "Chacun à son gôut!"

Hi BNoah 
Druxey took the words right outta my mouth. I was trying to think of what options you may have, but perhaps an occupational therapist may be able to advise you?
 
Good luck and all the best!
 
Cheers
 
Patrick

Can you retrofit your tools with 'fatter' handles to make holding them easier?

First time? May it be the last! Hope you heal well without complication.

I agree that a jollyboat would not have been armed with either carronade or long gun. That was what a gunboat was for!

All the best with the move, Ben. We will await your return with bated breath....

Of course a mill makes this easy to do but you can accomplish the same result with a chisel. It needs to be very well honed (most newly purchased chisels are not) and the proper width for the mortise. Score stop cuts on the sides and bottom first then remove the wood in between with light passes. {practice on some scrap first!

After breathing a sigh of relief noting that the keel has remained perfectly straight, I started the hard work of balancing the exterior of the structure; to do this I'm using the scrapers that, once sharp, working a beauty! Throughout the morning for half of the hull and is not finished yet, in return, my left arm began to creak ..........
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

more images

 

 

 

 
 
Laying of fills.
After attaching all the fills of the upper parts, I had to remove the template of the site in order to place some fills even deeper arriving well beyond the waterline

 

 

 

Indeed, pigment was a varied beast - some powdered, some already in oil. Look at the ship's stores orders and you can get a feel for the relative colors applied. I believe it was the Goodwin article which pointed out that almost no red is shown being recieved, implication that it is over represented on models today. The ship's carpenter and his mates then mixed it to whatever ratio (2 parts A to 3 parts B or whatever). All by estimate, mind you, not precision scales or containers.
 
It was a very well designed process to obtain cores for paint analysis - intent was to get into some "original" wood via multiple samples. The twchnical committee which oversees these things (NOT the Royal Navy, by the way - they are tenants on the Victory) is very much aware of the importance of scientific rigour and historic accuracy. Among other changes, I suspect you shall see a great reduction in the amount of varnished wood in favor of "white wash" - see Goodwin for some analysis.

First time? May it be the last! Hope you heal well without complication.

And played the instrument too, no doubt! Is there no end to your talent, Clare? Nicely done!

And played the instrument too, no doubt! Is there no end to your talent, Clare? Nicely done!

And played the instrument too, no doubt! Is there no end to your talent, Clare? Nicely done!

Can you retrofit your tools with 'fatter' handles to make holding them easier?

little progress:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the comments and likes. All blackened and in place.  I guess I'll have to make the other one now.  (Toni, don't kid yourself, your work has inspired a lot of us!)
Maury

And played the instrument too, no doubt! Is there no end to your talent, Clare? Nicely done!

Lovely work on the shamisen.  That's a great detail.  Did you tune it?    Ok.. I'll quietly.... 

On a roll with the Yakatabune, I need to figure out if I'm going to want to paint it or leave it completely natural with shiny copper plates. 
 
To help me decide, I took some blue painter's tape and painted it black. When dry, I stuck some on the model to see what kind of effect it would give.
 

 
One thing I've noticed is that as they say with clothes, black has a slimming effect. It makes the boat seem sharper and trim, which I like. I think it's getting a paint job...
 
Meanwhile, just in case I come up with a different lighting plan, I thought I'd copy the lanterns by making a mold of them. One possibility is to cast them in clear resin or using opaque white stuff and just hollowing them out a bit and then paint the outer surface.
 

 
I'm in no big rush to light the model. I don't expect it to help in a the window display, where it's well lit. Given that there is no rigging to get in the way, the model design is such that the deck house is easily removable and I can make the roof removable too, so I can actually add that feature in later on.
 
Anyway, I have some concerns about light leakage and a glow showing through the thin wood roof. If I am planning on making a roof removable so that you can more easily view the interior, I won't want to coat the inside of the roof with something that blocks the light. Anyway, we'll see how things go.
 
Clare
 
 

I appreciate everyone's comments and faith in my mini (micro?) shamisen making skills. Well, I had to push forward and see if I could a halfway decent job on it. I found some drawings on the Internet and resized them down to proper scale. For the wood, I have a nice piece of Peruvian walnut that seemed perfect for the job.
 
I can't really explain what I did beyond that. It was just a matter of making it. 
 

Final shamisen is about 2-3/4" long. The tuning pegs are called Itomaki (ee-toe-mah-key) and I just made them from blackened sewing pins. The fan shaped object is a plectrum called a bachi (bah-chee) that's used to strike or pluck the strings. Oh, and those are 3 strings you see in the photo. I had some tan monofilament thread I used for that.
 

