JerryTodd

Great, I could use some motivation

Print a few more stock figures, but only 7 came out. In the meantime I altered a couple of others; I put straw hats on two, and changed a rammer to a sponger. I apparently made the brims too thin, and they didn't print well, so I made new brims from paper, and painted them in resin from the printer, then zapped them with UV to plasticize them. Painting then commenced on this batch of 15 crew who will all be in white jumpers. I got to fiddling with the davits again by mocking up a brace with chipboard; thinking that would work, applied it to the 3D model, as well as putting a proper double-block on the end, with a ring. I printed a pair to test, and 6 hours later, I'm pretty happy with the results.

All the figures I have are now painted. Not my best work, but I'm not my best self anymore either 😕 I think I got a decent shade for the Black fella,and the rest are the darkest "fleshtone" I have without darken it more. I need to modify several poses to get men climbing the rig, standing on foot-ropes. sitting, squatting, and so on. Also, I want to put straw hats on a few I also have one officer to try to work into 3 or 4 poses. Then there's the Marines, I want 6 or 8 in different poses standing and sitting on the main hatch cleaning their gear.

Welcome aboard!

While I figure out how to deal with installing the metal braces the support the pin-rails on the bulwarks, I got my brain into something else; painting the crew figures I'm using acrylics, but while I have half-a-dozen "flesh tones," I didn't have any white, black, or blue, so I ordered some and set about painting hands and faces. That wasn't much, but it did make a big change from the shadows they used to be. Sunday the paint arrived and I got right to it, based mostly on these images, only one is actually IDed as American. I painted about half the figures I have, including Ivan*, who's gonna remain "clean shaven" from here on. I ordered more paint for a few hair colors, and things like casks, and buckets. * Ivan's explained back in post #49

Nope, it's a "clubbed jib" note it doesn't extend all the way to the tack. It's meant so the sail is "self-tending" without sheets running abaft the fore. You find exactly the same on other Bay boats; Bugeyes, Skipjacks, Log Canoes, Brogans, 3-sail bateau, sloops, many schooners, and so on.

The port-side screen is in, laced-up, and both got painted inside-and-out. I have to put in the seats, and some gratings to be "done." But the sheer runs the full length of the boat now.

Thank you Ban, They are very rough, I just slapped a double block on a bent pole. I think that knob at the end may be an acorn? I am working on a more rounded block for it that looks like it belongs.

I bent and soldered some 1/16" brass rod in a jig made of scraps to make frames for the spray-screens. The jig didn't fair well, but the frames came out fine. I flattened the legs to give a better glue surface, and bent them to the needed angle. They got installed in the head with CA, and then I a coat of 5-minute epoxy over them. I cut some gray Supplex from the 2 yards I have for Macedonian's sails; glued and hemmed in strips of wood for the bottom, and the aft end, using the 3D printed version to get the angle and length right. The bottom was CAed to the head-rail and the aft end to the hull. The loose portion was pulled over the frame and CAed in place. Once I get the other side to this point, I'll lace them to the frame with Dacron sail thread and brush on another coat of paint. In the painting I'm basing the model on, of the ship in Naples in 1856 by Tamoso de Simone, the ship's at anchor with her boats away, so this is how her quarter-boat davits are show. I have yet to find a painting, a photo, or a model that depicts this style of davit. My previous try was nothing like this, so I tried again and wound up with this: These didn't print well, two of them actually failed completely, but there's enough here to see if they look right. I'm satisfied they look like the silhouettes in the painting, and that's about it. There's no tackle going into the rig for raising or lowering them. I assume they rotate in sockets on their bases and probably have some sort of brace attached to the bulwark, cause just sitting on the channel isn't going to hold them up; also I can't see in the painting that they extend below the channel to be supported by the hull. Fortunately, davits will be about the last thing that gets installed, so I have time to ponder this some more before then.

I made all new, thicker, end-boards and installed them, which required opening up the space so they'd fit. Then I added a fairlead log at the bows. Looking though photos to see what this looked like, I noticed the ship now doesn't even have pin-rails up here. Looking at installing the spray-screens up at the head, the 3D printed ones, because of their thinness, curled. I think they're likely to break being forced flat and installed under tension like that, so I think I'm going to brush up my soldering and make a metal frame covered with painted cloth, basically they way the real one was done. Though they'll probably be one of the last things to get installed, but I've been trying to figure out the quarter davits for some time. What I can find images of are not what I see in the portrait, so I popped out this little experiment. These aren't the final product, and the more I look at them, they aren't even close, so it's back to the drawing board.

Don't forget to paint her "pungy pink!"

FYI: The miter-cut "flying jib" (jib), where the panels meet at a 90° diagonally across the sail, did not come into use until the late 1860s. There may have been a "miter-band", or reinforcing cloth across the sail over the panels in line with the pull of the sheets, but the sail would have otherwise been cut the same as the "jib" (forestays'l) they show.

The port-side pin-rails got epoxied in place, and one of the outboard trim boards went on, the clamps were in the way of doing the aft one. Once the clamps were off, the trim piece went on. Then the cap-rail went on where the drop-panels are. I made a card template and cut the rail from some wood a friend left me after making a guitar. It was glued and pinned with round toothpicks. With the spray-rail and end-board sitting there, it almost looks done. The aft rail went on next, and then the forward, starboard side...

The spider-band got primed and painted; the other bow pin-rail was glued on; the trim-boards were installed on the inboard port-side; and the boat cradles were CAed to the hatch cover and eye-bolts installed for tying the boats down. Oh, and I made and printed a test-model of the spray screen for the head, it needed some adjustment and a little detailing so it'll look more like a tarpaulin than a bulkhead. Addendum: I put some twist into the model of the spray-screen (It's vertical aft and should flare out at the bowsprit). I added a curved bit at the forward end to curl under the bowsprit, as it appears in many images. Moved one of the stanchions to not interfere with the frames of the enclosed head in one spot, and tried to make it look more like fabric than flat planking. It seems my head construction isn't symmetrical (or warped slightly over the years) and has a little bow in the head rail on the port side. If I can't flex things enough to close the gap, I'll alter the model and print another one to fit that side.

The bulb got sanded and coated in epoxy today. When that had set, it got sanded and coated with epoxy again, then sanded and primed - twice, and finally sanded and painted Moss Green - twice.