BLACK VIKING

Three good coats of matt varnish have now been applied. Before intalling the light switch and wall sockets it was time to complete the porthole. 

It's held securely place with four 20 mm dia. coach bolts that pass through the wall frames and are hidden on the outside by the cladding. The remaining ten holes in the flange need 'dummy' bolts for washers and domed nuts.
First task was to drill 3/4" dia. holes through the mounting holes into the cladding and underlying timber framing. I converted some short softwood offcuts into dowelling using a rotary plane....

.....and after adding a taper with a second, smaller, plane the domed nuts were twisted on and the dowels cut to length......


A wipe of PVA and these were tapped into place with a soft faced mallet.

Last task now is adjusting the aluminium that lines the recess. The thickness of the cladding has left a small gap and the whole thing needs the addition of some weather proof sealant. Persistant heavy rain, plus a bit of sleet, made this impossible today but the forcast is dry for the next three days so I hope to have this completed by the weekend.
Electrical work next......after a bit of a tidy up!

I'll be moving in soon 😁
Cheers,
Graham
 

Thanks friends for your replies 😉
 
I´m still doing the decoration,  and I´m very close to finish. I placed some small parts, but  there is so much decorations, that you can´t see there some changes😁
And the galion figurehead is placed, finally. 
There are catheads and gun carriages paced into the ship.
I´ll start with the armament very soon.
 
Jan

So I’m not sure if I’ll do it as a drip yet, I’ve got some figures in the mail 

The Big Reveal!
 
And so, just two days shy of two months from beginning to end, we reach the end of this journey. As is usual with Halinski kits, which have sometimes been described as 'over engineered', this model was quite a challenge to build and thus very rewarding to finish. It is not a kit for the faint of heart or neophyte card modeler, but its degree of detail and realistic artwork are matched by few other publishers in the hobby. On to the pictures!
 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Thanks for stopping in, and I'll catch y'all on the next one!

...And talking of boats, I have just had a couple of new renders for my 32 foot 'Shallop'. Looks like the laser and 3-d print files will be ready to send to me soon!
 
This would suit modellers who only wish to display one boat on their model, I think.

Forecastle update.
 
All frames are placed

A temporary support is placed at the top.
And there are 2 cannon ports. To place 4 according to the Anthony roll, the fore castle is too small in my opinion.

The interior finish is in the same line as the rearcastle.

The higher planking is according to the clinker method

Thanks for following

After evaluating different methods on clear spare parts, I decided to use Tamiya Extra Thin for my sand blasted windows. I used the supplied brush nearly dry and applied the cement very carefully. This is only preliminary, to check the effect and more effects will be added, especially for the front window.

 



Cheers Rob

College soccer is done and outdoor preparations for winter are complete... so finally a lot more time is available for me to work in the shipyard!
 
The wales and drift rails are complete on the starboard side.
 

 
The upper wales and bottom drift rail will be covered with a golden listons d' or "rope", but the upper drift rail will be plain, so I am using bolts on the upper drift rail as I did on the lower and middle wales. I used 0.5mm (.020") diameter bolt heads on the lower/middle wales, so I used 0.3mm (0.012") diameter bolt heads on the top drift rail.
 

 

 
I also fabricated new fenders and am ready to glue them in place... fortunately I remembered to make them a bit more proud than the listons d' or rope will be.  That leaves the outside ladder steps/rail to be completed. So after the port side is completed in several days, I am on the verge of being able to paint the hull halves.
 

 

Completed lashings (using 0.35mm polyester rope) on my main yard, secured in place with a couple of drops of CA and overcoated with matt polyurethane varnish to hold them in place. The second image shows where the ends have been pulled underneath the lashings and trimmed.
 

Base coat down, clear coat and decals next 

On went the second layer of dry paint dabbed on. This time it was a light bone color, called Moonray Flesh. I also applied the paint with a stiff old brush, but this time not only in the direction of the sandblast, but also a bit more from above to simulate some bleaching.
This is only the basic weathering and more will be added later with sand deposits and dust everywhere.

I have to decide, how to weather the clear parts. I´m open to any suggestions. The sandblast should have been blinded this canopy side, but the other and front window should be relatively clear.









Cheers Rob

On the Chebec CAF Model kit, there are two keels: the external keel and the internal keel, that supports all the frames.
 
I started building the external keel. Again, each segment is made of two pieces of cherry tree wood, glued together. Their shape and length match the Monograph of the Requin.
 

 
I like straight keels and similarly to what I did with the CAF Bellona, the Chebec keel is sandwiched between two straight rulers and left to dry for a few hours.
 

 
The bow and stern pieces are then glued:
 

 

 
At this point, the keel is very fragile and needs to be manipulated with a lot of care. It does fit perfectly into the cradle, which is a good thing.
 

 
It will be re-enforced by the inner keel later on.
 
Yves
 
 

Here’s the little stable engine that I’ll use to run it 

It´s time for some heavy wear and tear for the Kampfanzug. Unfortunately, the hairspray wasn´t working like planned, possibly due to many layers of paint and varnish on top. Right, plan B, scratching, chiseling, grinding, sanding and rubbing was incorporated using a variety of tools, to achieve different looking wear, a messy affair.



I don´t like the effect right now, as it doesn´t look like my planned sandblast treatment, but it will have to do as a first stage for weathering. I will try to accomplish the sandblast effect with sponge chipping and stiff brush dabbing. 
You can clearly see, that one side is almost stripped of paint, while the other is relatively unharmed. I want to simulate a one sided sandblast, to add some dynamic into the weathering.







Cheers Rob

Ok time for a bit of paint 

8
 
In the previous post, something went wrong at the end.
 
