rvchima

External Filigree Complete, 189 Hours, 87 days
 
All the external photo-etched filigree took up most of a sheet of PE, so I masked off what wasn't supposed to be gold and painted the rest in place. That was the only way to keep track of everything. Sorry about the blurry image.

The manual recommends attaching the parts with Pledge Future acrylic floor wax. Paint the area first, let it dry, put the filigree in place, then run more polish underneath to hold the part in place. Future is no longer available but the plastic modeling sites recommend Holloway Quick Shine. I got some and tried it on the first piece. It worked, but it was hard to hold the piece in place and the polish left shiny brush marks everywhere. So that didn't work well for me. Does anyone want a quart of floor polish?
 
I ended up cutting the filigree into manageable sections, holding each piece with my double-sided tape sticks (see previous post,) and using a glue looper to wet the back with thin CA. Then I held the piece in place for a few seconds and it was done. In a few places on the starboard side my gun ports were too close to the upper rails and I had to omit some filigree. It took about 10 hours to do all the filigree.




 

Stern Details
One advantage to having a fixed base is that you can do this:

All the details on the stern are pretty intimidating, but you just jump in and start attaching parts.

Speaking of attaching parts, I have been using canopy glue to hold the PE parts in place. Canopy glue is what RC modelers use to attach their canopies. It looks like plain white glue but it has an aggressive tack, dries clear, and is strong enough to hold a canopy on a fast RC model. It's also what @ccoyle uses to built card models.
 
I use 3M double-sided tape to hold parts to scrap sticks for painting, and also attached to a small stick to hold parts for placement on the model.

Channels, Knees, and Bow Trim
The channels are all attached with multiple brass pins. The laser markings show exactly where to put those pins. There are 26 knees to cut, sand, and paint, so it all took awhile.

Fore channels. The stove is temporary for now.

Main channels

Mizzen channels

I put some blue on the bow and added the bow grating and some trim. I have a little more work to do up front, then on to the stern.
 

Minor Problem with the Rudder
After assembling the rudder I realized that the top with the tiller would not fit into the hole in the hull. The manual shows the top of the rudder post ending a bit lower, at the juncture between the planking and stern piece, so I cut about 1/4" off of the rudder post and everything fits now. I don't know why the rudder post was too high - everything else fit together perfectly.
 
I ran out of copper foil and had to order more from China, so it will be 3 weeks before I can complete the rudder.

 

The gunport linings look great, and your use of clothes pins as wedges is brilliant!

Hey Mugje,
I just ran into a problem where my rudder with the tiller arm wouldn't fit into the opening in the hull. I had to remove about 6mm of the rudder post to make it fit. I recommend removing the main rudder piece from the 3 mm sheet now to see if it fits. It will be easier to fix now than later.

Chain Gang
The chains comprise a zillion PE parts that have to be darkened somehow. The manual suggests paint  but I blackened the entire sheet using Novacan Black Patina for Solder. One of my other hobbies is stained glass and I use this product to darken the solder. I set the PE sheet in a plastic tray, brushed on a little patina liquid, rinsed, patted dry, and sprayed with Lemon Pledge. The blakening can rub off here and there, but not back to shiny brass so it leaves a rustic appearance. The bit where the parts attached to the sheet can be touched up with a black marker.

The rings for the deadeyes must be expanded quite a bit for the deadeyes to fit. I butchered a few trying to open them with pliers, but found another way. I drilled holes in a scrap of wood slightly larger than the ID of the rings. 13/64" works well for the large deadeyes, 11/64" for the small. I placed the ring over the hole, and used a center punch to open the ring symmetrically. One tap with a small hammer and the deadeyes open right up. Drop the deadeye in, then use needle nosed pliers to tighten the rings back up.
 
UPDATE - I've found that I don't need the drilled wood at all. I can push the rings over the center punch by hand easily.



10 chains done, 42 more or less to go.

Chain Gang
The chains comprise a zillion PE parts that have to be darkened somehow. The manual suggests paint  but I blackened the entire sheet using Novacan Black Patina for Solder. One of my other hobbies is stained glass and I use this product to darken the solder. I set the PE sheet in a plastic tray, brushed on a little patina liquid, rinsed, patted dry, and sprayed with Lemon Pledge. The blakening can rub off here and there, but not back to shiny brass so it leaves a rustic appearance. The bit where the parts attached to the sheet can be touched up with a black marker.

