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rvchima

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Everything posted by rvchima

  1. rvchima
    This morning I was tying 3mm blocks to eyebolts, getting ready for the tops. Near the end one block went flying. Far. I got down on my hands and knees with a flood light and searched the floor, with no luck. Then I swept the floor. Still no luck so I gave up. Two hours later I was washing dishes, and felt something on my head. The block was in my hair.
  2. rvchima
    Holiday Break My wife and I are leaving tomorrow for a week-long cruise through the Columbia River gorge on a modern stern wheeler. It covers the most of the width of the state of Oregon. Then we'll rent a car and visit Portland, Oregon, Mt. Rainier National Park, Olympic National Park, and Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. I'll post photos of any interesting river craft. Back in mid August.
  3. rvchima
    I just bought an interesting book at a local used book store. "The Neophyte Shipmodeler's JACKSTAY," by George F. Cambell, published by Model Shipways, 1962. It's 59 pages softbound and full of labeled drawings of sailing ship parts. It explains pretty well what things are called, how they work, and how they changed over time. It even explains what a jackstay is. There is no index but it's easy to flip through and find a relevant drawing. My favorite part is The Rigging It has been truly said that the rankest amateur can successfully rig, though he know not his mast from a hole in the ground. The original price was $2.50 US. I paid $8.99 for a 56 year old copy. And amazingly Modelexpo-online.com still has it for sale for $12.99.
  4. rvchima
    Fernando, Welcome aboard! I should explain that, in the model airplane world, what I am doing would be called standoff scale. It looks pretty good if you stand off a ways. If you want serious attention to detail check out Pat Banyan's completed build or Dave Rowe's nearly completed build.
  5. rvchima
    I love the hand drawn plans for the Gaff! Here's a man who plans what to do next. I usually just dream about it in the morning as I hit the snooze alarm again.
  6. rvchima
    Anchors I decided that I could safely attach the forward anchors now. I left a coil of line to attach to an anchor buoy eventually.
  7. rvchima
    Swivel Guns These are just a couple of pieces of PE brass with a nail through the center soldered together. Bend up the tabs and attach the brass barrel with a piece of wire, then solder the wire. Like always I used Novocan black stained glass patina for the black color.
  8. rvchima
    Hi Dave, I definitely have not paid enough attention to your build log. i just went through the last 10 - 12 pages of your log and realized that you pay as much attention to detail in your log as you do in your build. I saw a lot of details about how you built your masts, spars, and rigging that will be a huge help when (if?) I ever get to that point. I'll keep following the new posts and searching the old for ideas that I can use. Rod
  9. rvchima
    Boat Storage The longboat and pinnace go in cradles on deck. They look awesome up there. Eight spare top masts are lashed to the tops of the bits fore and aft of the boats. While I was making spare masts I went ahead and made another set. That way I could use the worst ones as spares and the best ones above. The spare masts are lashed in place. If I'd known I would be doing this much lashing in 2018 I would have paid more attention in Boy Scouts in 1968. The longboat and yawl are lashed atop the spare masts. Someone please tell me why I spent so much extra time and money on a curved grating kit for the main deck hatch. Now I totally understand why Pat Banyan built his model with only 2 boats aboard. My wife Cinda Chima is an author of popular young adult fantasy novels. She posted a photo of my model similar to the one below on Instagram the other day, because her latest series includes scenes with pirates. Her post has 161 Likes right now. I told her I don't have 161 Likes TOTAL in all my posts on MSW.
  10. rvchima
    Barrels? The kit came with a little bag of nice wooden barrels, but, like the oars, is no mention of barrels in the instructions or plans. Where would these go? Lashed to something on deck somewhere?