The entertainer's shamisen set aside in the Yakatabune's Tatami Room.
 

The entertainer's shamisen set down between songs.
 
 
Since we're looking at probably 19th century life, I thought a couple black and white photos seemed appropriate.
 

    I think the only other detail items I may make are sake cups and bottle. One could go crazy making small plates of food, hashi (chopsticks), and so on, so I'll have to stop myself before I go overboard. I still have to think about lighting, wiring, and maybe some painting.   The kit calls for only a tiny amount of black paint on the tip of the stem and that's about it. I'm thinking about painting the lower hull black and also the metal plating that covers nails, beam ends and such. This would make the boat look a little more like those boats pictured in Ukiyo-e paintings. The only thing holding me back on the painting is that those boats are mostly different from the boat represented in the Woody Joe kit.   Clare

Just to start this entry I would like to express that I appreciate very much the new results of the research, as every new input is always welcome. Of course, this "Hello-Kitty-meets-Happy-Pony"-version is quite outrageous for plenty model makers - but why? Simply because many of us are quite stubborn and fat headed and do not like changes, especially on iconic things like this. And that includes me too ;-)
 
Those were the correct colors in about 2003, samples I was given during the modelers tour on the ship ...
 

 
... I even do not remember what the green was used for :-)
 
The thing changing most is the ochre. So have a closer look.
 

 
But it is not that outrageous if looked closer. Jan Marten in our german forum posted the picture showing 50 shades of ochre ;-)
 

 
If you take the medium reddish tone and mix in more white than it was used before, you will get the "new" color, as suggested by the latest research.
I think the red one on the "summit" would create an even more exalted reddish tone.
 
But now some very personal thoughts about the latest research and why I am not rushing into repainting my model.
 
First of all: We are talking about a time of Pre-RAL, Pre-Pantone and Pre-other-Color-Charts.
My personal belief is, that the ships usually looked much more like patchwork color wise.
 
Just some reasons for my thoughts:
The ochre paint came as a barrel, how much did the paint match the other barrels of the delivery, not speaking of other charges from different provenances? If you look at the picture of the ochre, you really have 50 shades in there if not even more! What shade was meant to be painted, if yellow or red ochre was meant to be used?
 
Second the paint was mixed by hand by adding white - how much was in the eye of the master painter. Did he have the experience to match the existing paint, as wet paint looks different than the dry one? Also what were the differences if some pigments were stuck on the bottom of the barrel?
 
It is great that the research used old paint samples to determinate the original color, but where was it taken from? What is known, when it was exactly painted? As most of the outer hull was exchanged already multiple times, where was exact spot of the sample, was it outboards or inboards, was it the original 1803 main paint - with all its variations, when possibly every barrel was mixed by hand - or was it some 1804 repairs or late 1805 post Trafalgar patches? How close was the research to determine the exact timing?
 
Also how much were the studies taking care the possible changing of the color by time, saltwater, sun and interaction with newer paints?
 
On the Vic in P. there is a interesting exhibit in the middle deck: it is said to be part ot the original foremast. If the color would be also original, it shows itself today as a nice Nato-drab ;-)
 

 
Also if one looks at the contemporary paintings - as seen in the entries before - the english ships show commonly a more warm yellow ochre, while the french and spanish show all different shades from yellow ochre to pink and even red. But of course, this could be only an artists convention to pinpoint the english ships. However also Turner used the more yellowish tone, and I know his deficiencies in perspective and technical details, but he was master in the use of colors and he saw the ship in real life after returning from Trafalgar.
 

 
Too there are the carpenter expenses to have a closer look at. Goodwin had an interesting article in the Mariner`s Mirror about it, just to round up the discussion (thanks to Achilles for pointing it out in our german forum):
http://seaphoenix.com/index.php/publicat...-victory-yellow
 
So I will leave you in the mess of your thoughts, to me it still is worth some nice discussions and that is the really interesting bit, as I like the idea to stir up the model makers minds and keep them flexible :-)
 
And if I say patchwork for the paint job, I really mean it, not as neat as usually shown, just another hint - would ever somebody have dared to build the real existing planking scheme of the Vasa on his model without having seen the original ? ;-)
 
So do not be upset about the new color, do see it as an opportunity to discuss this issue even further, who knows what even later "latest research" will show!
 
As a resumee:
I am skeptical in how far this examined color samples are applicable for the whole of the hull including trucks.
So find your own answers or tastes :-)
 
Cheers, DAniel