Surabaya by Piet - 1/80 - Mid 17th-Century VOC ship

[Piet]

Hello everyone and thanks for your comments and likes, it's always much appreciated.

 

Thanks Gunther, my wife is of the same opinion 

 

@ Mark T. Thank you as well and rusty is good - I think    I had a wild idea to file the round brass wire flat to simulate wrought iron straps but where do I end detailing this thing to the nth degree   I'll dunk it back in the straight stuff to darken it some more.  However, I plan on ordering some of the other solutions and see if they work better.

 

Thanks Patrick, All the comments from everyone is very encouraging - - - as you know.

 

Hey Popeye, good to hear from you again. Yeah, I should have had my head examined making the gunport lids workable.  Once they are on and the model is in it's glass house it's a moot point.  But - - - it was a challenge to me to see if it can be done at this scale.  In retrospect it was more trouble then worth the effort.

 

Okay, I have been able to install all but one of the lids and even painted tem flat black.  Could not do the blackening in-situ because of contamination of glue.  Perhaps should have done the blackening before cementing them on - - hind side again.   I had trouble with the CA and even the 2 part epoxy to secure the gudgeons to the lids.  I have no idea why they gave me such a headache but in the end they stayed put with the epoxy cement.  

The one lid I need to remake the pintles and go through the whole process again.  That'll have to wait for another day - - - I need to calm my nerves

 

I took a photo of the port side for yuns to see and comment on.  There is still a lot of clean-up and touch-up work to do including repainting the green to a more authentic color from the mid 17th century. Yeah Hans, I haven't forgotten.

 

 

Cheers,

 

 

[GLakie]

Looking good Piet!    Re-dos seem to be a necessary evil with most of these builds, but I know you'll keep plugging away until you're happy with it. 

[*Hans*]

Piet, just took a quick re-read through your topic - You're doing a very nice job here!  

Did you already try to do something on the diverse carvings for the stern? I saw your nice drawing (and saved it on my computer - If allowed  ), but I guess you haven't started on it. I'm eager to see how nice this is going to be!

[Piet]

Thanks everyone for visiting, your comments and likes.

 

Thank you Hans for the compliment - I really appreciate it.  No, I haven't even given carvings a serious thought.  I wanted to complete the guns and other things around the outside of the hull first.  Then I'll have to start with the carvings.  The shark and croc carving for the counter may just be the next project when I'm ready.  Don't know yet wether it'll be from wood or Sculpy, I prefer wood though.  That's also a question in my mind, what kind of wood to use.  I prefer a harder sort like boxwood over the soft poplar or basswood.

There are quite a few small carvings of dolphins, heads for the various pin rail bits and the bow lion.  The shark and croc will most likely be a rather ambitious project for me, not that the others are easier, because I have never done any carving or modeling with clay.  I'm flattered by you having saved my drawing of the shark and crocodile.  I'm fine with that my friend.

Just don't hold your breath Hans, it'll be a while yet before I'm ready to start carving.

 

I did some cleaning yesterday on the outside of the hull, port side.  There was some damage and a few spots with glue residue that shows up as whitish blotches.  Some scraping and fine sandpaper took care of that and spot-staining.  It's looking a little better.

 

I also cemented the gun tackle eye bolts and hooks to the bulwarks and eye bolts to the deck with two part epoxy.  One more gunport lid for the port side and then I'm ready to turn the ship around so I can redo the gunport lid hinges on the starboard side using the 0.5 mm brass tubing for the hinges.  Not looking forward to it, it's been a very tedious job and perhaps not worth the effort. Oh well, it's a challenge and it'll look much better for the scale it's in.

 

Cheers to all,

[*Hans*]

 

Just don't hold your breath Hans, it'll be a while yet before I'm ready to start carving.

Pffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff.   Thank you Piet!  I was just getting out of breath....

[Piet]

Just a minor update.  I finally got the last troublesome gunport lid installed and working.  it took three tries and also had to repair some collateral damage but it's looking okay for me.  

Recently I read a something about all gunport lids should be shown open and all at the same angle.  Reason being esthetics and when the ship comes into the harbor it is made "ship-shape."  This may be true for navy ships that come into harbor but my model is an armed merchant ship at sea.  This model will have a series of sails set as if at sea thus my lids will be set at random angels.  It would defeat the purpose of making the lids workable in the first palace.  

