druxey

thank you all,
 
I've started on the cockpit seating & some other details that on the actual boat are unfinished teak, ie: greyed from natural weathering. I was dreading this work, it's got a lot of detail & also getting the weathering right. A few weeks ago I started researching weathering techniques on this forum & the web generally, some techniques are fairly simple but for one reason or another I remained unconvinced that it would be straightforward. The tests I did included rough sanding & scuffing the surface of the timber; dipping in diluted black paint, then with white added, then with beige added; wiping the surface of the timber strips with undiluted paints, diluted paints, on scuffed surfaces....The good news is that the most simple of the techniques seemed to work the best - essentially just wiping unscuffed timber with black or grey undiluted paint. Now that I was confident there could be a reasonable result I started working on the cockpit seating.
 
The technique was to build it on the model, but not yet gluing it on. The loose strip at the forwards edge is a border strip, to be fitted later.


And from the underside, you can see the downturned edge to the cockpit footwell, the edge piece is an L for the visible edge thickness:

 
And the lazarette hatch underway. You can see a piece of plain plastic sheet underneath, that's how I've been able to glue in situ. I think it's easier to make something accurately to size when you're building off assembled pieces rather than guessing from loose pieces.

 
A shot of the actual cockpit, when you look carefully the colour still has some natural warmth, it's not a pure grey. Below that are some of the weathering samples. Most of them are too heavy & too dark. Most also obscure too much of the timber colour, the best ones allow that natural colour through a bit.

 
The single strip 2nd from the right is getting close, needs a little more tweaking but I'm happy that I can do something satisfactory. The caulking will be done with an artist grade 0.5mm ink felt tip pen.

 
 
 
 

I decided to finish the outer planking above the wales first before installing the interior equipment. The first thing I had to do was cut out the holes for the gunport and oars.

All ignition wires are in place and I believe I have done what I can wrt the engine. 

All the woodwork for the case has been completed. Staining / finishing and then model installation followed by a couple of final details; however, for the most part I think I'm close to a finished (for now) situation.
 

The bow will be cut back slightly.  I over extended it to assure the proper insertion of the stem and cut water. 
 
Rob

I began the second round of compound application. 
 
Rob

@rwiederrich Rob, your hull is already shaping up to be the most accurate one ever produced. As proof, here's an image of the beautifully crafted 1850 extreme California clipper Stag Hound done by Cornelius McKay as compared to a couple progress pics of your hull. To remind everyone, Cornelius carved his meticulously accurate 1:48th scale 4 foot half-hull model from the actual lines lifted from the mold floor as the vessel herself was being laid out. Besides being recognition of your abilities it's also a tribute to the incredibly hard work and research of @Vladimir_Wairoa in his CGI reconstruction efforts. Accuracy is uncanny. 

Very true. Even though everything is made from scratch, the worry of messing up a previously completed part and having to remake it again seems daunting. The chances are it may even be better next time around, but that doesn't seem to provide any comfort!

Masterpiece.
 

@jdbondy
@SaltyScot
Thank you so much for your kind comments.
I'm very happy about that, and also about the likes from others.
 
JD, yes, that's the silk yarn I use.
I also use a silk yarn from KIMONO.
 
Continuation: Fore yard – Sheets and Tacks / Écoutes et amures
After some back and forth, I finally decided on the cable version and have now attached the sheets and tacks on the starboard side.
For the model cable version, I tried to lay the required ropes as loosely as possible. This resulted in a cable that wasn't too stiff.
The first picture shows the arrangement of the sheet, tack, and clew line blocks, which are connected by toggles, as I won't be attaching any sails.

The next picture shows the route of the port fore tack on the boomkin with shoulder block. The standing part is protected against chafing in the front area.

The standing part of the fore sheet, as can be seen in the last picture, is also protected against chafing in the rear area. The fore sheet runs over a sheave in the ship's side for securing to a cleat.

To be continued...

 

Interesting bio. It ticks off many of my boxes - Dickens, Babbage and Lovelace, Shute, set design (may harpsichords substitute for organs?), steampunk, and, of course, ship models. You've come to the right place, apparently! Welcome indeed, sheepsail!

Interesting bio. It ticks off many of my boxes - Dickens, Babbage and Lovelace, Shute, set design (may harpsichords substitute for organs?), steampunk, and, of course, ship models. You've come to the right place, apparently! Welcome indeed, sheepsail!

An interesting note about the wheels and tires; the wheels are labeled front and rear, the tires are 6.00 - 16 (front) and 6.50 - 16 (rear). That slight difference in size, front and rear) is reflected in the parts.

