catopower

Thanks Grant. I'll be tallying up the votes for a while yet. But, things are feeling better on the brass etching at this point... Consistency of work! The big question of doing this photoetching work is whether or not my success with the skylight parts is repeatable. So, today, I went back and updated the artwork for the paneled doors and also modified the skylight artwork to scale it up for a taller and larger (3/16" scale instead of 1/8" scale) Yacht America skylight. The Saginaw will require 10 paneled doors, so I made artwork with 12 of them, giving me a couple spares. To cut to the chase, I managed to go through the whole process twice today: Once for the paneled doors and once for the America's skylight frame. All seemed to work well, so that's 3 times in a row(!). Looking back, it almost makes me wonder how I could have been having so much trouble. But, I'm just really happy that things are finally going well. We'll see how long it lasts! Above are the results of the etchings I did today. The outer edges of the panel doors have been filed smooth. I still have to file inside the openings. After these are cleaned up, I'll glue them to thin wood sheet to complete the doors. The skylight frame on the right is for the Yacht America in 3/16" scale, so I made this 33% larger than the Saginaw's. It will also be taller, so the legs of the frame will be bent to a sharper angle. I'll probably then glue thin wood pieces over it, with this providing the basic structure. You'll have to look at my Yacht America log to see how well that works out. Above are the Saginaw's skylights test fit into place. I still have to decide how I want to handle the windows and the protective bars. I painted the insides of these white, but they look awfully bright with the black exterior. Though I've painted all the coamings on the model black, I suppose I could re-paint the skylight frames white instead. Either that or "fancy them up" with a simulated wood color. Of course, with windows in place, the inside color probably won't be so prominent. Here's a closeup of one of the painted skylights. In any case, it sure feels good to have the skylight structures behind me now. This takes a load off. The only other difficult structure is probably the paddle wheels. More on that next time. Clare

Thanks John, Bob, Michael. So far, so good. I'll consider writing up a tutorial in the future, but I have to find a bit of consistency in the task first. Let's see how other things turn out. Now that I've made the skylight parts, I'd like to get back to making the paneled doors I tried to make long ago as well as the rings for the paddle wheels. I really am not satisfied with how the flattened wire paddle wheels turned out. They are okay, but not as round as I'd like them. Of course, I may find it difficult to get the width consistent on all four sets of rims, but maybe that won't bother me as much as wheels that a little out of round. We'll see. I'm going to try working on those doors and the wheel rims this week. I also got some large diameter round brass in very short lengths so that I could potentially turn the rims on the lathe. Unfortunately, the chuck I have isn't big enough and I'm not ready to spend $130+ for the larger chuck. Eventually, I'll get one, but let's see how the etched brass turns out first. Forward! Clare

