Aussie048

I've been working on a little bit of double duty as I get closer to the finish of the Confederacy.  I've started the ships boats, but have also been working on anchors and small details of the ship. 
 
   Nothing particularly complicated with the anchors. As with most of the laser cut parts, the anchor stocks are pretty beefy and required a fair amount of sanding.  I used pin files to notch them of course, but the wood itself is soft, so I used nothing grittier than 400 grain sandpaper to ease them down bit by bit and bevel them.
 

 
   Pretty standard stuff with the bolts, just clipped off some nails and blackened them.
 

 
Likewise with the bands - once again the instructions call for card stock, which I think is a perfectly viable option and probably even simulates a better thickness to the bands.  But I love the look of using metal instead, so I trimmed some more strips and blackened them as well.
 

 
   After test fitting both the anchors I stained them up - then finished off the rings and served them with thread.
 

 
My intent was to just lash the anchors to the model - as Chuck points out in his primer, that was the case with Navy Board style models (even though I've taken some liberties elsewhere.  After lashing the starboard anchor, I realized that because I added a couple extra upper deck cannon to the port side - simply lashing the anchor would interfere!
 


    So here's where I went rogue... I decide to keep the starboard lashed, but rig the port side to the cathead.  Crazy talk!  I pulled a page from Mastini's book since I couldn't really remember the details, carved out and constructed a pulley and rigged her up.  This will be the back side of the model, so I didn't go full-on with details - but I think it looks fair and adds a interesting wrinkle.
 

 
  I also got the chance to mount the waist stanchions and railings.
 

 
  Finally - an important transition!  I made the switch from the Dremel workbench to the stand.  She's getting closer...  
 

I really struggled with the decision of either closing in the waist with the Swiss Pear that the deck was planked with, or closing in the waist with the lighter wood.  Ultimately, I decided on the lighter as a means - artistically - of bringing the two very distinct colors together.  Knowing that the cross beams and the small boats would be lighter, I wanted to tie it all together.  I figured that if everything was the darker pear, and the beams and boats were light, it'd just be a bit too much of a contrast.  *Sigh*
 
    At any rate - I'm not overly confident in my decision, as there is a definite disparity in having the gangways a different color than the rest of the planking.  A this point, I'm pretty sure I don't want to tear it all up and re-do it to see how the Pear looks. I do intend to trim the smaller boats with some pear to bring it all together.  
 
    So I started with the waist by sanding down and adding holes to all the knees.  Pretty straightfoward stuff here.  My own personal method of the "nails" was to drill out three small holes, then poke them with pencil lead.  I took essentially what Augie did with the other deck knees to try and keep some consistency. 
 

 
    The knees didn't hold to the bulwarks for crap no matter what glue I tried.  Especially with the red paint having already been coated with a satin laquer of some kind.  So I posted some brass nails into each knee to get it to hold solidly in place.
 

 
    On to the gangways - the usual method of planking, glued some strips together after lining the edges with pencil lead to simulate the calking.  Worth noting here that I had to do the Starboard side twice, because the first time I trimmed it too short.  Ugh.  What's that old saying - measure twice cut once?  
(Yeah - and my father was a carpenter for 30 years, so let's not tell him about this mistake, shall we?)
 

 
   Ladders.... oh ladders.  I pretty much hate ladders. I blow through quite a bit of wood here because I botch them pretty consistently and end up having to red-do a lot of steps, etc.  Then, it's still a struggle for me to get them anywhere close to even.  Ladders are truly my achilles heel.
 

 
   The instructions for the skid beams call for card stock to simulate the crutches, but I'm not into that - especially when I have small strips of brass lying around all over the place.  So I cut up some brass, bended it to fit, then drilled holes in the bottom to fit a brass nail.  I blackened all of it, then mounted all the skid beams.
 

Got a bit of detail work sorted out over the weekend.  I spent almost an entire day finishing up the Starboard side deadeyes and strops, etc.  Then I went through and touched up every strop, deadeye and eyebolt that needed to be blackened a bit.
 
    I went back through mine and Augie's notes to finish off some of the other details that needed to be attended to, such as Zeus' trident on the Transom and remounting the rudder and chains.
 

