rvchima

Breech Ropes
As suggested, I am rigging the breech ropes to the cannons off the model. I just use a single knot under the barrel with a spot of CA.

Then I glue the cannon to the deck.

The ends of the breech ropes must go through the eyebolts and get tied with much thinner thread using a single clove hitch. It is quite difficult to tie a clove hitch in that tight space, but it is MUCH easier to tie a clove hitch in your hands by overlapping two simple loops. There is an excellent animation of the procedure here. I hold the clove hitch with an electronics test hook clip, then put the breech line through the clove hitch, through the eyebolt, and back through the clove hitch. I grab both ends of the breech line with another test clip (red.)

So now I have a clove hitch around the breech line as desired. I release the yellow clip, snug up the clove hitch, add another single knot and a spot of CA for safety, release the red hook, and trim the ends. Fairly painless.

A New Base
The outrageous patina on my copper hull needed an equally outrageous base. I made one out of a light cherry with a Bubinga veneer, finished with Watco natural oil and several coats of Minwax wipe-on polyurethane. I have been ordering brass name plates for all my models from a vendor on Amazon. The temporary base will go back on while I am working.
 
I have just started to rig the breech ropes for the cannons. @Thukydides posted a brilliant description of a jig for rigging the cannons off the model here. However, the instructions for the Sphinx had me install the eyebolts around the gunports about 20 pages ago, so I will have to do that rigging in place.

Cannons
In my last post I wrote how much I was enjoying this build but I'm not looking forward to this next part. At least she's not a first rate.

Chain Pumps, Hand Pumps, Grates and Finally the Stove
This part of the build is quite enjoyable. Each little component adds something interesting to the model. I built the stove almost two months ago and finally got to install it, and to jump ahead three pages in the manual past those instructions.

Thank you Thukydides. The patina is more intense than I ever imagined but I like it. I was hoping for a visually striking model (even if not quite historically accurate) and it is certainly turning out that way.
 
By the way, do you have another name besides Thukydides?
 
Two Ladders - Never to Be Seen Again



Chain Pumps and Supports

4 Hatch Coamings and 88 Cannon Balls
I figured it would be easier to place the cannon balls before the coamings were installed.

Outside of the Hull (Finally) Complete
The rudder, displacement numerals, and random reinforcing plates are now attached.
The rudder was hard because of about 120 nails holding the gudgeons and pintles. Those parts are non-functional - the rudder is actually held in place by 5 PE pins. A while ago I mentioned that my rudder wouldn't fit past the rudder post so I removed 1/4" at the top. Now the top pin has nowhere to attach. And with the pins the rudder was now a few mm wider and wouldn't tip in place. I had to use my trusty rotary tool to enlarge the hole in the hull, which is what I should have done in the first place.

I glued the displacement numerals with CA. The plans showed the starboard side so I did that first using a cutout copy of the plans for placement. For the port side I made a mirror image of the pattern with Photoshop and started gluing. After a while I realized that Roman numerals look the same forwards and backwards, but XI is not the same as IX. So I had to remove and reverse a few numerals. That removed the patina, which turns out to be fairly delicate. I touched it up with random green and black acrylic.
 
When I attached the copper plates I covered up the holes for the horseshoe and keel plates. I laid the paper cutouts in place, poked a pin through a marked hole, and hit the corresponding hole through the copper on the first try. Amazing!
 
 

I started the model a week before Christmas and have managed to make a little progress.
 
Bow & Stern Filler
Bow and Stern Filler pieces are made from a number of small MDF parts attached to a backing plate and sanded to shape with a rotary tool. Sanding was a little bit intimidating but came out just fine. The purple take in the third photo holds a temporary piece in place to protect two delicate vertical frame pieces.

Keel & Frames
I forgot to take a photo of the basic keel with frames attached, so I'll jump ahead a little here. The keel is a single piece of MDF, and the frames drop perfectly into slots. Nothing is glued at first. The manual says to place the lower deck with laser-burned planking lines on the frames. Neither the manual nor most of the build logs say anything about finishing the sub deck, but I went ahead and used a coat of Minwax Golden Oak oil stain and three coats of satin Polycrylic spray. Now I realize that you can't see that deck on the finished model, but hey, I know it's there.
 
Longitudinal gun port frames are attached to the top of the frames, then everything is glued with diluted PVA glue painted on from below. In this way the lower deck and longitudinal frames keep everything in alignment as the glue drys.
 
You know the laser-cut wooden toys/puzzles that are so common now? Names like ROKR, UGEARS, and RoWood? So far this model reminded me of those - no skill necessary. I think that planking the hull will be a different story.


Four lower coamings with gratings made of pear wood are assembled and attached to the lower deck.
Note to Self: These precisely thin laser-cut pieces can be extremely delicate! Don't ask me how I know.

The stern counter is made up of nine frames.

Horizontal supports for the gun deck are attached next, and then longitudinal supports are attached on top of them.

