robdurant

Hi everyone,
 
Three weeks later, and I've had another good day to work on Stefano. I finally made and died some more .5mm rope for the standing rigging, which allowed me to complete the backstays. I've also got some more work done on the yards, adding eyelets, blocks, and bending the forecourse to the main yard on the foremast. Again, this has caused the model to take up significantly more space on my desk, but it feels like we're on the home straight now as we move towards running rigging. I counted, and I think I have 8 sails left to bend to yards / stunsail yards. There's a lot of tidying up to do with rope ends fixed with watered down PVA (a big advantage of making your own rope with DMC cordonnet thread, as it's natural, not synthetic), and trimmed to make them neat.
 
Thank you so much to all of you who've hung in there through what has proved to be a lengthy build
 
Here are a few shots of how she stands right now.  




Happy building
 
Rob

Hi everyone,
 
Three weeks later, and I've had another good day to work on Stefano. I finally made and died some more .5mm rope for the standing rigging, which allowed me to complete the backstays. I've also got some more work done on the yards, adding eyelets, blocks, and bending the forecourse to the main yard on the foremast. Again, this has caused the model to take up significantly more space on my desk, but it feels like we're on the home straight now as we move towards running rigging. I counted, and I think I have 8 sails left to bend to yards / stunsail yards. There's a lot of tidying up to do with rope ends fixed with watered down PVA (a big advantage of making your own rope with DMC cordonnet thread, as it's natural, not synthetic), and trimmed to make them neat.
 
Thank you so much to all of you who've hung in there through what has proved to be a lengthy build
 
Here are a few shots of how she stands right now.  




Happy building
 
Rob

She’s looking very impressive Rob, really nice to see all those sails! 

Hi everyone,
 
Three weeks later, and I've had another good day to work on Stefano. I finally made and died some more .5mm rope for the standing rigging, which allowed me to complete the backstays. I've also got some more work done on the yards, adding eyelets, blocks, and bending the forecourse to the main yard on the foremast. Again, this has caused the model to take up significantly more space on my desk, but it feels like we're on the home straight now as we move towards running rigging. I counted, and I think I have 8 sails left to bend to yards / stunsail yards. There's a lot of tidying up to do with rope ends fixed with watered down PVA (a big advantage of making your own rope with DMC cordonnet thread, as it's natural, not synthetic), and trimmed to make them neat.
 
Thank you so much to all of you who've hung in there through what has proved to be a lengthy build
 
Here are a few shots of how she stands right now.  




Happy building
 
Rob

I am working on chapter 3.  The videos have you shape, paint and install the main bulwarks.  When that is done you sand the transom to the correct angle so the last piece can be installed.  I chose to make a card template so that I could sand and test fit.  This is a crucial part as the hull planking must come up flush with this piece. Once I have a good fit here, the main bulwarks will be glued in place.  They are plywood and somewhat fragile, no need to damage them when moving things about while sanding.  I am almost there, just a little bit to go.

Hi Frank and thank you for following along.
I don’t have a date yet, I’m making some slight revisions to a few parts on the 1st chapter as well as adding a much needed frame support jig. I will hopefully begin building soon but I need to be well ahead in the construction before I can release anything otherwise I could leave people hanging. This is a hobby for my hobby and I cannot dedicate myself full time yet. But  once I complete the hull and planking I plan to move much quicker…unless I decide to rig all the guns again.
JJ

Glad to hear you managed to remedy the situation. 

Small update for today.
Frank.

Disaster averted.  I managed to un glue the joints and raise the deck enough to clean everything up.  I will give a light sand after the new glue dries, should be OK.

Good evening, today’s update is all about the cranes located at the bow. The hardest part for me was building the tackle, these pulley's are very small, just 3mm at the widest part.
 

That deck looks great. Thanks for sharing this build, I'm enjoying following along.

That deck looks great. Thanks for sharing this build, I'm enjoying following along.

