BLACK VIKING

Hi all and thanks for the comments and likes  
A bit more done the wings and tail fins have been fitted and the fuselage glue together.
I have dry brushed the whole aircraft to give it a worn look.
 I have found out that she was hit by flack and number 2 engine caught fire but was put out quite quickly. It was replaced and a new cowl fitted but wasn't painted for a few weeks so I have shown this.
Just a little bit more to do then she will be complete.
Thanks for following 
Martyn

Post Five
 
Fairing and Planking – resumed.
 
 
With the stem hopefully fixed the boat is once again inverted on it build board.
 

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I have taken the precaution of fitting a stem guard to the board, those familiar with Chris Watton’s kits will recognise its origin.

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Sanding the mdf bulkheads is almost too easy, need to guard against removing too much by frequent checking with a test board along the hull.
 
Despite my soft hands and using fine grade sanding paper the Pearwood stern board (Y11) snapped in two where it fits over the stern post.
 
In this case the vertical grain is a weakness when it comes to lateral fairing.

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I re-glued the part but took the precaution of using it as a template to make a horizontally grained version if needed.

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The degree of fairing to get a fair run of planks can be seen in this photo.
 
 
The kit blurb suggests using pva to glue the planking rather than ca.
PVA is my preferred method but securing the planks on this tiny hull is a lot trickier using pva than using spots of ca.
 

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For the initial planking runs I used inverted Amati clamps and any other suitable holding devices that came to hand, sometimes bent into diverse shapes in an attempt to hold the planks in place.

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Pins fitted thro’ the base board at the stern hold the plank against the stern board.

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Heat is used to create the bow curve into the rabbet.

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The first plank has a convenient shoulder to sit against and doesn’t require tapering.
 
 
With some relief, once the first planks are on the whole structure becomes stronger with both stem and stern board secured.
 
 
B.E.
24/01/21
 

Two more almost ready...

Dear all
 
I am no wood worker but I have come to appreciate what a wonderful tool a very sharp chisel can be. However, no matter how expensive or cheap a chisel is, it will need to be honed continuously and will only work as intended if it is really scary sharp.
There are many ways to hone a chisel and various types of stones and jig are available, some very expensive. Please allow me to share how I sharpen my chisels. Now, there are a few tools that are needed but are not too expensive and will last for a very long time.
 
I recently bought a new chisel, an 8 mm Narex so I thought it was a good opportunity to show how it can be turned into a useful tool. I hope that this will be of help to others.
 
I like Narex chisels very much but out f the box they are of no use at all. The tip is covered but some kind of lacquer and is not sharp. The bevel and the back of the chisel are very rough.





Now, for the chisel to be sharp, both surfaces need to be as polished as possible. So lets start honing this chisel
 
We will first concentrate on the back of the chisel. This surface will only be worked once, on purchase and will not be touched again. Until the back is flat and polished to mirror finish, we cannot proceed.
 
I will use only a cheap combination diamond stone 400/1000 grit, a slightly more expensive 1200 grit diamond stone, an old leather mouse pad turned upside down, a sheet of flat MDF and green polishing compound. I also will use a honing jig I make myself. This jig is absolutely needed unless you have a very steady hand and lots of experience, it can be made with whatever scrap material but some accuracy is needed in its construction-basically a drill press or a very steady hand.


Another thing needed is some kind of jig to make sure the bevel is grounded at roughly the same angle each time the guide is used. I just use scrap wood for this

Now, we start by positioning the chisel on the jig, finding the angle and then marking this position on the scrap wood. The little pieces of wood are glued and then screwed on.



Now we start honing. I start with the 400 grit trying to remove the machine marks. This is the starting point

And this is how it looks after a few passes

Then we move on to the 1000 grit. This is how it look afterwards

Then on to 1200 grit, this is the result

However there is a problem. The back is not flat as the next photo shows

This is a problem. The back needs to be flat or better concave, so that less material needs to be removed making the job easier. So back to 400 grit to remove enough material to make the back completely flat, so the tip touches the stones. The diamond stones are very aggressive, they do not need any pressure, just to move the chisel back and forth. 
 
This is how it looks now at 400 grit...

at 1000 grit...

and at 1200 grit.

The chisel is already very sharp but we have a long way to go. Next comes the strop. This is how it looks after a few minutes of stropping.


I have found that the fastest way at this point is using MDF. I charged some MDF with the green stuff and starting polishing like crazy moving the chisels in all directions. After just two minutes the results are impressive.

30 sec later

and after 30 more seconds of polishing, we are there. These are my fingers holding the phone shown on the surface, it is like mirror.

Good, now we move on to the bevel. This is our starting point.