Hallelujah! I think I finally broke the etched brass spell that's been standing in the way of progress on the Saginaw! I've been kind of down and out of doing a lot of shipmodeling the past couple weeks due to a pinched nerve or something in my neck and shoulder. For a while, I wasn't getting much sleep due to pain and that's left me tired all day – too much so to feel like sitting down and getting any work done with neck and shoulder pain. It's gotten much better since then, and while it's not totally gone, I've been able to get some things done. Being a bit short of project motivation for a while, I decided to do a little technique research and worked a bit on just one aspect of photoetching brass, and just practiced prepping the metal and getting the artwork onto it. I did a bit of experimentation on exposure times under a lamp and took observations. Eventually, I worked my way back up to actually etching the brass and today I made the pieces that would form the basis for the circular skylights on the Saginaw. Here's the exposed photoresist, all nice and cleanly adhered to the metal. This was the first major victory. I'd had problems with bubbled in the photoresist, what I thought was dirt and such. I found that keeping the metal and the photoresist very wet while sliding it into position made a big difference. Also, in the exposure process, the metal was getting hot and that was affecting the photoresist's adhesion and all. I found that getting the right sized lamp, getting the right distance and exposure time helped. Also, I found it best to let the project cool off after exposing one side, but before exposing the other side. To improve evenness in the exposure, I also found a solar powered display turntable. I set the project on that under the lamp to expose the photoresist and the light powered turntable kept the whole thing slowly rotating and evening out the exposure across the work piece. I made sure to warm up the etchant by placing the bottle in a bath of hot water. Even with the very chilly garage, this improves the efficiency of the etchant. I also made sure to start with a fresh bottle of etchant, and I'm very carefully making sure to mark the usage and track it very carefully. The resulting etch took less than 10 minutes. I made sure to remove the work piece at one point and rinse it, removing spent etchant with a brush, before returning it to the etchant bath to resume the process. The pieces for the skylight were cut from the sheet and cleaned up. At this point, all the etching work has been done and now it's just a matter of using the parts to assemble them into something useful, and hoping I designed the part correctly. In this case, the pieces are bent to shape and I cut off some thin rings from a 15/32" brass tube on my Sherline lathe. I glued these into place using a little thick CA in a couple spots to hold the pieces in alignment. I then glued each spoke to the ring using thin CA. Finally, I trimmed off the excess lengths of spokes and filed them neatly. These will fit on top of the circular coamings I turned for them long ago. Next step is to paint them and add the clear acetate windows. That will be a bit of a task, but after all the pain I've gone through relearning and redeveloping good technique for the brass etching, this should be a breeze! I'm not sure if I'm going to try to put protective bars over the skylight windows or not. At this scale, they'd probably be around .005" and nearly invisible. If I put them on, I would mount them vertically and there would be maybe 3 per wedge-shaped window. I'm not sure what material I'd have that would be thin enough to work other than nylon fly tying thread. Anyway, it's good to make progress on the Saginaw again. It's been neglected for far too long! Clare

My understanding is that Midwest acquired some of the Laughing Whale line, but I'm not quite sure which kits. I have a couple Midwest kits in the closet and the instructions are far better than Laughing Whales instructions ever were and the parts are pretty clean. Overall, I'd say they are an improvement over the old LW line. In the past, the LW kits were a little crude, pre-cut parts were a bit rough, the kits had very limited, photocopied instructions, but the plans were very good and they had an interesting selection of subjects. I built a couple of the old kits and still have the ginormous Muscongous Bay Lobster Smack kit in the closet. I've never looked at one after the line was picked up by BlueJacket, but I would expect they've been improved a lot. Still, I wouldn't sell Midwest kits short. They have a high production value and they're designed to be sold on the store shelf, so they're pretty complete and reasonably priced. Clare

Hi Mort, I think you've gotten some good info. I'd also like to point out that if you take your time and hunt on Ebay, you can occasionally find BlueJacket's old Flying Cloud kit. It's an 1/8" scale solid hull kit, like Red Jacket. In smaller scales (mostly 3/32" = 1'), you can find the old Marine Models Sword Fish or Sea Witch kits. They'll be a bit lighter on the detail, but with a little extra work, they should turn out quite nicely. Clare

Hi Dan, I've done this a few times myself. As Sam mentioned, sometimes plates come out a little odd and I too have had plates flake a bit. I'm not sure what that is either. It's been years since I've done it and usually ended up heating small batches of plates in a pie tin. This way, you get a large variety of colored plates. You should experiment with it a bit to get a feel for how to heat the plates evenly. That's one issue that I had was that some plates laying on top of other plates lead to uneven heating. The patchwork coloring is nice, but it was only like that initially in the dockyard. Once the ship was in operation, the coloring evened out. Good luck with the technique! Clare

Thanks everyone for the nice comments. Robbyn, to answer your question, as Elia points out I have a couple build logs here that have been on hold for a bit or moving very slowly. Mostly, I've got a couple projects that I'm doing for other people that I've had to bump to the front of my project queue. I just got tired of not finishing anything, so I pushed the longboat to the front since it was so far along, but it's been in the works since the kits were initially released. Elia, as I just mentioned, I've got a couple other projects that I'm actually working on for other people. Also, I'm doing a couple out-of-the-box kit reviews for Ships in Scale magazine, and that's actually been a nice distraction. I just finished one that should show up shortly, and then I've got another one or two others I'd like to do in the coming months. It's all a good thing, but it is slowing down these other projects, particularly the Saginaw, on which I'd hit some snags. The Yacht America is actually pretty far along and I was thinking about making some progress on it. If I get it far enough along it'll naturally call on me to finish it. So, stay tuned. Clare