Well I know I haven't posted anything for quite a while, but I have not abandoned ship.  Attached are two (not terrific) photos of the PEGASUS as she stands right now.  Progress is being made, albeit somewhat slowly.
 

The main deck planking is complete, and dry fitted to the keel and frames.  All seems to line up properly.  Next step is to put a finish on the deck before gluing.  The construction video has you pencil lines on the deck after planking is complete. I pencilled one side of each plank before installing, I think it looks good.

These days, this is what progress looks like for me:


I added the filling pieces for the middle band of wales, so that I can properly mount the chain preventer plates.
 
My J-O-B has transitioned to full-employment, lately, and I have completely lost the pockets of daytime to get small-work done.  The evenings are mostly consumed with coaching sports teams, and emailing families about said sports teams, and generally being a husband and dad.  All good, just BUSY.
 
I don’t have a lot of modeling mojo left in me, to do good work, so I have mostly been reading.  About rigging and other things ship-related.
 
R.C. Anderson really is the foundational read for this epoch.  As I go through it, I have been re-reading the rigging sequence of several of my favorite builds.  The first is Paul Kattner’s intense kit-bash of the DeAgostini Vasa; as a first-time builder, his approach and technical mastery are just incredible.  His log is extremely well-photographed throughout. Along the same lines is Michael’s (‘72 Nova) Airfix Vasa, which is just exquisitely well-done in an impossibly small scale. The third is Marsalv’s Le Gros Ventre, which is just a model that I love, through-and-through, and the rigging is truly excellent.  Very honorable mention goes to Daniel’s Victory, which like Michael’s build is excellent for the technical tricks of making rigging look truly professional.
 
These are peripheral time periods to my own, with their very specific contributions to the history of rigging, but the sequence of work in these builds is enormously helpful for understanding what is a very complicated process.
 
I am, of course, well acquainted with Archjofo, and all I can say there is - dare to dream.  A true Master Class.
 
Now that I have some rigging vocabulary and understanding of what most of the lines do, it has become much easier to conceive of where my belay points should be.  Just as with anything else, you can’t really build a rig until you can understand it and visualize it.  We are getting there, though.
 
As is my custom, I make frequent visits to The Strand, hunting for obscure, and out-of-print ship books.  Most of the time, I come up empty.  Occasionally, though, I find a gem!  On my most recent trip, there was a veritable treasure trove!
 
Winfield’s First Rate (have it)
Lee’s Masting and Rigging (have it)
An updated and comprehensively illustrated Pepy’s Navy (don’t have it, yet)
 
And, then, these two:

I will likely go back and poach the Pepy’s title on my next paycheck.  The two I did pick up are invaluable for both my current and future projects.
 
The Art of Ship Modeling has a very detailed accounting of the construction of Frolich’s L’Ambiteaux, and all of his subjects are beautifully photographed in hi-res.
 
Lavery’s edition of Dean’s Doctrine is also beautifully illustrated and the math of Dean’s approach is very clearly explained.  It isn’t a guidebook to reconstructing a French First-Rate of 1670, but it is useful for understanding the methods in vogue for that specific time period.  Again, you can’t build it until you understand it.
 
Lastly, John Ott clue’d me-in to the fact that an English only edition of Le Chevalier de Tourville was back in-print by Ancre for a very reasonable sum.  I bought that too!  From what I have gathered, here and there, the rigging and belay plans of this monograph are relatively easy to follow.  Thank you, John!
 
So, I just wanted to say “hello,” and thank you all for visiting.  More to follow!
 
Best,
 
Marc
 
 

More deck fittings.
 
The instruction manual says to build the rear railing fixed onto the stern, and then paint it.  But my only yellow is spray paint, which I want to match to, so I reverse engineered it to make it removable.  See first two pictures.  Then painted yellow.
 
Other deck fittings on stern and bow shown below.
 
Regards,
David

@rwiederrich - It truly is.
 
