md1400cs

Excellent - your log will be a "must go to" when the 1/35th is ordered and received. Very nice work!!
 
Regards,

Kevin,
Great work !!! - I saw your image on "at a glance" -- Did you add the oar hole covers, or did those also come with the kit? Nice detail.....
 
I'm waiting for the 1/35th to be available in the US - shipping directly from the Ukraine is very "OUCH". 
 
Again great work - looks awesome indeed.
 
Need to get back into this hobby - been MIA for too long......
 
Cheers,

Excellent - your log will be a "must go to" when the 1/35th is ordered and received. Very nice work!!
 
Regards,

The arch under the fore castle
Contrary to previous assumptions, this did serve as access from the upper deck to the fore castle.

The construction was done step by step.

The carved arch. 
"stair, ladder" not yet in place

Some "oops" work was required. The fore castle deck was too high relative to the rear castle deck.
Otherwise, the walkway above the anti-boarding net wouldn't have been at the correct height.

dry fit (and a bit uneven at the moment, as I can see in the photo)

 
 

Excellent - your log will be a "must go to" when the 1/35th is ordered and received. Very nice work!!
 
Regards,

Kevin,
Great work !!! - I saw your image on "at a glance" -- Did you add the oar hole covers, or did those also come with the kit? Nice detail.....
 
I'm waiting for the 1/35th to be available in the US - shipping directly from the Ukraine is very "OUCH". 
 
Again great work - looks awesome indeed.
 
Need to get back into this hobby - been MIA for too long......
 
Cheers,

far to late to change mine

 

Great job at weathering those planks!

Good evening everyone, thank you for comments and likes
 
deck plates- not finished yet
 
two sheets of plates have to be removed, separated and sanded,
 
i numbered each piece of mine prior to removal, as i was bound to mix them, the instruction don't show much, other than where they go, but great online tutorial

then sprayed all the edges with walnut, sanded them with 3500 grit pad, repeated, then sprayed over with Oak and sanded again
 
Been 34 deg in the mancave, too warm for me, so im slightly behind, where i would like to be, not a race, im pleased with the way it is turning out, But wood glue, is a real bug bare, even with just using a cocktail stick to apply. So before she is completed, i will remove some of the worst offenders and open them to reveal the hold
 
 





















no plates are glued down at this stage
 

Good morning everyone
 
Thank you for comments and likes
 
Day 8 Planking
 
Having never done a clinker build, i was expecting it to be far more difficult than it actually is.
The boards are made up in two halves, sanded then lined up against the rebates on the frames, frame 8 (bow and stern) is not a problem, but does need adjusting each time a run goes in, numbers 9 and ten, don't do much other than force the wood in the right direction
 
Before starting a temp piece is put in, and removed at a later date, all the boards then butt up against this, it also extends along the keel

board row number 1

 
row 2, and so on
 












 





i am finding the boards very dry and brittle at times, especially around the kerf joints, the whole assu will be stained so will experiment on best way to fill, and ensure the stain will take to those repaired areas

Smal update.
Started with the wooden parts of the wrought iron cannons
 
Base wooden blocks

Then drill holes

Saw through

The further finishing


Currently there are 10 made

The colors are striking on this fabulous build.
Michael D.

Made a second ladder
(writes the same in Dutch as in English (so the English language is derived from the Dutch language...😇)

And deck number2 is planked, so i started on "the rear" of the forecastle.

After a long break, we started again on Mary.
The fore castle is painted, but the upper part was not really successful I thought. Too high and too green.

So the height was adjusted.

And repainted.

Better, I think.

Time to start on the 2 cannons in the fore castle. With special thanks to @henrythestaffy for the 3D printed cannons,much appreciated.
(The brass cannons upper left are fore the Brandenburger yacht)

there will be little to see of the carriages. So spend i little time on the details.

Make wheels
Use the crosscut saw to saw thin pieces. so that you can then knock out wheels across the grain.

The barrels will  be glued on later.


A stair on both the sides is too much
Then the stair to the upper deck must be in the middle. And that is just before the entrance (arrow).

So from the lower deck a staircase on the starboard side. And to the upper deck a staircase on the port side.
The error in the planking will be invissible later

I can't wait for some paint to blend all these modifications into what will be the most precise and prototypical 1/200 Titanic hull on the market.
 
Yves

The after Well Deck (Starboard)
 
I moved aft and continued the thinning of the Well Deck bulwarks.

The drill was again put to work… I removed a section starting an inch or so behind the aft end of the break (where the kit molding changes thickness) and extending a bit forward of where the break ends (to give a bit of wiggle room to for a future modification).

A quick pass with the hand saw will finish the job.
 
I use a sturdy file to clean the jagged edge:

Finally, I’ll need to use a medium and fine file to get a clean opening:

Now to add the bulwark. 
 
This was similarly outlined on a small sheet of .020” styrene as we saw on the forward well deck.
 
I created a mockup to make sure everything fit in the opening.  I used the KA brass bulwark as a template to determine the gangway door locations.  I moved the wash port openings a bit higher to allow for the additional interior bulwark details to clear the Trumpeter decking with the added thickness of the wood deck veneer on top.  Details were added using thin .010” strip.

I installed the new bulwark and then etched the outlines of the gangway doors on the exterior.

It all looked good – until it didn’t.  Something was amiss…
 
Have a look at the aft Well Deck exterior detail extracted from Robert Read’s profile:

I really need to account for all the areas highlighted… The doubling strakes need to be added along with the strake below to give the correct dimension to the side.
 