Done! In a marathon late night session last night, I finished my longboat. I tied the last of the rope coils into place, glued the handles on and officially declared victory. I just couldn't go one more day saying that it should be finished by tomorrow. I'll post a full set of pics in the gallery shortly. I ended up not including the grappling anchor as the casting seemed too big for the model, especially after looking at Chuck's prototype which has an anchor I really like. Perhaps in the future I'll fashion one that's smaller, but it seemed unnecessary, so I left it out. Also, I did flub the location of the flag halliards and put them on the port side instead of the starboard side as given in the instructions. That didn't seem like it was critical, so I left that as well. Here's a final pic with more to be posted in the gallery shortly. This started out as a kit that I thought was "nice" and ended up being a really fun and challenging build that tested my skills, taught me a few things, and turned out to be a pretty sweet looking model. Chuck did a wonderful job on this kit design I have to say. I'll be building a case for it in the near future, but at least it's under a dust cover now. Clare

So near, yet, so far... Every time I think "Okay, I should have this project done tonight or maybe tomorrow", tonight comes and goes, tomorrow hits and ends and, and again it's "okay, I'll defnitely have this project done tonight, or maybe tomorrow..." But, seriously, I think I can say that I will have this project done by tonight! Or maybe tomorrow. No. Tonight, I think. I have an event to go to this afternoon, but I have lots of time before I have to leave. And, I'll be back shortly after dark and have time to work on it tonight. All that's left now is to rig four blocks with hooks and rig the jib and staysail halliards and rig the backstays, for which the pendants are already complete. The anchor is rigged and ready to seat with its coil of rope. Oh, and then I just have to tie off the flag halliard. As long as I don't break anything (crossing my fingers here), all should be okay and I can permanently fix the tiller and the handle for the windlass into place. Here's what it looks like now... Almost there! Clare

Congratulations on completing your longboat build Robbyn. You've done a terrific job. Your completion is inspiring me to get in gear to finish up my own longboat project. So, now I'm busily trying to get caught up. It should be very soon and I'm only hoping it will turn out as nice as yours. Well done! Clare

Hello Shlhawk, That's a very good question and the funny thing is that I have been actually faced with exactly the same issue regarding HMS Victory and paint. I am building a model for someone and I'm trying to figure out a way to build it without paint. But, I don't like the way the ship looks without paint. Or at least the way the completed kit might look if I build it without paint. Personally, I think the bias for no paint on a model is just a bias. It's all personal opinion and my own is that paint can frame a model quite nicely and create a contrast that can make the wood on a model stand out. Most ships never looked the way an all wood finish model looks, but that's fine if that's what you like. I'm thinking I'd like to build the Victory with natural wood tone for the yellow bands and for the area that would normally be coppered and then where it's black, I'd like to paint it. Then, that makes it easier to paint the stern galleries which might look a bit odd unpainted while using the kit supplied parts, at least to me. In my experience, when someone asks what people think about a topic, they usually have something in mind and are looking for some encouragement to follow their own ideas. If you feel your model should be all natural, then that's the way you should build it, and if you think it needs some paint, then don't worry about it and go ahead and paint. There should be plenty of examples of both on MSW. As for my case, I need to figure out a way to convince the owner that we'll have a great looking model with my limited paint scheme plan. So, unfortunately, I can't follow my own advice and just do it the way I want. But, good luck and regardless of what you decide, I'll be looking forward to seeing your build here on MWS, Clare

Hi Robbyn, I feel your pain! Or rather, I felt your pain when I went through the same thing. Your model is looking great. Quite a challenge! Nice job, Clare

Thanks Chuck, I'm now at the point where I'm starting to wonder if I should have stopped early and had a nice un-rigged longboat model. Addling blocks to the mast and all, I already managed to snap the mast at one of sheave holes. It's repaired now, but I worry it may be a little weak. I'll have to be extra careful adding all the rigging. Still moving forward though. Clare P.S. I'll email you the latest newsletter, but the SF club isn't nearly as interesting as the San Diego group!