 

I have also continued my work on making the pulley blocks.  I have now about 40 single sheaf blocks and 32 double sheaf blocks.  I need 32 of each and theoretically I could commence mounting and rigging the canons.  However, I looked at eight of the double sheaf blocks and found them too large.  I'll he to remake them to suit my likes.  There may also be a few of the single sheaf blocks to be remade.  

 

I am now ready to turn the ship around so I can work on the starboard side reworking the gunport lid hinges and replace them with the 0.5 mm ones.  When looking at Chris Linden's Vriesland model the hinges on that model are also quite hefty and match the ones I originally made for the Surabaya.  Am I tempted to leave well enough alone?  Yup - - - I'm just a stubborn old Dutchman and now I must the starboard side the same, for esthetic purposes.  Glutton for punishment   Oh well, it's only time of which I have plenty off.

 

Cheers,

[riverboat]

Hi Piet....... your work is just amazing....what a beautiful build this is, thanks for sharing!!

 

Frank

[Piet]

Thanks Frank for your very kind comment and thanks to all for the likes, it's all very much appreciated.

 

Well, I turned the ship around on the bench and without any mishaps too.  Looked at the gunport hinges and yes, they are kinda big but not bad looking.  Doubt krept in whether to yank tem off or leave well enough alone.  Oh well, I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and make new 0.5 mm hinges.  Not looking forward to it.

 

I'll cement the upper deck gun hardware in the bulwark first on the port side.  I couldn't get to them before but now that the ship is turned around they are easily accessible.

 

Cheers,

[Remcohe]

Just re-do it Piet

 

Remco

[amateur]

Hi Piet,

 

With respect to the hinges, should we read it as a question or as an announcement?

In both cases we all know the outcome

 

Jan

[Piet]

First of all my thanks to all who clicked the like button, really appreciate all yuns following along.

 

@ Remco:  Easy for you to say - - just redo it - - - indeed  Do you know what I have to go through?  Cramped fingers and eye strain    But - - - - - - yeah, I guess we'll redo it.

 

@ Jan:  he buddy, good to see you in the shipyard again.  Yes and yes    The question was me pondering - knowing what lies ahead and the final decision of doing it.   Tore all of them off this morning!

See next lost.  

 

Cheers,

[Piet]

Well, as you can see in the picture below, I have made a start to modify the gunport lids on the starboard side.  Actually, all of them are now removed and the lids are already cleaned.  What bothers me is that the two-part epoxy cement does not hold worth a tinkers #&%^ !  As mentioned a few posts ago even CA doesn't hold worth a tinkers #&%^.  I wish I have some of Boeing's or Douglas' structural adhesive.  With that stuff you can actually glue an airplane together without rivets.

 

But, beggars can't be choosers and I'll have use the two-part epoxy stuff.  I woder how "liquid nails" would work.  You know the stuff home builders use?  Hmmmmmm - - - testing time, provided te tube I have is still workable.

 

Okay, tomorrow I'll start making the parts for the gudgeons and pintles.   I'm still asking myself why I'm doing this - - - making the lids movable but the cannons are secured to the deck and can't even close the ports.  

 

Will let yuns know how things are working out.

 

 

Cheers, 

[Piet]

Thanks everyone for following along and your likes.

 

Today I almost completed the gunport hinge hardware.  Soldered the 0.5 mm pieces of tubing to the gudgeons and pintle pins, cleaned them up but did not cut the gudgeons to even lengths.  I hope to do that Sunday and making plans for the installation.

 

My test in using carpenter's structural adhesive works okay but really not what I want, besides, it's prone to being messy.  So I'll stick with the two part epoxy cement.  Once the lids are mounted to the ship they won't move anyhow.

 

I'll try to blacken the gudgeons instead of painting them flat black, at least that's the plan.  If it doesn't work then I'll resort to flat black paint.

 

I used the same size brass rod for the pintle pins as the previous ones to fill the holes and for the cement to have a better grip.  The two long brass pieces of wire are for the hinge pins.

 

Cheers,

[GLakie]

Quite the assembly line you have going Piet.  Which kind of blackening agent are you using? 

[Piet]

Thanks everyone for visiting and your likes.

 

Hi George, yeah, once I have all the pieces made soldering the brass bushes goes rather quickly.  I reused the old "gudgeons" but had to clean them up and a bit.

The blackening liquid I have is called "BLACKEN-IT" by A-WEST of Woodstock, Georgia.  It's a light blue colored liquid.  In one of my previous posts some others were suggested that may have additional metal uses.  I'll try this one first and see how it works.

