Beef Wellington

It's not just the difficulty of the kits by themselves, but rather a combination of factors. As I said, I purchased the PE brass detail set to use with Maine. HMV was not yet offering laser-cut card detail sets at the time, so PE brass or, in some cases, nickel-silver were the only options -- or just to use the card parts provided in the kit. I don't like PE metal parts all that much, though I know that they work wonders for plastic kit builders. I don't like the prep work, the painting, and the meticulous folding that is required, even if the final results do look awesome. I much prefer the laser-cut card sets. The Maine kit also had a number of small but niggling design issues, such as coloring that didn't match up on adjacent parts and vague positioning of some parts in the diagrams. Neither of those is a deal-breaker by itself, but I just kind of lost interest in the kit, and it hasn't come back yet. Maybe it will at some point, but I don't make a habit of working on kits I'm not enthused about in the moment. BTW, the Maine kit is no longer available from HMV, which means it might be undergoing a revision, which would be both good and bad. Good, because a revised kit with a laser-cut detail set would be awesome (I love pre-Dreadnoughts), but bad because that would probably kill off any residual desire to finish the current iteration!
 
Emden is a sad story. I started building her as part of a book project, but I really should have chosen a less ambitious subject -- Emden is rated sehr schwierig (very difficult), and the rating is thoroughly deserved. The book project died (sorry, Bob) for several reasons, one being that I had talked Danny Vadas into working on the project with me, and he subsequently was unable to contribute as he would have liked due to his deteriorating health; I was depending on him for writing the material on rigging, which is a real weakness in my skill set, and Emden has a lot of rigging.  I also lost most of the early in-progress construction photos thanks to computers dying and my penchant for packing up and moving every few years, including a cross-country move smack in the middle of construction. The final nail in the coffin might not seem like a big deal, but it was the laser-cut railings for the forecastle; the diagrams did not present their locations clearly, they did not fit correctly, and I ended up damaging them while attempting to mount them on the model, a construction failure for which their is no easy fix. If you damage a part on a wood model, you simply make yourself a new part; you can't really make a new laser-cut railing. I also discovered that the present location of the bridge superstructure will interfere with the placement of the foremast. So, add those all together -- the long build time, the difficulty of the model, the momentum for the book project waning, and the significant obstacles to completing the model after so much effort had already gone into it -- and it drained away any remaining build mojo.
 
So, there you have the whole story. One final thing I will say about the Emden tropo version kit (HMV also offer the same kit in gray) is that upper works color is really much closer to straight-up orange than to buff. I don't know if the actual color used by the German Navy was that shade or not, but it is a little off-putting on the model.
 
I do have the HMV SMS Undine kit in my stash, with both PE and laser-cut card detail sets for it. Undine was a Gazelle-class cruiser, very similar in design, layout, and armament to Emden, so if I ever feel up to the challenge someday, she may yet wind up on the workbench.

Nautical art by Doris be like:

 
Nautical art by Chris be like:

The last 24 hours have been a trying time for the construction of poor Waratah. First of all, I had to double some rather large parts (including the deck in last night's photo -- this actually happened prior to the previous post), so I went to the garage to give them a shot of 3M 77. When I came back to my man cave, the AC kicked on, which flipped one corner of the paper towel I was carrying sticky parts on. The deck and some other parts landed sticky sides together. 🤬  Happily, I was able to get everything apart without too much obvious damage. Then, I left my desk for several hours, and when I came back the deck had warped significantly. So I did my best to straighten it out and then left it under the glass sheet overnight.
 
Fast-forward to today. Once I got the deck glued down, I was treated to the dreaded STARVING COW look. 🤬  I still haven't figured out how to defeat this particular card modeling nemesis. So I spent most of the day cutting spacers from bits of scrap plywood veneer and using those to shore up the sagging areas. I now have the run of the deck edges sufficiently straightened, to my eye, and am ready to tackle the hull sides. That task will require some trial fitting to see if I need to remove bulkhead material anywhere.
 

 
One unintended side effect of building such a small model is that simply cropping a photo of the hull properly results in something like an enlargement. Hmm.

Seems I've not been on here for a while.  That's mainly because I retired from work a month ago, but the Admiral only retired this week.  That gave me a month to get back on my bike and do some ship building, but not much appetite to sit at a computer and update this build log.  
 
So here's the update - all five components of the masts are built, painted and installed, and all the lower deadeyes are in place.  I found the deadeyes quite frustrating as the metal loops they sit in were tricky to handle - opening them out to insert the deadeye always distorted them, so closing them back up again usually messed up the little loop in which the chain sits.  I closed up the channels using some epoxy putty, which not only makes things seems stronger, it hides the mangled metalwork.  Anyway, I got there in the end.  Making the masts was reasonably straightforward with the usual mix of patience and tolerance of imperfections.  
 
Very glad I bought the Proxxon mill and lathe. The mill makes machining the square sections of the masts very easy and I even made the heels of the upper masts octagonal.  That was a little tricky with 4 mm dowel, but once I bodged up a tailstock from the lathe to use on the mill, it worked ok
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Bowsprit next then perhaps some shrouds, and then the spars.  Or maybe a mix of the two.

I decided to cut the front part L4 and the stern part L2 and came up with the following. Before cutting L2 below, L4 above: 
 

 
 In the picture below, you can see the L4 modified part and the L4 part from the kit. The modified part will go in the middle and will be sandwiched, creating the deFacto staggering that I was looking for. 
 

