vossiewulf

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. 

Have you not watched 101 Dalmatians? I thought they were plain but slightly pink. 
 
Love them, don't see these types of breed much any more only mongrels with poo in the name somewhere!

Great work as always, where do you get your cup burs?
I am so stealing that!!
Sam

I do also, but Chris needs to be cautious while building a small business. Chris, your initial plan sounds good, my suggestion is to keep adding figures to those available at a slow pace that won't distract you from your main kit development goals, and continue to do so as long as they sell reasonably well. Go captains > say three crew figures > lieutenant > bosun > more crew figures. And even if French ships aren't on the docket, if the rest of the figures sell well I would think about doing the same for the French navy.
 
The argument for is that even though I'm not much interested in figures, I've seen thread after thread of people looking for quality figures and not finding much. I think we rarely see figures on ship models partially because there isn't a viable option to put figures on deck of a similar quality to that of the ship build.
 
The other argument is if no one is really serving this market, it's possible without too much cost and difficulty to become the premiere supplier. And that drives traffic to your site from people looking for figures, and a portion of them end up buying ships too.

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.

We had a nice warm long weekend here so I spent most of it outdoors. I did get a little time in the shop last night and this morning. I added supports for the ends of the deck planks around where the mast will come out of the deck. The mast is very raked so this took a little time to get right. I am in the process of adding the supports along the margin planks. Once they are all in I can start planking the deck.

Sorry Pat thought I had already responded but left it in the editor- I considered removing the rings but it wouldn't have bought enough space to return the beckets and eyes, that's where I was saying something is generally amiss here as there just fundamentally isn't enough room. My understanding of the recoiled/loading position was that the muzzle of the gun was inboard, but here we have less distance between the end of the carriage and the ring than the length of the carriage itself, which means there's no way the muzzle of the gun is going to be inboard after firing and securing with the train tackle. So either the carriages and guns are too big for this ship or the rings need to be considerably nearer the deck center line. And that wouldn't work on one of the guns that's backed up by a big grate.
 
So I've gone with the simpler rig, not to say that they're simple to make now, it's still brain surgery but doing so has made it look at least vaguely like those tackles could have been used to do something.
 
For anyone intending to build Lady Nelson, had I to do it over, I'd move the big grate more toward the stern to clear the one gun it interferes with, move the windlass to the other side of the grate, and move all the train tackle eyebolts much closer to the center of the deck.
 
I'm not making an effort to make the coils perfect and in the same place, my intent is to have it look not like it's ready for inspection but cleared for action. 
 
Speaking of that, shouldn't there have been... I've forgotten what they're called but the trays for cannon shot someplace? Admittedly you can carry a 3 pounder round in one hand but I would still think there should be some ready supply on deck somewhere.
 
 

So as you see it looks like I have to give up the becket and the eye on the line and just seize the line directly to the single block, but it will work. It's distressing that I have to make significant compromises on the accuracy of the rigging; unlike with airplanes where I know based on scale what I can and can't do, I really don't know what you can get away with at what scales in ships.
 
It's also distressing as that means you can't do really good rigging below 1/48, and 1/48 is monstrously big models. Well at least you can't do really good rigging without making yourself a range of specialized super-miniature tools, which I may have to do.
 
Even so, with the nice blocks and line from @Chuck and the right size fly line, the tackles will still look nice and of course only a tiny minority of the people who will look at it will have any idea that anything is missing. It was originally @src's suggestion to eliminate the eyes and beckets but @BANYAN twisted my arm into giving it a try. You're both right, you have to be an eagle-eyed ship modeler to see that things have been simplified and the deck will look much better with the train tackles in place, thanks
 
 

Haven't had much time to work on this, spent most of yesterday on a conference call because Barclay's screwed up a maintenance release and started failing all their transactions, lots of impact to our merchant base.
 
I have three pics. One is done puddening, which is very probably the most ridiculest sailing jargon word I've come across. It took me several tries with various types of normal and fly-tying thread before I got something usable. The anchors are done, just need to rig them to the ship.
 
Pat, as you see I've tried your suggestion on the blocks, I think it may work  I will make the single-block version tomorrow and see if we have enough room now for a proper train tackle.
 
And I also made V2 of my rigging posts, now with 100% more cleats.
 

