vossiewulf

Globalization is making acronyms way complicated.

Sounds like you learned a lot with the longboat and made good use of it here, the planking is nice and smooth. I'm not sure what the instructions tell you so you may have just followed instructions, but one suggestion would be to change your planking pattern to a four-butt shift which was pretty much standard throughout the age of sail. Here you've done a two-butt shift and that makes for very visible vertical lines where half the planks are ending. Instead, you divide your plank length by four and shift the next plank by 1/4 of the plank length, next one shifted another 1/4, then one more and the fourth plank will be in the same position the first plank is in. See below.

None with that brand, but I can say having used Paasche, Badger, and Iwata brushes, all airbrushes are damned squirrely devices, like the electrical system on old Jaguars. I have Iwata brushes now which are well made, but it doesn't matter- the ONLY way to keep them operating correctly is to completely disassemble the airbrush, clean every single part, and reassemble it after every single use. And you must have either thin pipe cleaners or the tiny test-tube brush style nylon brushes that are made for airbrush cleaning.
 
Seriously, don't ever put one down without doing that. The nightmare of cleaning them once the paint has dried is a massively bigger pain in the butt. Don't think that when you spray thinner through it and it comes out clear that all the paint is gone, it most certainly ain't gone and is hoping you leave it there so it can totally screw up your next spray session.
 
On the up side of course is that nothing can give you the smooth finish with fine control that an airbrush provides.

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.

I got to fly a Stearman at an airfield north of Charlottesville where you could rent various biplanes and aerobatic planes. You had to take an instructor with you, but if you were certified for tail draggers you could take the entire flight. Really a wonderful airplane to fly, controls very responsive without being too much and control forces are not huge, although I never approached the Vne (don't go this fast) speed, so they might get heavier at high speed. But on a nice summer evening in Charlottesville with the sun setting over the mountains, it's a really fun experience being in a sweet biplane with an open cockpit and a giant radial in front of you, you end up flying big arcs back and forth because it feels like you can point the nose anywhere you want so you get to pointing the nose around. And easy in a loop, don't have to dive much for the needed speed and it just has the to be expected significant rudder input up and across the top and back down as the p-factor of the big prop tries to yank the nose around. People tend to think of gyroscopic forces from the prop would be a problem, but in reality the vast majority of the time the p-factor that varies continuously with your angle of attack is what the pilot is fighting. It basically causes asymmetric thrust that yaws the nose one direction the higher you point the nose, and in the opposite direction the lower you point the nose.
 
Jack, that one was in USAAC blue and yellow also, your colors look good, I recall the yellow being on the green side. You've also done very well with the assembly, nice and clean and the decals are well done so they'll look very good once they get their final flat coat. It's a nice model to put up on the shelf and if you want to get rid of it for some reason I'll find room for it on my shelf
 

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.

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.

Yep you're right, I meant Port Arthur, the night time destroyer attack on the Russian fleet.

Very nice work Valeriy, as usual. The thing about torpedo nets is how many ships carried them for... maybe 25 years? And as far as I know, they only did what they were designed to do once, at the Japanese attack on Port Darwin in 1904.

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. 

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.
 
 

Sorry Sam, somehow missed your reply here.
 
Yes, this is going to be a challenge  Right as I cross into doing rigging, I'm going to have a 12 week old fuzz-covered energy bundle that some people call Tonkinese kittens. With Takita when she was little, I had to keep an array of pens on the edge of my workbench so she could entertain herself while sitting in my lap by throwing the pens on the floor. I have no idea why cats think that is the funniest thing ever, but they do. I had to keep continuously replacing the pen supply or the next thing on the floor was an important part. I can only hope the new one doesn't decide that ship parts are prey items like yours did.
 
Speaking of the rudder, it's finally more or less done, will post some pics tomorrow.

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.

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.

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.

Hull nearly complete just some tidying up to do.
 
I used Manns floor varnish to finish the hull and deck. I put this on another topic.
 
 



 

Rudder pintles added, rudder ready to be fitted but leaving off for now. Paint will need touching up.

Hull entrance steps

Gratings in place on the deck. None are these are true to size of the plan. I cut the deck back to the apertures on the false deck. Big mistake, not only are the grating parts provided insufficient in length to cover the holes the subsequent built size are not to plan.
 
My advice would be to plank the deck completely and apply the gratings over the top. Not correct to real manufacture which is the opposite way round. The over issue is the small gap between the gratings and between them and the companionway. The planks are too small and to easy to keep breaking away. Hole for the companionway ( still visible above) is also too large. I have this ready to put in place and have had to run a plank round the bottom edge to make it wide enough to cover the hole.

Lou, Thank you for taking an interest, Below is another view of the deck showing the nibbling strake and planking.

Gun port eyebolt positions were drilled through a simple jig made out of two layers of scrap ply. The larger layer had the jig holes drilled through, the smaller layer is the exact size of the gun port. Has a planking screw through the centre so can be passed through the port and held from the outside whilst drilling for the eyebolts from the inside.
 
Take a note of the hawse hole positions as predetermined by the kit. They are too far from the stem post. Any anchor cable would rub on the cathead brackets when running in a direct line too their access to the cable tier. If you look to the next photos of the outside of the hull you will see they are too far out compared to the cheeks.
 

Funny our good the kit looks to you photograph it.

View of headrails etc, Not much like the kit, I managed to shape the grating / marines walk by soaking for hours and then shaping with a hot iron.
 
 

The ropes for the hammock cranes have to be tensioned. I did that with tiny thimbles Ø 1,1 mm and lashings.
 
The thimbles on the next image have the following diameter from left to right:
Ø 1,1 mm
Ø 2,2 mm
Ø 2,6 mm

The first attempts with seizings are not very nice.
With a "fake splice" it looks better?

Hi ☺️

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.

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.