First time body has been fitted to the chassis.

I miss the TRMA.
 
It wan not a site I visited often.  Perhaps once or twice a month.  The last thing the world needs is another model of the Titanic.  I did however enjoy the modeling process, along with research involving support ships such as the Nomadic and the CS Mackay-Bennett.
 
My real passions are watch making and pipe organ building. Those are the forums I mostly follow.   I also have a side interest in volcanoes. 
 
Years ago I worked for Apple in the Imaging division.   I was one of the people known as a Postscript Guru.  I got to know everything there is to know about that printer language.  
 
I even use Postscript as a general purpose scripting language.  I tested fonts, the command line backchannel, and the color imaging operations.  The language can parse anything.
 
When I was in school in the 1970s, I found a book on how spacecraft cameras work.  By chance in one of the non Apple contracts around 1995 I worked for a company that acquired Itek.  The company what made the cameras for the 1960s and 1970s era spacecraft.
 
Not exactly a model ship, I did in the last decade modify a card model of one of the Mariner class spacecraft to represent Mariner 9.  Which is my favorite.  I downloaded nearly 8000 images, which are difficult to read do to data loss and obsolete file formats.  Quite interesting to see images no one has looked at in over 50 years.
 
When I was little I did a lot of card modeling.  Usually the 'Mayflower.'  We visited the site and the ship in 1967, when I was about 7.  I remember I liked to put them into bottles. Usually Orange crush, which had clear sides.  Was really disappointed when we got back to the hotel room and the maid had cleared all the bottles.   Back then it was much easier to recover the deposits as the bottles were washed and refilled.
 
I also collected cathedrals.  These however take up a lot of space.  St Peters sat on top of the refrigerator for years, till the apostles got quite dusty.   It got to the point where I simply let them sit in their flat packs.
 
Two writers I really like are Charles Dickens, and Nevil Shute (Norway).  I have all of their published works.  Jane Austin also rates as I have all her stuff too.  Bit of a romantic I guess.
 
For forty years, I have been involved with the Dickens Christmas fair.  Also the Northern California  Pirate festival.  My education is actually in Film and theater.  I designed sets and stuff for the Big Renaissance faire held in Northern California (Black point.)  We had a full size mock up of the Golden Hind as one of our stages.  (I re-did the Lord Mayors gate house, when the prior one collapsed.)

Nevil Shute wrote a book every Modeler/Miniature mechanic should read.  It is called 'Trustee from the  Toolroom.'  Such is about Sailing ships and small steam engines.  Even Petrol Engines.  This gave me a real interest in scratch building stuff.
 
There were not a lot of Dickens Fairs in the 1990s.  I found myself, as part of the group running Science Fiction conventions.  Even back in the 1980s I would wear my Victorian dresses and watchmaker loupes.  Eventually this became something called steampunk.  The word comes from some novels written back then.  I was one of the first people to re-enact Ada Lovelace.  (really Ada King, nee Byron)
 
I think what I really collect is information.  Over the years I have collected almost everything public about the Antikythera mechanism.  As well As Babbage's analytical engines.  My real passion is the mechanical automatons by the Jaquet-Droz what can write, draw and play musical instruments.  There are also tiny mechanical birds the size of postage stamps what play mechanically.  I collect these as well.
 
Image processing lead me into the world of Photogrameritry.  Which is recovering data from multiple photographs.  I also acquired a rather good CAD program back in the 1990s which I still use.  This is a subject unto itself.  I have spent years messing about with obsolete code drivers and such.  The mathematics behind this are complex and I barely scratched the surface.    To this effect I collect old photography equipment 3D camera stuff and recently since no one wants them APS cameras.   I also have a Photo CD film scanner, and started to make a Holographic projector, until I found the former.
 
I have a full woodworking shop with some metal working tools.  Everything to build a pipe organ.  I also became active in the local Makerspace, what is in an industrial area.  They have the usual 3D printers,  Along with Welding equipment, CNC machines, and my favorite an industrial Laser cutter with about a 1 meter square bed.  Can only cut about 1/4 inch stuff.  There is a lot one can do with that thickness.
 
I built a vacuum forming press for one of the pipe organ projects (to replicate the plaster grill molds.)  
 
I considered making model airplanes. Like the ones Neville Shute wrote about.  I joined some of the modeling sites to download plans of his planes.  None of these were like the TRMA.  Most of the builds seemed to be one and done.  Copied from old magazines and such.  I really want to do some of the merlin engine craft like the spitfire, and the mosquito.  Few people realize these were mostly built by women.
 
