Gahm

I just stumbled over your build log of the Sphinx. I don't know how I could miss it so long. As usual, wonderful work and great presentation of all the essential steps in your log! I will happily follow along from now on 🙂 Thomas

Thank you Mike, Chuck, and Glenn. Your kind comments are highly appreciated! Thomas

Thank you Harshil for your kind comment, and thanks for all the likes! Feedback and encouragement are always highly appreciated 🙂. Thomas

I made some progress on the bowsprit assembly. I turned bowsprit, jibboom and flying jibboom out of bass wood, which was especially selected for very little grain. As all pieces are pretty fragile the shaping on the lathe was done with sand paper held between two fingers to apply equal pressure from both sides (image 1). The result is shown in image 2. The details like sheaves, bee blocks, cleats were done following the Syren instruction book. The lead plate for the sling saddle (image 3) was simulated with a piece of photo paper painted lead gray and ‘metalized’ by buffing it with ‘Grimy Black’ from ‘Doc O’Brian’s’ weathering powders (Micro-Mark). Image 4 shows most of the details in place as well as the dolphin striker. The latter was made out of box wood for stability. Image 5 shows the dolphin striker and the Jack staff mounted and painted. I used the staples for both parts to fix them in their place. I also made the bowsprit cap out of box wood. The holes in the bass wood version included in the kit were too large for my jibboom, and they did not take the angle of about 20° into account. Image 6 presents how I simulated the leather lining for the jibboom. A piece of paper was painted with several coats of enamel leather color and fixed around a wooden dowel turned to the diameter of the jibboom at the location where it crossed the bowsprit cap. This arrangement was sanded to an angle of 20° on both sides, slotted on both ends with an Exacto knife, and mounted on the jibboom at the appropriate location. This of course was a bit tricky 😉. Once the jibboom was glued in place, the little pieces resulting from the slotting were bent upwards and glued to the bowsprit cap with white glue, which could be cleaned up with water (hence the enamel leather color in order to prevent the paper from dissolving). The result is shown in images 7 and 8. Thomas Image 1 Image 2 Image 3 Image 4 Image 5 Image 6 Image 7 Image 8

That is quite an impressive model - and a lot of treenails! 😉 Thomas

Excellent planking job! This will be a magnificent model! Thomas

They look fantastic! It must be a lot of fun to build those pumps! Thomas

Wonderful work! It is so realistic that there is no way of telling it apart from the real thing. Thomas

That looks amazing! What a beautiful model! Thomas

Your framing and planking looks really good to me. And I fully agree with Vahur - the little difference in symmetry is neither noticeable nor do I think that it will matter. Thomas

Harshil and Steve, thank you for your kind comments! They are much appreciated. And thanks for all the likes. Harshil, the tank in the background is the beginning of a model of the self-propelled field howitzer M107. It is based on the Tamiya kit, which again goes back to the old Italeri kit. I got it as a birthday present from my son. What I like about the kit is that it got the big dimensions right, but there is a lot of room for improvement where all the details are concerned. So the modeling challenge and fun is to build and replace/add all the coarse/missing details. With my chronic lack of modeling time it will take me several months to do so, but once finished it will be a worthwhile model. And as you know by now, I like details 😉 On your request I am going to add one picture of the current state of the model. Only the self-propelled gun carriage has a first coat of paint, and a big part of the gun is not even glued together. Thomas