Using the jig we made earlier, the chisel is positioned on the guide. However although close, the positioning is not accurate so we actually need to create our own bevel. So we start with the 400 grit. This is how the new bevel is progressively formed.




Then on to 1000 grit...

and to 1200 grit.

Then we move on to the strop. The bevel takes much less time to polish than the back and actually the leather works better than the MDF. This is the result.



We now need to do a few passes on the back to remove the excess material hanging of the edge.
 
The chisel is now very sharp, sharp enough for what I needed for. It can of course be further polished, the green stuff I think is something like 25,000 grit but it is enough for now. During use, every few cuts, I make a few passes over the strop. With some use, it will get further polished.
 
I hope this has been helpful for some, a video follows showing the surfaces of the chisel
 
 
Regards
Vaddoc
 
 
 

Thanks, Liteflight. I may still go with paper, my only concern is whether it's strong enough for the job.
 
I finished the planking on the longboat:
 
   
 
And then discovered the butter treatment wasn't adequate. The boat stuck to the plug and I had to rip it apart to get it off.  
 

 
Fortunately it mostly retained its shape, and all I really had to do was glue it back together again where needed. However, the strakes did lose some of their curve so the boat became considerably narrower. I fixed it by gluing in a temporary crosspiece - which might end up as a thwart, though I doubt it - it seems too big.
 

 

 
I still have to add the frames, floorboards and thwarts, plus a triangular seat in the stern for the steersman, and those sort of cathead thingies in the bow, as shown on the boat in the Anthony Roll picture of the Great Harry (see above).  Next time I do this kind of thing I may soak the plug in olive oil or something for a few hours, then wipe dry.
 
I've done some investigation and transom-sterned ship's boats are about as common as double-ended ones in this period. The Embarkation at Dover shows double-ended boats with no steering oars, and steering can be done directly by the oarsmen, but for something of any size they really need to have a steersman. The majority of representations of double-ended ship's boats from this period show steering oars.
 
 
 
Ordinances of Chivalry English, Late 15th century Morgan Library & Museum   
 
  
              Bibliotheque National de France - MS Latin 6142
 
And a little more progress on the new crewman or whatever
 
 
 
Steven
 
 

Thank you Paul,  not really way ahead of you, I notice in your build that you have finished parts that I haven't done yet, such as fitting the gunport lids in place and other work.  You are doing a great job on your Victory.
 
Believe it or not I am still waiting to receive the decals for the fire buckets, which I like to finish before I continue the rest of the hammock cranes and netting.  In the meantime I thought I might as well do something else, so I prepared the four big anchors.
 
In the kit manual it shows the stock of the anchor tapered only on the underside. But from the this drawing and from internet images it is clearly tapered on the sides as well, only the top is flat all along.

 

 
 The drawing also shows a shoulder on the shank to keep the stock in place. I simulated this with a square brass rod by bending it in a square to fit the square part of the shank.
     
 
Bands made from styrene strips.

 
Rings shaped and all parts ready to be fitted together.

 
Shank, shoulder, stock fitted together and ring soldered in place.

 

 
Anchors painted,  pudding round the rings is simulated with black thread and four seizings with natural thread.

 

 
Robert
 

I was asked by Valentina Golycheva if I could do a painting of the attack on Convoy BD-5 - 12 August, 1944: The Marina Raskova was a soviet cargo ship that was torpedoed and damaged in the Kara Sea by U-365 (commander Kapitänleutnant H.Wedemeyer) while heading from Molotovsk to Kara's naval base at Port Dikson to supply food, technical equipment relief personnel and their families. The merchant ship was being escorted by three minesweepers from the 6. Minesweeper Division, and two of them were also sunk by the German submarine (T-118 and T-114). Marina Raskova was sunk by a coup de grâce the day after. Of the 632 men Women and Children on the three ships, 373 were lost and only 259 were rescued. Valentina's Father was among those killed. A little known event among the the the many tragedies during the war at sea in the Arctic Convoys. It is well worth looking into the story of Convoy BD-5 and subsequent expedition in 2015 to find and honour the remains of those who did not return Valentina Golysheva is well known in connection with Russian Arctic Convoy associations and Rememberance events in Russia and UK. She is Associate Professor, PhD Director of the British Centre Department of English School of Social Sciences and Humanities and International Communications Northern ( Arctic) Federal University (NARFU) Arkhangelsk

Lower mast stays
 
I thought I'd fit these before tackling with the ratlines:
 

I used 1.3mm line for the main and fore stays, and 1.0mm for their preventers. Each was served from the eye down to a point about 6' (30mm) below the mouse. To serve the eye I used a method I'd read in TFFM but not tried before. Unfortunately I didn't film it all, but basically I left about 12mm/0.5" unserved at the eye end of the line, and when I threaded the serving line through the stay to start the serving I left a good long length spare. When finished serving, I used a scalpel blade to cut the unserved rope at an angle. With PVA applied, I brought the cut end round to form the eye and clamped it whilst it dried. Hopefully this shot will make the description clearer:

When the glue had dried I wound the spare thread  round the join to cover it:

I put a half hitch in the final loop, applied a drop of dilute PVA and trimmed.
 
