BLACK VIKING

Hi All
Thanks for the comments and likes.
Small update on progress...
Cannons are now installed but not without a few small issues shown below.
The plans asked for dummy cannon blocks to be installed at the framing stage in the pre defined slots  shown in the top left image with the intent that holes are drilled into the blocks to accept the dummy cannons.
Top right image, the wood gauge shows the depth from the dummy block to the edge of the frame (pencil mark). The unpainted part of the cannon is of a lesser diameter than the barrel and is to fit in the hole drilled in the block.  However following this course of action would lead to the cannons being far recessed inside the hull.  To overcome this blocks were made and the cannons fixed to these to effectively increase the length of the cannon as shown in the bottom image.  The assembly was then glued against the dummy cannon blocks....the thread was was used as a recovery mechanism in case the cannons fell inside the hull whilst the glue was setting


Cannons are now installed and I'm onto the running rigging
 


 
 
Thanks for dropping by
 
Mark

With the spritsail sheets left do, I needed to mock them up along with the anchor so I could get a sense of how much slack I can introduce into the sheet and clear the anchor. The anchor mods once again start with the kit supplied piece, scribed a line down the middle to give the elusion the stock appears as two pieces, next I needed to give the stock a heavy distressed look before adding the bolts. For the ring I used 0.74mm wire and wrapped it with 100wt thread, the double cathead block measures under 4mm and 24ga wire for the band and hook.     
 
Michael D.                                                                                                                                                                                     

Gammoning and Rack Blocks (thank you John for the nautical name) completed. The method I used to attach the rack blocks was to drill a hole in the tap at each end. Then I laced a thread around the center thread of the gammoning and brought the ends through the hole in the rack blocks. Same process for the tip and bottom. Then I simply lashed the two ends around the back of the gammoning threads and tied tight with a touch of white glue. 

April 1943.... Typhoon Mk I with ID stripes...

The pattern is different, D-Day invasion stripes were 18" wide on single engine aircraft and 24" wide on twin engine aircraft and were composed of alternating white and black stripes three white stripes and two black stripes...
 
From the pic above you can clearly see that the standard RAF pattern was four 12" black stripes and three 24" white stripes...
 
The orders were issued in late may to change over and some aircraft didn't start until June 3rd so yea, there was some sloppy striping done as no masking was used... A simple chalk line and 4" brushes handled most of it....  But trying to spot the sloppiness on an aircraft say 15 yrds away was next to impossible... They weren't mopped like with a floor mop they did take a modicum of care in doing it...
 
I've yet in all my years looking to see a pic of invasion stripes that were anything but straight and basically even in width...
 
They weren't that bad....

https://theaviationist.com/2019/06/06/75-years-ago-today-invasion-stripes-became-the-markings-that-saved-allied-lives/

Thank you for that,
I've still not seen an image of any allied aircraft with "Mop" painted invasion stripes... Two pics and a journalist's opinion showing the unfinished application of stripes to aircraft means it was sloppy work does not make proof ...
 
Just my opinion which is probably not worth much either....
 
Sorry, not trying to argue here.... the order to remove them also was not completely carried out on many aircraft as well, I touched on this in my P-51 B build log where many of the fighter units only removed them from the upper surfaces of the aircraft leaving them on the undersides making for some very unique applications of said stripes...
 
There is also the scale effect to consider as well, A slightly irregular line in real life will appear as arrow straight at a distance... (or in scale which translates visually as distance) No they weren't perfect that is true...
 
But they were not only very effective, in most cases, they were attractive as well....

I think I got lucky on the camo all by accident notice the two tone upstairs a slightly soft edge now look at the bottom tape off never recognized that before that's how I did it.

The fuselage, then the wings. I think the wings will need a few coats yet then mask in the ribs. I’ll pretty much have to paint it then throw it together which means a nice solid gloss coat when I do that. 

That’s cool!

Here’s an interesting kit.  Who would have thought we’d see model kits of naval strike drones?

Time well spent:




There is some sense of foreground and background.  The proportion of the carving, relative to the area of the back board, closely copies the Berain drawing.  I am happy.

It is fascinating to me how different this is from the stock kit.
 
Thanks for looking-in!  More to follow..

Currently producing artillery, some details need to be further adjusted

Ah yes. The Saturn V from Estes was (at least back in the 70's) a single stage cluster design using 3 C engines that I think was also set up for a single D engine later. 
 
As a boy I made some of the multistage variants. They flew so high I lost a couple of them when they flew out of the range of realistic recovery. Never did the clusters as it felt like the odds of actually igniting all 3 engines at the same time seemed low, since I'd think that the first thing that would happen is that once the first engine lit off it would promptly pull the ignitors out of the other engines (they were all wired together).

We used to make multi-stage rockets with ordinary fireworks rockets (before Estes and hobby model rockets were a business). Two stage rockets were easy. The largest we made was a four stage monster.
 
The first stage was four of the largest rockets wee could buy. They were wrapped with masking tape and the fuses twisted together.
 
The second stage was three slightly smaller rockets taped together. Again the fuses were twisted and then inserted into a hole we drilled in the clay plug at the end of one of the first stage rockets.
 
The third stage was one of the smaller rockets with the fuse in a hole in the top of one of the second stage rockets.
 
The fourth stage was a tiny bottle rocket sized thing with a plastic nose cone and metal fins. It whistled loudly when it burned.
 
The whole thing was about 1 1/2 feet (0.5 meter) tall. We used a spark gap in the leads from a neon sign transformer to light the fuses. The transformer was plugged into a long extension cord that was plugged into a switchable wall outlet. Just flip the switch - ZAP - and away they went. We launched a bunch of two stage rockets this way.
 