 
      Finally, I started to concentrate on the masts. I couldn't actually find the 13mm dowels that were supposed to be used for the fore and main masts, so I had to go track some down from my local hobby store.  I had a handful of cleats left over from another project, so it gave me a chance to use my snazzy new airbrush.  Worked pretty well, except they all needed to be taped down - after my first attempt at 'airbrushing' blew them all off the counter and had me on my hands and knees picking cleats up off the floor.  
     The color was a combination of Vallejo Airbrush colors light brown and yellow ochre.
 

 
      In order to get the cleats properly spaced, I used a thin strip of masking tape to measure the exact diameter of the dowel (after I did a little smoothing/sanding). I laid that strip onto my ruler, then equally divided it by the number of cleats needed. I then reapplied the tape to the mast, drilled the holes appropriately, and mounted the cleats.
 


 
     Finally, instead of using cardstock to simulate the mast rings as indicated in the plans, I decided to try and use the extra laster cut mast bases. Since there were only two left and I needed four - that meant splitting them in half. A delicate process to be sure!
 

 
  But, I was ultimately successful. They weren't perfectly even, but even enough to sand down and get close.  Obviously they stuck out way to far, so I then sanded them down to make them even with the wrapped line. 
 

 
  After the usual coats of pre-stain and Natural stain, they turned out pretty well.

I've trudged through some progress this week, whittling away at the repetitive bits.  I'm doubling up on photos from a previous post here (sorry) but I'd worked on prepping all the deadeyes and strops while working on the gunport lids.  
 

 
This ended up being pretty valuable time use, so when it came time to mount the channel plates and subsequently the deadeyes, it was a nice little assembly line.
 
   I prepped my eyebolts and nails with 50/50 black-it and water mix.  I always have a bit of trouble with eyebolts as the metal is difficult to prep, and the blackening doesn't end up super consistent.  Most of the time it ends up requiring some touch up.  My plan is to go through and touch up the shiny bits after all the deadeyes are fully mounted.
 

 
   I also realize I didn't quite get the angles correct on the strops when they're mounted to the hull. I had some difficulty with the different lengths of strop parts and getting them arranged properly.  The difference in sizes was SO minute that I just couldn't figure out the different lengths to create a proper parallel line on the hull withe the different angles.  Ugh.
 

 
   At any rate - the good news here (I guess) is that this won't be particularly noticeable to the average eye since there aren't any ratlines or shrouds actually attached to the deadeyes, so the lines from the masts and crosstrees to the hull won't be inconsistent... cuz there won't be any...
 
yes... I'm rationalizing.    
 

Thanks Popeye. With all these snow days I was able to put some quality time into the build this weekend, and still had time to take the admiral out for a Valentines Day dinner on Saturday night, between storms.
 
I have been planking the mast tops, both the upper and lower sides. It was a little tricky around the hole for the jeer lines, but I think I finally have them all.
 

 

 

 
I have to clean up some planking on the mizzen top but the glue was still drying when I took the pictures.
 
I have also been painting the masts, coats, and caps. Three coats of either black or white. White for the lower masts, trestle and cross trees, and tops is next up. The topmasts, mast coats, and caps are all ready to go, although I need to add some hardware to the caps.
 

 

 

 

 
I made the two metal rollers that go on the backs of the fore and main caps from some brass strip that I bent into a U shape, and drilled holes in the bottom of the U for a nail to hold it to the cap, and two holes in the sides for a piece of wire to fit in. These are really small so I did not get any pictures while making them. I will say that I used the mill to drill the holes and it was a whole lot easier than the drill press. I only broke 1 bit in the process and that was my fault.

The mast top factory is in full swing.
 

 
I started with the trestle and cross trees for the three masts, and added the bolsters and sheaves for the jeers. I thought I would stop there but decided to make the upper parts of the tops too. I started with the laser cut sheets and cleaned them up, then added the timber along the aft edges for the rails to fit into.
 
I traced the forward edges of these pieces onto some 1/16" sheet and drew out the shapes for the forward edge pieces. I cut these out roughly with an X-Acto knife and sanded them to almost final shape. I glued them to the sheets and will finish sanding the outside edges later.
 

 

 
These are supposed to be only 1/32" high, but I am going to plank these tops on the top and bottom sides, because pictures of the tops in the instructions clearly show the planking. After planking with 1/32" strips, these edge pieces will be exactly the right height. I used straight 1/16" wood strips for the side pieces.
 

 
Here are the trestle and cross trees resting on the masts.  I can now start painting the masts, mast coats, and tops.
 

