BLACK VIKING

I've been a bit distracted by my other build, the Golden City paddlewheeler, but I've also been working on crewmen for the San Marco ship. Here are a bunch I've already finished and have now painted,

and two of them I've also shaded. I've exaggerated the light and shade as otherwise they look bland.
  
 

And two new crewmen letting go and hauling on the shrouds as the ship tacks. (Big lateeners had to move the yard to the other side of the mast every time they tacked, and to do this the shrouds had to be loosened off - after tacking the lee shrouds would be somewhat loose and the weather shrouds tight.)
 
Crewman hauling down on (new) weather shroud.
  
And opening up the gap between his arms
  
And the legs . . .
  
Normally I'd do his face early in the process, as if I got that wrong there'd be no point in continuing - but in this case I couldn't get at it until I'd opened up the arms
  
And the hands and fingers . . . (I'm getting better at fingers).
  
  
And another crewman, belaying a shroud.
 
   
Looks a bit like Sir Ralph Richardson at the moment, but that will change. Now more like Noel Fielding . . .
  
Or perhaps Richard Harris?
   
Yep, Richard Harris . . . 

I've decided to discard the two helmsmen (in the top picture - one in yellow and one in green) in light of the Black Sea discoveries about tiller location on quarter rudders, and I'll be making new ones. So I had to get some photos taken to base their arm positions on.
 

And here are the two helmsmen just started:

 
Steven
 
 
 

So lots of hand painting of the various cockpit items this evening. There is loads of nice detail in this kit I have to say. The cockpit panels are glossed as well so I'll have a go at some light weathering next before assembling it all together.

So, a bit of an update, we're underway with the cockpit. I'm using a combination of the instructions and a build log featured in the Spitfire review and build magazine that you can buy with the model from Airfix.
I've decide to drill out the holes in the bulkheads and airframes, as per the magazine article and then I've started to get some paint on.
   

Bowsprit Shrouds
I have managed to reattached the broken sword to the figurehead. I also reattached the rails.
 
It was then a case of adding the 4 shrouds for the bowsprit. The rigging of the shrouds was relatively easy to do.
 
Next up will be to add the foremast stay and preventer.

 

Hello,
the carpenters started with planking the QD. Here first the balcony and the parquet in the great cabin for the captain. At that time only the great cabin had a parquet. 





And here the painter has oiled the floor

I've been looking at this kit so I'd like to follow along. I have 2023 Triumph Bonneville and I was wondering if I could adapt it to make a Bonny instead of the 3HW. There doesn't seem to be any Bonny model kits out there that I can see. Great job on the spoking.

Wheel spoking in progress after finally getting my supplies. I’m using 0.5mm wire rods and short stubs of 0.8mm brass tube to create some sort of nipples at the rim. Remnants of the plastic spokes remain to hold the hub on centre and guide me on location and alignment, easy to screw this up otherwise I would think. 
I’m ignoring the assembly sequence of the model in the directions and have put together all the main components of the frame, so I can paint it distinctly from the body parts. Hopefully I can shoehorn everything on board later on. I’ve sprayed on a base coat of black to begin with. 
 

Having achieved a water-tight roof covering 

it's time to start cutting holes through it!
Took the best part of the day, but the six roof lights are now in place....

Here are a couple of 'before' pictures.....


The camera has compensated in the second image and lightened it. In reality it was as dark as the previous picture.
And 'after'.....


All units are double glazed with the right-hand middle one opening for additional ventilation.
Time now to complete the roof by adding the bitumen shingles.
Progress 🙂

Reviewing the instruction manual for the hull I realized that I had missed one of the final steps on the bow, namely the brass moulding that runs from the base of the cat-heads to the upper bow rails. Before events temporarily halted progress I did get as far as annealing the strip of brass profile. Seems I'm not alone in this omission, this component is also conspicuous by its absence from the photograph of the otherwise completed hull example that adorns the front cover of the manual! 😄
First task was to make a card template to guide the shaping...

The bending jig I made earlier in post #135 came in handy again


After shaping the tricky job of marking out and then removing a section of wale to get the moulding to sit against the hull......


Dry fit....

Before painting the ends were filled with soft solder to be more in keeping with contemporary photographs 

Finally glued in place

and after a bit of filler the paint work had its first touching up.

I'll be checking it again under natural light tomorrow.
A couple more views:


Channels and chainplates next.......
Cheers,
Graham.

