BLACK VIKING

The original maker of the glass case  came out to collect the second broken one  - he was going to repair it and bring it back out to us  - it was not fair on him doing that so I to him to call it quits  and keep the money I had paid in good faith to cover all his costs.
 
I found a larger  plastics (acrylics)  company  and did an online  request  got a quote  accepted  it  - it took about Three weeks to make  and  deliver.
Its been an expensive  endeavour  for a  display case  - deffo  a One Off.
 
OC.

Mersey Return
 
Two Flowers and an HDML

W/C 14" X 10"

I think I ll contribute my 2 c
I tried the PVA-wood dust mix but couldn't make it work. Too dry, too crumbly, did not sand nicely. I much prefer purpose made fillers.
I tried mixing Elemers filler with wood dust. Did not work.
In my current hull I used Beech and I tried Osmo filler that comes in various wood colours. Very nice to use, only issue it dries really fast. Yesterday, I did a bit of testing,
This piece of wood has a groove filled with filler. The left side has 2 coats of a water based sanding sealer. The right side has pure Tung oil on. Both were smoothed with steel wool. On the Tung oil side, the filler is barely visible on the non-forgiving photo but it is completely invisible actually looking at it.

 
 

Hello,
Thanks so much for your likes  (;-))
After some very good advice from E.J. – made some changes. Left off, his suggested, two broadside cannons.
 
Then made the needed changes to the forecastle deck removing cathead holes just aft of mast. Added a cut for the lower halliard. Those catheads as I noted in an earlier post would have had no space to anchor to main deck given the inner two forward carriages. Instead decided upon halliard block; same as for main mast. And finished deck inner framing for grating and open area for stairs leading down.
 
Kirill4 – had offered that very good advice along with some contemporary images of SotS’s foremast  fitted that way (see post #69 – if interested)  --thanks Kirill!
 
Finished up installing and adding partial carriage riggings as well. All of this work will mostly be totally hidden from view, but that’s ok.
I used the guns from the current kit, not from the vintage edition – only adding recoil rings
 
Next up; upper hull sides and forward bulkhead timbers to mostly complete this area. It will be tempting to also add the many bronze decorative bits as well….and keel/stem work need completing as well,,,,,,,
 
Regards,
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

'Love the tiny figures ... I've done a couple Ren fairs and have a 'Henry' outfit - but I'm nowhere near fat enough.   Johnny

Did some “light” diorama-ing and discovered it is hard to recreate prairie grass in 1:12 scale. 

Getting back to the Winnie....I have been designing and tweaking the mini-kit for the chain pumps.   I think I have it where I want it now.
 
This mini-kit is all boxwood.  Every part of the this pump is laser cut.  The nail details are laser etched.  These were a challenge because they are the smallest nails I have simulated with the laser.   It took plenty of attempts before I got it right.  This is the Starboard side chain pump.   When I make the other I will take pictures at every step.  But I thought I would share my efforts.  This is actually the very first time I have built one of these as no models I have ever made showed them.   So it was a treat.  Greg Herbert's chain pumps were the inspiration for these.  There are still some details that could be added if you wanted to....I think you will like making these.  I still have to add the handle for the plug.  Compare the detail with any other chain pump made for a kit.   I really tried hard to make it look as detailed as any scratch effort but with everything laser cut.
 
I will also be making these in 3/16" scale and offering them as stand alone mini-kits in both scales.    But these will come as part of chapter 7 so no need to buy the mini-kit when you see it posted..
 
Chuck
 

Greg Herbert's chain pumps are jealous of these! Those laser simulated nail heads are phenomenal. Since you've included the rhodings perhaps the tongue, also in black, would be the icing on the cake.

Wow that is simply amazing work!

Thanks Greg…I am thinking about it.  Just have to figure out how best to do it.  May e some laser board.  I think brass would be too thick.

Evening all,   over the last couple of days I have been re - working  some of my figures  - starting with the French 54/55th Ligne regiment  as firstly I wasn't happy with the tunic shade of Blue, I mixed quite a bit of Flat Black into my dark Prussian Blue  and got a slightly darker shade, I the set about re painting the Blue areas,  to day I have been concentrating  improving some of the details  including giving the faces  Two/Three levels of shading and colour variations  - from slightly rose'y cheeks to highlight areas on the noses and over the cheek bones - same with the hands,   I think they look better  - they are  more tidy now than when I first painted them  - guess that's what happens to us  - we all improve the more practice we have.
 
