rvchima

Overall View
 

Here's where it stands today. The hull and stack are both primed grey and ready to paint. The engine house and aft structure are primed white and will be painted the same color as the stack.
 
There is a notch cut in the rudder support for installing the prop shaft. I will have to glue the cut out piece back in place and repaint after the prop is installed. Too bad the shaft can't be installed from inside the hull.

Cabin
 

While waiting for my paint to arrive I jumped ahead in the plans and completed the cabin. The instrument panels are made of lacquered cherry, and the planking is finished with 3 coats of orange shellac.
 

Panart supplies a lot of beautiful brass pieces for portholes, hinges, and railings that really dress the model up. They also explain the high cost of the model. So far I've run short of some wood strips, but every brass piece has been neatly bagged and in the box.
 

Here's a view of the bow with the cabin in place.
 
Lots of Little Parts. 208 hours, 160 days.
 
Lately I've been building lots of little, difficult parts.
 

The mast was hand planed to shape from a 12 mm dowel. The brass lights were all supplied.
 

These 13 braces support the deck where the cabin overhangs the lower quarters.
 

The funnels are made of a brass casting on top with wooden supports below.
 

Six life preservers are made from plastic rings and red striping tape. They will eventually hang on the cabin.
 

Six turned wooden barrels were supplied. I painted them, then wrapped them with model airplane trim tape. The fill caps are painted nail heads.
 
 

Wow, I wish that was available a couple of years ago!

A little update. Things as usual are moving very slowly due to lack of modeling time (what’s new ? ). I finished the first 4 carronade carriages and the first “production” carronade (image 1).
 
Images 2 a-d show the fabrication of the hinges for the gun barrels. For this I milled a grove into a brass strip and silver soldered a brass tube into the grove. The result is shown in image 2a. To cut hinges from this piece with always the same width I combined my Taig lathe and my rotary tool with flex shaft (in lack of a suitable table saw) to a metal cutting device (see images 2b and c). The resulting hinges are shown in image 2d.
 
Image 3a and b present the method I used to determine the correct location of the hinges on the carronade carriage. I placed the gun barrel-hinge assembly on the carriage in such a way that the elevation screw was located correctly on the metal fitting and marked the front end of the hinges with masking tape. As a next step I placed the hinges alone nicely centered on the carriage, with the right distance between them and the front end aligned with the masking tape (image 3a). To help with this process I covered the carriage first with further masking tape and a double-sided sticky tape on top of the masking tape. Once aligned satisfactorily I marked the 2 front ends of the hinges on the masking tape, removed every tape with the exception of the tape with the alignment marks and mounted the hinges permanently using these marks (image 3b). Finally the gun barrel was mounted, the elevation adjusted with the elevation screw, and barrel and screw glued in place. The final result is displayed in images 4 and 5. Images 6 and 7 show the first carronade in its final place on my Syren model.
 
Thomas
 
 

Image 1
 
 

Image 2
 
 

Image 3
 
 

Image 4
 
 

Image 5
 
 

Image 6
 
 

Image 7
 

I treated myself to Chuck’s new serving machine. Not that I need to serve anything at the current point in my Syren build , but I always like to get acquainted with new techniques early on so that I don’t run into too many problems when I really need to apply these techniques later.
 
During the last few months I had thought about a suitable design for my own serving machine. It is not really difficult to find good examples in the internet. However, when I looked at the amount of work, which would go into the design and the material, especially suitable gears, Chuck’s new ‘Serv-O-Matic’ kit along with the reasonable price tag quickly changed my mind. Images 1 and 2 show the content of the kit. As all of Chuck’s products the kit is high quality (solid Cherry wood) and easy to assemble – basically only the laser burn marks need to be removed (to have a nice looking machine) and the wood sealed with rub on poly (image 3). The end result is a beautiful, very sturdy, and nicely functioning serving machine (images 4, 5, 6). Image 7 shows the result of a test run with a thread, which was not really suited for serving, but was conveniently ‘available’. It may give a little idea what kind of results can be achieved with a little practice and the right serving thread.
 
This was the 3rd time I bought products from Chuck’s Syren company. I know I am repeating what other fellow modelers have already written in their build blogs. But each time I ordered something I was amazed about the excellent service, the reasonable pricing, and above all the outstanding quality of the products.
 
Thomas
 

Image 1
 

Image 2
 

Image 3
 

Image 4
 

Image 5
 

Image 6
 

Image 7
 
 
 

A little sign of life: I finished the first 5 carronades – see images below. Unfortunately this time in the year there are always too many other projects that need to be taken care of. So right now I am following the philosophy of Confucius: ‘It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop’ 
 
Thomas
 

 
 
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Continuing work on the quarterdeck, the waterways and margin planks were prepared from Swiss Pear and installed P/S:
 

 
Although the deck will only be partially planked (to leave visible some aspects of the gun deck and Great Cabin), I wanted the margins all around for the sake of appearance.
 