The rings for the deadeyes must be expanded quite a bit for the deadeyes to fit. I butchered a few trying to open them with pliers, but found another way. I drilled holes in a scrap of wood slightly larger than the ID of the rings. 13/64" works well for the large deadeyes, 11/64" for the small. I placed the ring over the hole, and used a center punch to open the ring symmetrically. One tap with a small hammer and the deadeyes open right up. Drop the deadeye in, then use needle nosed pliers to tighten the rings back up.
 
UPDATE - I've found that I don't need the drilled wood at all. I can push the rings over the center punch by hand easily.



10 chains done, 42 more or less to go.

Chain Gang
The chains comprise a zillion PE parts that have to be darkened somehow. The manual suggests paint  but I blackened the entire sheet using Novacan Black Patina for Solder. One of my other hobbies is stained glass and I use this product to darken the solder. I set the PE sheet in a plastic tray, brushed on a little patina liquid, rinsed, patted dry, and sprayed with Lemon Pledge. The blakening can rub off here and there, but not back to shiny brass so it leaves a rustic appearance. The bit where the parts attached to the sheet can be touched up with a black marker.

The rings for the deadeyes must be expanded quite a bit for the deadeyes to fit. I butchered a few trying to open them with pliers, but found another way. I drilled holes in a scrap of wood slightly larger than the ID of the rings. 13/64" works well for the large deadeyes, 11/64" for the small. I placed the ring over the hole, and used a center punch to open the ring symmetrically. One tap with a small hammer and the deadeyes open right up. Drop the deadeye in, then use needle nosed pliers to tighten the rings back up.
 
UPDATE - I've found that I don't need the drilled wood at all. I can push the rings over the center punch by hand easily.



10 chains done, 42 more or less to go.

And now the hull and all the guns are done 😃 sure some retouching when the macro camera spots something.
Quite happy how it turned out tbh, now started with the masts and the rigging stress is lurking, I can feel it 😬
 

Guns.
Been busy on the side to try out one gun, to see what paints to use and how it all looked. For the carriage the same red as the bulwarks obviously and for the gun I settled on one thin coat of Tamiya TS30 (my go to 'primer' whenever I do objects that are metal in real) and one thin coat of Revell anthracite matt (number 9) . The latter takes hours to dry so and when it's touch dry I rub the gun with my finger a little bit and the metal primer shows through a little bit.
 
 
 

 
On a carriage and on the boat it looks quite good I think 🙂 
 

 
 

 
I'm starting to like the macro lens 😉
 

Channels and deadeyes. That kinda finishes the hull 😃 Apart from the retouching that I'll undoubtedly do, but overall quite pleased 😊
Right, all hands on deck then! Guns first now...
 

The gunport linings look great, and your use of clothes pins as wedges is brilliant!

Thanks for the likes and compliments!
 
Just a small clamping tip regarding the gunport linings. Especially the lower cill was frustrating to properly clamp or push down until the glue would set, but clothespins help with pushing down the cill until it's dry. Just reverse them so they push against the upper and lower side. The side cills could be hold in place with larger tweezer clamps, but the clothespins can be used also for this.
 

Little update here:
 
I didn't had a lot of time to work on the Sphinx because I was renovating my garden these last few weeks, season is beginning and needed to do quite some work.
But these last few days I could do here and there some work on the ship  .
I have glued the large pear sidepanels onto the hull. Not super difficult, but some concentration is needed to get a good fit. Especcially the lower front pieces I found the most challenging. I do have a small gap here and there between the upper and lower parts, but overall i'm happy with the fit. Those seams are going to be covered anyway so it's not really a problem. The most important thing for me was that I got all the right curves of the hull and the pieces were glued firm against the underlying patterns.
 
I advise to have a sound clamping plan before you begin  it takes away a bit of the stress when you apply the diluted pva and the pattern begins to curl a bit.
So dry-fitting first helps with this.
 


 

 
 
 
After that I sanded all the gunports flush with the inner MDF frames and began a test fit with the gunport linings. Used 0.5 pear for this and are quite happy with the first results. They are not too much in your face but distinctive enough to notice. Also the 3 ports with the lids need some extra work, because the underlying pattern didn't lay flush with the MDF inner frames. So I need to fill up or sand down here and there. It's a bit different for each gunport, a little bit of extra work...but that's part of the fun  
2 done....18 more to go!
 

 

 
 
 

External Filigree Complete, 189 Hours, 87 days
 
All the external photo-etched filigree took up most of a sheet of PE, so I masked off what wasn't supposed to be gold and painted the rest in place. That was the only way to keep track of everything. Sorry about the blurry image.