As this Hawaiian project comes to a close, I want to extend a huge MAHALO to everyone that stopped by for a quick look, suffered through the whole dang process, or anything in between. 
 
@Keith Black, @BANYAN, @Ian_Grant, @Knocklouder, @gjdale, @GrandpaPhil, @Canute, @mtaylor, @Javelin, @Louie da fly, @Landlubber Mike, @gsdpic, @Bryan Woods, @ccoyle, @John Fox III, @JacquesCousteau, @Thukydides, @Harvey Golden, @kgstakes, @woodrat, @hollowneck, @wefalck, @Boccherini, @modeller_masa, @Ryland Craze, @_SalD_, @BrochBoating, @BLACK VIKING, @Rik Thistle, @Tomculb, @Elijah, @Archi, @ERS Rich, @DanB, @AJohnson, @Brinkman, @Jim Lad
 
As always, I greatly appreciate your comments that are laden with wit, humor, insight, encouragement, suggestions, and criticisms.  I’ll say it again because it’s true once again – doing these build logs on MSW makes the project feel like a team effort.  Y’all make everything I try to do a whole lot better.  A sincere thanks to each of you.
 
Here's the final pictures.  

 

One down, one to go...






 

That is a big piece and a very coveted model. I will be following.
 
Yves

Here we go with my second military aircraft build. Looking forward to this one and hoping to use what I learnt from building the Lancaster and Titanic. 
 

Decals was a disaster. Didn't realise that they'd got wet and I managed to put my hand in them while I was putting one on the Lancaster. So some were just ruined. So I tried my best with what I had left which fortunately was most of the larger visible ones. But then I had a go at an oil wash and I'm quite pleased with that, soi guess that's the ups and downs of modelling. Overall though I like it. Matt varnish and pop the remaining bits on and I think it'll be done 
 

And now the final photos of my falcon. Don’t be surprised by the bolder colors, as this time I used my new cell phone, which has an excellent Leica camera.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
So that’s it, a good year of fun in the Star Wars universe.
Now I’m looking forward to my next project with a real ship. Of course again in this theater.

Marc, this video is very helpful (I also looked at some of his other videos... jaw dropping!). My main takeaway is that I was on the right track by using blackened brass tubes in the lanyard hole. His lanyard holes pierce the wales as needed....
 
Another main takeaway is that as much as I am enamored of the leather waterproof shield/tube system that I created ala HMS Victory... I don't see them on Fleuron (50 years after Soleil Royal), nor on any VDV drawings. Sooo... I think it is accurate to just have the blackened tubes in the lanyard holes. There are many other takeaways as well!
 
Also, I finished bolting all of the scarf joints on the port side. The hard part is simply drilling the holes (it's not hard... just going to be a lot of holes!). Inserting the rivets is very easy. I am 75% of the way through my initial order of 350 rivets... as soon as I saw that they worked, I ordered 23 more packets (4,025 rivets), so I think I will be set.

I have to admit, I was less than thrilled with the Twins-GB over on LargeScaleModeler initially, when I read about it on my Berlin vacancy. Back home, I decided to browse through my stash for inspirations, still unsure about my participation.

Lots of twins to choose, but one immediately rang a bell, the monstrous (for it´s time) night bomber version of the AEG G.IV by Wingnut Wings. I have a soft spot for quirky designs and since I bought the kits years ago, it was sometimes on my schedule, but was dropped, because of sheer size and complexity.

Well, now with the GB, there is another possibility to tackle this lozenged monster. I´m absolutely not sure, if I can finish the AEG until July, but will try.


 
This is the kit and this will be the chosen scheme, but with the shark-? mouth only in white.
The entire airframe will be decaled with the kit supplied night lozenge and I have to experiment a bit with the underlying color for contrast and accentuation.
 

 
I will use some AM, like HGW Seat belts, Gaspatch MG´s and HGW masks. The figure of the boy will play a role along with a mechanic, which is still to choose.
I think about adding Rexx metal exhausts and skipped the thought about adding Taurus timing gear for the engines. I watched at many pictures and decided, the gear is hidden under the wing in a tube metal cage, so not a lot can be seen and I will enhance the kit parts with some detailing.
 