  11. rvchima
    Oars The kit came with a lot of photo-etched brass oars in 2 lengths. There is no mention of oars in the instructions or plans, but they obviously go with the ship's boats. The p-e brass parts in this kit are beautiful, but flat oars just didn't look right because they stack up flat. I briefly considered carving 24 oars out of basswood, but only briefly. Instead I decided on composite oars with brass blades and wooden handles. The handles on the brass pieces were 1.2 mm across. I thought about buying a draw plate to make the handles, but our friends at Bluejacket Shipcrafters had 1.2 mm dowels sold as treenails. Besides, the 10 mm dowel supplied with the kit for the mainmast was misshapen and Bluejacket had that too. I ordered 2 of each and had them in 2 days. I cut the 1.2 mm dowels to length, spun them in a rotary tool and shape the handles, and split the other end. I cut the blades off the p-e brass oars, glued them to the handles, painted my composite oars, and tied them into little bundles for the boats. You can see them in the previous post.
  12. rvchima
    Ships Boats Completed The instructions said that the ship's boats should take a couple of weeks. That was a little optimistic - they took about 60 hours over 19 days, but I build fast. The only problem with the plank-on-frame construction is that the floor ends up too close to the side rails. The poor sailors would have to sit with their knees to their chins. The clinker-built construction of the yawl and skiff came out better than I expected.
  13. rvchima
    Happy 4th of July Everyone! On this date in 1776 Captain James Cook had an honorary retirement from the Royal Navy, with a posting as an officer of the Greenwich Hospital; he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society, and awarded the Copley Gold Medal for completing his second voyage without losing a man to scurvy. Nathaniel Dance-Holland painted his portrait; he dined with James Boswell; he was described in the House of Lords as "the first navigator in Europe". In the US we celebrate with hotdogs and beer.
  14. rvchima
    Thanks Dave. I did one anchor ring puddenning with CA and didn't like the way it looked. I started over with PVA and it looks much better. I'll try it again when I get to the real rigging.
  15. rvchima
    Ship's Boats The 4 ship's boats are built just like the full model - double planked over a frame. Here is a photo of the 4 boats in various stages of construction with comments. From top to bottom: Yawl The frame pieces don't match up very well even after everything has been sanded a lot. Skiff The first layer of planking is covered with a layer of Timbermate wood filler that needs to be sanded. A block of wood is attached to the inside of the boat with double-sided tape. It is used to hold the boat in my vise during construction. The yawl and skiff are supposed to be clinker-built, but I don't know if I can do that cleanly on these tiny boats. They may end up with smooth hulls. Pat Banyan built a beautiful longboat and pinnace for his Endeavour . Mine won't be that nice Pinnace This has 2 layers of planking and is ready for a second coat of filler. Longboat I put several coats of Krylon gloss enamel on the hull and it looked perfect, until I glued on the wales. The CA just lifted the paint right off the hull. I got everything together without too much damage, but now I'm worried about the interior pieces and the other boats. I guess I'll experiment with other paints. The frames have to be removed after construction. The instructions say to twist them off with needle nosed pliers. This seemed unlikely but worked perfectly. However this leaves a very rough floor in the boat that needs to be planked over. That's the next step.
  16. rvchima
    Anchors I won't be able to attach the anchors until the rigging is done, but I built them just for fun.
  17. rvchima
    I'm Still Building! 10 months, 77 work days, 305 hours I haven't posted for awhile, not because I've given up but because I've been having too much fun building. You can see in the photo below that I've completed a lot since the last post: cannons, hatches, pumps, wheel and tiller, eyebolts, and even the stern window covers. Everything is permanently attached. Some detail shots follow. I know there is some controversy about the boomkins but I don't know enough about ships to worry about it, so I just built what's in the plans. I bought the curved hatch gratings from Chuck at the Syren Ship Model Company. They were a little tricky to align but they came out beautiful. The cannons are straight out of the Caldercraft kit. Here's another case where the cut parts didn't fit. The cannon frameworks had interlocking slots that all had to be filed to fit. The axles all had to be filed round. The wheels were more or less round but all different sizes. I mounted a bunch on a mandrel, spun them up in my rotary tool, and sanded them to size. In the end the cannons look pretty good. I also ordered pump kits from Chuck but they were a different style that the Endeavour. I ended up using the kit pumps. The wheel that came with the kit was 2 layers of photo-etched brass. The PE parts are beautiful but just don't look right for a wheel, so I bought a wheel kit from Chuck - 15/16" diameter and about 30 pieces! But the pieces are cut to a precision of 0.1 mm and fit perfectly. If you're curious you can view the wheel instructions here. And I finally made up the covers for the stern windows. Nothing too fancy. Two Questions about Rigging 1. It is tempting to put a drop of CA on rigging threads to hold them in place, but the CA changes the texture and color of the thread. Do you use CA or something else? 2. Do you use beeswax on the thread? I know it cuts down on fraying but does it collect dust?
