hexnut

Hello All, I am taking time during the building of the New Bedford Whaleboat to build the Model Shipways Guns of HISTORY Civil War Coffee Wagon 1:16 Scale.  I will be posting progress as a build log here.  First I will post the Kit photos.  I am looking forward to building this interesting piece of history.  For those interested, there are some YouTube videos of Civil War enactments involving the Civil War Coffee Wagon which could produce over 100 gallons of coffee per hour.  That is a lot of coffee 👀

Hello all once again. It's been awhile since I last logged in on this kit so I'll give a update. After a short burst of building it was again put on the shelf for a few years until a this Thanksgiving when I must have seen the end in sight and finally finished after 27 years! Thanks for all the help and a few pics of the finished project, Happy building Larry.




 
 



 

Thanks for the Wellcome and kind words  mtaylor, Kevin, Cog, and GranfpaPhil 
I must tell you gentleman that I’m in awe of the build blogs and how many talented craftsman
share there skills all I can say is Thank You All 
 
Just got to finishing the hull painting. 
 
 



 
 



Considering making modification on model to convert to CAM Liberty with one time Hawker 
Hurricane defense aircraft. Almost done with all the main fixtures getting down to detailing and paint.










This was the sea test of the hull under power.

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Working on Deans Marine model Liberty Ship hope I’m going to get this right I have been making progress and will try to upload 
pictures. Well I see the photos weren’t a problem but adding captions under each photo is I would imagine the pictures explain 
the progress one other thing I would like to mention the last photo of the rudder is not scale as the kit cast resin rudder was a poor casting and the shaft was only  3/32 dia. Wire which I thought a little less then I preferred so it was replaced with one I fabricated. I know one of you will notice it doesn’t have the division half way down with right thrust added to correct fo the large prop torque on the full scale ship to save fuel but since I’m not going to cross the Atlantic I opted out on that detail. 
 

A model kit of a bird, never seen this before. Nice work
 
I'm bored. 
You can always send the bird to me.

Greetings,
Felix

It has been a while that I posted ship-related stuff here, but I have been busy all along. I did two very nice (and also very easy german locomotives), and I started a bird.
 
This time a lifesize flying one: a goldfinch. No buildlog, butjust a couple of pics to show progress. Pretty well self-explaining.
 
 

 






 
These birds by Johan Scherft are easy to build, and their appearance is quite lifelike.
 
This one is a bit more work than the others I did so far, as it has spreaded wings (with a coupe of individual feathers per wing). I had some trouble to get the body nicely closed, so I hope the head will fit. If not, the whole things flies into the dustbin, I will make a new print and start from square one
 
Jan

Small update, I purchased a received a replacement anchor and chain. Also, I've finished tinkering with the masts and almost everything I can without sewing the sails. To date I made some sail templates out of card stock and have been trying to figure out when I can learn how to use a sewing machine.
 

Small update, added the mast deck rings and worked on the gaffs. I also began fabricating all the metal work for the masts (making all these pieces is a time consuming affair for a novice, but I think they are turning out well 🙂).
 


EDIT: I forgot to ask, the anchor is white metal and the chain appears to possibly be copper (?). I don't believe either will blacken in the birchwood casey brass black that I have. Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm considering whether to purchase some Jax or replace the components and I'm open to suggestions. Thanks!

It's been a month since the last post and progress has been slow.  There was Thanksgiving, and I also started a part time job after almost four years of retirement.  Also, I find it difficult to go headlong since I need time to think things through.  So the work has proceeded in dribs and drabs.
 
Most of the deck structures are now glued down - a couple of exceptions where I may want to wait until some rigging has been done in order to get access to points on the deck.  I drilled the holes for the binnacle and its railing using the building board as a template.  (The wheelhouse is sitting out of position; the narrow strip of tape marks where it will be located.)

The deck houses, winch, small square hatch, and skylight were glued on without incident.  In this photo, the anchors are a work in progress and the masts are placed just to see how they look.

The anchors have been challenging.  I have a couple of photos showing how they are placed and secured (thanks, Jond!) but it's been difficult to get everything in just the right position.

Here, everything is in its proper location but not attached yet.  The cranes are so delicate that I'll probably wait until the very end to install them.  The anchors themselves will be secured using line already tied to ringbolts.

This photo also shows how I misplaced the deck cleat the first time around.  I can attest that CA glue bonds to stained and varnished wood very well indeed!
 
I decided not to run chain from the winch to the anchors.  To use the proper size stud link chain, I would have had to drill out the chain stops in the bow slightly, but by the time I discovered that, the chain stops were already installed.
 
