robdurant

Thank you Ian. You're very kind.
 
Yes, I made the ropes using the Syren rope rocket and DMC cordonnet crochet thread, dyed with Rit fabric dye.
 
It is wonderfully rewarding rigging with your own rope, and there's no anxiety about running out

And the lower shrouds are complete. As I posted this I realised that I hadn't properly attached the rear most shroud to the aft pair to help it take the right path on the starboard side. That's fixed now.

Nice to have a pleasant dry day to take photos, too Happy building

And the lower shrouds are complete. As I posted this I realised that I hadn't properly attached the rear most shroud to the aft pair to help it take the right path on the starboard side. That's fixed now.

Nice to have a pleasant dry day to take photos, too Happy building

And the lower shrouds are complete. As I posted this I realised that I hadn't properly attached the rear most shroud to the aft pair to help it take the right path on the starboard side. That's fixed now.

Nice to have a pleasant dry day to take photos, too Happy building

Hi Shipman. 
 
My desire in writing this software was primarily that it hard-coded the information that sets the rotation on website pages...This rotation information causes a lot of confusion to users who see a photo the right way up on their cameras but then it displays the wrong way online. It may well be that the software you have pointed to does the same, but I had struggled to find something that did that reliably for free
 
Glad you found an app that works well for you.
 
Rob

I set up the mainmast shrouds today...
 



More soon
 
Rob

Version 1.13.0 now available on https://www.durant.biz/pictureresizer now supports cropping (with the option to maintain the aspect ratio of the image) on a per image basis as you resize your photos.
 
Simply select "begin cropping" or click and drag to select a region of the image, then resize it until you're happy with the size. Selecting the "maintain aspect ratio" checkbox will mean that each time you resize the selection it will keep the width to height ratio the same as that of the original image (i.e. 16:9, 4:3, etc...) Then when you resize the image, it will crop the image to the rectangle.   Hope it's helpful
 
 
Happy resizing!
 
Rob

Version 1.13.0 now available on https://www.durant.biz/pictureresizer now supports cropping (with the option to maintain the aspect ratio of the image) on a per image basis as you resize your photos.
 
Simply select "begin cropping" or click and drag to select a region of the image, then resize it until you're happy with the size. Selecting the "maintain aspect ratio" checkbox will mean that each time you resize the selection it will keep the width to height ratio the same as that of the original image (i.e. 16:9, 4:3, etc...) Then when you resize the image, it will crop the image to the rectangle.   Hope it's helpful
 
 
Happy resizing!
 
Rob

It is super easy and only time-consuming trick. Even children can do better than me. Thanks to the newly learned skill, I'll try building plastic sailing ship kits in the near future.
 
I'll upload tutorial video while I'm waiting for the oil paints to dry.

Work has begun on the foremast shrouds...

Work has begun on the foremast shrouds...

Work has begun on the foremast shrouds...

Work has begun on the foremast shrouds...

Work has begun on the foremast shrouds...

Work has begun on the foremast shrouds...

Thank you Ian. You're very kind.
 
Yes, I made the ropes using the Syren rope rocket and DMC cordonnet crochet thread, dyed with Rit fabric dye.
 
It is wonderfully rewarding rigging with your own rope, and there's no anxiety about running out

I completed the bumpkins which were the last of the parts which needed to be made.  I decided not to drill the hole through the hull moulding and frieze. It felt that it was a little to risky at his stage of the build. Of course I never thought of it, but if it were possible I would have done so earlier in the build. Instead I simulated as best I could the look of doing so.
 
Its been nearly five years since I switched from the 3/16" to the 1/4" scale version in April of 2018. With the ship now finished, I just want to say thank you for sharing this journey with me. Every kind word, comment and "Like" inspired me to do my best and keep moving ahead.
 
I would be remiss if I didn't give a special thank you to Chuck for being a huge help to me from the very start as well as putting up with all of my nuttiness. Thank you, Chuck!




 

See ya soon, Mike

Thank you Ryland and Bob, it's good to have your respective works to refer to. 👍
 
Post 11
The three required strakes of this version are now fitted, but not fully fettled.
 I found that the planks altho’ pre-spiled did require a fair amount of tweaking to get them to fit.

