gil middleton

1. PAINTING The decision was made to use only water based paint since the "Kirkland Shipyard" is our den/office. Hence there would be no oil based paint or thinner, no air brushing nor signifigant sanding (Garage only). All painting was by hand. Water based paint somewhat limits colors and requires experimentation to find the desired shade. I used Polyscale Acrylics from Testor with the following mixures: Black............. Engine Black (no mixing) Red Ochre......equal parts Soo Line Red with EL Yellow Yellow Ochre...four parts Orange/Yellow to one part Wood Of course we are all aware of the profound difference in color produced by lighting, camera settings, etc. (examples follow) Below, "Kirkland Shipyard" Lining upper gun deck ports. The base support seen in the previous photo is a simple rig used for three model ships, changing only the felt lined side supports. The sketch was a one minute scribble on a telephone pad. Perhaps I'll come back and upgrade the drawing. Painting the ship's side with the lighter color first. Wood was prepared by sanding. A first coat of paint raises the grain and is followed by sanding and further coats. Adding the black bands, aided by 3M Fine Line Tape #218 masking. Color variations from lighting. The central area is close to the real color while the right side is closer to the light source.. Natural light, although rather dark, color close to real life.. Natural light. Slightly lighter than real life. Photo lighting. Appears bright yellow. Of course with flash lighting, all bets are off. Lining the gun ports. For the lower and middle gun decks, the ports must be lined inside out. The plywood panelling already being in place takes away acces from the inside. I devised a small tool for lining the ports. Again a telephone pad scribble. Actually, I placed a shelf level with the gun port opening, and then placed the prepainted lining about 1 mm recessed, producing a clean line between colors. However, same tool.

INTRODUCTION My choice of ship models comes from a lifetime of sailing and having been aboard each of the three vessels. My brother, sister and I bought our first sailboat around 1944 with money earned from paper routes. I was 11. Later, I served in the Royal Canadian Navy (Reserve) for eleven years, and then the United States Navy (Medical Corps) for two years, directing the Plastic, Reconstructive and Hand Surgery unit at the Balboa Naval Hospital, San Diego. After retiring from private practice, my wife and I took our boat offshore for three years and 30,000 miles. Hence the Cutty Sark (Billing) 2002-2004, the USS Constitution (Model Shipway) 2004-2008 and the HMS Victory (JoTika) 2008 to the present. 1. BULKHEADS THROUGH ROUGH PLANKING Not much original material here. We've all been there. While I started the model in 2008, I didn't take many photos until discovering the Model Ship World web site in 2010. Posting photograghs to that date, I was astounded by over 1,000 views in the first week and even more so by over 300,000 when our web site crashed. However, we all started with the basics. At this stage, holes were drilled for the future pedestal supports, adding wood on each side of the center piece for extra support. I apologize but I can't remember who suggested epoxying a nut into the framework to receive a long bolt for mounting, a much better idea. Rough first planking of double planked hull. Planks were bent by first soaking in water, then using a soldering iron and wood base to form to the desired shape. This worked much better than my previous method of boiling the planks and then bending and tacking to a planned shape. Aligning panels. Fairing before coppering Used grey primer which showed depressions and irregularities, and allowed drawing individual rows of copper plating and belts of 5 or 6 rows. For the Constitution, I made a jig to work on the model inverted by using dowels sized and angled to fit the mast holes. For the Victory, I simply changed the dowels.

Thanks you all for the warm welcome back to MSW. I'll try to rebuild the log near to the original form, however, the sequence may change in order to deal with specific areas from start to finish. I've learned a great deal from many of you and value your comments. Fortunately, our many online friendships were not lost with the crashed hard drive. Cheers, Gil

A slow restart, but I share the angst with our administrators/moderators. Gentlemen, our hats are off to you for your untireing efforts to get us all up and running again. A few weeks ago, I upgraded my computer from Windows XP to Windows 7, backing up all my photos on CD's. On start up on Windows 7, I inserted the CD's to download the photos; BLANK DISC!!! Over 1000 photos of three model ships gone. After getting up off the floor, I called my son, a computer programmer with Microsoft, who after a couple hours recovered every photo. However, they are now in complete random order. After sorting them out into some kind of order, I'll begin to put together a new build log. Cheers, Gil I plan to organize the new build log according to the following index. I may need some help in indexing the posts. 1. Bulkheads, Clamping and rough planking, Fairing the Hull. 2. Painting 3. Coppering, Coppering Jig 4. Decking, Weathering 5. Upper Gun Deck, Cannons, Deck Beams 6. Quarterdeck, Cannons, Chain plates 7. Water Buckets 8. Quarter Galleries 9. Lining Gun Ports, Gun Port Lids, Side Entrance 10. Hammock Nets 11. Bow, Cat Heads 12. Stern 13. Anchors 14. Bow Sprit 15. Masts 16. Standing Rigging 17 Forestays and Preventers 18. Rat Lines 19. Running Rigging and Yards 20. Photo Backdrop (1/3 down in post) 21. Splicing 22. Serving Line 23. Rope Coils 24. Miscelanious Details 25. Anchors, Revisited 26. Ship's Boats