I got some 32 gauge copper wire and managed to make an eye hook roughly half the size of the previous ones, but it's still not good enough, as below. There just seems to be not enough room here, if I had known this I would have positioned the ringbolts for the train tackle inward at least one plank width.
 
But at the same time I also have to wonder whether they really used train tackles for 3 pounders, they seem small enough that handspikes and muscle were enough.
 
So I'm gluing in the guns finally and working on the anchors, and have made buoys. If I'm doing buoys I suppose I should put them well up in the shrouds as Chuck does for Cheerful, he says that's what they did. But it looks pretty odd, I have no idea why they would have done that other than maybe the goal was to throw the buoy as far as possible and the elevation of being up on the shrouds helped. Also I guess a line has to run from the buoy coil all the way to the anchors, will have to see how to do that.
 
And I don't see a spot to belay the anchor-fishing line that comes from the blocks on the cathead, so I'll have to add a cleat on the cathead, or belay them to the timberheads next to the catheads, but that is where I was intending to put the stopper lines. I wish I know more about what I am doing.
 
And I need to get back to mounting the rudder, all the parts are done. I just have been avoiding it because it will be tricky to get right and I haven't thought of a good clamping/jig arrangement to make it easier.
 

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.

Unfortunately in my place I made the workshop impossible to cut off, seeing as it's the house's alleged dining room  I've had no problems with cats knowing that there are places they aren't allowed on, but of course the young ones will jump up just to prove they can the second you leave the house. So extra safety measures will be required at least until she gets out of bratty cat teenager phase.
 
I didn't have cats until I was 21, when I moved into a house with a girlfriend after college, and pretty soon there were four cats and three dogs. For whatever reason I picked up cat language pretty quickly and have had them since. My wives have always laughed at me having regular conversations with them as they follow me around the house and monitor my activities.
 
Progress remains slow, just haven't had much time to work on it, but steady in that I try to move forward a little bit every day regardless. Unless I talk myself into rudder pendants, the rudder is done. I just don't see pendants on the contemporary models, but I still find it hard to believe they'd go into the North Sea and the channel with nothing holding the rudder on but gravity. At least I'd feel like a colossal moron for drowning in a capsizing ship because the rudder just fell off and I had no backup to catch it.
 
This was also one of those cases where cup burs come into play. I don't use them super regularly, but when I do, boy howdy do they speed along the process. Here as you see below, after I tore off the brass and started using styrene, I drilled holes for .030" styrene rod, and after letting the CA set for 30 seconds on those rod pieces, I just clipped each one off close with a good nail clipper.
 
Then I went over them all with the right size cup bur in the rotary tool, and we have reasonably even nice rounded bolt heads very quickly. By the way, I drilled the holes in situ instead of on the mill or something to give it a more handmade look, but I ended up wobbling more than intended in a couple places. Rarely does a good idea go fully unpunished.
 
Next up is deadeyes, which I've started but am at the moment wondering how to chuck them somehow to properly round them off. I've tried a few things so far with no luck, I'm considering just drilling a hole through the danged things and then filling them later with side grain wood.
 
 

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.

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.

Unfortunately in my place I made the workshop impossible to cut off, seeing as it's the house's alleged dining room  I've had no problems with cats knowing that there are places they aren't allowed on, but of course the young ones will jump up just to prove they can the second you leave the house. So extra safety measures will be required at least until she gets out of bratty cat teenager phase.
 
I didn't have cats until I was 21, when I moved into a house with a girlfriend after college, and pretty soon there were four cats and three dogs. For whatever reason I picked up cat language pretty quickly and have had them since. My wives have always laughed at me having regular conversations with them as they follow me around the house and monitor my activities.
 
Progress remains slow, just haven't had much time to work on it, but steady in that I try to move forward a little bit every day regardless. Unless I talk myself into rudder pendants, the rudder is done. I just don't see pendants on the contemporary models, but I still find it hard to believe they'd go into the North Sea and the channel with nothing holding the rudder on but gravity. At least I'd feel like a colossal moron for drowning in a capsizing ship because the rudder just fell off and I had no backup to catch it.
 