I had a good day yesterday working on Stefano - I've added the mast hoops to the Mizzen topmast - these 9 hoops were formed from brass wire and chemically blackened. Then they were put in place on the mast and thread tied to them ready to attach the sail. I added the running rigging holding this sail in place, and then went on to add the spanker sail.



Now that these fore and aft sails are in place, I can add the backstays. So far I've added the starboard foretopmast backstay.

Thanks for looking in, and for your kind words and encouragement. Getting to this stage is really spurring me on to complete Stefano, but there's still a fair bit to do. 
 
Rob

@rwiederrich - It truly is.
 
I had a good day yesterday working on Stefano - I've added the mast hoops to the Mizzen topmast - these 9 hoops were formed from brass wire and chemically blackened. Then they were put in place on the mast and thread tied to them ready to attach the sail. I added the running rigging holding this sail in place, and then went on to add the spanker sail.



Now that these fore and aft sails are in place, I can add the backstays. So far I've added the starboard foretopmast backstay.

Thanks for looking in, and for your kind words and encouragement. Getting to this stage is really spurring me on to complete Stefano, but there's still a fair bit to do. 
 
Rob

Back in the 70's I was into RC boats. Here is an old Dumas speed controller, with proportional forward, stop, reverse (complete with a blob of epoxy from almost 50 years ago!). I remember dismantling it to clean the exposed element in the wire-wound ceramic resistor, and the contact arm, to keep current flow steady. What wasted power in the resistor! As I mentioned you had to have a throttle servo to run it, unlike today's ESC's plugging directly into the Receiver.
 
I pity my kids who'll have to sort through all my old hobby junk when I'm gone. Or maybe I will one day dispose of stuff to ease their load. I seem to recall there's an apple basket somewhere full of old 0.049 airplane engines and parts, and I also have two 0.35 Enya engines which the hobby shop tells me are worth zero now. He did say the 0.049 engines are in demand though!  🤔
 
Fond memories .............

Thanks @Ian_Grant - yes, I need to source some light fibreglass cloth. I'm hoping to get a really smooth hull before I fibreglass it, so that the tidying up after is as limited as possible. 
 
I've gone through a few more rounds of filling / sanding, and it's really starting to look quite neat - these photos are from half way through the process. In-between filler and sanding, I put on a coat of grey primer so I can see where the peaks and troughs are...
 



The new speed controller arrived, so I've set up all the electrics and tested them. They'll do the job nicely. Things have moved on since I last made a radio controlled model, and this clever speed controller works out which way is forward based on the first direction you push the throttle stick on the radio control! Clever stuff! I had to solder a new receiver plug onto to the servo for the rudder, but otherwise, all very simple and easy. Rudder is channel 1, and Throttle channel 2. I tested the motor with an AA cell before I soldered on the speed controller to check that the prop would rotate in the correct direction - (clockwise as you look from the stern). It ended up as shown below.


I've also been looking at what colour to put on the hull... I don't want a bright blue, but something a little more towards the teal end, and somewhat more subtle... To that end, I've been experimenting... I need to re-run these experiments on grey primer, as I suspect the mix will need to change, but the picture below gives some idea of the colour I'm looking for... It's a 1:2 / 1:3 ratio of Vallejo blue/green and Vallejo blue... I tried Andrea Blue but it was too light.
 


I'm looking for something like the top left tone... Admittedly that tone will look different on each screen that displays this, but I've been looking at this in daylight and under daylight bulbs, and I'm pretty happy with the tone in real life. Having a 1:2 / 1:3 ratio makes it very easy to replicate should I need to. I just get the appropriate number of bottles and mix them in their entirety.
 