  18. rvchima
    Honey I Shrunk the Binnacle There has been some controversy about the binnacle for this model. Marquardt's book Captain Cook's Endeavour, Anatomy of the Ship (AOTS) shows a tall, bridge-like structure that sits in front of the wheel over the skylight. The kit has an identical design. I'm not a sailor but I am an engineer, and nothing seems right with that design. It would be 6 feet tall and block the captain's view ahead. It would shade the beautiful skylight and prevent it from opening. You would have to reach through the wheel to open the little drawers along the top - very dangerous in rough seas. Photos of the replica show a little cupboard that seems to be used in port for display, but this photo shows the real binnacle in use. Note the horizontal compass on top right. The binnacle is about waist high and sits to the port side of the wheel. Other photos show a similar cabinet to starboard. I Googled binnacle and found this photo of a binnacle for the Nonsuch, a British ketch that sailed into Hudson's Bay in 1668-1669, 100 years before the Endeavour. A replica of the Nonsuch was built in 1970 and now sits in the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg, Canada. That binnacle looked perfect to me. It is about the size of the cabinet on the Endeavour replica, has an enclosure for a lantern, and a window for the compass. The photo shows almost a perfect front view so I printed it at 10 percent, traced it, and built one from balsa right over the tracing. Here's a photo of the kit binnacle (front only) with my first build in the center. The box came out about 22 mm high, a little over 4 feet scale, and it just seemed too big. I showed my wife and asked her if my binnacle was too big, and she told me it wasn't big enough. I'm not sure what she meant by that. Anyway I reduced my drawing 75% and built the second one on the left. I added some paint, a window, a tiny paper compass inside, and some hardware, and here's my final binnacle. I'll tie it down on the port side of the wheel. I probably spent 10 hours on this fiddly thing. I never do stuff like this, so don't expect to see any more heavy detailing on this build.
  19. rvchima
    Bitts and Pieces I've been busy building a winch, several bitts, two gallows, a small hatch, two ladders, a companionway, a capstan, and a skylight. Here's a look at the lot. I am very tight on space between the main and mizzen masts, so I think I'll have to remove some material around the base of the capstan. The aft deck of the Endeavour has quite a slope to it, and that leads me to an important question. What things should be vertical and what should be perpendicular? The plans show the bitts and buildings vertical, and the wheel and capstan perpendicular. That seems almost backwards to me. The capstan almost has to be vertical so the shaft can extend to the deck below, and the captain would probably want to stand up straight at the wheel. Please let me know if you have any thoughts on this. I couldn't stand the thought of using the photo-etched brass wheel supplied with the kit so I ordered a wheel kit from Chuck at the Syren Ship Model Company. While I was at it I ordered a kit for a grate for the main hatch, and kits to make four pumps. It all looks like fun.