The kit includes a cradle to hold the model during construction. It matches two frames exactly, but until the hull is planked I am using two spring clamps to keep the hull from slipping off.
 
Next the gun sub-deck is attached in two pieces. Remember what I said about "no skill necessary?" I take that back. The gun deck was very hard to fit. The notches were all a little tight, and the two pieces wouldn't quite match up along the center line. I placed, removed, sanded, and replaced the two pieces for hours, and still ended up with gaps between them. Eventually a nicer deck will go over top so it won't matter.

Update:
 
I finished all the gunport linings. I took me a bit longer then I expected, but to get it nice and clean...there needed to be used some filler here and there
But i'm happy  how it turned out. I painted them right away...I did use some masking tape around the edges to get a clean edge. First I used some clear varnish to seal of any gaps where the red could leak into. That worked quite well.
 
Next step was to install the pre-lasered planks below the gunport patterns, that did go well, not really something I can say more about it. I also added two more planks that should be the base of the lasered wale patterns. I measured them (about 14mm wide) so I covered that area. Now below these planks I can begin with the real test  
I want to leave the hull in the natural wood color, without the white color. So the planking journey begins from here. First step would be lining off the hull, mark the lines where the joints are going to be etc.
 
In the original planking pattern (you can find it in Blue Ensign's log of his Sphinx) there was a dropplank right under the wales. That would be a cool thing to replicate and makes the rest of the planking also easier. So I'm going to see if I can make that. That's why I found it important to allready plank the area underneath the wale patterns, so the drop plank would rest to the underside of it. Well...in theory  
 

 
 
 

A New Base
The outrageous patina on my copper hull needed an equally outrageous base. I made one out of a light cherry with a Bubinga veneer, finished with Watco natural oil and several coats of Minwax wipe-on polyurethane. I have been ordering brass name plates for all my models from a vendor on Amazon. The temporary base will go back on while I am working.
 
I have just started to rig the breech ropes for the cannons. @Thukydides posted a brilliant description of a jig for rigging the cannons off the model here. However, the instructions for the Sphinx had me install the eyebolts around the gunports about 20 pages ago, so I will have to do that rigging in place.

A New Base
The outrageous patina on my copper hull needed an equally outrageous base. I made one out of a light cherry with a Bubinga veneer, finished with Watco natural oil and several coats of Minwax wipe-on polyurethane. I have been ordering brass name plates for all my models from a vendor on Amazon. The temporary base will go back on while I am working.
 
I have just started to rig the breech ropes for the cannons. @Thukydides posted a brilliant description of a jig for rigging the cannons off the model here. However, the instructions for the Sphinx had me install the eyebolts around the gunports about 20 pages ago, so I will have to do that rigging in place.

A New Base
The outrageous patina on my copper hull needed an equally outrageous base. I made one out of a light cherry with a Bubinga veneer, finished with Watco natural oil and several coats of Minwax wipe-on polyurethane. I have been ordering brass name plates for all my models from a vendor on Amazon. The temporary base will go back on while I am working.
 
I have just started to rig the breech ropes for the cannons. @Thukydides posted a brilliant description of a jig for rigging the cannons off the model here. However, the instructions for the Sphinx had me install the eyebolts around the gunports about 20 pages ago, so I will have to do that rigging in place.

A New Base
The outrageous patina on my copper hull needed an equally outrageous base. I made one out of a light cherry with a Bubinga veneer, finished with Watco natural oil and several coats of Minwax wipe-on polyurethane. I have been ordering brass name plates for all my models from a vendor on Amazon. The temporary base will go back on while I am working.
 
I have just started to rig the breech ropes for the cannons. @Thukydides posted a brilliant description of a jig for rigging the cannons off the model here. However, the instructions for the Sphinx had me install the eyebolts around the gunports about 20 pages ago, so I will have to do that rigging in place.

A New Base
The outrageous patina on my copper hull needed an equally outrageous base. I made one out of a light cherry with a Bubinga veneer, finished with Watco natural oil and several coats of Minwax wipe-on polyurethane. I have been ordering brass name plates for all my models from a vendor on Amazon. The temporary base will go back on while I am working.
 
I have just started to rig the breech ropes for the cannons. @Thukydides posted a brilliant description of a jig for rigging the cannons off the model here. However, the instructions for the Sphinx had me install the eyebolts around the gunports about 20 pages ago, so I will have to do that rigging in place.

A New Base
The outrageous patina on my copper hull needed an equally outrageous base. I made one out of a light cherry with a Bubinga veneer, finished with Watco natural oil and several coats of Minwax wipe-on polyurethane. I have been ordering brass name plates for all my models from a vendor on Amazon. The temporary base will go back on while I am working.
 
I have just started to rig the breech ropes for the cannons. @Thukydides posted a brilliant description of a jig for rigging the cannons off the model here. However, the instructions for the Sphinx had me install the eyebolts around the gunports about 20 pages ago, so I will have to do that rigging in place.

Cannons
Not as painful as I thought - it took about 15 hours to build 20 cannons.