Big thanks to everyone for looking in
 
Rob

Yes, modern ESC's are vastly superior to the old big clunky rheostatic speed controllers used in the 70's, which needed a servo to move their control arm and wasted a lot of battery power. And remember cleaning their contacts? 🙄
 
Re fiberglassing - when I made my cedar strip canoe I had an ultra smooth sanded cedar hull which became lumpy plastic after three coats fiberglass resin with cloth. It was a letdown but it comes up beautifully with sanding. Even the guy who wrote the how-to book ("Canoecraft") wrote not to be discouraged when you first see the dried resin.  HaHa.
 
Going to be a great model. Looking forward to seeing the painted hull!

@rwiederrich - It truly is.
 
I had a good day yesterday working on Stefano - I've added the mast hoops to the Mizzen topmast - these 9 hoops were formed from brass wire and chemically blackened. Then they were put in place on the mast and thread tied to them ready to attach the sail. I added the running rigging holding this sail in place, and then went on to add the spanker sail.



Now that these fore and aft sails are in place, I can add the backstays. So far I've added the starboard foretopmast backstay.

Thanks for looking in, and for your kind words and encouragement. Getting to this stage is really spurring me on to complete Stefano, but there's still a fair bit to do. 
 
Rob

Thanks @Ian_Grant - yes, I need to source some light fibreglass cloth. I'm hoping to get a really smooth hull before I fibreglass it, so that the tidying up after is as limited as possible. 
 
I've gone through a few more rounds of filling / sanding, and it's really starting to look quite neat - these photos are from half way through the process. In-between filler and sanding, I put on a coat of grey primer so I can see where the peaks and troughs are...
 



The new speed controller arrived, so I've set up all the electrics and tested them. They'll do the job nicely. Things have moved on since I last made a radio controlled model, and this clever speed controller works out which way is forward based on the first direction you push the throttle stick on the radio control! Clever stuff! I had to solder a new receiver plug onto to the servo for the rudder, but otherwise, all very simple and easy. Rudder is channel 1, and Throttle channel 2. I tested the motor with an AA cell before I soldered on the speed controller to check that the prop would rotate in the correct direction - (clockwise as you look from the stern). It ended up as shown below.


I've also been looking at what colour to put on the hull... I don't want a bright blue, but something a little more towards the teal end, and somewhat more subtle... To that end, I've been experimenting... I need to re-run these experiments on grey primer, as I suspect the mix will need to change, but the picture below gives some idea of the colour I'm looking for... It's a 1:2 / 1:3 ratio of Vallejo blue/green and Vallejo blue... I tried Andrea Blue but it was too light.
 


I'm looking for something like the top left tone... Admittedly that tone will look different on each screen that displays this, but I've been looking at this in daylight and under daylight bulbs, and I'm pretty happy with the tone in real life. Having a 1:2 / 1:3 ratio makes it very easy to replicate should I need to. I just get the appropriate number of bottles and mix them in their entirety.
 
Big thanks to everyone for looking in
 
Rob

@rwiederrich - It truly is.
 
I had a good day yesterday working on Stefano - I've added the mast hoops to the Mizzen topmast - these 9 hoops were formed from brass wire and chemically blackened. Then they were put in place on the mast and thread tied to them ready to attach the sail. I added the running rigging holding this sail in place, and then went on to add the spanker sail.



Now that these fore and aft sails are in place, I can add the backstays. So far I've added the starboard foretopmast backstay.

Thanks for looking in, and for your kind words and encouragement. Getting to this stage is really spurring me on to complete Stefano, but there's still a fair bit to do. 
 
Rob

@rwiederrich - It truly is.
 
I had a good day yesterday working on Stefano - I've added the mast hoops to the Mizzen topmast - these 9 hoops were formed from brass wire and chemically blackened. Then they were put in place on the mast and thread tied to them ready to attach the sail. I added the running rigging holding this sail in place, and then went on to add the spanker sail.



Now that these fore and aft sails are in place, I can add the backstays. So far I've added the starboard foretopmast backstay.

Thanks for looking in, and for your kind words and encouragement. Getting to this stage is really spurring me on to complete Stefano, but there's still a fair bit to do. 
 
Rob