catopower

Thanks Tim, I appreciate the support. No doubt, a wooden model is nothing like plastic. Even though there are a bunch of cast metal parts, most everything has to be fabricated. To add to it, BJ's "instructions" are more of a guide than step by step instructions. For me, that means alot of research as i go along. Still, it's fun learning new things and I do love a challenge. I just read through your Alfred log. Very impressive work and a beautiful ship. A bunch of things in the beginning I wish I had read several months ago, and alot of good ideas and tricks that I will certainly use moving forward.
 
I'm now moving on to the outside hull details, starting with the airports. the brass fitting supplied by BJ are nice, but they do not have the shield (eyebrow) over the top half as they are on the ship. I felt that this would be a nice detail and would also make the ports more visible once installed, When perfectly flat, they all but disappear. The supplied airports are 1/16" thick and 1/8" in diameter. To make the eyebrows, I cut some 36 gauge brass sheet into 5/64" strips and then cut pieces that would be long enough to fit around half of the airport. I used 1/8: brass tubing to bend these pieces to the proper curve and then glued them to the edge of the airports with CA glue. I'll have some photos shortly

It's hard to believe this is your first wood ship model. I too have a background in plastic models but little of that experience helped with wood models except for painting. You are doing a superb job on a challenging kit.

The foil tape is only a few thousandths thick and conforms nicely as it is applied. The adhesive backing makes application very simple, and it is surprisingly strong. The times I need to remove a piece to reposition, it was not easy to remove and once removed the piece was unusable. At first I thought to apply these end to end and cut the lines between the plates. After doing this, I found that the cut pieces were essentially indistinguishable from the uncut pieces, so I stopped cutting them. I know that the plates are supposed to overlap, but in reality, the plates are pounded flat making the overlap unnoticeable and with this very thin foil, it was hardly discernable. In the end, I was satisfied with them being individually uncut. Since I was basically laying them four plates at a time, it was fairly easy to maintain the alignment. I started at the keel and worked my way up. About four rows up, it required the first gore strake and then about every other one. Before reaching the top, the dressing plates were applied. As I continued moving from the bottom up, I cut the pieces to butt up against the dressing. This didn't give a very clean line, and so I removed the bottom dressing. Knowing where this line would be, I cut the lower strakes to just fit under the bottom dressing. When finished, the bottom dressing was replaced, just overlapping the lower strakes and giving a nice clean line.
 

 

 
I know the method I used "cheated" a little, but I am quite happy with the result and it only took two weeks to complete the entire hull

After finishing the inside planking, I decided to go ahead and copper the hull. Once again, I spent alot of time deciding how to make the nail impressions on the copper. I don't really like the look of the copper plates offered by BlueJacket. Too me, the holes appear too large and give the surface a bit too much texture. The sandpaper method used by @JSGerson was clever and seemed simple enough, but I wanted something with a little more pattern to it, even though again from any distance at all, it would hardly be noticeable. I tried making a stencil from the 3D decals used above to give me something to make an impression. This almost worked, but not quite. Finally, I got a friend who had a 3D printer to make some pieces for me that I could use to make a nice impression on copper foil tape. The tape that I used was 1/4", which I know is not quite to scale, but I felt it was close enough. The 3D printed stamps were 1/4" wide and 3" long with .4mm raised spots and a raised line to separate the individual plates (3/4" each). Here is the pattern used:

 
and here is the stamp

 
Under the stamp, you can see the jig I made to hold the copper tape. The stamp itself is glued to a popsicle stick. With the tape in place, the stamp could be positioned into the slot and pressed down to make an impression in the copper
 

 

 

 

Moving on to the bulwark planking, I spent a lot of time trying to decide how to add the bolt head details, something that I felt gives a nice finish to the look of the model even though at more than foot or two away, they are all but invisible. The "rivets" made by @JSGerson looked really good, but at 1/98th scale the 0.6mm would be equivalent to 2" and I felt would be too large. I tried using the plastic Tichy Train rivets, but these were impossible to handle. I also tried the glue drop method, but was never satisfied with the result. The drops tended to flatten out as they dried and it was very difficult to get uniform size drops. Finally, I came across the Archer 3D decals. These decals, designed for making rivets and bolt heads on plastic models, are 0.36mm in diameter, which is equivalent to 1.4" at scale - perfect.

 
The decals come with various spacings, which is probably great for those working with plastic models, but obviously I only needed one spacing. Unfortunately, this is all that Archer offers. In the end, I found that trying to apply more than two or three at a time was too difficult anyway and found it easier to apply one at a time. To help with alignment, i made a jig to draw a straight line the length of the 24" planks. The planks I used were 1/32 x 3/32. To get two evenly spaced lines, I glued a 1/32 strip of plastic to the edge of a board leaving just enough space to slide the plank under. This allowed me to mark a line that was 1/32" from the edge. Flip it around and do the same for the other side and I had two lines that were 1/32" apart

 


 
Now came the tedious part. I scored the decals between each dot so that they would come off individually, then cut into strips. To get the spacing correct, I photocopied the original decal sheet and taped this to the table to use as a guide. The decals are your basic slide off type, just get them wet and slide them off and onto the plank. Well, almost anyways. These decals are designed to be applied to a perfectly smooth plastic surface. The texture of the wood made them not want to stick. To fix this, I found that by wetting the wood it would provide enough surface tension to pull the decal down and allow them to slide enough for repositioning. Once I got the hang of it, I could finish two rows on a singly 24" plank in a little less than 2 hours. Once dried, MicroSol decal set was applied to get them to snug down. At this point they are still very easy to rub off. Once painted, they are fixed. I used an airbrush to apply the paint to preserve as much of the detail as I could
 

 

 

 
Considering the time needed to do this and the fact that the gundeck bulwarks would not be visible, I only did this for the spar deck

Temporary? Now I get it. Clare!