Next I had a bit of fun with the mice (mouses?). The kit supplies two sizes of black beads for these which look fine from a distance but I thought I'd make my own. I didn't want to go as far as full size practice and start weaving mice, so I again followed TFFM and made them from wood on the lathe. I started with a hole large enough to accommodate the served stays:
 

Then set the top slide at a 20 degree angle to cut a taper:
 

I parted the mouse with the cutter at an angle to bevel the other end. The mouse should be three times the diameter of the stay, so this told me where to part the mouse. The resulting mice I think are a slightly more realistic shape than a round bead, especially when painted to match the stay:

    
Finally, I seized 5mm deadeyes into the other end of each stay, using slightly darker thread than I did on the shrouds to preserve the detail better. And the lanyards are not bright white in real life, honest!
 
Next job will be preparing for ratlines. I'll probably do the futtock staves first, and practice my clove hitches. Having said that I'm tempted to try half hitches which might be less bulky at this scale. I'll experiment.
 
Derek

Finished deck planking and gratings.
The latter were purchased. Why am I thinking about Belgian Waffles ?
 
Many French ships seem to have this characteristic :  darker (sometimes black) strips are embedded inside the deck planking. Although I  can only guess the purpose, I copied the idea as it is pleasing to the eye. As a matter of exercise,  planks were a bit tapered towards the bow. I'm planning to implement this on the forecastle, according to plan.
 
Put her alongside HMS Diana, from which I removed the dust. Regarding this matter, a solution is in the making (it's about time, shame on me).
The photo is deceiving : HMS Diana is not that smaller, in real.

Preview of shipyard's ending :
 

 
Green drawing shows a without sail model

Time for another update in my progress. The two attached close up photo's show just had badly I painted the hull, thankfully it is not that noticeable to the naked eye when viewed from distance😂.
 
I have now fitted the rudder assembly. I took my time in shaping the upper stem of rudder so that there was sufficient clearance to allow the Rudder Pintles to be seated in the stern post. Looking ahead at rigging the wheel and tiller the 2mm single blocks look very small so I will need my LED hands free magnifier headband visor to see what I'm doing.

 
I then proceeded to fit the Lower Cheek and Upper Cheek Rails followed by the 3 Bow ‘V’ Frames which I had tapered in readiness for the upper Bow Rails. I also fitted the Bow Brackets and Hawse Bolsters. Once the glue had had time to cure I will fit the both the upper and lower Bow Rails patterns.

That's a touching tribute. I wish you well on your project.

Having built this kit you get quite a lot of line to finish the rigging as long as you don't go to mad with rigging the blocks. Martyn 

Darivs,
 Yes, conundrums indeed. And the two images below also add to the rigging “confusion”. So some (most) rigging will result in "appropriate" location estimates at best. Though it is apparent from these two excellent Czech site images that pin rails/ attached lines were not located at main deck. I will attach kevels -- McKay, and Amati follow in this as well. Though I may add a pin rail on those two sides as well TBD.
 
 
 
I might also go back to one of my earlier builds –same vintage but Dutch – no rails mid deck either – I had used the Billings complete rigging sheets that were included in their Vasa kit. That kit includes excellent running rigging details – could be very useful as well? The Corel instruction were very basic and not much use IMO..
 

 
Current small bits that are in progress for this project;
 

 
To add to the “confusion” won’t follow most of Sergal’s instructions regarding the deck entries or their architecture regarding the poop, Quarter or Forecastle decks lower entries or facings– will do lots of scratch work here (actually will try to emulate ideas from excellent museum examples in my files……..
 

 
And, of course the many 100s of gilded bits will also not be anything close to the 1637 stern in Pett’s painting.
 
Regarding the 100’s of gilded bits I intend to blend what Sergal has included from the solid bronze pieces of their kit from decades ago, along with a recently purchased complete set from Amati’s now discontinued SotS gilded parts (still available today)  
 
AND It will be quite a while before work on masts and yards.  Thanks for dropping by and posting.
 

CCoyle could not have said it better.

Fantastic work, Doris.  Certainly the best model sails I have seen.
 
Ed

This is not to be unexpected. It reminds of me of Neil Peart, the late drummer for Rush. After his wife passed away, he took a long hiatus from the band, but he came back to it eventually. If you are passionate about something, as your models clearly show, you will return to it at some point. But time away for grieving is something none of us would begrudge you.
 