Thanks for your likes and ongoing interest, and especially for your patience!  I hope that by the next time I post, rigging will be well underway.

I did that, but the piece split as soon as I put something in the hole.  Boxwood would have been better, I think, but basswood is what I have.
 
I finished making up the blocks involved in the sheets.  The deck-end blocks all hook to travelers so I strapped those blocks with wire - my first successful attempt at that technique (although it took multiple tries to get there).

The main sheet's top block hooks to a hefty U-shaped bracket on the boom (in the contemporary ship at least).  I tried to replicate that:

Here are the booms and blocks on the plan showing how they're rigged:

One nice aspect of this arrangement is that I can rig all the sheets off the ship before I install the booms, then simply hook each sheet to its traveler.
 

The ship's bell presented a challenge.  It's a tiny thing that needs a tiny bracket to mount it to the aft side of the mainmast.  (In the contemporary ship, it hangs from the boom rest, but the rest isn't big enough in the model.)  I sanded out the bracket from 1/32" strip wood, but it promptly split at the hole I drilled.  What to do?  I glued it back together, then found a bit of silky ribbon which I laminated to one side of the bracket with CA - similar to fiberglassing.

Here's the bracket cut out from the ribbon, and the bell mounted to the end of a dowel for painting.

The bracket was now strong enough to accept the bell.

This takes care of the lower ends of the masts.  In the contemporary ship, the masts are not painted at all, but I found an older picture that shows an area of white (or perhaps the white mast boots) extending a short distance up from the deck.  The rings below the white paint areas are diecast mast boots purchased from BlueJacket.  The booms with sheet blocks tied on are work in progress.

Modest progress since the last update.  I purchased mast hoops from BlueJacket.  They are laser-cut in 1/32" stock and very fragile.

I stained them and tied lanyards on with the cow hitch.  A few broke in the process, repaired with CA.  I am not going to make sails for Bowdoin but I would like to display the model with the gaffs raised.  With no sails, there is nothing to put downward tension on the gaffs to counteract the halyards.  So, I will run lines between the booms and gaffs where the fore and aft edges of the sail would be.  The mast hoops will be tied onto the forward line.

I prepared the lines ahead of time, tying on the mast hoops and an eyebolt at each end of the line.

Trial fitting - looks good!

With that step out of the way, I could continue preparing the masts.  I used silver-painted paper strips for the galvanized mast bands and glued the spreaders into place after carefully aligning them with the masts temporarily stepped.  Next step is to install the blocks I've already prepared, then replace the mast hoops and finish the bottom end of the mast with the boom rests.
 

Starboard side aft radio array, the Pontos stuff is lovely but does not factor in that they need to be lowered for flight ops. Not overly accurate but a small piece of plastic under lets it sit properly. 
Also these photos from life magazine show them down as well as a shot of the Essex fully loaded

Now, after much consultation I believe the next bit is gasoline lines. The kit gives a half baked attempt at them, so a little bit of plumbing work ....

Port side catwalks. I’ve added details like microphone boxes and speakers, with controls for the arrestor cables, fire hydrants and gasoline stations to be added later after painted off ship. I’ll probably do the gasoline pipes on this side next before moving to starboard as they have some somewhat “complex” radio towers which I need to figure out how to sling outboard. These is a LOT of detail to go yet. 

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There is very little detail on the catwalks details, mainly from crashes. 

Now, a question to the gallery, there are a series of pipes running alongside and down the hull. I don’t know if they are water or fuel?

Gasoline station , there are 8 of these spread around the catwalks 

Wasn’t good enough so re did it. 16 pieces all up as there is one for the barriers and one for the arrestor cables. Fuel next. 

So I’ve scratch built from spares an arrestor gear station. I think it’s probably as much as is warranted given it’s not really visible with the naked eye. 

All the rigging of the main sail is in place so I could tighten it and clean the deck from the rope ends. 

And move to the next stage. I have attached all necessary ropes and blocks to the spreadsail yard 

And attached it to the jackstay 

It brings some volume to the ship! 

But first I will have to do all the rigging around centerline (mast and stays) as all the yards rigging is making access very dificult. 

Deadeyes lanyards tied to the shrouds. 

Cleaning up continue........ 
Today I could put some serious time for the AVOS and I managed to finish:
Shrouds, jackstay and fore stay. As a next step I could tie everything up and clean the deck from the ends of ropes. (coils will be added later). I have also managed to take few pictures of details and whole model. 

Cleaning up the mess. Main back stays are in place and now starting with shrouds. 

All ropes for main sail are in place (what a mess) 

Now I could secure the mast in position and slowly start to solving that "hairy" puzzle. I must say it is a Joy to go through all the tackles!