 
Now, I just have to assemble the horizontal section of the keel....
 
Yves

Turbojet?😄

Nothing wrong with that, spend your time on the things that WILL be seen! 

Nothing wrong with that, spend your time on the things that WILL be seen! 

Glad to see more CAF models appearing in logs...count me in for this one.  Looks like a great kit.

Glad to see more CAF models appearing in logs...count me in for this one.  Looks like a great kit.

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!  This is definitely my current dream kit, but not even close to making it a reality.  Will need to live vicariously through you when you get going.

So, I could not help myself and had to start the kit and glue some wood. I am sure you will understand my struggle....
 
Building the main spine of the vessel (steps #1 and #2): 
 

 
The spine is made of two layers (A's and B's) that are sandwiched together.
 

 
The A's side is drying. You have to have a perfectly plane surface and a kitchen counter top made of granite seemed ideal for that purpose: 
 

 
I am using plates of heavy copper to apply a significant amount of pressure to each side. The dovetailing is very nice and precise. I did not remove the charring and I am glad I kept it, as the parts are fitting perfectly.
 

 
One side is done: This is going to be a massive hull !
 

 
Both sides are ready to be sandwiched: 
 

 
You can see that the cuts are staggered on each side, allowing a very solid and sturdy spine, once glued: 
 

 
Et voila....
 

 

 
The A side has all the markings for the bulkheads. And yes, it is straight....
 

 
I still have to do some sanding to put the two sides perfectly smooth and square.
 
Yves
 
 

We have all heard about the Chuck method for planking....  it was abit to hard for me so I decided to come up with a more simple version... I give u the Vane method... PM me if u want a lesson.  I only charge 1$ per hour 😛

I think it is important to enter this hobby with a bit of humility, and dare I say it this modern technological age, an expectation that accumulating knowledge takes time and effort to accumulate.  This site is a wonderful resource built up by people passionate about the hobby, sharing their experiences and knowledge, and contains many resources and answers (including to the question on "how to strap a block to a mast" outside of your question).  Reference books are also important depending on level of interest, Lever's "Young Sea Officers Sheet Anchor", and Petersson's "Rigging period ship models to name but two.  Understanding how things were done is necessary to then have an idea on how to model it.  This is not a hobby for instant gratification, although I think Chris Watton's Vanguard model ship line come close to providing most, if not all, the knowledge needed to build out of the box.

I think it is important to enter this hobby with a bit of humility, and dare I say it this modern technological age, an expectation that accumulating knowledge takes time and effort to accumulate.  This site is a wonderful resource built up by people passionate about the hobby, sharing their experiences and knowledge, and contains many resources and answers (including to the question on "how to strap a block to a mast" outside of your question).  Reference books are also important depending on level of interest, Lever's "Young Sea Officers Sheet Anchor", and Petersson's "Rigging period ship models to name but two.  Understanding how things were done is necessary to then have an idea on how to model it.  This is not a hobby for instant gratification, although I think Chris Watton's Vanguard model ship line come close to providing most, if not all, the knowledge needed to build out of the box.

Post Eight
 
Upper deck supports
 
A couple of the support beam legs needed a little fettlin’ to get them to sit right down on the Bulkhead shoulder.
This only entailed sanding the leg bottoms by degrees until the beam was firmly down.
 
Depending on what arrangement I finally decide upon there may be a glimpse of the upper deck support beam legs.
In reality these are shaped columns and for those that may be seen thro’ the upper deck openings a little shaping is in order above coaming level.

0235(2)
This relates to support legs 4a thro’ to 10a.
Dry fit only at this point.

0237(2)
There is a risk of breaking the mdf legs so the shaping process was done very carefully using scalpel and light sanding strokes.

0229
Upper deck base temporarily in place.

0227
Whatever remains to be seen will link the two decks in a more realistic manner, all about smoke and mirrors below the Upper deck.

0231(2)
The shipyard is now closing for a week or so while I spend some time at the coast.
 
B.E.
01/09/21
 

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!  This is definitely my current dream kit, but not even close to making it a reality.  Will need to live vicariously through you when you get going.

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!  This is definitely my current dream kit, but not even close to making it a reality.  Will need to live vicariously through you when you get going.

Congratulations Jorge, she is a beautiful model with just the right level of detail.  Glad you finished her.

It has been a few weeks . After taking a vacation time, have finally finished the hull of HMS Diana, sans the hammock cranes and boomkins. These I will do at the end as I am always breaking them when I am doing the rigging.

I wanted to publish these pictures which are showing some interesting perspectives. Both vessels are at the same scale 1/48th, and have been the epitome of nemesis: 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
It makes for an interesting comparison.
 
Yves

This boiler has been in use for nearly a week, making it the fourth and longest boiler I've ever built. It's not complicated, but I spent a lot of time on rivets and all kinds of riveting. After all, it's scary to drill a lot of 0.3 and 0.4 holes in brass. If you're not careful, you can easily break the drill.

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!  This is definitely my current dream kit, but not even close to making it a reality.  Will need to live vicariously through you when you get going.

Chris, from what I can read there definitely is a general coincidence of the introduction of the carronade and the built up bulwarks in the 1790s, but I haven't seen anything that suggest that one 'requires' the other.  There seem to quite a few examples of carronades with open bulwarks, definitely interested in learning more if there is anything you have found to point to.