justsayrow

I want to give a shout out to John Garcia of Model Expo for good customer service. I wish all companies where like this. My missing parts have been shipped.

Getting Ready to Paint

No need for a fancy jig to mark the waterline. So far I've sprayed the top of the hull Haze gray, masked that off, and sprayed a coat of red on bottom. Photos coming soon.

Mast Construction,    32 days, 90 hours

The mast is made from 1/4" square basswood set on the diagonal and swept back 15 degrees. The yards are photo-etched brass reinforced with 1/16" square brass tubes glued with CA.
 

The yard braces are made from 1/32" square brass stock. The instructions said to glue these pieces together, but when it was time to sand them flush they just broke off.  Instead I soldered the main joint with long pieces, cut the braces slightly long with wire cutters, then sanded everything flush on a Proxxon disk sander. My other hobby is stained glass so I've done a lot of soldering.
 

It was hard to hold the mast in my vise because it is set on the diagonal, so I chopped a square hole in a piece of poplar to make a holder.
 
To make the platform braces I spun the brass stock against the sander to make a point that I shoved into the mast. I clipped the other end slightly long, sanded the end to match the platform, and glued both ends with CA. They are super strong.
 
The mast has a zillion tiny photo-etched pieces. I put on my magnifying headset and started snipping, filing, and gluing. The 8 little antennas on the top mast extension are about the size of a grain of rice and were especially hard. It's good that the kit includes lots of spares because several pieces went flying, never to be seen again. The two radar antennas are cast pieces.
 
The mast took about 20 hours to build. It was challenging but actually a lot of fun, and it looks beautiful.

Don,
A/L's Swift is the model that planking really "clicked" for me. The lines are straight forward with a little challenge on the stern. It's also a fairly quick rig so the sense of accomplishment timeline is short. And it's a nice scale so you can scratch build a lot of details if you choose.
 
Plenty of build logs here for guidance.
 
Good luck!

The cross section will give you a new set of skills: a square rig.
 
Also it's a quick build. Out of the box it's pretty inaccurate though.

The cross section will give you a new set of skills: a square rig.
 
Also it's a quick build. Out of the box it's pretty inaccurate though.

Sideliner, I have drilled through brass many times with a 63 bit to an 85.  The first thing to do is put a dimple where the hole is then drill it out.  However one of the things I do is chuck the bit so that only an 1/8 " out of the chuck.  This helps to prevent the bit from wobbling.
David B

Try using a center punch in the strip before you try drilling the holes. It doesn't have to be so deep as to deform the strip. A small dimple will keep the bit from wandering.

Mast Houses
 
The mast houses are made up of 2 stacked laser cut pieces with the holes for the masts and ventilators pre-drilled.
 
Given the rough faces from the laser cutting and the need to eliminate the seam between the pieces I thought that sanding them smooth would be tedious and might result in rounded corners so I decided to face them with sheet styrene. Doing so gave a nice smooth “steel” finish, sharp corners and a slight coaming along the deck edge.
 

 
The details are a combination of kit items, scratch, and after market. Between them they are the anchor point for 15 masts, booms and cranes so there will be a lot of rigging around them.
 


 
Next will be the start of adding the 160+ bulwark braces (maybe not tedious but certainly repetitive).

When planking the hull, lay a plank on the Port side then lay the next on the Starboard side. Then back to the Port side and so on. If you plank just one half of the hull at once you will create a bend in the false keel. Make sure you plank evenly on both sides of the hull.

Thanks for the reassurance Dave B!  I've been looking at photos of the actual Bluenose and Bluenose II, and it looks to me like the name plates on the bulwarks and the stern were actually separate pieces of wood that were applied.  They are actually raised off the hull a bit.  So I think you're right - if I'm careful to cut the decals in the shape of those name plate pieces, and I paint the edges black (to hide the white paper), it is probably a pretty good depiction of those being made from wood pieces.
 
The decal paper I was using had a very gloss finish, so I'm going to try some tests with some more normal adhesive paper and perhaps card stock to see if I can get the finish to better match the ship's paint.
 
I'm thinking I'll have to do the scroll work around the hawse pipes by hand though - from what I've seen that appears to be painted directly on the hull.
 
I'm hoping to knock these out over the next couple of days!

Here is the Dumas 1954 Chris Craft Commander Express 36" model kit that I received. My first impressions were the size of the box was quite larger than I expected and weighs close to 15 pounds. It has the typical woods. I didn't get too much into it since this will be stored away until I finish my current Montane's build. But one thing I did take note of was the fittings weren't crome or shiny, but looked like either lead or pot metal fittings and will need some type of finishing on them. But here are a few pics as to what it looks like at this point.
 