This was also one of those cases where cup burs come into play. I don't use them super regularly, but when I do, boy howdy do they speed along the process. Here as you see below, after I tore off the brass and started using styrene, I drilled holes for .030" styrene rod, and after letting the CA set for 30 seconds on those rod pieces, I just clipped each one off close with a good nail clipper.
 
Then I went over them all with the right size cup bur in the rotary tool, and we have reasonably even nice rounded bolt heads very quickly. By the way, I drilled the holes in situ instead of on the mill or something to give it a more handmade look, but I ended up wobbling more than intended in a couple places. Rarely does a good idea go fully unpunished.
 
Next up is deadeyes, which I've started but am at the moment wondering how to chuck them somehow to properly round them off. I've tried a few things so far with no luck, I'm considering just drilling a hole through the danged things and then filling them later with side grain wood.
 
 

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.

Beautifully neat work as usual Vossie. 
Nothing in life is certain - I bought a white dog and ended up with a spotty Dalmatian that thinks it's a seal.

Unfortunately in my place I made the workshop impossible to cut off, seeing as it's the house's alleged dining room  I've had no problems with cats knowing that there are places they aren't allowed on, but of course the young ones will jump up just to prove they can the second you leave the house. So extra safety measures will be required at least until she gets out of bratty cat teenager phase.
 
I didn't have cats until I was 21, when I moved into a house with a girlfriend after college, and pretty soon there were four cats and three dogs. For whatever reason I picked up cat language pretty quickly and have had them since. My wives have always laughed at me having regular conversations with them as they follow me around the house and monitor my activities.
 
Progress remains slow, just haven't had much time to work on it, but steady in that I try to move forward a little bit every day regardless. Unless I talk myself into rudder pendants, the rudder is done. I just don't see pendants on the contemporary models, but I still find it hard to believe they'd go into the North Sea and the channel with nothing holding the rudder on but gravity. At least I'd feel like a colossal moron for drowning in a capsizing ship because the rudder just fell off and I had no backup to catch it.
 
This was also one of those cases where cup burs come into play. I don't use them super regularly, but when I do, boy howdy do they speed along the process. Here as you see below, after I tore off the brass and started using styrene, I drilled holes for .030" styrene rod, and after letting the CA set for 30 seconds on those rod pieces, I just clipped each one off close with a good nail clipper.
 
Then I went over them all with the right size cup bur in the rotary tool, and we have reasonably even nice rounded bolt heads very quickly. By the way, I drilled the holes in situ instead of on the mill or something to give it a more handmade look, but I ended up wobbling more than intended in a couple places. Rarely does a good idea go fully unpunished.
 
Next up is deadeyes, which I've started but am at the moment wondering how to chuck them somehow to properly round them off. I've tried a few things so far with no luck, I'm considering just drilling a hole through the danged things and then filling them later with side grain wood.
 
 

Thanks Paul  Tonkinese frequently change their color significantly starting around week 8 or so, Takita looked very much like the new little one does now when Takita was a little kitten. But it's not predictable, should could end up fairly light colored as she is with small contained points, or she could go the direction of huge points and very dark red hair of Takita.
 
As for the ship, in all likelihood I'm going to rip these brass pieces off and bite the bullet and resand and refinish the lower hull and start over with a material somewhat less perverse. Very annoying but brass just can't be used this way very well, only way to make it work is with actual mechanical connections by drilling holes in the strap and using round-head brass nails. Also annoying as although the straps are still fighting me, the rudder is perfectly positioned and aligned at the moment. Ah well, I went down a path thinking I could work around brass' dislike of glue but that turned out to be a misjudgment. Cue plan B.
 

Takita and I were very close. It was quite a long time before I could even think of the subject.
 
Thanks Gregory. These brass straps have pretty much become a giant white cetacean and I'm playing Ahab. Although if I can't get them looking better than they are now, I will end up ripping them all off and having to resand and refinish the entire lower hull, the planking is old enough now that it's oxidized and darkened a bit so there is no way to do spot sanding.
 
The easiest thing to use would be styrene, but I don't much like putting plastic on a ship. Second best is probably wood as you say. Another option that I have used many times is paper soaked in thin superglue. once it sets but before it fully hardens, you sand both sides smooth and it makes a very strong and reasonably flexible composite material.
 
I'm just using brass because that is what is traditional so I wanted to do it that way at least the first time. That turned out to be a terrible idea.