0270

0267

0263
The second strake below the sheer (plank15) proved trickier to fit.
Starting with the port side, once around the bow curve it did not readily sit down against the sheer plank. Repeated bending and some sanding was required to get the plank into position.

0266
The aft section (plank16) was a little easier but did require some sanding and bevelling along the section between frame 8 and the transom. Mid way along a slight curve was induced, and from frame 8 a slight twist is also required where the plank starts to curve beneath the transom.

0265
The forward plank on the Starboard side also required similar treatment. The aft section (16) proved problematic, I just couldn’t get rid of an annoying gap, so the plank was scrapped and a replacement cut which went on with minimal sanding and bevelling.
 
The third strake bow plank (13) is a long plank near 70% of the overall hull length.

0262
An almost instant disaster the end of the plank split along the grain where it fits into the bow rabbet, just where you don’t want it – under pressure at the bow.
 
Fortunately, there is sufficient sheet to cut replacements which is easily done using just a scalpel. Based on the trial fitting of the now replaced plank, the new plank can be tweaked before cutting to allow a little extra material for better sanding to fit.

0264
Both sides of plank (13) were re-cuts and it took me some time to get anywhere close to a tight fit.
 

0268
The same applied to the aft section where both planks (14) were re-fits.

0269
The one comforting thought is that the first and second strakes are covered by an extra layer of duplicate planks which form the wale, so there are in effect two chances to get it right.
 
This will be the next step.
 
B.E.
22/02/2023
 
 
 
 
 
 

Thanks again for all the likes and comments.
 
I made the jib a little while ago with all the lower yards, stuns’l booms, mizzen gaffs and some of the spare masts. I will cover these as we go on.

The jib was made to the specification in the AotS as were all other yards and masts. The bowsprit cap was made from scratch because the kit part did not allow for the holes to be changed to the correct angle. It was also too narrow to fit a jack staff.

I used the kit dolphin striker which was glued and pinned to the cap. Before fixing the jib, I added the 'lead' saddle for the spritsail yard which unfortunately doesn't show up well in the photo. This was simply made from a piece of paper (200gsm I think) painted iron grey. The heel lashing is 7 wraps of 0.5mm rope. I wasn’t sure of the order of rigging for the jibboom so followed the order given in Lees, starting with the guy pendants (0.4mm) followed by the horses and the martingale. The horses (0.75mm rope) are knotted with figure-of-eights every 10mm. The horses and pendants are left hanging for the moment. The martingale stay and back stay (0.4mm) are one piece and lead back, via a fall, to the port side of the bowsprit.

 
 
The mizzen topgallant stay is made from 0.4mm rope and leads through a thimble in the main topmast head and finishes with thimbles and lanyard at the main top. According to Lees the royal stay wasn’t introduced until after 1810 so I have left it off. The back stays lead to the stool abaft the mizzen channel, the topgallant to a 2.5mm deadeye and the royal to an eyebolt. I realise that there is some inconsistency here in that there is a royal backstay but no stay. Maybe I should have left both off and I may go back to it later but I quite like it as it is.


The main mast topgallant stay (0.5mm) leads through a 3mm block on the fore topmast head down to the forestay where it is tied off at the collar of the topmast stay lead block. I should have made the strop so that it stood more proud of the mast to improve the run of the topgallant stay but too late now. The royal stay leads through a 3mm block at the fore topmast head and ends in a thimble which is connected by a lanyard to another thimble fixed with a span to the fore topmast cross trees. I realised, too late, that the span should be tied into the inside of the cross trees before fitting the masts, so I have had to tie them to the outside. Back stays run down to the stool abaft the main channel.

The foreamast topgallant stay leads through a 3mm block on the jibboom and runs back to the forestay collar where it is tied of with three seizings,

The royal stay leads to the end of the jibboom where it is tied off. Backstays are set up in a similar manner and lead down to deadeyes on the foreward channel.
 
 
I have looked again at the main and fore topmast shifting backstays and decided to re-rig them in a way more in line with the description in Lees. I’m puzzled when Lees says that the pendants were half as long again as the burton pendants. I interpreted this to mean that they would end high up off the deck which didn’t seem right and wasn’t in line with the drawing in AotS. I have rigged the pendants to come to within 90mm of the deck. The falls are set up as in Lees with a long tackle block hooked to the pendant and a single 3mm block hooked to an eyebolt in the channels.