That is how it was supposed to work. But gak1965 named the problem with the four stage monster. One of the four first stage rockets ignited before the other three. Unlike all the other rockets we fired that left the launch pad in a hurry, the four stage rocket rose slowly - just like the Saturn 5. As it rose it tipped over and was about horizontal when the other three rockets fired. Whoosh! Crash! It hit the side of a neighbor's house and fell into a rose bush where it thrashed around until the motors burned out. The neighbor kid was watching at the fence between the yards and the rocket just missed him. The rose bush was toast!
 
****
 
We did recover the second, third and fourth stages. After some reassembly we launched them successfully as a three stage rocket.

The main decals have been applied stencils remain for another day.I also painted the prop just need to finish the blades.It's been a good productive day.

Thanks a lot, friends.
 
The railing on the forecastle is placed ( but not finished, there´s necessary to do some parts of decoration ( as on the whole ship😁 ), I made some stairs an the rest of railing from the aft.
And I improves some entries.
...and the show must go on....
Jan
 

Cockpit painted up 

I started this ship because I wanted to build a bigger project. Today I learn big ships can have little boat projects inside them.
 
Ugh. 20 cannons. I’m avoiding hull painting to make cannons, I might go paint lol. 
 
This kit has a lot of little parts remaining. 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

This could take a while to get it all black, lots of surface area. I found out I'm short a few more parts. Intermission while I wait for parts to continue. 
 

I lived on the top of a hill, and we (the other 14 kids in the neighborhood and I) rolled or slid everything we could come up with down that hill.
 
We made our own "go carts" out of scrap wood and whatever wheels we could find.
 
One just used the wheels and axles from a wagon. The wheel base was very narrow and it had a tenancy to flip and roll, so it had a seat belt, high seat back and crash bar. The front axle was on a board that pivoted on a bolt for steering. We rigged a steering wheel that worked like the steering drum on a ship's wheel. However we initially rigged it backwards so when we turned the wheel to the right the cart turned to the left. Most of us got used to it, but there were a couple of kids that never learned to steer. So I re-rigged it to work right. It had "brake" that was a board that hinged on a large nail. The top end was the handle and the bottom dragged on the pavement. Pull up on the handle to jam the other end into the road surface. It worked to hold the cart in place on the hill, but there was no way it would stop or slow down much if the cart was rolling.
 
A later version used four foot long 2x6s for the axles, with the wheels at the end. The front axle hinged on a bolt for steering, and we just pulled on a rope that connected to the ends of the steering axle. This was much stabler and would not flip or roll, no matter how hard we tried - and we did. However, one time when I tried to do a 180 spin at speed the front axle swung all the way until a wheel jammed into the long 2x8 that was the cart frame. That put the two front wheels more or less in line with the cart body, giving only a triangular footprint on the road, and really putting on the brakes! The cart stopped suddenly and tried to flip, launching me over the front. Fortunately I was wearing a high school football helmet that belonged to one of the kid's older brother. Unfortunately, the helmet broke when I hit the pavement, but I came out of it without a scratch on my head. Then we had to explain how I managed to break the helmet!
 
****
 
When we got a good snow we raced our sleds down the hill in the street. We also sledded down the hill in the lawns, slaloming between tree trunks. The driveways to the houses made natural "ski jumps" and we built up snow ramps to make them even higher. Half the time we parted company with the sleds in the air.

Just thought I'd do a little update on my future plans, as they have changed somewhat.
 
Right now, I am working on the 2023 version of Speedy, which will have a few changes from the original kit. This was brought about due to the lack of copper for photo etched copper plating and, at the time of developing Speedy, it was designed for limewood, and not pear. I have re done the photo etched sheets and these new versions are already here with me, ready to go into the revised kits once ready. The new version will have a lot more laser cut pear than the original. I am hoping to have this all done within the next 4-6 weeks.
 
After this, and after very long deliberations, I decided to hold off on Surprise for two reasons. the first is that I would rather wait until copper for PE becomes available again, so I do not want to develop any ship that had copper plating from launch right now. The second reason is that it would be another frigate, so soon after Indy.
 
So, looking at my 'Future Developments' folder, I came across one folder that contained the start of the designs I started in 2019. I even have the 3-d print files for figurehead and stern, which are all paid for. This was meant to be my second kit after Alert - before I realised the material quantities needed for such a kit, and at the time, would have been economic suicide for me. Now, however, it makes sense that it could be my 15th kit, introducing a 2-decker into the range. This 15th kit will be HMS Bristol, a 50 gun 2 decker.  I will continue this project as soon as I have completed the Speedy re designs.

The aft balcony needs its clear windows installed. All hull parts are installed, complete thru stage P. 
 
it’s easier and harder than it looks. It’s far from perfect but it’s a run out ghost ship, so I’m not looking for being perfect. 
 
The next step for the hull is full black paint. One tiny container of black paint and one big boat. I bought extra of the full paint set, just in case. 
 
I'm following the instructions and the videos closely. No two builds will be the same that’s for sure. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

PS I hope the pictures are not too big...  If they are, let me know and I'll shrink them 3dpaint.
The deck (false deck?) was glues in place.. and started thinking about staining the "bulkheads" (yes I had to look it up). 
I purchase some Verathane stains. Did some test underneath the deck and... nope. The fumes filled up my whole basement.  I live in a small PMQ (private military quarter) and it's not a good option.  So I switch to water based stains.
 
 
 

Nice start, interesting build!!
Rick

For the water based stain, I took the advice given by some folks here. I wetted the bulkheads and let it dry. Then I sanded them. I'm please with the result.  I did some test on a separate piece of wood to see how much the grain would rise without this pre-treatment.  Next will be the planking of the deck.   So more research is needed about that...