Additionally, I need to reconsider the wash ports.  Many modelers complain that @#$@ Trumpeter did not completely open the aft well deck wash ports and they must put in the extra effort to open them up.  
 
The kit has an indentation to show their location, but they are molded with a solid interior.  
Ugh.  
 
or… maybe…they got that almost right…?
 
It seems to me that all the photos/representations showing these wash ports on the Titanic always have them with their covers closed over the openings. I can’t find an exception.  I suspect that Trumpeter was trying to compromise – show the wash ports, but represent a cover on the interior.
 
I ripped out the newly installed bulwark and started over.
 
I cut another bulwark using the template I had already made for the first pass.  This time I used .015” styrene for the main bulwark piece. 
 
 I then added a strip of .005” styrene that I cut using my new (and very masculine) Fiskar paper cutter.  I purchased this at a steep discount during an online sale a few months ago.

This is very useful for cutting strips of .005” up to .020” styrene sheet.
 
I shaped the gangway doors using .005” styrene and added them to the exterior.  Then I inserted filler strips shaped to match the curve of the doors (Circled below) and extended the strake across the bulwark piece - protruding a bit on each end.  This’ll help merge everything into the kit and keep it flush to the sides.

I drilled the mooring openings and added thin .005” styrene to represent the closed wash port covers. 

The result is ready to install.

The seams were filled with Tamiya putty diluted with Lacquer thinner and sanded smooth.

The doubling strake can now be added using more of the .005” styrene strips made using the Fiskar cutter.

More .005” strip was added to the lower strake to give additional dimension.  The ports were re-drilled from the inside.
 
New doubling straps were strategically placed to hide the ends of the new pieces.  These were fashioned from .005” strip with rivets added using another fun new tool:

This is a “corner” rivet tool that allows for accurate embossing of the parallel rivet pattern on small styrene strip:

Apply even pressure to get the indentations, then flip over and cement in place.

Finally, I did some careful filing to smooth the top edge.
 
I think this’ll work.
 
I’ll add the interior detail on the next post.
 
Cheers,
Evan

Evan,
By coincidence I found your log. Clicked and read your opening intro to this build. hahaha  -
So you are not a "fan" of this ship. I then went through your superbly explained and photographed log. Well - you have indeed become a Titanic fanatic (huge compliment) making sure that your example could arguably become the best possible example of this Trumpeter kit given your scratch work (love the rudder BTW) and then you removed incorrect kit castings fixing those with your custom work. Great work!!!.
Will also follow with much interest. PS: I did see the movie until the end haha.
Cheers,

Mike,
Yikes --- just catching up - 🙂 your work is so good!
 
Cheers,

Mike,
Yikes --- just catching up - 🙂 your work is so good!
 
Cheers,

Now it's time to build magazines and all sorts of decks and beams. For that phase an accurate depth gauge is essential, so I've let my brain overthink yet another tool 
 
The requirements are:
1) Soft plastic or wood to avoid scratching the model
2) Nice looking and pleasure to use, that tool would be in active service for at least a decade.
3) Ideally it should have a thumbwheel or a knob for fine adjustment. 
 
I have a cheap plastic vernier calliper that satisfies the first requirement, but it does not have an knob / thumbwheel.

Could not find any plastic callipers with a knob, unfortunately. The plastic ones are already rare enough, let alone with a wheel adjuster.
 
Then I spotted a Lego set with a container loader ("reach stacker", to be more precise) that has a worm gear and tried to make an abomination out of it. It is surprisingly challenging to build a compact functional tool out of random lego parts, a whole puzzle of its own. Respect to people who do it on a regular basis!

It kind of works, but the play and precision is not good enough for my needs. 
So I gave up on the wheel adjuster requirement and went back to the simple "calliper on a gantry" setup.
It was a nice warmup to recover some skills that I've lost over years of inactivity.
 

This time I even got help from my little helper! She enjoyed cranking the mill  

 
The resulting design has two parts - sliding gantry (no t-tracks, it is stable enough on its own) and a "calliper holder" that slides sideways on the gantry to allow the gantry keep contact with both sides of the baseboard.
The bottom edge of the caliper is trimmed to a flatter profile to avoid hitting the keelson. Both ends of the calliper can be used for a markup to allow for a comfortable pencil positioning.
The setup relies on three clamps to fix everything in position. These plastic clamps are a bit of an eyesore, maybe I will sidetrack again to build a nicer ones  


 
 

Patrick,
As always brilliant work. A pleasure following your work.
That said, Northern Lights awesome indeed. I had the luck of seeing them as well when I was working. But no fresh fish were offered for our meals during those drives. 🤪

Patrick,
As always brilliant work. A pleasure following your work.
That said, Northern Lights awesome indeed. I had the luck of seeing them as well when I was working. But no fresh fish were offered for our meals during those drives. 🤪

Patrick,
As always brilliant work. A pleasure following your work.
That said, Northern Lights awesome indeed. I had the luck of seeing them as well when I was working. But no fresh fish were offered for our meals during those drives. 🤪

Fore castle update

The general shape is ready, my own free interpretation. In the open parts on the middle deck shields still have to come

Current status

Progress was slow in decamber. because...
Went ice fishing in Lapland

Dreamed about a big (fish) catch... 😇

Actually I like cats more then dogs, but this was fun

And the aurora borealis was fantastic

And in between a new small project

Thanks for following

Exceptional work - very much enjoying following your log