 
I am going to make the holes for the fids in the topmasts larger so I can fit a 1/16" square fid into them. The way they are now the fid would look too small to me to hold up these topmasts. Another thing I did was to add small strips of wood inside the trestle trees at the foremasts, because the trestle trees had to be pretty far apart of fit over the bands at the tops of the masts. These strips give the topmasts some better support so they aren't so floppy.

Thanks so much Robert. 
 
OK vossiewulf, you saved me some work. When I got home tonight I thought I'd give your method a try. I had nothing to loose since I was going to remake the topmasts anyway. I cut off the round sections, drilled holes in a piece of square stock and the topmasts for a piece of dowel, filed in the tenons at the top of the new square section and glued them on. I made sure the square section at the top lined up to the square section at the bottom and the new part was lined up lengthwise with the rest of the mast.
 

 

 
Overall, I think they came out pretty well. The joint is hard to see and will be covered by the topmast trestle and cross trees, and this part will be painted black to boot. I think they will be pretty strong with the size dowel I used, too. Thanks for the advice.

As per the instructions, I nailed a temporary batten along the  starboard side so when I set the gun port sills they will flow smoothly along the side.

I looked very far ahead in the plans about masting. The instructions say to carve a round tenon on the heel of each of the two masts.  Since I am terrible at carving symetrical anything, so I Center drilled the mast material provided in the kit and will glue a dowel to fit that hole. That will be the heel of each mast. Then I drilled holes the size of the dowels in the bulkhead frame to the correct rake angles. The fore mast is almost perpendicular while the aft has a considerable aft rake (on the Argus plan,)

The kit comes with detailed patterns. When I cut them out I carefully cut along the bottom line which depicts the gun sill. This way when laid on the bulkhead frames it will give me the exact vertical as well as horizontal locations for all pieces.

I thought I would share my little idea for plank bending.
 
 
I'm not sure how original it is, but I have never seen one just like it..
 
 
Basically, it is half the bottom of a large tin can, attached to a base board.
 

 
I place the end of my wet plank into the slot  and use a clamp to adjust the amount
of bend ..  ( I soak in plain water for a few of minutes, depending on the type of wood )
 
 

 
 
I direct a hot blow dryer onto the jig for about two minutes.  This is usually enough to dry the wood.
This picture does not show the wood, but it is there when the dryer is on.
 

 
I wait at least 5 minutes before taking the wood out of the jig.  It needs to cool before the bend is fully set.
 

Hi folks,
 
I thought I would do a bit of a tool review on a great new tool I have just received.  Michael Mott, in his build log for the restoration of the Basset Lowke Albertic introduced a great new third-hand he had designed for himself - a new take on the usual designs.  This looked very promising but as I am no tool maker, I asked him if he might make one for me - which he did  See following picture.
 

 
This was such a great adaption of the common cheap tool that are usually next to impossible to use for finer soldering projects, that I started looking at alternate uses for it.  I realised it could also be very useful for rigging and opened another discussion with Michael on alternate clamp designs/arrangements that would not crush rope cordage, but could also be utilised for working wire rope where necessary.  Michael has agreed to trial a few alternate clamps and has asked me to feed back to him on how useful they are.  I thought the best way to do this is via a tool comparison and review; so here goes.
 
Early in my hobby days, I had purchased two of those cheap version you can find in many tool, hobby and electronics stores.  These were okay for basic use, until I found they were difficult to configure exactly for the job at hand, the clamps were very poor quality (fit, purpose, pressure) and marred the parts, or crushed the fibres of rope.  I made a quick fix by putting heat shrink on the alligator clamp teeth which helped with grip and stopped some crushing of the fibres, but they still were not flexible enough to configure to hold small parts for a tight fit for soldering.
 
I looked around on the Internet and found what looked like the best solution available; the GRS soldering station used by many jewellers, and some electronics guys - they seemed to have good reviews, and although expensive I invested in one.  See the following photo:
 

 
These have proven much better for soldering but did not resolve my rigging requirements.  I then made a jig, based on a jig made by CristiC (I think) to assist in rigging which I used in conjunction with my 'rigging crab' which is an adaption of an idea by the late 'Hubert Sicard' on his Wood Ship Modelling Dummies site.  However I still found I needed another arm, so invested in a single arm version of the GRS third arm soldering station.  These can all be seen in the following photo:
 

 
This collection of tools and jigs worked okay for my Endeavour rigging - that was until I saw what Michael had designed .
 
