vossiewulf

I suggest getting real carving knives and relegating X-Acto and scalpel blades to tasks too abrasive for your good knives.😊 The advantages: 1. Much, much sharper. Both X-Acto and scalpels are made from relatively soft steel that is incapable of taking a real edge. 2. Edges last weeks instead of hours 3. Upkeep is about 15 minutes per knife every couple of weeks once you're comfortable with sharpening. 4. A real knife is a one-time investment. You'll spend way more over a lifetime of modeling on X-Acto and scalpel blades than you would on a carving knife, sharpening stones, and a strop. If anyone wants to take the leap, DM me and I will walk you through what and where to get. I promise it will make a difference if you do😊 My knives. The three on the left I made for myself with Ron Hock blades, the two farthest left are a matched pair of left and right hand single bevel knives that I made specifically for how I do planking. The rest are a mix of American and Japanese knives.

Don't know anything about Indianapolis, but welcome to MSW. You thought rocket science was complicated? Wait until you try to figure out the rigging on a ship of the line 😆

Thanks Roger, you're doing cool things with yours too. I really like the added detail on your companionway, I wish I would have thought of that for mine.

While waiting for some supplies to arrive- glues, thinners, paints, etc. as I had to dump almost all of my liquids for the move, I have been looking at the rigging and at this point I am very confused about what I will do. Chruck's Cheerful and Lennarth Petersson in his book where he covers a British cutter rig, and all the contemporary models I can find in the gallery show a mainmast and a topmast and two yards, a lower yard and a topsail yard. However, the Lady Nelson plans have a very long (for the cutter's length) mainmast set up to hang two yards and a relatively short topmast that carries yet another yard- they're called lower, middle, and upper yards in the plans which doesn't help much. Basically the good sources which show accurate rigs, the kind of thing I need to be able to recreate the rig in scale, means if I follow them I'm dumping the plan rig entirely and going with a scratch rig. That doesn't bother me except I will need to do something to convert the Cheerful plans to 1/64 to get the mast and yard lengths and widths, as the LN mast and yard diagrams will be wrong. Meanwhile, here are a couple pics that show the Lady Nelson made it through the 3500 mile move in perfect shape. In the first pic you can see the holly decking has lost its bone whiteness for a much nicer cream color, which was the plan. And with respect to the planking, we can see that after five years we've had just a little bit of movement so now you can see some of the plank edges where it was totally smooth before. This is also to plan, I didn't put any glue on the edges of the planks so that they could move relative to each other.

Echoing everyone else, beautiful work Mike.

Thanks for that bit of understanding. The Lady Nelson masting plan shows a pretty significant rake so I'll watch out for that. Ok. I guess I will simply have to make some decisions and take some of the rig from Cheerful and some from Petersson and some from the contemporary cutter models in the gallery. It seems even Chuck's Cheerful rig varies from the contemporary model, I saw a bobstay on the NMM version that I haven't seen on the Cheerful models being built.

Well, it wouldn't be any fun if we had 100% accurate knowledge of everything, that would reduce building to simple execution😊 I agree with you that the forestay on top of a sharp iron strap looks more like the modeler got lazy than anything else, I won't rig mine that way. Another question which I probably should have started with is that Cheerful and Petersson have spreaders for topmast shrouds and no topgallant, while Chris with Lady Nelson has no spreaders and a lower, middle, and upper yard (that's what they're called in the plans). Spreaders for me seem necessary to stabilize the topmast and a topgallant sail on a cutter with all that sail area seems like something you could only use in very light weather, like studding sails. I could be wrong though, as mentioned my knowledge is slim. Anyway, basically if I follow Cheerful/Petersson I'm pretty much abandoning the rig in the plans entirely, and I have to wonder if the topmast as shown in the plans needs to be shortened. I'm ok with that if it gets me greater accuracy, but I'm wondering why Chris went with three yards when I haven't seen another model of a cutter with more than two.

For dye stains, you need to go to luthier supply companies. Example is Hammer GMBH.

Hey Chris not sure if you remember me (it's been a five year layoff) but I helped you with your first Vanguard Models logo and showed you my very heavily kitbashed Lady Nelson, which is finally back in dock for masting and rigging. I just wanted to say I'm very happy to see how far you've come with Vanguard, back when we talked last you were sweating your first kit release and look where you are now! In fact I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be able to resist buying at least one of your kits, they appear to me to be best in class. Really awesome work, Chris.