 

Cheers,

[GLakie]

Thanks Piet! 

[*Hans*]

Regarding the angle of open gunports:  Keeping in mind how over 300 people had to live and work for over 9 months on their journey to the East Indies and back I am pretty sure they wouldn't bother about the angle they had opened the lid.

Just pull the rope with blocks until it won't go further - which means all the lids would open merely the same...but never all of them under 97,4 degrees angle or so 

[Piet]

Thanks Hans, fully understand how hot it can be below deck's in the tropics!  Yes, I'll have the lids filly open but won't be too picky about the angles though.  A degree or two difference would seem to me more of a random position like the sailors really wouldn't care one way or another just as long as they are "fully" open.

 

I blackened the "gudgeons" today and they are looking really good.  I had to use the straight stuff because my previously diluted mixture was not doing much.  I guess I was just a little impatient but after 5 minutes in the blue liquid I had some fine black hinge parts.

 

Now comes the fun in cementing tem to the lids.  

 

Cheers,  

[Piet]

Hello all,

 

Been busy with extra curricular activities, i.e. yard work and other chores.  However, I have also found a few extra minutes to devote on the Surabaya.  I spend a lot of time making the hinges and wanted to have a record for my own files so I made a few pics, thinking to share them with you.  I meant to post this a few days ago but something else came in the way.

 

The actual cutting of the 0.5 mm brass tubes for the hinges and the soldering was not much of a problem, except that I had to keep cutting new pieces of the tubes because when picking them up with the tweezers to solder they"twanged" away to who knows where    But finally I managed to solder all of them to their respected parts, the "gudgeons" and "pintles."  

 

Instead of dabbing a drop of solder to the ends of the hinge pins to prevent them from walking out I decided to just flatten the ends and then bend that up 90 degrees.  This proved to be extremely time consuming because i needed to file the upturned ends a little. All in all it worked out okay but in retrospect I should have just left the ends with the small flats.  No way they can come out of the hinge tubes.  Oh well, an exercise in patience.

 

Here are the pics of my efforts.

 

This shows the gun port lid hinge assembled.  Everything is still in the crude stage, hinge pin still needs to be cut to size and ends flattened and bend.  I used a pair of small duckbill pliers to squeeze the ends and then a pair of tweezers to bent the flattened part up.  As you can see it needs some trimming.  I used a nail clipper which did a splendid job.

 

This is a close-up with annotation.  Yup, they are small and a challenge.

 

This is the completed hinge assembly still in the rough state.  Still needs to be cleaned and dressed.

 

Cheers,

[Piet]

Today was wrought with frustration.  Installing the remainder of the gunport lids proved to be a real headache.  The two part epoxy cement I used didn't hold the "gudgeons" to the doors.  Just the slightest twist or pressure popped tem off.  I could rescue most of them by putting some CA under them and then holding them with a pair of tweezers.

 

After they were all installed I started to remove some the extra cement and everything went fine till I got to the one next to the end.  Disaster struck!        Not only did one "gudgeon" pop off but also the hinge bushing on the other one.  So, I had no choice but to remove the door with all the hardware.  

No problem with the door, the epoxy cement didn't hold them but when trying to get the "pintles" out was another story.  They were too close to the hull to get a good grip on them and in trying the hinge pin bushes collapsed, of course.  

I started to dig around each pin with a small (0.3 mm) drill bit to get some room for a needle nose plier, figuring I can put plugs in the large holes but ended up breaking the drill bit and still not having enough grip on the pins.  At this point my frustration level came to the boiling point and had do something else to calm down.

 

I  started a few days ago making two small railings for the upper deck between the mainmast and the stairs.  That was still a project I had to do so this was the right time to do some simple woodwork.

 

After I calmed down I decided to remove a small part of the planking above the gunport to get a better grip in these pesky pins.  Not an easy job because the gun that is already secured there was in the way but I managed okay.  Pins came out and I made two plugs from toothpicks and glued them in the holes.  Next I made a fill-in plank piece and glued that in.  

I had to make two new "pintle pins" and a new hinge pin bushing for one of the "gudgeons" and solder everything together.

 

The repair looks passable but is still in the raw unfinished state.  I'll get to that hopefully tomorrow.  My biggest concern is cementing the "gudgeons" to the doors.  I could use some of that very thin brass wire I have to use as bolts but that means that I have to remove all the gunport doors and redo all of them also.