The manual recommends attaching the parts with Pledge Future acrylic floor wax. Paint the area first, let it dry, put the filigree in place, then run more polish underneath to hold the part in place. Future is no longer available but the plastic modeling sites recommend Holloway Quick Shine. I got some and tried it on the first piece. It worked, but it was hard to hold the piece in place and the polish left shiny brush marks everywhere. So that didn't work well for me. Does anyone want a quart of floor polish?
 
I ended up cutting the filigree into manageable sections, holding each piece with my double-sided tape sticks (see previous post,) and using a glue looper to wet the back with thin CA. Then I held the piece in place for a few seconds and it was done. In a few places on the starboard side my gun ports were too close to the upper rails and I had to omit some filigree. It took about 10 hours to do all the filigree.




 

External Filigree Complete, 189 Hours, 87 days
 
All the external photo-etched filigree took up most of a sheet of PE, so I masked off what wasn't supposed to be gold and painted the rest in place. That was the only way to keep track of everything. Sorry about the blurry image.

The manual recommends attaching the parts with Pledge Future acrylic floor wax. Paint the area first, let it dry, put the filigree in place, then run more polish underneath to hold the part in place. Future is no longer available but the plastic modeling sites recommend Holloway Quick Shine. I got some and tried it on the first piece. It worked, but it was hard to hold the piece in place and the polish left shiny brush marks everywhere. So that didn't work well for me. Does anyone want a quart of floor polish?
 
I ended up cutting the filigree into manageable sections, holding each piece with my double-sided tape sticks (see previous post,) and using a glue looper to wet the back with thin CA. Then I held the piece in place for a few seconds and it was done. In a few places on the starboard side my gun ports were too close to the upper rails and I had to omit some filigree. It took about 10 hours to do all the filigree.




 

External Filigree Complete, 189 Hours, 87 days
 
All the external photo-etched filigree took up most of a sheet of PE, so I masked off what wasn't supposed to be gold and painted the rest in place. That was the only way to keep track of everything. Sorry about the blurry image.

The manual recommends attaching the parts with Pledge Future acrylic floor wax. Paint the area first, let it dry, put the filigree in place, then run more polish underneath to hold the part in place. Future is no longer available but the plastic modeling sites recommend Holloway Quick Shine. I got some and tried it on the first piece. It worked, but it was hard to hold the piece in place and the polish left shiny brush marks everywhere. So that didn't work well for me. Does anyone want a quart of floor polish?
 
I ended up cutting the filigree into manageable sections, holding each piece with my double-sided tape sticks (see previous post,) and using a glue looper to wet the back with thin CA. Then I held the piece in place for a few seconds and it was done. In a few places on the starboard side my gun ports were too close to the upper rails and I had to omit some filigree. It took about 10 hours to do all the filigree.




 

External Filigree Complete, 189 Hours, 87 days
 
All the external photo-etched filigree took up most of a sheet of PE, so I masked off what wasn't supposed to be gold and painted the rest in place. That was the only way to keep track of everything. Sorry about the blurry image.

The manual recommends attaching the parts with Pledge Future acrylic floor wax. Paint the area first, let it dry, put the filigree in place, then run more polish underneath to hold the part in place. Future is no longer available but the plastic modeling sites recommend Holloway Quick Shine. I got some and tried it on the first piece. It worked, but it was hard to hold the piece in place and the polish left shiny brush marks everywhere. So that didn't work well for me. Does anyone want a quart of floor polish?
 
I ended up cutting the filigree into manageable sections, holding each piece with my double-sided tape sticks (see previous post,) and using a glue looper to wet the back with thin CA. Then I held the piece in place for a few seconds and it was done. In a few places on the starboard side my gun ports were too close to the upper rails and I had to omit some filigree. It took about 10 hours to do all the filigree.




 

External Filigree Complete, 189 Hours, 87 days
 
All the external photo-etched filigree took up most of a sheet of PE, so I masked off what wasn't supposed to be gold and painted the rest in place. That was the only way to keep track of everything. Sorry about the blurry image.

The manual recommends attaching the parts with Pledge Future acrylic floor wax. Paint the area first, let it dry, put the filigree in place, then run more polish underneath to hold the part in place. Future is no longer available but the plastic modeling sites recommend Holloway Quick Shine. I got some and tried it on the first piece. It worked, but it was hard to hold the piece in place and the polish left shiny brush marks everywhere. So that didn't work well for me. Does anyone want a quart of floor polish?
 
I ended up cutting the filigree into manageable sections, holding each piece with my double-sided tape sticks (see previous post,) and using a glue looper to wet the back with thin CA. Then I held the piece in place for a few seconds and it was done. In a few places on the starboard side my gun ports were too close to the upper rails and I had to omit some filigree. It took about 10 hours to do all the filigree.