Have had company in town for the last week, little time to do anything, I just finished the two anchors. I ended up rigging both of them up, although I liked the idea of hanging one from a cathead I keep having to remind myself that I'm doing this for the first time and I don't need a lose anchor floating around waiting to be ripped off while I thrash with full rigging for the first time.
 
I made two brass cleats for the cathead hauls, I think that's what they're called, and set them at an angle as seen below because one in line with the cathead would have been rendered too small. So I went once again with the what would I do if it was my boat method, and made reasonably big cleats and set them at an angle. I made them out of two pieces as that seemed the simplest method with a cleat this small.
 
I'm also spending time fiddling with the lines to get them to drape correctly as if they had real weight/stiffness ratios.
 

I do also, but Chris needs to be cautious while building a small business. Chris, your initial plan sounds good, my suggestion is to keep adding figures to those available at a slow pace that won't distract you from your main kit development goals, and continue to do so as long as they sell reasonably well. Go captains > say three crew figures > lieutenant > bosun > more crew figures. And even if French ships aren't on the docket, if the rest of the figures sell well I would think about doing the same for the French navy.
 
The argument for is that even though I'm not much interested in figures, I've seen thread after thread of people looking for quality figures and not finding much. I think we rarely see figures on ship models partially because there isn't a viable option to put figures on deck of a similar quality to that of the ship build.
 
The other argument is if no one is really serving this market, it's possible without too much cost and difficulty to become the premiere supplier. And that drives traffic to your site from people looking for figures, and a portion of them end up buying ships too.

Unfortunately in my place I made the workshop impossible to cut off, seeing as it's the house's alleged dining room  I've had no problems with cats knowing that there are places they aren't allowed on, but of course the young ones will jump up just to prove they can the second you leave the house. So extra safety measures will be required at least until she gets out of bratty cat teenager phase.
 
I didn't have cats until I was 21, when I moved into a house with a girlfriend after college, and pretty soon there were four cats and three dogs. For whatever reason I picked up cat language pretty quickly and have had them since. My wives have always laughed at me having regular conversations with them as they follow me around the house and monitor my activities.
 
Progress remains slow, just haven't had much time to work on it, but steady in that I try to move forward a little bit every day regardless. Unless I talk myself into rudder pendants, the rudder is done. I just don't see pendants on the contemporary models, but I still find it hard to believe they'd go into the North Sea and the channel with nothing holding the rudder on but gravity. At least I'd feel like a colossal moron for drowning in a capsizing ship because the rudder just fell off and I had no backup to catch it.
 
This was also one of those cases where cup burs come into play. I don't use them super regularly, but when I do, boy howdy do they speed along the process. Here as you see below, after I tore off the brass and started using styrene, I drilled holes for .030" styrene rod, and after letting the CA set for 30 seconds on those rod pieces, I just clipped each one off close with a good nail clipper.
 
Then I went over them all with the right size cup bur in the rotary tool, and we have reasonably even nice rounded bolt heads very quickly. By the way, I drilled the holes in situ instead of on the mill or something to give it a more handmade look, but I ended up wobbling more than intended in a couple places. Rarely does a good idea go fully unpunished.
 
Next up is deadeyes, which I've started but am at the moment wondering how to chuck them somehow to properly round them off. I've tried a few things so far with no luck, I'm considering just drilling a hole through the danged things and then filling them later with side grain wood.
 
 

I do also, but Chris needs to be cautious while building a small business. Chris, your initial plan sounds good, my suggestion is to keep adding figures to those available at a slow pace that won't distract you from your main kit development goals, and continue to do so as long as they sell reasonably well. Go captains > say three crew figures > lieutenant > bosun > more crew figures. And even if French ships aren't on the docket, if the rest of the figures sell well I would think about doing the same for the French navy.
 
The argument for is that even though I'm not much interested in figures, I've seen thread after thread of people looking for quality figures and not finding much. I think we rarely see figures on ship models partially because there isn't a viable option to put figures on deck of a similar quality to that of the ship build.
 
The other argument is if no one is really serving this market, it's possible without too much cost and difficulty to become the premiere supplier. And that drives traffic to your site from people looking for figures, and a portion of them end up buying ships too.