Michael's third-arms are very well made, and with a wider spaced/longer base arm, and rotating components that can be tightened securely without damage to the arms, provide great flexibility in positioning to hold parts or cordage.  The flexibility is enhanced with some great clamps, of which a wider range will be available after some further refining (if needed) whenI have used them for a while.  I will provide an update to these clamps once I have received them and had an opportunity to try them for awhile:
 
1.  soldering small and larger pieces typically used in our hobby;
 
2.  holding soft cordage in various sizes for various tasks such as whipping, seizing, making tackles etc.; and
 
3.  holding wire rope for the same purposes.
 
With the wider spread of the lower bar, I am also going to trial its use to hold spars while fitting stirrups and blocks etc.
 
As to soldering, at times you just need another hand to hold things, so I am going to trial an adaption to the base to allow me to screw in one of my GRS arms.  I opted for a rectangular rather than circular base, and glad I did now as I can drill and tap a hole in one of the corners to allow me to fit that arm out of the way and get max configuration options   Happy days!
 
If anyone has any queries, or additional comments to make please feel free to add to this thread.
 
cheers
 
Pat

I just glued on the keel making sure there is equal distance on each side of the rabbet strip. Stern post goes on after planking.

I just glued the stem knee to the rabbet strip being very careful to keep it centered with equal distance on either side for correct planking space. I shall add the keel piece next,  but hold off on the stern piece until after planking as per the instructions. This is a mistake I made on all my previous models and it made planking a lot harder. Good tip, Chuck

I formed the bearding area between the line and rabbet strip. I tried carving it with poor success, so I sanded it.
 
I've now placed the bulkhead former between two one inch boards in a vise to make it perfectly straight while I glue on the keel, stem and stern.

Here's the Argus' flaired  rudder next to the print of the straight Syren rudder

Since I can't stand just waiting for glue to dry, so I decided to modify the rudder. Syren's rudder slants straight down while the Argus's rudder has a flare at the bottom. So, I formed and glued a small triangular piece to the base of the kit's rudder which I will shape into the Argus rudder

Gluing on the rabbet strip. First I sanded off the "char" left by laser cutting to give the glue a better hold. After applying PVA glue, I made sure strip was centered on the piece. than clamped and rubber banded it in place.
 
By the way, Chuck Passaro who designed this kit is being very supportive in my attempt to make it into the Argus. Thank you Chuck.

I'm adding the rabbet strip. The instructions said soak the strip 10 minutes, which I did, and the strip bent beautifully! I will leave it set overnight then glue it. Once the glue sets I will carve the bearding line.  I've made space for the planks on the keel, stem and stern on two previous models but I didn't know the terms rabbet and bearding. See, you can teach an old dog new tricks.
 
The pipe in the picture is one of my soaking tubes...just PVC pipe with end caps.

How do you eat an elephant?......"Start chewing on the toe!"
 
I cut out my first piece. Excellent laser cuts except for one vertical. I had to cut it myself since the laser didn't go all the way through. 
 
I've got to stop and paste together some templates provided, then figure out how to use them.
 
Very little warping, but I put the piece under a flat piece of glass to make it perfect.

Hooray!!!  My kit arrived via USPS from Model Expo.  Outer box a little beat up but kit is okay.
 
I have to admit this model ship building is an addiction. With no kit to work on I was pacing the deck looking for things to do. I even contemplated tweaking my Connie that has been dormant for almost two years.
 
I'll spend some time checking the inventory  against what's in the box.
 
Then I will read the very, very comprehensive instruction book. It looks like the most detailed instructions I have ever seen in a kit.
 
The 1:1 drawings look very detailed.
 
Compared to the lack of instructions and drawings from that banned kit of the HMS Surprise, this is heaven.
 
 

I just got this mini caliper from a surgeon friend of mine who does micro surgery. They will help in trying to measure in tight places.

More getting ready.  I just changed all knife and scalpel blades. Sharpened the rest. Changed sandpaper in various sanding blocks.

Improved plug
Let's go again
 

 

 

 

 

Here are some more pictures from the real Constitution:
 
The base of the bowsprit inboard, covered with canvas:
 

 
Close ups of some mouses (mice?) on served stays:
 

 

 
Martingale (at the time I took this I had no idea what this was):
 

 
Tressel trees (not sure what mast this came from):
 

 
More to come later, but these may be the most interesting.