Hi Scott, I have that book too and love looking through it. Like David B I was fortunate enough to visit Dr. Arnold Kriegstein's home to see his collection. Simply amazing models and, as has been said here, all done without power tools. Put's my own ship modeling work to shame... Of course, so do so many great ship modelers on this site. Clare

I'm determined to finish this model up in the next week or so. During the week, I finished the gudgeons and pintles, and finished making the windlass and handles. Yesterday, I added the thole pins. The windlass is made from square stock basswood. I considered making this from boxwood but the basswood worked well enough. The hardest part was creating the holes for the handles. I drilled, poked with a pointy #11 X-Acto knife and got them about the right size. Finally, I just pushed the handle into each hole. The square section of the handle kind of evened out the square opening. It's not perfect, but I think it's about the best I'm going to do, at least this time. The thole pins were kind of interesting. I'm not much of a jig maker, but this time, I ended up taking a piece of brass and making a drill pattern so that all the thole pins are spaced a consistent distance apart. Last thing on the rudder were the decorations. Again, mine were printed on decal paper. I realized at some point that I had used clear decal paper instead of white decal paper. The problem with this was that if the decals are placed directly on wood, the color are very subdued. This wasn't a problem with the friezes at the gunwales as I had already painted these areas white. For the rudder, I found that I had to paint white ovals where the decals were to be located. After these dried, I added the decals, which looked fine. For the handles for the rudder and the windlass, I gave up trying to make a decent looking set out of basswood. Instead, I just took some boxwood strips and made these. They are the only use of wood on the model that is not basswood. Clare

Hello Bob, I just added my build log to the group and dropped in to take a look at your build. You've done a beautiful job and I'm intrigued by the departures you've made from the kit. Very interesting! I can't wait to see what comes next... Clare

Thank you Bob, it's good to be here... finally! I have to say, I originally thought the kit was just okay. But, over the course of working on it, and yes I took the long slow route, I've really come to love the way this model looks. You know, I'm tempted to do another one. If I did, at minimum, I'd try adding nails at the frames or at least simulate it. Of course, I'd better finish this one... and maybe some of those other projects that are just sitting around waiting for attention. Here's one more photo taken at the Good Sam Showcase of Miniatures in San Jose, CA a couple weekends ago. The South Bay Model Shipwrights club was given 1/2 a table to set up a display, so I brought my Mary Taylor model and this "in-progress" model. I'd made a simple base and stand for it in time for the show. I think that little bit of work on it made me realize I need to get it done. Here's the longboat displayed next to a couple 1:350 models done by Patrick Moloney, one of the other members of the group. And, the in-progress longboat up close. I made the base from a piece of cherry wood I had. I seldom use the router table I bought a couple years ago, so it was nice to have a quick job to do here. The posts are actually brass tubing over a thinner brass rod. The inner rod actually stops about 1/2" from the top of the tubing and small brass rods were fit into the keel of the longboat that fit snugly into the tubes. Works well and allows me to remove the model to work on it. I have other models where there is a fixed rod that fits into holes in the keel, but it is too easy to miss the holes when mounting the hull. The result is small dings to the keel or hull. This way, the model keeps clear of the stand until the ends of the fixed rods in the keel are fit into the tubing of the stands. Clare