The main topmast shifting backstay falls are tied off to a belay pin but the foreward shifting backstay, according to the Caldercraft plan, is tied off to a shroud cleat and would lie across the shrouds. This seemed wrong to my eye so I have fitted a deck cleat, not shown on the plans, to tie it off which I think works better.

 
The standing rigging is now complete and means another milestone in the build is reached just over two years from when it began.
 

Thanks for looking in
David

 

Thank you Ian. You're very kind.
 
Yes, I made the ropes using the Syren rope rocket and DMC cordonnet crochet thread, dyed with Rit fabric dye.
 
It is wonderfully rewarding rigging with your own rope, and there's no anxiety about running out

I set up the mainmast shrouds today...
 



More soon
 
Rob

Thank you Ian. You're very kind.
 
Yes, I made the ropes using the Syren rope rocket and DMC cordonnet crochet thread, dyed with Rit fabric dye.
 
It is wonderfully rewarding rigging with your own rope, and there's no anxiety about running out

Thank you Ian. You're very kind.
 
Yes, I made the ropes using the Syren rope rocket and DMC cordonnet crochet thread, dyed with Rit fabric dye.
 
It is wonderfully rewarding rigging with your own rope, and there's no anxiety about running out

Thank you Ian. You're very kind.
 
Yes, I made the ropes using the Syren rope rocket and DMC cordonnet crochet thread, dyed with Rit fabric dye.
 
It is wonderfully rewarding rigging with your own rope, and there's no anxiety about running out

Given that this balcony doesn’t wrap to the quarters the way the middle balcony does, I thought it would be easier to first attach the corbels.  Fitting these is a little tricky because they toe-in toward the centerline, a little, and they have to match the raking angle of the quarter gallery, fore and aft, and they have to be beveled athwart-ships to match the camber of the balcony platform.

I thought I had done a pretty good job of matching all the angles, however the outside corbels looked a little droopy:

Especially the port side:

The solution was to add a piece of .030 styrene to the tops of the outside corbels and re-fair until the angle of the balcony platform matched that of the quarters.  The hardest part of this was paring away the glue squeeze-out and repairing the paint.
 
The window plate is probably the thing that gave me the most problems.  It is very fragile, and I broke both doors off at different times.  Then, when I CA’d the acetate in-place, I developed a little bit of CA frost on several of the window panes:


I probably could have avoided this problem if I had either used a quick-set CA, or used an accelerant.  I like the medium-set CA glues because they give you a small window to make sure the part is correctly positioned.
 
The frost blooms were not super noticeable, but they were nonetheless disappointing.  I kind of wanted to scrap the piece and start over, but that would also necessitate casting new pilasters in resin, as I did not have another scrap stern plate to pull from.
 
Well, fortunately there’s a simple solution to this problem, and it works like magic.  One approach would be to dissolve the CA with gasoline and re-paint/re-built.  Or, I could simply paint a little petroleum jelly over the blooms and let them sit for 5-10 minutes.  Then, I cover the head of a q-tip with a t-shirt scrap and wipe the PJ off the surface.  An un-covered Q-tip gets into the corners.  This simple trick worked perfectly!
 
The next hurdle of this window plate was that I had pretty radically underestimated how much needed to be trimmed from the window edges so that they would fit within the transom framing.  The only way to trim these, after they had been glued to the plate, was to grind the edges with a diamond-coated bur and sanding sticks.  This was tedious, and I managed to dislodge one pane, but I somehow avoided breaking the plate, so I kept going.
 
The next thing that had to happen was cutting back the center pilaster so that the Arms of France would not intrude into the space for the big tafferal carving:


Again this is difficult to achieve without breaking the window plate because the blue plastic of the kit window pilasters is, for lack of a better word, chewy.  
 
With all of that out of the way, I could finally glue-in the balcony platform, and plank-in the transom bulkhead:



There remain a pair of supporting balusters that I have to fit between the middle balcony rail and the upper balcony platform.


Now, I can paint the transom planking red and figure out whether I’ll be able to salvage the kit railing, or whether I will have to make one from scratch.
 
I’ll get all of that together, and then I’ll go back to the head to complete the headrail installation and head grating.  That may be all I manage to accomplish before the show, but that will be significant progress, since the last time I showed the model.
 
Thank you for looking in!