This will be my first attempt at R/C building. I had thought about building this for my grand baby and son in law, but I think it might be a bit to large for them, so I might decide to sell it once completed to re-coop what I have invested in it. I'm mainly building it just to get a change from cannons and rigging and to try my hand at something else.
 
 
mike

Caprail Details
 
During my visit to the SS John Brown I was struck by the large number of eyes and cleats along the cap rail of the bulwarks, mainly in the vicinity of the hatches. I used a diagram of the main deck proved to visitors to mark their number and locations. Later, while doing research on the cargo rigging I discovered there was a need for so many so that wherever the cargo booms were positioned there would be a securing point for the boom vangs reasonably perpendicular to the boom in order to exert maximum control. You can see a couple of them here: 
 

 
The eyes were easy to make: just place a nail of the right diameter at the desired distance from the edge of a board, bend the wire around it and clip it at the board edge. I was able to make about 15-20/minute. The cleats were more time consuming. The wire was too small to solder easily so I just cut a slot in the end of some plastic rod and glued the wire in place. Unlike the eyes, they won’t be under any tension when I rig the model so I’m comfortable just going with glue.
 




 
Between the bulwark stiffeners, eyes and cleats that makes for over 300 small pieces just along the bulwarks so this is a good time and place to take a break for about 6 weeks while we go on an extended road trip. When I return I can get back to work with larger, less repetitive pieces.

@Jan + Kevin
 
Anyway too easy ;-)
 
I wait until the middle deck is done, then I decide to do the orlop and after this, once lower, middle and upper gun deck is done, I will decide to do the hold :-)
 
So, everybody happy now ?!?
 
:-) :-) :-)
 
XXXDAn

@Jan
 
DO! NOT! TEMPT! ME!
 
XXXDAn

Make sure you cut enough for the middle gun deck
(Assuming the lower one will ever be finished)
Btw did you ever consider the thought of rippi g out the lower deck in order to install the orlop deck?
 
Jan

Just prior to go on a business trip, I managed to finish the new deck
    Left old, right new, the planking pattern is much more even now.     Then got small pieces of wire, moulded on a head with diluted PVC glue in multiple layers to level up the still appearing unevennesses ...     ... splashed some paint on it and put them in place.     And then the exiting part: Try it out in situ :-)           Heyho, you won´t believe this, now the world looks much brighter again :-)   XXXDAn

If you don't mind me saying so, 2 oz fiberglass cloth is not what I would call "light". 1/2 oz or 3/4 oz cloth is light.
In my humble opinion, 2 oz cloth may be too heavy for a model like this. To be on the safe side, try a piece on some scrap, first. Just to get a feel for how it lays down and what it looks like after it's down.
I am basing this on my own personal experience with laying fiberglass. The lighter the glass, the more transparent it will be in the end (a good thing) and the easier it will be to prevent any wrinkles and/or bubbles. 

A ship manager I worked with liked to say it's a 3D business: Dirty, Difficult and Dangerous.

A ship manager I worked with liked to say it's a 3D business: Dirty, Difficult and Dangerous.

Kinda makes you start to appreciate why real shipyards have all gone to robotic cutting and welding!
 
 
Andy

Good evening everyone

looks like again this is going to be one of those projects that does not seam to grow very fast even considering the time put in

I appreciate this is not a race, but I like to  post  my progress as some of you also watch my HMS Victory build

anyway the transverse frames continue to be cut out (two on each frame, a port and starbord,) slotted and moved into position, now up to frame 89  - which started at 50 and the last one on this section of the build is 130

this is a very easy build, but very repetitive, but at the same time it is quite enjoyable, the size of it alone make it a fascinating build

please note that apart from the longitudinal frames  non of the transverse frames have been glued, this at present is just slotted card being held in to position by the fwd to aft frames, the centre line will be sorted towards the end

 

Thanks Don and Bob, and also to all of the "likes".
 
Just a little more progress this week. The hull has finally been prepared for fibre-glassing. Rather than continue with progressive grits of sandpaper, and the all of the dust that that entails, after the initial rough sanding, I used some cabinet scrapers to smooth the deck and remove any residual glue stains. I had been apprehensive about using the scrapers but after watching a couple of YouTube videos on how to prepare and sharpen (burnish) a scraper properly, I felt confident to give it a try. I have to say, it is a lot easier than I’d anticipated. It is also a lot quicker than sanding, and the major bonus is that there is not a lot of dust – just some very fine shavings. It also ensures that the plastic “caulking” strips have a smooth finish.  Once the scraping had been completed, I brushed on the mahogany stain provided in the kit, as per the kit directions. It is a water-based stain and was very easy to apply. The caulking strips were simply wiped over with a piece of paper towel to remove the stain from them and prevent any discolouring.  Here is where she is at today:
 

 
And a close up of the fore-deck:
 

 
I intend to delay fibre-glassing for a couple of weeks for two reasons. Firstly, we are going away for a few days next weekend, and secondly, I’d like to wait for the weather to warm up a little before tackling this as from what I’ve read the process is somewhat easier to get right with a little heat in the air.

Caprails
 
I used some strip wood (soaked in hot water to fit the curves) to fashion the cap rails. They scale out to 18” wide which is what I saw on the  SS John Brown.
The pencil marks are where the 90+ scratch eyes and cleats will go.
     

It's a shame that one can only click "Like This" once! Beautiful work.