Take care of yourself,
Chris

Dear friends, I do appreciate your comments and support. Thank you all very much.
 
Well, I am not sure I will start with new projects in future. I have lost motivation and enthusiasm,  always shared it with my husband and created the models also for him - he supported me a lot and loved what I did. Now I'm finishing my best model - the Royal Katherine and definitely don't want to give it up.
I added the bonnet under the fore course to achieve another detail for better realism. A followed these drawings from Lees´ book:
 

 
 
 
Now I am working on four anchors, they will be made of card.
 
 
Best regards,
Doris
 
 

The next sail is the foremast sail. The one in the middle, the topsail, will be done next.
There are now many lines/ropes running from the mast and the yards to the deck. The lifts are attached the wooden pilars on deck. The bunt lines of the foresail are attached to the 4 blocks on the deck. The clewlines, the leechlines and the braces are attached via belaying pins on the railing.
 

 

 

 
The first spider attachment, I had made a mistake by making 8 lines per spider, which makes it more complicated to put tension on all of the ropes. This was the one that I made for the topgallant of the main mast.
The next spider, I did make it with 6 ropes. This one was for the topgallant of the foremast.
The third spider, I did differently: I did not make the 6 lines from 3 ropes, but made it from one rope and I pushed it with needle through the stay. This way, it is easier to put tension on all lines, because the lines remain adjustable. This spider is for the topsail of the foremast.
 

 

 

 

Thank you all! I’m glad I can inspire you as you do me with your own builds. 
 
Last day of my long holiday and I have the upper balcony railing going on. Will soon turn my attention to the QGs and the taffrail. 
 
 

OK, Jim (Hatch) has put together the three mini coat kits that will be standard for the Sphinx kit, a 22' yawl (£24), 24' launch (£25.50) and 28' pinnace (£28.50). And he has done a marvellous job, I think.
 
I am hoping to have a few of each in stock next week, to buy individually, as Jim is doing a little online (PDF) build manual for each.
 
The 18'cutter is also getting a small revamp, in keeping with the new releases. The boat kits will have extensive laser cut parts, in pearwood (0.6 and 1mm), including laser cut pear oars, thwarts/stern sheets and gunwales if applicable,  and MDF bulkheads and building base. The keel for all new boats is 1mm pear, to keep the scale look, plus a PE sheet for the finer detail (floor/gratings and 'iron work)
 
A little later, I will have a 36 and 34' launch, 32' barge and 32' pinnace, and finally a 36' admirals barge, which will be suited for a larger model with the single boat on/in the waist
 

Wishing you all the best for 2021 too, and for everyone here. Let's hope that in the real world, it's a darn sight better than 2020! 😆
 
 

Hello dear forum colleagues, hello dear admins.
During the year I am rather a silent member in here. Nevertheless I would like to mention one or the other.
The difficult year is now coming to an end . Here in the forum it was 2020 again very exciting, instructive, entertaining and extremely entertaining. Many great colleagues, people, projects, models and insights. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the operators , the admins of our forum for their constant actions. They keep the forum running,arrange / sort posts when needed. Mediate when necessary and thus ensure that we like it in here, feel comfortable and we can take care of the construction reports and the exchange of experience in peace. I find that this is not easy and also not natural. 
Even if a colleague, no matter for what reason is not well, or he meets a blow of fate, you are there and catches him. One is alone with nothing in here. That is simply beautiful. Especially in a time where "elbow mentality" is in, that is very valuable.
There are so many fantastic modelers of all ages, eras and model types in here, coupled with an infinite depth of technical knowledge on every conceivable subject. To list them individually would be too long. I mean all of you. You learn immensely and deeply about history, literature of all kinds, eras, idiosyncrasies and techniques etc....
Is there a better platform for our passion ? Is there a more beautiful community for our hobby ? > no ! In my opinion this is unique in here.
I would like to thank you for the great contributions and your professional knowledge, combined with the sheer endless will to share the knowledge of even the most inexperienced colleagues. You are an enrichment and a great community. Thank you for that.
We wish you and your families a happy new year 2021 and hope you and your loved ones are well. Stay as you are and above all stay healthy!
Is already a great troop in here ...no...no "fishing by compliments", but my impression and opinion of the forum and all its members.
In this sense Cheers New Year 

8.4 Bucket and piggin
The production of a bucket and a piggin is very simular of that of the water keg. They are also turned into shape on the lathe and everything that is too much is sawn off and they are drilled hollow.
Both the bucket and the piggin are also provided with two hoops each.

 

 

That is the boat as it is now with the finished stuff in it.

 
Thank you very much for reading this log, for your likes and for your encouraging comments.
 
 
Till next week and Happy and Healthy Newyear for you all!