BLACK VIKING

Well after three months of learning loads from this site and attempting to move along I have finally, apart from the odd touch up, sort of finished my Endeavours longboat, I will post a few more pics as I would welcome critism ect as to what I could do better. I have made many mistakes along the way and the rigging is as best I can make out from the awful kit instructions, but I have never enjoyed doing something so much before.

Just do it ;-)
 
What is that now ?!?
 
  ...hihihihihihi...   XXXDAn

Hi
 
I know I am doing things out of order but they say a change is good as a rest ha-ha.
 
So I decided to paint the stern windows.
 
I have left the windows on the photo etch sheet so I have something to hold onto.
 
Last night I washed the windows first and dried them off.
Next was apply a coat of Casey's Brass Black to the inside, wash down in clean water and dry them off, then another coat of Brass Black.
The black will make it look like the old lead windows.
 
Today I have put 3 coats of white paint on, but it still wants another coat.
When it is all done I will turn them over and put some liquid glass on the back.
 
 
Denis

Good Morning all
Update time again, I have finally finished planking
under the wales. it has been given a fairly good sand,
but will need a lot better.
I think i will leave it, at this stage and move up above the wales,
because as in my usual style I will probably knock it around
during more work
 
One thing I do know in doing what I have done is, that
I have a deep appreciation for the work that the masters are doing.
it involves so much concentration and workmanship to keep the work up to the
standard that they do.
 
Anyway a few pics, it is a bit nqr, but i am
happy with it.

Stern is completely finished .

Just when I thought I was safe, I had to do the main topgallant tie and halliards.  The kit plans are confusing here because lots of lines are crossing all over the place and they don't label them well.  Fortunately the museum plans are a little clearer, as is the 1:10 model.  
 
The tie is very straightforward - loop around the yard, then through a sheave in the mast and down the other side, where it terminates in a block.
 
Then things get complicated, with the usual arrangement of a pair of crows feet connected by a line run through a block at the end of the halliard.  This was the most difficult piece of rigging so far, just because there's so much other rigging in the way.  The halliard is made fast to a ring bolt behind the main mast bitts and let me tell you, getting that halliard tensioned and seized to the ring bolt was a very fiddly task.  Here's a close-up of the standing part of the halliard, with its crows feet and block.  It's easy to distort the mizzen stay if you put too much tension on the crows feet.  What I did was over-tension the crows feet and then attach a clamp with a line to the stay and use it to counteract the crows feet tension.  I then brushed the whole thing with diluted white glue and let it dry.  Then release the clamp and the extra tension on the crows feet and everything stayed taut looking without distortion on the stay.  Some is unavoidable but it's not too bad. 
 

 
The halliard runs through a leader block on the mizzen stay, then down to a ring bolt.  Not the prettiest sight, but at least it's tensioned and in more or less the right place.
 

 
And the whole thing.  Three blocks, two euphroe tackles, and a partridge in a pear tree...
 

The bell is reduced, painted and put on its place, I also put the piece of rope underside.
I decided to made a stove, in fact just a chimney tube because fortunately nothing can bee seen inside.
I used styrene tube , external diameter 2,4mm and piece of styrene strip for the base.
As this is armed cutter, the cannon without ammunition are useless so i decided to put the cannon balls.
Fist options were the balls in cartigge for hunting rifle but the smallest are 1,5mm and that is so big.
I chosen the steel balls from ball-bearing, the smallest one is 1 mm diameter, approximately the dimension I needed.  It was a bit laborious to made the wooden support  (1*2 mm) and as could see it isn't perfect but it is so small that I think it will be OK.
The problem is the brightness and color of balls, but wasn't possible to color so small and glanced surfaces.
Maybe the mat transparent coat will got better appearance.
 
At last one photo with the laptop monitor just to indicate the real dimension and the fact that in reality all is much smaller than on the screen( especially errors and imprecision)

Hope it all goes well for you Dave. The bow of the SotS is looking stunning
 
B V

Hope it all goes well for you Dave. The bow of the SotS is looking stunning
 
B V

Hope it all goes well for you Dave. The bow of the SotS is looking stunning
 
B V

Hope it all goes well for you Dave. The bow of the SotS is looking stunning
 
B V

Hope it all goes well for you Dave. The bow of the SotS is looking stunning
 
B V

I picked up a bottle of Vallejo Flat Red # 70957.  It's easier to get an even coat, without brush marks, than the Polly Scale paint I used on the longboat.  So, I'll use this red for the bulwarks color.  I got the gun ports painted. 
 

 

 

 
Erik

Hope it all goes well for you Dave. The bow of the SotS is looking stunning
 
B V

I'm up till the last plank on either side.  
 