Next was to prepare the lower stanchions for the quarterdeck rail.  The simulated sheaves are 'functional':
 

 
Aligning these lower stanchions behind a deck beam requires that they match the curvature of that beam.  To assist in this, a photocopy of the rail was made and attached to the beam:
 

 
The stanchions were then glued behind the deck beam:
 

 
The planking of the starboard side of the quarterdeck (up to the centerline) may now proceed.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Happy Memorial Day to all.  And a moment to remember all those who gave the ultimate sacrifice and  cannot be with us to share it.
 
Time for a small update.  Have continued working on the quarter deck with the addition of numerous pinrails, cleats, belaying pins (blackened), eyebolts/rings for the cannon rigging and the ship's wheel:
 
 

 

 

 
It's really good to get the steering cables, which pass down through the quarterdeck and gun deck, off of the deck where they have been in the way for months!  The speaking tube also disappears below into the bowels of the ship.  In more modern times I could just picture John Wayne bellowing 'Engine room -----more steam!!'  The two wheels were really horrible castings but I did what I could to clean them up including fabricating 3 or 4 handles which were missing.  At this scale I wasn't about to attempt scratching 2 wheels (make that any scale).
 
There are still some stanchions and railings to be installed but I'll hold off on these until the 'heavy lifting' in the waist and bow are complete.  Likewise the guns for the QD.
 
So next up will be the twin binnacles.  Here's a preview of the parts layout for one of them:
 

 
Hope all is well with everyone!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Overall View
 

Here's where it stands today. The hull and stack are both primed grey and ready to paint. The engine house and aft structure are primed white and will be painted the same color as the stack.
 
There is a notch cut in the rudder support for installing the prop shaft. I will have to glue the cut out piece back in place and repaint after the prop is installed. Too bad the shaft can't be installed from inside the hull.

Cabin
 

While waiting for my paint to arrive I jumped ahead in the plans and completed the cabin. The instrument panels are made of lacquered cherry, and the planking is finished with 3 coats of orange shellac.
 

Panart supplies a lot of beautiful brass pieces for portholes, hinges, and railings that really dress the model up. They also explain the high cost of the model. So far I've run short of some wood strips, but every brass piece has been neatly bagged and in the box.
 

Here's a view of the bow with the cabin in place.
 
Lots of Little Parts. 208 hours, 160 days.
 
Lately I've been building lots of little, difficult parts.
 

The mast was hand planed to shape from a 12 mm dowel. The brass lights were all supplied.
 

These 13 braces support the deck where the cabin overhangs the lower quarters.
 

The funnels are made of a brass casting on top with wooden supports below.
 

Six life preservers are made from plastic rings and red striping tape. They will eventually hang on the cabin.
 

Six turned wooden barrels were supplied. I painted them, then wrapped them with model airplane trim tape. The fill caps are painted nail heads.
 
 

Full Profile View
 

I haven't posted a full profile in a while, so here's what it looks like now. The cabin and engine house are just laying in place.
 

I've built a few fixtures for the deck and cabin, but there is a lot more to be made.

First Coat of Primer
 

The next step in construction is to plank the deck and add a third layer of planking to the inside of the rails. But I plan to paint the outside of the hull first to keep paint off the deck. Here's the first coat of primer. Tomorrow I'll take a good look and fill all the cracks I missed before.
 
Wanted: Ideas for a Stand
 
I won't be able to use my keel stand anymore after I finish painting the hull. I would like to build a stand that looks like a tug up on wood blocks in dry dock.
 

Here's a photo of a different tug model on a stand like I have in mind, but I do want to be realistic. I have searched online for a cool photo of a real tug in dry dock, but I haven't found anything to my liking. If you have have any ideas for an appropriate stand, please post photos or links, or message me directly. Many thanks.
 

Full Profile View
 

I haven't posted a full profile in a while, so here's what it looks like now. The cabin and engine house are just laying in place.
 

I've built a few fixtures for the deck and cabin, but there is a lot more to be made.

Full Profile View
 

I haven't posted a full profile in a while, so here's what it looks like now. The cabin and engine house are just laying in place.
 

I've built a few fixtures for the deck and cabin, but there is a lot more to be made.

Temporary Decks Removed
 

Two temporary decks made of heavy plywood were used to keep all the bulkheads in alignment during planking. They were held in place with small nails and were easily removed. This is the fist time I've seen the inside of the ship since January.
 
Sub Deck Installed, Bulkheads Trimmed
 

And now the inside is hidden again. A sub deck made of very thin laser-cut plywood was installed near the top of the bulkheads, and then the bulkheads were all trimmed to deck level. I thought that would be difficult, but not with this flexible Japanese cut-off saw. I sliced the bottoms of the bulkheads flush with the sub deck, then gently rocked each piece back and forth with pliers to break the glue joint.
 
I know the insides of the side rails look terrible right now, but after I sand them and add a third layer of finish planking on the inside they'll be fine.

Second Layer of Planking


One reason that I chose this model that I wanted to build a double-planked hull. Now I wonder "What was I thinking?"
 
On the first layer I tapered all the planks so that the same number of planks would cover all the bulkheads. That worked out well, but it was a lot of work. On the second layer I started at the top and worked down, with full width planks almost everywhere. I did use a couple of cheaters here and there to keep everything straight. I am now about half way down the hull, and this layer looks much nicer than the first. Eventually the planks will stop way short of the bow, but I think they will be OK. We'll see.

A Major Digression

Sorry for the long delay between posts, but I stopped working on the tugboat model long enough to build a sofa table for my son and his wife. The table was based loosely on a design that I found online, but I modified it so that it could be completely disassembled to fit in the back of a Toyota Prius. The table is now safely in North Carolina and I am back to work on the tug.

Stand and Prop Shaft Housing
 

Here I made a temporary stand that is a tight fit on the keel.
 
The prop shaft housing was made of two rectangular blocks. I taped them to a 3/16" square stick with double sided tape, chucked them in the drill press, and sanded them at high RPM. THen I pulled the tape apart and glued the half-cylinders to the keel over a slot for the prop shaft.

Bulkheads and Subdecks Installed

Two subdecks have been temporarily nailed into place to keep the bulkheads aligned while the planking is applied. This will also eliminate any residual warping in the bulkheads.
 

At this point the model totally reminds me of Steze Zissou's ship, the Belafonte, from Wes Anderson's "The Life Aquatic."
 

First Construction Photos
 

The laser-cut parts popped out of the sheet easily and the 3-piece keel when right together.
 

Here's the keel with all the bulkheads in position. But here's also where I found a problem with the kit. One of the 6 pieces of 1/4 inch ply has a warp built in, and 5 bulkheads are seriously warped. I soaked them in hot water and clamped them to flat boards. I hope they straighten out before I glue them to the keel. Once the planking is attached they should be fine.

Full Profile View
 

I haven't posted a full profile in a while, so here's what it looks like now. The cabin and engine house are just laying in place.
 

I've built a few fixtures for the deck and cabin, but there is a lot more to be made.

Full Profile View
 

I haven't posted a full profile in a while, so here's what it looks like now. The cabin and engine house are just laying in place.
 

I've built a few fixtures for the deck and cabin, but there is a lot more to be made.

Full Profile View
 

I haven't posted a full profile in a while, so here's what it looks like now. The cabin and engine house are just laying in place.
 

I've built a few fixtures for the deck and cabin, but there is a lot more to be made.

Temporary Decks Removed
 

Two temporary decks made of heavy plywood were used to keep all the bulkheads in alignment during planking. They were held in place with small nails and were easily removed. This is the fist time I've seen the inside of the ship since January.
 
Sub Deck Installed, Bulkheads Trimmed
 

And now the inside is hidden again. A sub deck made of very thin laser-cut plywood was installed near the top of the bulkheads, and then the bulkheads were all trimmed to deck level. I thought that would be difficult, but not with this flexible Japanese cut-off saw. I sliced the bottoms of the bulkheads flush with the sub deck, then gently rocked each piece back and forth with pliers to break the glue joint.
 
I know the insides of the side rails look terrible right now, but after I sand them and add a third layer of finish planking on the inside they'll be fine.

Temporary Decks Removed
 

Two temporary decks made of heavy plywood were used to keep all the bulkheads in alignment during planking. They were held in place with small nails and were easily removed. This is the fist time I've seen the inside of the ship since January.
 
Sub Deck Installed, Bulkheads Trimmed
 

And now the inside is hidden again. A sub deck made of very thin laser-cut plywood was installed near the top of the bulkheads, and then the bulkheads were all trimmed to deck level. I thought that would be difficult, but not with this flexible Japanese cut-off saw. I sliced the bottoms of the bulkheads flush with the sub deck, then gently rocked each piece back and forth with pliers to break the glue joint.
 
I know the insides of the side rails look terrible right now, but after I sand them and add a third layer of finish planking on the inside they'll be fine.