Thanks Druxey!
 
Actually those stays are just temporary to hold the masts steady while I work on the shrouds. They'll come off and be replaced with real stays, which is why these are white. 
 
In earlier photos, you can see the hearts that you're talking about that the forestay will later get rigged to.
 
As for the mainstay, I don't know how accurate it is, but I'll be following the provided plans, which have it running to a heart that you can see located on the foremast.
 
I'm glad you're keeping an eye on my work!

Thanks Druxey!
 
Actually those stays are just temporary to hold the masts steady while I work on the shrouds. They'll come off and be replaced with real stays, which is why these are white. 
 
In earlier photos, you can see the hearts that you're talking about that the forestay will later get rigged to.
 
As for the mainstay, I don't know how accurate it is, but I'll be following the provided plans, which have it running to a heart that you can see located on the foremast.
 
I'm glad you're keeping an eye on my work!

Today, I finished serving the shrouds.
 
Boy, it's been a long time since I've done this kind of work. I felt like I was having to re-learn a lot, and they took me a while to finish.
 

Hi Chris, your Brig Phoenix is looking great. Too bad the MK kits are pretty well gone at the moment. It would make a nice companion to HMS Wolf, being similar size and the same scale. I have to say, I'm rather enjoying working at 1/72 scale.
 
Jeff,  it's for the new optional "Serve-Writer" attachment. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble getting it to interface with my Mac. Must be a PC-only thing... 😁
 
brunnels, thanks for the nice comments. It requires a lighter touch. But, it's also a lot sturdier than most people think. Still, the whole reason I've been "upgrading" the chainplates is so I don't tear the channels off the model while trying to rig it. I've built two other single-masted paper sailing ship models without any rigging problems. This is the first with two masts. Will I be successful? Stay tuned!

Today, I finished serving the shrouds.
 
Boy, it's been a long time since I've done this kind of work. I felt like I was having to re-learn a lot, and they took me a while to finish.
 

Hi Chris, your Brig Phoenix is looking great. Too bad the MK kits are pretty well gone at the moment. It would make a nice companion to HMS Wolf, being similar size and the same scale. I have to say, I'm rather enjoying working at 1/72 scale.
 
Jeff,  it's for the new optional "Serve-Writer" attachment. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble getting it to interface with my Mac. Must be a PC-only thing... 😁
 
brunnels, thanks for the nice comments. It requires a lighter touch. But, it's also a lot sturdier than most people think. Still, the whole reason I've been "upgrading" the chainplates is so I don't tear the channels off the model while trying to rig it. I've built two other single-masted paper sailing ship models without any rigging problems. This is the first with two masts. Will I be successful? Stay tuned!

No real progress yet. Been working too much. But, I did manage to try threading those 2mm blocks.
 
Worked out fine using 0.1mm Amati tan rigging line, as well as some of BenD's (RopesOfScale) 0.25mm black cotton line. Of course, in all cases, I had to use a dab of thin CA and trimmed the end to a point to thread it through. Clearly, I didn't wax any line here.
 

Also managed to complete assembly of my Syren Serv-O-Matic. I can start working on the shrouds and stays now!

Managed to finish these preliminary chainplates yesterday. Hopefully, this will make the rigging of the shrouds easier, which is coming soon.
 

Meanwhile, I just recieved some of Chuck's 2mm 3D printed blocks to use for the gun tackles. Wow, are these things tiny! I have some of Chuck's original 2mm pear wood blocks, and the size difference is more than I'd expected, at least visually. Wooden blocks on the left, 3D printed on the right.


I measured the wooden blocks and they come out to 2.13mm long, the 3D printed ones are 1.92mm.  So, they really are very close. The 3D printed ones are a little shorter and noticeably narrow, so they SEEM so much tinier. I guess the test will be to see what a gun tackle and train tackle look like, rigged. 
 
This assumes, of course, that I can actually add them to already placed cannons... 🤔
 
 

Today, I finished serving the shrouds.
 
Boy, it's been a long time since I've done this kind of work. I felt like I was having to re-learn a lot, and they took me a while to finish.
 

Today, I finished serving the shrouds.
 
Boy, it's been a long time since I've done this kind of work. I felt like I was having to re-learn a lot, and they took me a while to finish.
 

Today, I finished serving the shrouds.
 
Boy, it's been a long time since I've done this kind of work. I felt like I was having to re-learn a lot, and they took me a while to finish.
 

Today, I finished serving the shrouds.
 
Boy, it's been a long time since I've done this kind of work. I felt like I was having to re-learn a lot, and they took me a while to finish.
 

Today, I finished serving the shrouds.
 
Boy, it's been a long time since I've done this kind of work. I felt like I was having to re-learn a lot, and they took me a while to finish.
 

Today, I finished serving the shrouds.
 
Boy, it's been a long time since I've done this kind of work. I felt like I was having to re-learn a lot, and they took me a while to finish.
 

Today, I finished serving the shrouds.
 
Boy, it's been a long time since I've done this kind of work. I felt like I was having to re-learn a lot, and they took me a while to finish.
 

Just a reminder that the video instructions for this are continually being uploaded to Artesania's YouTube playlist. 
 
They are currently at video #42.
 
Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6VAfr_M2jg&list=PLSWjc49gHdjlmgxz-loTM9MorsDryYgHO

Ah! It does look very nice indeed. 

An amazing looking kit! Thanks for the look inside James!
 
For those that are interested, Ages of Sail just got these in stock on Friday, and they are shipping them out as of today.
 
 

Here she is in the sun in standoff distance for reference.

 

 
Probably the worst offender/viewing angle.