Thanks Phil! With respect to the eyes on the mast bands, bah, I should have seen that, thanks. Ok on the clue line and sheet, I'm pretty sure I understand what you're saying. I think I'm mostly following you on the mystery sheave in the lower yard at least in that you also don't see an obvious use for it, although I also wondered about the fiddle block on page 28 (in fact I was proud of myself for knowing it was called a fiddle block☺️) . You're right that that is another unaccounted for sheave that may be related to the one in the lower yard. The real question I have is do I make the lower yard with two sheaves and attempt one of your suggestions or do I make it with only one sheave? Also, do you have any ideas on the hexagonal center yard sections vs. octagonal? The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War shows only octagonal yard center sections, and I'd really prefer going with octagonal since it would be considerably easier to do.

I just went through this and I wish I could tell you it wasn't a brutal experience, but it is. We worked all day every day for two months prior to the move organizing everything and getting rid of what wasn't needed, pre-packing all the tools and machines so they would make it in one piece, and then unpacking it all again. That part took a month solid and it was exhausting. On the up side there's a light at the end of the tunnel in that you finally do get unpacked and you should end up leaner and better organized afterward. Focus on that on the many long days 😊

I have reached the point where I am venturing into rigging my Lady Nelson, my first rigging effort and I want to get it reasonably right. As such have been reviewing Chuck's Cheerful instructions as well as the cutter rig found in Rigging Period Fore and Aft Craft. With respect to the latter, I have some questions: Here I'm assuming those are iron bands around the top of the mainmast. However, what are the projections going aft from the hoops? Also, the mast cap appears to be iron as well or maybe iron and wood together. It looks like there is a square-section part of the cap that goes on the top of the mainmast and a simple hoop shape for the base of the topmast. Is that correct? On this page, first there is the hexagonal center section of the lower and topsail yards. I've seen octagonal sections before but not hexagonal. Is hex correct? Also the pic shows the lower yard oriented so a point of the hex pattern is forward, while the topsail yard is rotated 60 degrees so a flat of the hex is facing forward. Is this correct? Further, there are two sheaves shown let into the lower yard, but he shows only one in use with the clue line/sheets drawing. What was the second sheave for? Finally there is the clue line/sheets drawing. This one I'm finding confusing, are the clue line and the sheets two ends of the same line? If not, I don't understand this drawing at all, as it seems the clue line and sheet both go through the same single blocks on the topsail yard. Thanks in advance for any advice, as noted this is my first project so my knowledge is minimal.

Very high quality work, Erik, very nice, keep it up. Doesn't hurt to have the kit designer helping out as you go along either 😁

I'm sorry to hear that, Rick, that must be very frustrating. I will be keeping my fingers crossed also.

Haha! Sorry Rick, but I'm very glad to see you're still kicking around this forum 😀

Thanks! And yes, I expect the final rig to be a mishmash of Cheerful and Petersson's illustrations. One thing I noted in both is they have belaying points both on the stern and the bow that my Lady Nelson doesn't have, I'm going to have to do some kind of surgery on the existing ship to belay all the required lines. Thanks Mike, and of course I remember you. And I agree with you, brushless micromotors are teh shiznit when you're doing precision work like ship modeling. They're just so much better than Dremels. I look forward to you joining me here 😀 Hey Pat, great to see you! When I was packing for my move here, I was both laughing at myself when for example I counted no less than 11 different sets of needle files in different sizes and cuts and manufacturers and crying at the time it would and did take to organize and protect everything for shipping. You can't have too many tools until you have to move 3500 miles.

Round-nosed pliers, standard jewelry-making tool mostly for making chains. In ship modeling they're useful for making eyes and hooks.

Looks nice, Dan.