 
Rigging will be a nightmare and I´m not finally decided about the rigging material. I liked fishing line and Bob´s buckles a lot with other builds, but may simplify rigging a bit. A while ago I thought about a method, gluing in the thread directly into holes, pre drilled through the wing. this can be pulled taught from above, sealed with CA and cut flush, when dry. Because of the later to apply lozenge decals, the holes will remain invisible. 
Later I found a build log, where the builder used that method on his AEG build and it worked, lets hope the best.
 
I will further use Karim Bibis great PDF-book, which I acquired from KLP publishing and use it as a guideline through the complex build.
 

 
Cheers Rob

Well, it´s a bomber, why not starting with the bombs and the exhausts. In this case, it´s because the smaller 12,5 kg bombs will be filled into inboard racks and have to be painted first. I glued the parts together along with the exhausts, to evaluate the need for substituting them with AM. There are bombs from Kellerkind and the metal exhausts by Rexx. The parts look promising, but I will decide after priming.

This beast was able to carry a bomb load of up to 800 kg and a later -.b version could handle a 1000 kg bomb, a lot more than the Gotha. It seems the ground was the worst enemy of this type, as many crash landed, due to night conditions and the tendency to nose dive easily when touching down. 
Earlier types were used in daytime raids, but better fighter coverage pushed the AEG´s into night duty.
 
 
 
Cheers Rob

I keep looking around my house wondering where the heck am I going to put this thing! 

The different grass types really work well together. I'm curious to see the static grass in use. Diomramas make a huge difference to the models. It’s a shame they take up so much space 
alan

What a  lovely  dio  -  really  looking nice.
 
OC.

Thanks for all the "likes" everyone!
 
Rather quick progress has been made, and a lot of matte medium has been consumed in the process!
 
After painting, the first layer of ground cover was added. This consisted of a mostly uniform layer of Woodland Scenics "Earth Blend"
 

 
Sealed for freshness!
 
The end result:
 

 
When the matte medium had dried, I began adding WS "Green Blend":
 

 
A key trick to scenery is to work in small areas, it helps too keep things from getting out of hand, and you don't end up with areas that  don't adhere properly as the glue has begun to set
 
For the "runway" area I applied only a few streaks of green blend to simulate dried/dead patches of grass interspersed with greener grass.
 

 
This was then followed up with some additional blotches of "burnt grass" to add some variation to the uniform green layer:
 

 
Once all the matte medium had dried, I couldn't wait to see how things looked:
 

 

 

 
I know if I wanted to, I could stop here and be mostly satisfied (the mud puddles still need some work, though), but I intend to take this up a level and I will come back and apply some layers of static grass to really make the ground cover "pop". For now I'm really happy with the way things are looking.
 
And just for fun, I placed my Hurricane on the runway to see what it would look like:
 

 
Likely an improbable scenario, but.......
 
Andy

The engine was liquid cooled, and the radiators (there were two) were mounted either side of a triangular pylon that was fastened to the fuselage between the two cockpits. (This pylon was also an important part of the rigging of the aircraft.)

Other versions of the Taube, later or different manufacturers, had the radiators flat against each side of the fuselage immediately aft of the engine bay. The instructions give no hint as to how the coolant flowed between the engine and the radiators. Looking for photos on the net didn't help much, so I simply ran two styrene rods down from each radiator, along the top edge of the forward fuselage and into the engine bay. Quite possibly wrong, but at least the radiators don't look ridiculous.
The rigging. As mentioned above, the diagram in the instructions didn't quite match the photo on the cover of the kit. A search of the internet showed many images of Taubes, mostly low-res. There were a few three views that allowed me to come up with an acceptable, to me anyway, rigging plan. There was still some uncertainty about some of the wires as start and end points could not be identified, so these were omitted. The main problem here was that I initially found no views of the underneath of the aircraft. After completing the rigging I did find two sites, with replicas, that showed the underside of the wings and fuselage. It was still not clear to me where some of the wires went so I left my completed rigging “as is”.
 
(It looks as if one of the replicas, the one in the Deutsches Museum, was the basis for this model.)
 
The engine was finally glued in place and the propeller added. I laminated the printed propeller with some lighter coloured card to give it a 3D appearance.
 
So, here it is, the Rumpler Taube of 1911.





Thanks to all who visited, reacted or left comments. Much appreciated.
Cheers

The design solution of installing dummy guns, the PANART model, is a disaster and an insult to the human brain.