With this installment, I'm about up to where I was on my other build log. I've done some work since then, but I'll leave it for another time to update the log here. As you can see in these photos, I've added the floorboards, risers, platforms and stern seats. I used Chuck's technique for scribing the moldings and was really happy with how they turned out. The wood is all treated with a 50/50 mix of Golden Oak and Natural stains. The paint was my own mix of acrylics. I know the brighter red is more authentic, so I chalk up the darker color mix to artistic license. In the fourth photo, if you look carefully, you can see the light shining through the thin planking above the waterline. Finally, I did start the metal work here, shaping the kit provided brass and using the "Brass Black" solution that Bluejacket sells. I find that I get better results using their product than with A-West's "Blacken-It" product. Anyway, the blackened brass was then given a clear coat and glued into place. Clare

Here are the photos from my second installment of the build, following up the planking with trimming the framing. Now we jump ahead a little because I didn't take any photos of the process of painting and applying the friezes. As with others, I found the printed friezes in the kit didn't fit my model. Chuck was nice enough to provide reduced size friezes, but I found that even then they were still too big. But, with the files that Chuck provided, I could simply reduce them myself to get something that would fit nicely. In my case, I reduced the art to 95% and it fit great. The next problem I encountered with the art was that my printer wasn't producing something that I found satisfactory. It's a good printer, a Canon 780, but adjusting the color just didn't work well enough to suit me. I also tried different kinds of paper, but still not happy. Finally, I remembered I had some Testors brand decal paper and I tried that. Worked like a charm and I was very happy with the results. The color looks good, though different from the original art, and the decals are nice and thin. Clare

I'd had a build log for my 18th Century English Longboat going on another site, but it's time to post it here with my other build logs. I started this kit back when the item first came out. I'd been working on some scratch projects and I thought it would make a good diversion to pull out and work on now and again. It's been "in progress" though for so long and far enough along now that I'm ready to put all my effort into finishing up this model. I've had a great time with this kit and I'm pretty happy with how it has turned out. It's pretty rare for me to build a kit without changing things, but so far I've pretty good about not fooling around with changes and just building the model. It's not as nice as some of the fabulous work I see in some of the other build logs. But aside from skill issues, I like to blame any faults on my desire to keep this as a tinkering model to bring out now and again when I need a break from another project. I'll begin here with a photo recap of the project. Again, this began around January of 2012 (I think that's when I got the kit – it's all kind of a blur now...). As you can see, I had a little trouble with the bending of the basswood at the bow, particularly dealing with the third plank up from the garboard. I also had enough trouble with the edge bending that the planks weren't all laying flat. So, I sanded to compensate. As a result, there's some REALLY THIN planking there. In a later photo, you might see the light shining through it. However, I did manage not to sand all the way through and the planks look pretty even. Clare

Is it appropriate to wish everyone a Happy Trafalgar Day then?

On a different note on ordering products from Ancre Books, a friend and fellow ship modeler followed up my discussions of the new book I bought from Ancre by ordering a copy of fourth book in the 74-gun Ship series. He had the first 3 books and just needed the fourth. When he received his order, he discovered that he'd been sent the entire series instead of just the one book he needed. He only got charged for the book he ordered. So, if anyone in the U.S. is interested in getting 3 of the 4 books. Let me know and I'll pass the word. He's looking at selling the books and sending the money to Ancre. The books are brand new and cost around $300, but you'll end up saving a bundle on the shipping since it's all domestic shipping. Clare

Hi Andy, Your model is looking great. It was a pleasure meeting you recently and I'm anxious to see your progress updates! Clare

Hi Jay, Glad to see you haven't given up on ship modeling after all. Sorry you didn't come to our little gathering in Vallejo. It was a nice get-together and I got to meet a couple more ship modelers in the general vicinity. Hope I wasn't bugging you too much to attend, but I really wanted to meet the man behind the beautiful model! I'll be looking forward to following your updates. Nice job on those windmills too! Clare

Hi Popeye, Your build is looking great regardless of the whole caprail issue. And on that, there is one of the dangers of having photos of an actual ship or replica available. If you didn't have those photos, you might be perfectly happy! And as far as kits and those "Oh, Sh**" moments, as Bob put it, I've been working on a scratch project and seem to have a lot more of those moments than ever before. You just can't escape them no matter what... Clare