Thanks for the kind words folks, it was a minor five year layoff. The fact is that work became even more time consuming and stressful and I couldn't spin down enough to manage the precision I strive for daily, so I stopped spending time in the shop. The good news (from my perspective at least) is that I retired from Visa in June, and after much preparation I have finally moved away from the stress of working in Silicon Valley for the relative peace, quiet, and much lower living costs of Charlottesville, VA. I and my partner have spent the last month working every day all day to unpack, and considerable time was spent setting up my new workshop. Um first question is why is inserting an image from an Imgur URL failing? I tried inserting the link wrapped in BBCode too and that didn't work either. I guess I will just attach images to the post until I figure out how to insert them inline again. Anyway, one pic is my new workshop finally fully operational, the other is the agenda- as you see I have a few kits piled up including three ships of the line (Vanguard, Victory, and Montanes), a race-built galleon in HMS Revenge, and Model Shipway's Constitution. That's not even counting the three brig models or all the rest, the point being I have enough to keep me busy for quite a while. I may not have been able to work the last five years, but I kept stocking the kit closet 😀 With respect to the workshop, not seen on the other side of the room are the three Byrnes machines- the saw, the disc sander, and the thickness sander. I was saddened to see he had passed away and I feel even luckier to have his machines. Anyway, as I wrap up the final steps of unpacking I will finally have time to start spending my days on the Lady Nelson and getting her rigging done so I can move on to one of the brigs. I have been reviewing Lennarth Petersson's Rigging Period Fore-and-Aft Craft which is excellent, but I have questions about the cutter rig described within. I'm going to post a separate thread with the questions as I think that will get more answers than just asking them in one of many many build logs.

At the custom furniture shop I worked at, we used solvent lacquer, did have TEFC motors on the spray room fans, but the spray room guy typically turned off the fans before spraying the final coat, more than half the time without wearing a mask. It would literally be a cloud of lacquer in there through which the spray room guy could only dimly be seen. He thought he got a better finish doing it that way. I and all the other people told him he was completely whackadoodle to do that, he never listened. No idea what happened to the guy but I assume he didn't live to a very old age. On the up side the spray room never exploded, but we were waiting for that too as he was a smoker.

Otto Frei is where I've bought many, many things. The Venn diagrams of professional jeweler's tools and ship modeler's tool needs overlap quite a bit. Contenti is another very good supplier, I just tend to use Otto Frei as they're just on the other side of the bay from me so I get next day delivery with standard UPS. If you know anything about the Bay Area you'd know why driving over myself is a seriously less than entertaining option, getting anywhere around here now means fighting 8 and 10 lane wide 20mph traffic everywhere, even on weekends. About 3AM Sunday night is the only chance you ever might be able to use cruise control for more than a few seconds. I've had a 535 for over a year and I haven't even figured out how the cruise control works, much less used it. I'd go completely crazy from the traffic if I didn't take the car up into the hills near me on the weekends for some back road, no traffic, windy road driving at irresponsible speeds. In fact when I went up to see the new Dockyard Supervisor, it required crossing the hills north of Santa Rosa, very windy with lots of switchbacks, and some serious fun was had. On the way back, some 20-something in a Hyundai Veloster thought he was going fast until the old dude in the BMW twice as heavy as his car made it clear that said old dude could pass him if he wanted It's not threadjacking if it's your own thread! I forgot to answer this also Davy, sorry. You maybe have better luck than I did with epoxy, I tried two different kinds on brass that was brightened just before bonding and the damned things still popped off with the slightest stress. The key with brass is the first thing you said, you mechanically pinned it. If you pre-drill holes in the straps and use mini brass nails to mechanically attach them, all is good. I considered that too but I didn't think the nails at 1/64 would be strong enough to get them into pressure-fit holes, I might have been wrong about that. I have more 1/64 kits sitting in the closet so we may revisit this, but at least I'm sure now that if I get annoyed with brass I can make something strong enough with good detail in styrene.

That's amusing, I thought Dalmatians had their spots from day one. I love dogs just as much as cats, but I never replaced my last dog who lived to be voting age. Also people in the Bay Area love animals, but there are houses and cars packed together in every spot possible, so you have to either work at getting them proper room to run or take them to doggie daycare which dogs love but it's expensive. With my job I just don't have the predictable time required, we have emergencies at all hours and I can be directing the application side of the response for many many hours and that's a weekly thing at least. I hope I'll be settled down again one day someplace dog-friendly.

Keep in mind that although it's fairly strong, rice glue will still fail before the wood, and western joinery generally assumes the glue is stronger than the wood. If you look at traditional Japanese joinery, in general it is much more complex than western, and usually includes one or more mechanical interlocking features so the joint will have the full failure strength of the wood. However, that's only applicable to building furniture or anything else that will take significant stresses. I see no reason why it wouldn't be an excellent ship modeling glue for those who generally use PVA, at least for anything besides the hull planking.

I think it looks great, much more accurate than almost all sterns you see on cutters built here, including mine.