  20. rvchima
    Channels and Chains The channels were fun to make - not too tedious and a big effect on the look of the model. Here's a top view with the channels in place. Then I looked at what was involved with the chains themselves. OMG - 24 chains for large deadeyes. 22 chains for small deadeyes. 3 or 4 photo-etched parts per chain. It took me a couple of hours to make a table of all the different combinations of deadeyes and photo etched parts that I would have to make. I started by making 4 chains for large deadeyes on the main mast, and it took 2 hours. I was ready to quit. But then I switched to assembly line mode: Put patina on all the brass. Strop all the large deadeyes. Rotate deadeyes to proper position and CA in place. Solder joint closed. Attach 2nd & 3rd link. Solder 2nd link. I was done with 24 large chains in 5 hours. Yesterday I built 22 small chains in 4 hours, and attached the fore starboard chains. Today I attached the rest of the chains. Total for chains about 17 hours in just 3 days. Here's a photo of the completed deadeyes and chains. I started to line everything up for a nice photo, but it was taking too long. After the photo I dumped everything in the patina again to cover the solder joints. I also put patina on a bunch of nails. And here's a photo of the fore and main chains. You can also see the painted anchor lining on the left. I like it a lot better than the stained basswood. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I built the ladders. It took a while to sand the zillions of little pieces, but everything went together pretty smoothly. So now I get to start building cool stuff that goes on deck. I'm psyched.
  21. rvchima
    Anchor Linings Seems like everyone else had trouble with the anchor linings too. Dashi and I both found that the kit parts were way too small, and wouldn't bend through the compound curvature of the hull if they were the right size. Here's what I came up with. First I cut a paper pattern to the correct shape. Then I covered the hull with some nice, adhesive food covering. It wasn't adhesive enough, so I laid a strip of double sided tape down the middle. Then I planked the hull with strips of basswood (limewood) left over from the first hull planking. I copied the paper pattern on top of the wood. I removed the plates, trimmed them to shape, Dremeled out a little of the inside so they would lay flat, and finished the outside with linseed oil. Except then they looked like, well, basswood, so after a few days' thought I painted them the same tan trim color that I've been using. See next post.
  22. rvchima
    Hawse Holes I ran into the same problem with the anchor hawse holes ending up below the deck that DaveRow and Banyan did. It's amazing to me how much DaveRow's Corel kit at 1:60 resembles my Caldercraft kit at 1:64, and now both kits end up with the hawse holes too low. The hawse plates are supposed to sit below the tan colored rail, but then the holes end up below the deck. My solution was to remove part of the rail and move the plates up. Doesn't match the plan but the ropes will end up on deck.
  23. rvchima
    Railings Completed I stayed up late last night and finished the rails. Just for fun I did a test fit of the masts. I now have 160 hours invested in my Endeavour (pun intended) over almost 8 months. However, because of the long gap with no work early on, I have only worked on the model on 39 separate days, averaging about 4 hours/day. The bumpkins and tiller arm are not permanently attached yet. And here's a look at the stern.
  24. rvchima
    Pre-Cut Parts Don't Fit Together Here's another example where Caldercraft's pre-cut parts look great but don't fit together. The lower rail is notched for 34 timberheads and numerous other upright pieces. Unfortunately the holes are smaller than the thickness of the timberheads (left - support tab has not been trimmed off yet). Before I noticed the problem I had already glued 5 of the 6 rails in place. I couldn't file the holes larger, so I had to cut tiny tenons on all 34 timberheads (right), and the other uprights as well.
  25. rvchima
    Hull Painted, Rudder Completed, and Deck Planked I painted the hull trim a perfect painter's tape blue. It's actually French Blue, and it sure makes the ship look proud. The rudder was fun to make but hard to attach. I broke 3 of the pins off of the cast metal hinge pieces and had to drill in tiny brass pins. I used a patina chemical for stained glass (another hobby) to darken the photo etched brass. The decking pieces were cut as long as possible, then notched lightly every 2.25 inches (12 feet scale) to look like separate planks. When everything was planked I covered the deck with a thin coat of light colored Timbermate wood filler. When that was dry I sanded it off and stained everything with linseed oil. The filler stains a little darker than the wood and makes the individual planks stand out.

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