Here are some more pictures to end this topic
Thanks for all your likes!
 




 
Constant

As usual, the rigging is not going as fast as I’d really like, but it is proceeding. I have given up with the model aircraft tissue for the furled sails, as it was proving too hard to fold up. So, it was back to tissues from the supermarket, which though flimsy when split into three sheets, are easier to work with.
 
I have hit an unexpected problem, and would be very grateful for advice. The question is whether it is right to fit a driver-boom (spanker-boom if you prefer). I have done so, but have been wondering if this was in fact correct, even though Longridge has one in his Anatomy of Nelson’s Ships, as does Petersson in his very useful book on Rigging Period Ship Models. There is an obvious difficulty, discussed at length elsewhere on Modelshipworld, in that the driver-boom would hit the flagstaff as the ship went about.The model of HMS Mars in the National Maritime Museum shows the problem, with both boom and flagstaff fitted. This is not an acute difficulty, as presumably the flagstaff could be dismounted, or folded down. I thought that paintings might provide an answer, and Nicolas Pocock’s Ships at Spithead, 1797 (https://www.meisterdrucke.ie/fine-art-prints/Nicholas-Pocock/1503372/Ships-at-Spithead-1797.html) shows three ships with no driver-boom. Equally, his picture of the frigate Triton, built in 1798, does not have one. Pocock’s sketches of Agamemnon are not clear enough to determine the answer, though that showing the engagement with four French frigates in 1793 looks as if there may be no driver-boom. Sorry not to reproduce the pictures, but I’m hesitant to include them given possible copyright issues.
 
Paintings and drawings, of course, are not photographs, and may not be correct. Interestingly, Steel (The Elements and Practice of Rigging And Seamanship, 1794) provides a table of boom-lengths, which shows that 64 gun ships should have no driver-boom, no jackstaff, and no ensign staff. Driver-booms were just for smaller vessels. Surviving ships are not to be trusted, as the rigging is modern, but Trincomalee has driver-boom and flagstaff, as did Victory (not sure of the present position). As for Agamemnon herself, there is no clear clue. The ship was refitted at Leghorn late in 1794, and I suppose it is possible that a driver-boom was installed then. I am inclined to remove the boom, but to leave it for now and ponder the issue further. It may well be correct either way. What does anyone think?  
Please excuse the unfinished ends of rope etc in the photo - all will be tidied up in due course.

While waiting for all that to dry I plunged into the 14 cannons for the quarterdeck.
 
There are 12 regular sized 12pounders and 2 long 12pounders. Also, there are 2 longer carriages for those 2 cannons....keep an eye on them!
 
Cut them all out, sanded them clean. Next I cut out the axles. I remember receiving a post on the Ship of Scale site from AllanKP69 who suggested I use a drill chuck to round out the square axles so the wheels fit on them.
 
I used a chuck that holds 1.7mm drill bits in my cordless Dremel style tool. It actually did the job! Some easier than others, but it would just grind down the square into a circle and the wheels will fit perfectly!!!! It is a rechargeable device and I had to keep it on the charger when doing this.
 
I also wanted to add breeching rings to these cannons. I think they will be very visible and wanted that look. I have .64mm brass wire, it is too big but I wound it around a 1.7mm drill bit and then cut them into little ringlets. From there, I had to cut them into half or one-third moons.
 
Gluing them to the back of the cannon was hard. Using CA glue, it gets all over the place and is very frustrating!!!!!!
 
When I blacken the cannons, the brass wire won't blacken so I'll have to touch it up after.
 
I also collected all the pieces for the 2 cannonades. I'll begin working on them tomorrow! 
 

Thank you for watching and see you tomorrow!

3
 
At the stern there is always a fence, sometimes equipped with a bench, against which the skipper leans while sailing. This is also where he operates the rudder and levers for the engine. I made this fence out of 2 mm thick brass on which I also soldered the supports.
 
It was then mounted on the aft deck. A hole was drilled through the deck in which a tube was glued in which the rudder pin can turn. The rudder blade and propeller, both soldered to brass, were then mounted. On the model, the tiller can move and the propeller can also rotate in a tube lengthwise of the model.
 
Underneath the propeller is a steel beam that is mandatory in every narrowboat to prevent damage to the thresholds of the locks and the propeller itself.
The tiller has a characteristic shape that is the same for every boat.

After the hull under the upper bumper had been painted completely silk matt black, work could start on the interior.
 
Constant

Painting and decaling the Kampfanzug is relatively time consuming, as every layer of paint or varnish has to dry properly. I sprayed some yellow areas on the weapon arm and weapons and brush painted many details.
A coat of Pledge went onto the camouflage as a gloss base for decaling. The supplied decals were good to work with, luckily. I had different experiences with Hasegawa´s MaK decals, which were rigid and won´t settle on curved surfaces.
On top, I put a matte coat, using the matte varnish from Winsor and Newton Galeria, for the first time. I need some more experience with the stuf, but like the result. 
I used Pledge and the water based matte varnish to hopefully be able to activate the hairspray under these numerous layers.
Next will be heavy weathering, the most important step of this project. I hope, I can achieve the desired look.







Cheers Rob

Well, Marc... I agree with you regarding the plank lines. The photo below from your Pinterest site clearly shows the plank lines match trhe sheer lines of the wales.
 

 
I have come too far on this 1671 SR path to ignore an inaccuracy like this. So with a little bit of Tamiya putty... 
 
The good news is that there really is no issue at the bow or amidships. My "new" wales start to sheer up closer to the stern. Now, after light sanding and the rescribing, the hull truly will look like Frankenstein's Monster, but nothing that some primer and the eventual paint scheme won't cover up.
 

 

I thought this pic captured the plane pretty well.