A New Base
The outrageous patina on my copper hull needed an equally outrageous base. I made one out of a light cherry with a Bubinga veneer, finished with Watco natural oil and several coats of Minwax wipe-on polyurethane. I have been ordering brass name plates for all my models from a vendor on Amazon. The temporary base will go back on while I am working.
 
I have just started to rig the breech ropes for the cannons. @Thukydides posted a brilliant description of a jig for rigging the cannons off the model here. However, the instructions for the Sphinx had me install the eyebolts around the gunports about 20 pages ago, so I will have to do that rigging in place.

Cannons
Not as painful as I thought - it took about 15 hours to build 20 cannons.

Eclipse
We had a solar eclipse today, 87 percent coverage where I live but only briefly visible through the clouds. I managed to get one decent photo with my old Celestron 90mm  spotting scope with a solar filter and an iPhone holder.

A New Base
The outrageous patina on my copper hull needed an equally outrageous base. I made one out of a light cherry with a Bubinga veneer, finished with Watco natural oil and several coats of Minwax wipe-on polyurethane. I have been ordering brass name plates for all my models from a vendor on Amazon. The temporary base will go back on while I am working.
 
I have just started to rig the breech ropes for the cannons. @Thukydides posted a brilliant description of a jig for rigging the cannons off the model here. However, the instructions for the Sphinx had me install the eyebolts around the gunports about 20 pages ago, so I will have to do that rigging in place.

A New Base
The outrageous patina on my copper hull needed an equally outrageous base. I made one out of a light cherry with a Bubinga veneer, finished with Watco natural oil and several coats of Minwax wipe-on polyurethane. I have been ordering brass name plates for all my models from a vendor on Amazon. The temporary base will go back on while I am working.
 
I have just started to rig the breech ropes for the cannons. @Thukydides posted a brilliant description of a jig for rigging the cannons off the model here. However, the instructions for the Sphinx had me install the eyebolts around the gunports about 20 pages ago, so I will have to do that rigging in place.

A New Base
The outrageous patina on my copper hull needed an equally outrageous base. I made one out of a light cherry with a Bubinga veneer, finished with Watco natural oil and several coats of Minwax wipe-on polyurethane. I have been ordering brass name plates for all my models from a vendor on Amazon. The temporary base will go back on while I am working.
 
I have just started to rig the breech ropes for the cannons. @Thukydides posted a brilliant description of a jig for rigging the cannons off the model here. However, the instructions for the Sphinx had me install the eyebolts around the gunports about 20 pages ago, so I will have to do that rigging in place.

Cannons
Not as painful as I thought - it took about 15 hours to build 20 cannons.

Cannons
Not as painful as I thought - it took about 15 hours to build 20 cannons.

Log #40: Rigging the Guns Part II
Part II of my adventure rigging the guns is largely concerned with scrapping what I did in part I and starting again. This seems to be a common occurrence with this whole project so I am used to it at this point.
 
@Marcus.K. had a great suggestion which really should have occurred to me. In any case when I tested the length against the available room I found that at a number of the ports, the guns would hit the deck fittings when recoiling which is obviously not an ideal scenario. After a bit of experimenting I decided on a revised length of 95mm which is about as long as I can make them and still have some reasonable clearance.
 
One upside to redoing things is I have a much better process having done it once already and so I figured I would document the steps for the benefit of those who have never attempted this sort of thing before.
 
Step 1 was to use a small bit of super glue to fix the breaching rope to the bottom of the cascable.

I did consider some alternative methods of attaching the rope (see here for a discussion on it), but in the end I decided to stick with the arrangement as shown in the Goodwin drawings for two main reasons:
Attempting something like a cut splice seemed a bit beyond me until I have more experience with ropes at this scale. I might attempt such a thing on a future model, but it seemed wise to set my sites on manageable goals. Doing it this way is very easy. Asthetically I like the look and I suppose I can imagine in my head there is some sort of seizing holding it in place. I again used a small drop of super glue and let it sit for a few minutes with a small clamp pulling the ropes into place.

For the seizing I decided to use a slightly lighter thread to help it stand out more. I held things in place with a pair of revers tweezers (the kind you squeeze to open) held in my vice.

When doing the seizing, I started by running the thread through the rope using a needle to help hold it in place. Then I wrapped it around and ran the need through again to close it off. I then gave it all a coat of ultra matt varnish to hold it in place before cutting off th ends.

To try and simulate the splicing of the end of the breach road into itself I clipped an angle off of the end to make it appear like it merged in when it was covered by the seizing and attached using varnish. I wanted to take a picture of this, but I was unable to get a good enough image to demonstrate what I did.
 
And you can see below the finished cannon attached to the model to demonstrate how far it can go back. The breach rope no longer allows the cannon to hit the deck furniture and the lighter thread I think better highlights the way the cannon is attached to the bulwark.

Once the glue for the ring bolts has dried I can fix the cannon in its proper place and try and arrange the breach rope properly. Now I just need to do this 11 more times :).