The plane though I really want is an Airspeed Oxford, which Shute(Norway) and his partner (Tittle) designed.  Like the cathedrals, and the mariner 9 spacecraft, these would likely up space and collect dust.  I have enough projects for 500 years or more.
 
Somehow into all this mess enter the Endurance.  Yes, that ship.  I sort of mixed up Franklin and Shackleton at first.  A pole is a pole, right?  The Dickensian ships were a bit tubby for my taste.  But the lines of the Endurance, (along with the Aurora, and discovery are beautiful.)  
Somewhere along the lines I found one of the MSW endurance blogs in 2020 or 2021. Which showed all the laser cut parts.  There were also additional notes showing how to fix some of the details.
 
I squirreled all this away in my vast collection of data.   When the ship was actually found, I went to my steammodel folder, only to find I had restored a backup from 2013 over it and all the images were lost.  A reverse image search lead me back here.  I am seriously considering bulding this from the redrawn lines I found here.
 
One book I really liked was called 'The wreak of the Sagwina.' By Keith Robinson, who wrote a lot of popular JA books.  This one was probably the least popular in the school library, but I found it quite interesting.  By chance the Dickens sets were stored in the old Mare Island coal sheds.  More chance last year our maker booth (laser maze)  was in front of self same shed with a huge banner of the Sagwina above it.  (another subject unto itself.)  So this ship is also high on the wish list of models to build.  Someone here started a model, it seems like it was never finished, although it is marked so. 
 
Before the Titanic was found I would have said that the Andra Doria was the most well known passenger ship sinking (at least outside war, since the Lusitania was a war casualty.)
 
Joining MSW is something that has been in the background ever since I became TRMA homeless.  I have been reading it for many years, and some of the regulars actually feel like aquantances.   I sort of intentionally avoided these forums , as there are too many ships.  The best thing though is to choose a few ships to focus on and do one's best to ignore the rest.
 

That looks very realistic, Greg!
 
John

As I went to the other side, more boots went missing so I ordered more as a safety measure - it must of worked because a got 16 in place and have one left over before receiving the extras!
 
I've wired one side based on the following picture:

Here's the result:

Time to turn the boat around and complete the wiring.

Rigging is done (as far as it's going to be!). So on to the ignition harness. Trying to install resin spark plug boots; they're a bit of a challenge for me and I've lost two to my gray floor so far - lucky I ordered 20, 8 on -2 lost is a ratio that will work.

The boots are made by Pro Tech and are marketed for 1/25 scale model cars.

Even tighter now! 
 
Added the engine pylon bracing and backstays:

Two more lines to go; the one's that go from engine pylon to aft part of the nacelles. Then onto the ignition harness to finish what I plan to do on the engine.

Getting some rigging in place now:

Both sides are puttied up and waiting to dry so I can sand like a madman.   Once all the initial sanding and contouring is done.    I’ll prep for the next coat.    Once this is all done , I’ll cut in the stem and cut water.  
 
Rob

Throwing down some putty.      
Rob

Just catching up; a fascinating discussion, gentlemen!

Good recovery!

Nearly done planking the hull.
But, I had one massive fail. While adding plank 7 to the stern area, one of my clamps and rubber band slipped off, and snapped the stern bulwark extension off, taking half the stern counter material with it! I decided to make a stronger counter from scratch material, by using horizontally grained (rather than the vertical grained provided in the kit) 1/32 left over wood. I used a plank bender to shape the new pieces, removed the shattered counter wood from the broken extension (white glue can be dissolved in 95% rubbing alcohol), and reattached with 5 minute epoxy. Then, having formed the new counter pieces with the plank bender to the exact curve required, it was a simple process to reattach. The new stern counter, with fresh backing, is much sturdier, and I recommend doing it this way.
A plank bender is a very useful device (just a cheap soldering iron with a bulbous head) available from Model Expo and other sources for about $20 or so. See photo below.
It comes with a cradle and a shaped wooden block for curving. Just soak the wood for a while, then press it into the wooden block with the heated unit until the desired curve is obtained. I got a perfect fit for both pieces.
repaired stern
Overall, the planking went quickly, but the fit of some pieces was poor. I resorted to patching with scrap wood where gaps were left and sanding in other spots. Each builder will have to deal with this as needed. The final step is filling small gaps with Elmer's wood putty, Minwax wood filler,  or equivalent, and then sanding to a seamless finish. 
One tip: for each plank - be sure you keep track of which side is external, which edge is 'up', and which end points at the bow - especially for the mid-hull sections. Once removed from the billet, it's no longer obvious, so mark orientation on the back...