 

External Filigree Complete, 189 Hours, 87 days
 
All the external photo-etched filigree took up most of a sheet of PE, so I masked off what wasn't supposed to be gold and painted the rest in place. That was the only way to keep track of everything. Sorry about the blurry image.

The manual recommends attaching the parts with Pledge Future acrylic floor wax. Paint the area first, let it dry, put the filigree in place, then run more polish underneath to hold the part in place. Future is no longer available but the plastic modeling sites recommend Holloway Quick Shine. I got some and tried it on the first piece. It worked, but it was hard to hold the piece in place and the polish left shiny brush marks everywhere. So that didn't work well for me. Does anyone want a quart of floor polish?
 
I ended up cutting the filigree into manageable sections, holding each piece with my double-sided tape sticks (see previous post,) and using a glue looper to wet the back with thin CA. Then I held the piece in place for a few seconds and it was done. In a few places on the starboard side my gun ports were too close to the upper rails and I had to omit some filigree. It took about 10 hours to do all the filigree.




 

External Filigree Complete, 189 Hours, 87 days
 
All the external photo-etched filigree took up most of a sheet of PE, so I masked off what wasn't supposed to be gold and painted the rest in place. That was the only way to keep track of everything. Sorry about the blurry image.

The manual recommends attaching the parts with Pledge Future acrylic floor wax. Paint the area first, let it dry, put the filigree in place, then run more polish underneath to hold the part in place. Future is no longer available but the plastic modeling sites recommend Holloway Quick Shine. I got some and tried it on the first piece. It worked, but it was hard to hold the piece in place and the polish left shiny brush marks everywhere. So that didn't work well for me. Does anyone want a quart of floor polish?
 
I ended up cutting the filigree into manageable sections, holding each piece with my double-sided tape sticks (see previous post,) and using a glue looper to wet the back with thin CA. Then I held the piece in place for a few seconds and it was done. In a few places on the starboard side my gun ports were too close to the upper rails and I had to omit some filigree. It took about 10 hours to do all the filigree.




 

External Filigree Complete, 189 Hours, 87 days
 
All the external photo-etched filigree took up most of a sheet of PE, so I masked off what wasn't supposed to be gold and painted the rest in place. That was the only way to keep track of everything. Sorry about the blurry image.

The manual recommends attaching the parts with Pledge Future acrylic floor wax. Paint the area first, let it dry, put the filigree in place, then run more polish underneath to hold the part in place. Future is no longer available but the plastic modeling sites recommend Holloway Quick Shine. I got some and tried it on the first piece. It worked, but it was hard to hold the piece in place and the polish left shiny brush marks everywhere. So that didn't work well for me. Does anyone want a quart of floor polish?
 
I ended up cutting the filigree into manageable sections, holding each piece with my double-sided tape sticks (see previous post,) and using a glue looper to wet the back with thin CA. Then I held the piece in place for a few seconds and it was done. In a few places on the starboard side my gun ports were too close to the upper rails and I had to omit some filigree. It took about 10 hours to do all the filigree.




 

External Filigree Complete, 189 Hours, 87 days
 
All the external photo-etched filigree took up most of a sheet of PE, so I masked off what wasn't supposed to be gold and painted the rest in place. That was the only way to keep track of everything. Sorry about the blurry image.

The manual recommends attaching the parts with Pledge Future acrylic floor wax. Paint the area first, let it dry, put the filigree in place, then run more polish underneath to hold the part in place. Future is no longer available but the plastic modeling sites recommend Holloway Quick Shine. I got some and tried it on the first piece. It worked, but it was hard to hold the piece in place and the polish left shiny brush marks everywhere. So that didn't work well for me. Does anyone want a quart of floor polish?
 
I ended up cutting the filigree into manageable sections, holding each piece with my double-sided tape sticks (see previous post,) and using a glue looper to wet the back with thin CA. Then I held the piece in place for a few seconds and it was done. In a few places on the starboard side my gun ports were too close to the upper rails and I had to omit some filigree. It took about 10 hours to do all the filigree.




 

Case Completed
I built a case for my Endeavour from scratch in about 3 weeks. It came out very nice and looks good next to my Syren model. They are temporarily displayed in a basement rec room. I don't know where they'll end up when we move.
 
I forgot how hard it is to photograph anything in a plastic case. I tried all kinds of lighting and Photoshop tricks to get rid of reflections. The photo of the Endeavour alone is OK, but the photo of the two ships together is pretty bad. Oh well, I tried.
 
Rod