OC.

Rather than corrupt Chucks Winchelsia folder I am adding a new one for photos of ships crew members. I commissioned the ones below several years ago and am in contact with the artist to see if he would be open to creating a bunch for us. He casts them then hand paints them. I have a couple of them on each of my models and I believe they enhance the appearance, especially for non-modelers. Keep in mind these are 1:48 scale and extremely hi-resolution photos. Actual figures are only 1.5" or so. I encourage others to post photos of high quality crew members here as well.
 

Here is the back of the fore sail with the reef points removed and the blocks, halyard and tie line added to the yard. I put the straight pin through the tie line to hold the parrels on the line while I add the yard to the mast.
 

 
Here are the fore sail and sprit sails on the model but without any other running rigging yet.
 

 
I rigged the fore yard tie around the mast and added the second seizing to hold it in place with the parrels. I started rigging the fore yard halyard by threading it through a hole in the mast and seizing a large double block to the end. I also seized the tackle line to one of the sheaves in the fore bitt and will put these together after the seizing lines are fixed.
 

 
The other sails are in various stages of production so this series of steps will be repeated for them as they are ready. The main sail is next and I have already started adding the blocks to the main yard.

Evening all,   right  that's Five more KGL Light  finished and put away in the box  - ready for my next instalment.
 
Oh,   I also gave one of the chaps and eye patch after he received and eye injury.
 
OC.

The hatch and gratings are next.  The coamings and head ledges will be connected with half-lap joints.  These are easily made with hand saw and chisel.  There is a rabbet on the coaming to support the grating.  The hatch may appear overly tall but keep in mind that the hatch sits on top of the beams and carlings, not on top of the deck planking.  This is also a top deck hatch which would be taller to prevent water from entering through the hatch.

Glue up the head ledge and coaming.  Once dry, install the rabbet for a tight fit.  The outer edges and corners need to be rounded off to the level of the deck.  The lower two inches is left square for a tight fit with the deck planking.  The upper half of the hatch is also chamfered 1/2".  In the picture below you can see the rounding of the edges and the sharp corners at the deck.  Please make your rabbet nicer than mine!  The picture also shows the relative height difference between upper and lower deck hatches.  Both of these hatches are made from the same sheet of cherry.  I did not apply a finish yet to the upper one.

There are a few things on the weather decks that draw the observer's eye.  One of them is the gratings (of course, the capstan is another).  Once you learn how to make your own grating, you will never go back to kit-supplied ones.  What makes kit gratings so bad?  They are almost always out of scale.  A prototypical grating would have battens and ledges that are approximately two inches wide with similar sized openings.  Remember, sailors walked on these gratings so the openings need to be small enough to prevent a foot or shoe from getting caught in it.  I measured leftover grating parts from two kits.  The first was from a 1:96 Victory.  The blanks were scale 3.5" wide with openings over 10 inches square!  The other was from the 1:62 Prince.  These blanks were almost five inches wide with similar sized openings.  The next problem is that they never fit the opening.  You always end up with gratings that do not have solid wood on all four sides.  Well, I always did.  Finally, they are made from soft wood, so the teeth break off easily.  Choose a hardwood for these.  
 
They are incredibly easy to make if you have a hobby circular saw.  And you only need enough toothed slats for the ledges; the battens are narrow slats of wood that fit into the the recesses of the ledges.  Here is another "trick".  Even though I make my hatches first and fit the grating to them, if you have any concern about sizing your grating correctly, make it first and then build the hatch around the completed grating.  Take a look at the picture below.  There is a solid slat of wood on all four sides of the grating.  If you look carefully you can the the difference in thickness between the battens and the ledges.  The openings are the same size as the width of the slats.