I did a first try for a plank on that last row, but i had to throw it away. 
I thought it was going to be easy to fill that space up with a plank.
 



 
And I really should clean up my working table. 

Hope it all goes well for you Dave. The bow of the SotS is looking stunning
 
B V

Hope it all goes well for you Dave. The bow of the SotS is looking stunning
 
B V

Beak-head construction....
A number of new developments over the last three days.  Stained the deck and catwalks.... added the bulwark cowlings and trimmed out the inboard side.... added the railing caps.... and finally, added the outboard panel moldings.
 

 
Note....The two corner carvings above the cowlings were tricky as heck and had to be done over two or three times to get them acceptable.
 

 
So I finally got to see this beast with a fully formed beak-head.... ready for ornamentation.
 

As always stunning work Dave

Hi Steve the thick line is for the standing rigging ie shrouds . The thinner line is for the running rig for moving the sails etc .
 
Hope this helps B V

Hi Steve the thick line is for the standing rigging ie shrouds . The thinner line is for the running rig for moving the sails etc .
 
Hope this helps B V

Update
Thank you guys for the kind words! I have done some big work on the ship. Because I will be trying to make my ship look like the replica in Rochefort I decided to first sand it very smooth and than to paint it white. This is the result so far (keep in mind, other colours have yet to be painted and the windows and gun ports have to be sanded again):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to building after having out of town guest for a couple of days. I finished up the plating of the hull with the two tone copper foil. After checking around and discussing with my wife who is a silversmith the best solution for now is to leave the copper foil alone and let time do it's work. The big concern is that any polish or chemical treatment may cause the edges to lift and create a bigger problem. Since I still have plenty to do on this build time is not an issue.
 
I moved onto the rudder and wanted it to be movable so I used a stronger brass strip (.015" x .60") than what was provided in the kit. I also used 1/32" rod and 1/16" tubing to be the hinge elements of the pintles and gudgons. On critical point is that when soldering make every attempt to make sure the tube and rod are centered when soldered in place for a good functioning five point hinge.
Here is a sequence of pictures that are self explanatory; but if questions please ask. One other thing I discovered is that the pre-stain conditioner is great for adhesion of the copper when dried and sanded. I did not include the plating of the rudder which is pretty straight forward.
 









 
Next onto the chain iron as long as I am in the stern area. 
 

Not a lot of pictures with this post, it’s getting hard to take a decent picture of all the rigging, I think I need a better back drop.
 
Most of the rigging for the main mast went according to the manual.  One thing I did different was when I installed the main topgallant and royal stays.  The manual had you installing the main topgallant and royal backstays first and then the stays but I found that when I applied the least bit of tension to the backstays there was a large deflection in the topgallant mast.  To help offset this deflection I installed the main topgallant and royal stays but only temporarily.  I ran the line from the main mast, through the block on the fore mast and down to the fore top and used an alligator clip to hold the end of the stay to the top.  This helped a lot keeping the topgallant from not moving to much while tying the backstays in place.
 

 
 
Another little deviation was while I was making the shrouds for the main mast I also made them for the fore mast.  I didn’t secure them at this time but just placed them in position on the mast heads and then draped them out of the way.   I did this before rigging the main topgallant and royal stays so I could make sure I got the blocks for these stays on the fore mast in their correct position, above the shroud gangs.  I'm hoping that's right, not doing this before it seems to make sense that they're above the shrouds.
 

 
I came into possession of some extra 2.5 mm deadeyes so I thought I would try making my own bullseyes for the stays.  I have to admit trying to drill out a deadeye is not the easiest thing to do, but with patience it can be done.  These were seized to the ends of the main topgallant and royal stays and then the lanyard was run through the bullseye and eyebolt on the fore top. 
 
 

I almost lost my nerves again when trying to tie the knots for ratlines into the shrouds of my latest build. No matter what kind of knot I tried to use, the ratline was either too loose or too tight pulling the shrouds badly.
 
Until I found from my wife`s dollshouse equipment storage a treasure: A bottle of Tacky Glue from Deluxe materials. This stuff saved my day: How easy it was to put a tiny drop of this stuff to both shrouds where the ratline was supposed to go using a tip of a toothpick, and then attach the ratline there. After drying the joint was strengthened using diluted carpenter`s glue and there it was. No more nerve breaking knot tying, no more loose ratlines.
 
Of course I hear some purists among you saying that this is not the correct method of fastening the ratlines, they must be tied using correct knots. Ok if you build a museum quality model in a big scale I agree with that, but for my humble first wooden ship project this is more than adequate.
 
The magical Tacky Glue:
 

 
 
Ratlines glued with Tacky Glue:
 

 
Loose ends cut away: