rvchima

Side Trim Completed
The upper sides of the hull are mostly blue with splashes of red. The gun ports are red inside. This all required a lot of masking. I started to mask off each gun port with 4 strips of tape but realized that I could put a large piece over each port and cut out the centers.

After painting, a number of extremely delicate trim strips were attached. I stained them all with Watco natural oil stain on the top only. The bow pieces were soaked in water and pre-bent. The manual says to glue them with PVA and lots of clamps. I did exactly that, but as soon as I removed the clamps half of the pieces fell right off. It's tempting to blame the oil stain, but I was very careful to leave the wood bare on both sides of the joint. Maybe the PVA is soaking in and drying too quickly? Anyway, I cleaned off the dried PVA and reglued everything with CA. It's not going anywhere now.


 


Did I mention that I finished the quarter galleries a few days ago? There are a lot of pieces in there that required a lot of trial and error fitting.


Just checking that everything fits.

Post Sixty-nine
 
Stern Facia and Upper Counter
Major items of photo etch come into use next, the Window frames and decorative columns of the stern and Quarter Galleries.
These require priming and painting, but before that they were given a good scrub with washing up liquid using an old electric toothbrush head.
 
The painting will take place with the parts still attached to the fret, both for ease of handling and security.
For priming I am using VMS Metal prep4k. This dries clear on the surface which is a bonus as I am using light colours.
 
I considered whether to paint the window frames white as per the kit or a shade of Yellow ochre.
Most contemporary models don’t show white window frames, and I think they may be a little stark for the effect I’m after.
An ochrery shade it will be.

2417(2)
The frames are painted with Vallejo Ochre Brown (127)
It was also used on the other decorations highlighted with Yellow Ochre(121)
 
The stern of Sphinx is highly decorated both in kit and contemporary painting.
Artistic license no doubt, not reflected on the actual ship, but as I’m giving a nod to those 18th century models, I am happy to include it, but gold paint will not feature on the palette.

2416
The acetate windows (or lights) are fettled to fit without removing the protective cover, and are then fixed into place.
Gluing in clear acetate  always  makes me nervous. I wear surgical gloves and use plastic tweezers for handling.
I ensure there is a snug fit of the panes into the recess and use spots of Vallejo Matt Acrylic varnish applied with the point of a toothpick.

2432
Even so the window ‘glass’ always seem to to have a degree of smearing, which I remove using  a moistened electronics wipe folded over a rounded stick
 
The window frames follow; these really are finely crafted with beautifully scaled window bars.
Careful handling is required once removed from the fret, any trace of the fret nubs is filed away, and I don’t handle the pieces with bare hands.

2438(2)
Again tiny spots of Vallejo varnish are applied to the frame edges only and the piece is pressed into place.

2443
I hope it is sufficient to hold, and I suspect Capt. Grim is thinking the same.

2458
Finally in this section the stern column panel is secured in place.
I found this quite tricky to do getting all the columns in the right position before the ca sets.

2455(2)
Checking out the fit of the resin Tafferel, I will have more thought on this in my next post.
 
I have reduced the use of red on the stern. The Cove was traditionally painted red on the sterns of British ships but I painted the secondary arches containing the stylised Eagles with a blue ground as per the Marshall painting.
I’m quite pleased and relieved that the blue paint tones in nicely with the ground of the printed stern decoration.
 
Work on the stern continues.
 
B.E.
24/01/22
 

OK, plans, manual and box label all now fully complete for Sherbourne. Was up all night completing manual, and then the box label this morning.
 
Gonna have a couple of weeks off now..

I have just completed the final job for Adder, the box label. Now onto Sherbourne.
 
Also now have final prices:
Adder - VM/15 - £246
Sherbourne - VM/16 - £149 (For first run of kits)
 

An Almost Brilliant Method for Coppering
In the last few months since I ordered my model this product has popped up on eBay. It is standard copper foil for stained glass with plate patterns for model ships stamped on it. It is available in 1:48, 1:75, and 1:96 scale, 500 pieces to a roll. There are now over 30 vendors, all in China, selling what appears to be identical products. I ordered two rolls at 1:75 scale at the end of November. They were delivered about three weeks later. I just used them up on the Sphinx, ran a bit short, and just ordered another roll. I also ordered a second roll at 1:48 scale to cap the keel and rudder post.

The plates were nicely spaced for the first few feet, and I thought I could cover entire rows without cutting the strips.  Then the spacing became irregular, with small gaps between the plates. I decided that I could live with that. Then very long gaps started to appear in the roll, and I had to cut individual plates.

It's easy to cut the foil with scissors but tedious to remove the plastic backing. A much easier technique is to cut a length of foil about 18" long, attach the end to the hull, and tear the foil against a razor blade held after the next plate. Then repeat. I coppered the rest of the hull in this manner, basically with individual plates.

I wondered if I had been cheated of plates, so when I opened the second roll I measured the length and counted the plates - 32 feet, 509 plates as advertised. The 1:75 plates are 18 mm x 6 mm, almost exactly 1 cm^2. They stick very well and look good. I do regret leaving the blank gaps near the keel. Live and learn.
 
The product would be perfect if the plates were spaced without gaps so that you could lay down entire rows without cutting (at least until the curvature got too great.) It would be nice if some US vendors carried it.
 
I have about an inch left to cover on each side, plus the keel, the rudder, and a band around the water line. I will weather the copper with vinegar and salt when it is all applied.

 

Thank you for all the clarifications, and especially for the link to the RMG collections site. I have browsed RMG many times and never stumbled on the best part! And now I'll have to buy several of Brian Lavery's books, even if it's too late for the Sphinx.

An Almost Brilliant Method for Coppering
In the last few months since I ordered my model this product has popped up on eBay. It is standard copper foil for stained glass with plate patterns for model ships stamped on it. It is available in 1:48, 1:75, and 1:96 scale, 500 pieces to a roll. There are now over 30 vendors, all in China, selling what appears to be identical products. I ordered two rolls at 1:75 scale at the end of November. They were delivered about three weeks later. I just used them up on the Sphinx, ran a bit short, and just ordered another roll. I also ordered a second roll at 1:48 scale to cap the keel and rudder post.

The plates were nicely spaced for the first few feet, and I thought I could cover entire rows without cutting the strips.  Then the spacing became irregular, with small gaps between the plates. I decided that I could live with that. Then very long gaps started to appear in the roll, and I had to cut individual plates.

It's easy to cut the foil with scissors but tedious to remove the plastic backing. A much easier technique is to cut a length of foil about 18" long, attach the end to the hull, and tear the foil against a razor blade held after the next plate. Then repeat. I coppered the rest of the hull in this manner, basically with individual plates.

I wondered if I had been cheated of plates, so when I opened the second roll I measured the length and counted the plates - 32 feet, 509 plates as advertised. The 1:75 plates are 18 mm x 6 mm, almost exactly 1 cm^2. They stick very well and look good. I do regret leaving the blank gaps near the keel. Live and learn.
 
The product would be perfect if the plates were spaced without gaps so that you could lay down entire rows without cutting (at least until the curvature got too great.) It would be nice if some US vendors carried it.
 
I have about an inch left to cover on each side, plus the keel, the rudder, and a band around the water line. I will weather the copper with vinegar and salt when it is all applied.

 

Beautiful work Walter, and all in a month's time.

An Almost Brilliant Method for Coppering
In the last few months since I ordered my model this product has popped up on eBay. It is standard copper foil for stained glass with plate patterns for model ships stamped on it. It is available in 1:48, 1:75, and 1:96 scale, 500 pieces to a roll. There are now over 30 vendors, all in China, selling what appears to be identical products. I ordered two rolls at 1:75 scale at the end of November. They were delivered about three weeks later. I just used them up on the Sphinx, ran a bit short, and just ordered another roll. I also ordered a second roll at 1:48 scale to cap the keel and rudder post.

The plates were nicely spaced for the first few feet, and I thought I could cover entire rows without cutting the strips.  Then the spacing became irregular, with small gaps between the plates. I decided that I could live with that. Then very long gaps started to appear in the roll, and I had to cut individual plates.

It's easy to cut the foil with scissors but tedious to remove the plastic backing. A much easier technique is to cut a length of foil about 18" long, attach the end to the hull, and tear the foil against a razor blade held after the next plate. Then repeat. I coppered the rest of the hull in this manner, basically with individual plates.

I wondered if I had been cheated of plates, so when I opened the second roll I measured the length and counted the plates - 32 feet, 509 plates as advertised. The 1:75 plates are 18 mm x 6 mm, almost exactly 1 cm^2. They stick very well and look good. I do regret leaving the blank gaps near the keel. Live and learn.
 
The product would be perfect if the plates were spaced without gaps so that you could lay down entire rows without cutting (at least until the curvature got too great.) It would be nice if some US vendors carried it.
 
I have about an inch left to cover on each side, plus the keel, the rudder, and a band around the water line. I will weather the copper with vinegar and salt when it is all applied.

 

I will admit to complete ignorance on this.
Who is Lavery?
If I search for Sphinx on https://www.rmg.co.uk  there are zero results. Is there a separate site for research?

An Almost Brilliant Method for Coppering
In the last few months since I ordered my model this product has popped up on eBay. It is standard copper foil for stained glass with plate patterns for model ships stamped on it. It is available in 1:48, 1:75, and 1:96 scale, 500 pieces to a roll. There are now over 30 vendors, all in China, selling what appears to be identical products. I ordered two rolls at 1:75 scale at the end of November. They were delivered about three weeks later. I just used them up on the Sphinx, ran a bit short, and just ordered another roll. I also ordered a second roll at 1:48 scale to cap the keel and rudder post.

The plates were nicely spaced for the first few feet, and I thought I could cover entire rows without cutting the strips.  Then the spacing became irregular, with small gaps between the plates. I decided that I could live with that. Then very long gaps started to appear in the roll, and I had to cut individual plates.

It's easy to cut the foil with scissors but tedious to remove the plastic backing. A much easier technique is to cut a length of foil about 18" long, attach the end to the hull, and tear the foil against a razor blade held after the next plate. Then repeat. I coppered the rest of the hull in this manner, basically with individual plates.

I wondered if I had been cheated of plates, so when I opened the second roll I measured the length and counted the plates - 32 feet, 509 plates as advertised. The 1:75 plates are 18 mm x 6 mm, almost exactly 1 cm^2. They stick very well and look good. I do regret leaving the blank gaps near the keel. Live and learn.
 
The product would be perfect if the plates were spaced without gaps so that you could lay down entire rows without cutting (at least until the curvature got too great.) It would be nice if some US vendors carried it.
 
I have about an inch left to cover on each side, plus the keel, the rudder, and a band around the water line. I will weather the copper with vinegar and salt when it is all applied.

 

Log #71: Raising the Boom
Next up is the boom.
 
I rigged the block for the boom topping lift in much the same way the other blocks seized to the mast head were done. The main difference is I used a 3.5mm block instead of the 3mm ones. I had wanted to use a 4mm one, but as I have previously discussed, when I went to buy them they were no longer available and so I had to settle for 3.5mm.

I also have been experimenting a bunch with the fake splices and I am slowly getting better at them, though at the same time they are slowly getting closer to a real splice.

According to steel the topping lift should be 4.5 inches cir, this works out to .57mm, but as I didn’t have any 0.6mm rope I instead used 0.5mm.

Counteracting the topping lift we have the sheet tackle. For this I used 0.45mm line copying BE’s arrangement.

For the sheet line I used 0.35mm line. Steel seems to indicate this should be 3 in cir which works out to 0.38 so close enough. I am still having a bit of trouble with the different names between the alert book, steel and the kit instructions, but as there are so many mistakes at this point I am mostly just making sure it makes logical sense and roughly corresponds to steel / the alert book.

And here is the current state of her. Now that all these counteracting lines are in place I need to tie them all off to get rid of the clutter. You can also see I am still working on the tackle for the boom topping lift as the block is spliced onto the line, but is waiting for the glue to dry before I cut off the ends.

Thanks to everyone who has stopped by for the encouragement, she is really starting to look like a sailing ship now.

Major milestone! Finished second planking 🙂 and quite happy with it tbh.
It's smooth, lovely curves, no big gaps anywhere. I haven't used any filler so far and wondering if I'll need to, we'll see.
I'm also happy with the red color I chose for the inside bulwarks, it's a period pigment 😉 Carmine red from AK interactive. I know what you're saying that carmine wasn't available to the British at that time, but Mr. King, the ship's builder was heavily involved with smuggling (that's a fact) so any color is justifiable 😉
 

First planking done, well apart from the emergency repair on the deadwood. (Note to self, easy with the Dremel)
But overall quite pleased. Some sanding to be done still, not sure I need filler... We'll see.
The lines are just gorgeous, it's difficult to see on a photo, you gotta trust me on that 😉
 

Thanks. 
It doesn't have a brand name on it, it's just a heavily overpriced lump of aluminium that gets hot 😉

Making some steady progress.
The instructions say to soak the plywood pieces for the stern counter and side bulwark patterns, shape them on the hull and let them dry there. I tried, but it somehow didn't work for me the way I imagined. So I fired up my old bending iron to shaped the pieces with that. I'm also using it now for the first planking.
Trying to do it as good as possible, as an exercise for the second planking and I know that thinking that mistakes can be corrected in later stages is maybe not a brilliant idea.
 
 

Nautical Question
At the bow the keel has a ring of holes shaped like a U. What is this?

Nautical Question
At the bow the keel has a ring of holes shaped like a U. What is this?

Filler

2 hours with Timbermate wood filler. It looks like my hull is made out of clay.

5 minutes with a random orbit sander - nearly smooth.

20 minutes with a sanding pad and Proxxon sander - ready to paint.

Sanding Done, Filler Needed
I did maybe 80% of my sanding with a random orbit sander, and much of the rest with a Proxxon pencil sander. It's mostly done but I had to order some new wood filler to match the color of the pear. It should come tomorrow. In the meantime I marked the waterline with a high-tech marking tool, and wet-bent the main wales to shape.

Second Planking Complete
I put in a marathon build yesterday and completed the second layer of planking. "Completed" as in "all the planks are glued down." I've done a little sanding but still have a lot of sanding and filling to do. The second layer of planks took about 28 hours for 29 planks on each side. So roughly 1/2 hour per plank.

Outer Bulwarks, Keel, Bow, Rudder Post, & Stern
The outer bulwarks are covered with 8 pieces of 0.8 mm pear with details burned in by the laser. The pieces fit almost perfectly but were tricky to attach. The manual says to coat the hull with dilute PVA and hold the pieces with a zillion clamps. The clamps just didn't fit very well, so when I unclamped the first piece there were several gaps along the bottom that had to be fixed carefully with CA. I attached the remaining 7 pieces by coating the hull with PVA over the center of each piece, and putting a bead of CA around the perimeter. Then I aligned the piece and held it in place for 20 seconds. No clamps necessary.
 
The keel, bow, and rudder post start as 3 mm MDF. After the first layer of planking they are covered with a 0.8 mm veneer of pear. This brilliant scheme leaves a perfect rabbet for the second layer of planking. The lower stern counter also gets a layer of veneer.


Second Layer of Planking
Before applying the second layer of planking I oiled the planks with Watco natural oil. That way if when I get CA on the planks they will already be oiled. That pear takes the stain beautifully.

My pedestals arrived so I attached a temporary stand. The second layer of planking takes a while to apply, but it is relatively easy with a solid hull underneath. The manual recommends splitting the planks so the front and rear joints can be fit easily.


There are some edges standing proud that will be sanded down later. The trim pieces on the bulwarks have some fuzzy grain on them , but the laser detail is too fine to sand. Don't know what I'll do about that.

 
 

First Layer of Planking Complete - 72 Hours, 50 days
 
A little bit of caulk and a little bit of paint,
Make a carpenter what he ain't.
 
At least that's what a painter told me, and it sure is true of the first layer of planking. I filled all the gaps with Famowood filler and did a lot of sanding. Foam sanding pads work beautifully. One thing that came in very handy was a remote controlled extension cord for my shop vacuum. As soon as the dust began to build I grabbed the hose, pressed the button, and had the dust cleaned up in no time.
 
Here are several photos of the first layer of planking.



The kit includes several braces to maintain the width of the hull during planking. Trouble is they are made of MDF, and I broke them off so many times that I had to reinforce them and tape them in place. But they did their job.

 
 

No, I Haven't Given Up
Actually I just returned from an 11 day trip to Maui with my wife, two sons, and their wives. Before I left I made an embarrassing mistake. Despite several warnings in the manual I started planking the hull with wet wood. When I got home there were some serious gaps between the planks. I've planked several hulls in my life and totally know better. I spent a couple of days filling and sanding, and it shouldn't cause a problem on the first layer of planking. I am now pinning wet strips to dry overnight, then gluing them the next day with PVA on the long edges and CA on the bulkheads. The photo shows the hull about half planked with wet planks and gaps, 3 rows with dry planks attached, and 3 more rows of wet planks pinned to dry overnight. This is all working out much better.
 
I prefer to mount my models on brass pedestals rather than using cradles. It makes them much easier to handle during construction and to move when finished. I just ordered two pedestals, and added some reinforcements along the keel to attach them to.
 

While waiting for planks to dry I built the stove. It comprises a surprising number of wood and photo etched brass parts.

 
 
 

Gun Ports, And A Piece That Just Didn't Fit Right

These little pieces get glued vertically to define the sides of the gun ports, like this.



Then thin plywood strips get painted red and glued to the insides of the gunwales. (Test fit before painting shown.) The fit was perfect, but after I had attached everything I discovered a gap between the gunwales and the horizontal notched strip.

And so, deconstruction. I removed the notched strip  and found that the gunwale pieces matched the notches in the MDF frames perfectly. I have no idea how the notched strip ended up so high, and on both sides. But I glued it back in the correct position. I also stained and attached the second deck with laser-marked planking.

The next step is to pre-soak thin ply panels for the outer gunwales. Before I glued these I discovered another gap between them and that same notched strip. There wasn't enough material on the MDF frames to fair the hull any more, so I filled the gaps with 1/16" square strips. It looks like this will all be covered with another deck and rails later.
 
So future Sphinx builders, keep an eye on that notched strip. Consider attaching the inner gunwale pieces first to make sure that strip sits right on top.