This is a photograph of my cousin, Edward Polk, from the little town of Oxford, Florida. He is standing between his father and mother while the photo was taken just before he set off to sea during World War II. Eddie served aboard the USS Janssen, an Edsall class destroyer, DE396.
Eddie never returned home to see his parents again after being lost at sea on15 Mar 1944 in a violent storm off the coast of North Africa. he was only 20 years old. Just this past week, a gentleman from Massachusetts whose father served aboard the same ship with Eddie and was a close friend, reached out to find me and gave me photos and written history of the ship. The photos below are of Eddie's memorial service aboard the Janssen. Eddie was the only living child of my great uncle and great aunt. There is a reason why his generation are called "the greatest generation." Such sacrifice. My uncle and aunt grieved his loss until the day they died.
I am so grateful this gentleman reached out with the photos. I am sure my aunt and uncle would have appreciated it. They never knew any detail of Eddie's loss, only that he was lost at sea.
 
 

Somehow he found my family tree on Ancestry. That's the way he contacted me, through the Ancestry personal message system. Apparently his dad had the written my cousin's name on the memorial service photos. As it turned out, the man who contacted me was a commercial fisherman in Massachusetts and is well aware of the perils of storms and going overboard in rough seas. He said that often sailors are lost this way.

Further on the standing rigging.
 
Foremast question :
What is the angle at which the ratlines of the foremastge are placed?
On 2 of my "live examples", they have problems keeping the same distance from the deadeyes

Looking at drawings, the ratlines are in line with the railing and the deadeyes. So we go for the latter method.

Oops forgot this one (but this is not on Breughel's drawing)

Probably wrong

Hopefully correct


Ratlines done work in progress

Blocks for the main mast forestay

Rope serving exercise, looks good so far 

 
 
Thanks for following, comments and likes
 

Hi, some new updates:
 

Final gun deck. Some planks not mounted to show whats beneath. 
 
I will have fake vertical bars and after looking in the Backer linked Wasa dream pictures I decided to show a bit of the lower part and diversify the bars a bit.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I will also show the upper sides of the bars sticking up above the weather deck. I think I will only have one of the cannon holes on upper deck - not both.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

 

 
I will solder them and paint them black.

Carving out the M1 Garand 2 1/4" at this scale. (I use this photo to help scale items by eye).
 

 

 
 

This is multipart video build log backdating the 1/72 Revell PT 579/589 kit to PT 489.
 

 
 
 
 
 

 
Paul

In my research of the U. S. Revenue Cutter Service, I had come upon interesting items not normally written about.  I am writing a small article about the overhaul of the U. S. Revenue Schooner Van Buren, commanded by Captain Thomas C. Rudulph, at Charleston, South Carolina during September 1845.

One of the more unusual things noted in the vessel's logs was as described,
The Gunner worked on the deck guns that remained aboard because the four 12-pounders weighed one thousand pounds each plus about three hundred pounds for each wood carriage.  Custom had the guns “blackened” in previous years, but Rudulph put his brand on them this time.  On September 16, 1845, the ship’s chandler, Captain Hugh E. Vincent, [ship chandler] delivered four pounds of “red ochre.” The Gunner and gang coated the guns and the “iron works” on the gun carriages with this mixture.  Although an unusual color for guns, its use violated no rules or regulations.  Some of the cutters painted the small boats’ interior a bright green with a white interior stripe at the top.

In 1847, William Brady, Sailing Master, USN, published a book titled The Kedge Anchor; or, Young Sailor’s Assistant, containing thousands of helpful hints, procedures, and facts for sailing vessels. Under the heading of “Keeping the Copper Clean,” Brady advised that clean copper made the vessel look good, and copper cleanliness made a statement about its crew, crew, and captain.  Hard labor and scrubbing the copper was the preferred method, but paint provided a quick fix, if not viewed too closely. The mix of red ochre and paint oil to the “color of new copper.” The application required calm and fair weather was calm because water would wash it off the wet mixture.  However, if appropriately applied, this “will preserve a good appearance for a long time.” 

Here are some more, very nicely packaged, with the sprues in the three boxes, along with a few frets of PE. Hull is quite plain, though, although a single piece. 

Evening all,  I managed to get some more KGL  troops done tonight  - I am getting a few  decent poses  out of then now, this includes Three dead/wounded,  that in itself was difficult as I had to heat then distort  some of the legs to get the right  position, also the underside needed flattening a bit, I have Five more left to make  then it will be priming/painting time.
 
OC.

Hello dear colleagues-friends ship modelers! I congratulate you on May Day! Work on the construction of the model on my desk continues.
Я занимаюсь ювелирной работой.