The crazy part is that the epoxy holds on to the wood okay but not the metal.

 

Well, we'll see, I have a night to sleep on it.

 

This shows a part of the planking removed and the pintle pins removed.  The white looking "stuff" is the remainder of TiteBond glue.  There is still some cleaning to do and the pin holes to be plugged.  You can also see that one of the "gudgeons" came off and the other one is just barely holding on. 

 

Here you see where I have made a new plank plug.  It still needs to be dressed some more and blended in with te rest of the planking.  

 

Cheers, 

Edited October 19, 2015 by Piet

[GLakie]

Bummer you had those problems Piet.  When I get frustrated with a project, I do like you did and just walk away for a while and attack it later with "fresh" eyes, and a better attitude. 

[CaptainSteve]

Arr. 'Tis nice to see that others also make errors sometimes, Piet.

Thank Ye, muchly !!

Edited October 19, 2015 by CaptainSteve

[JesseLee]

Sorry you are having this problem but I know your great talents will overcome it like you always do!

 

Jesse

Edited October 19, 2015 by JesseLee

[Piet]

Thanks to everyone who clicked the like button and to those who commented, it's all very much appreciated.

 

@ George:  Yup, having problems and screwing up is the nature of this hobby.  No matter how careful we try to be be there are bound to be problems that we have to deal with.  But on the other hand it sharpens our skills.

 

@ Captain Steve:  See comment above 

 

@ JesseLee :  The problem was unforeseen.  Remaking the hinges with the smaller pieces of brass tubing was rather simple, it was the problem with the cement not wanting to stick to the brass.  No matter what I tried from cleaning, sanding, a mild acid bath, nothing seemed to work.  

 

It's now a few days after my last post and I managed to install a new piece of planking in the cut I had to make.  I used the same kind of wood but it does'n match too well.  I put some wood stain on it to darken it some but it still shows.  I'm figuring that once de lid is put on most of it won't be visible.

 

On this particular day I quit work on the model to take care of other business.  So, just one pic of how the repair looks like before the gunport lid goes on.

 

 

Cheers

[Piet]

This post is directed to Hans and Amateur Jan.

 

I have mixed some paint to change the bright green color to some more subdued green.  I mixed light green with some dark green and then "deadened' it by adding some red.  Here is a patch set on the gallery next to the original green.  This is from the paint I ave in my studio.  I don't have much in acrylics anymore, don't like to paint with it.   See what you fellows think.

If you have a sample for me to go by that would be helpful.  

 

There are two different mixes as you can see. I can always make a trip to the craft store 25 miles north of us to find a better match. 

 

Cheers,

[GLakie]

Hi Piet.  In reference to your making the planking match with the rest, I've been getting some nice results from blending stains. Not mixing them together, but applying one over the other. For instance, when I did the cabinet for my band-saw, I wanted something different, so I went with Minwax's Golden Pecan, but found it to be more reddish-orange than I liked. What I did was wait until the next day for it to dry good, and applied some English Chestnut right over top of the Golden Pecan. Instead of it turning real dark like I thought, it just darkened it enough to mask the bright orange look. It turned out better than I hoped, and was something of a "happy accident". Anyway, you might try that method for matching stained wood. 

 

Cheers

[Piet]

This is the stage the ship is currently in.  I haven't worked on her for two days due to other commitments.  I managed to install all the gunport lids and did have to re-glue one "gudgeon" with CA.  They don't take much handling and as you can see in the pic there are a few that need some adjustment.

 

I alo have to do some cleaning yet and reinstall a few of the guns.  I plan to leave the lids below the deadeye channels down to allow some access for mounting the deadeye chains.  

 

 

Cheers,

[Piet]

Thanks for the input on stain matching George.  Yeah, I was contemplation doing that but I wasn't about to go out and buy another can of stain slightly darker then the "matching" cherry stain I have.  I figured that with the door on it'll be less visible.  However, I'll certainly look into it at a later date when I start cleaning up and "patching" a few nicks and scratches.  

 

Thank you Lawrence and Anthony for your very nice comments.  And also my thanks to all who clicked the like button.  It's all appreciated.

 

A few things got in the way of ship building but managed a few hours anyway.  Now that the gunport lids are done on both sides I can spend some time on other items on the hull.  As stated a few posts ago I am working on the small railings between the stairs and the main mast.  I made all the parts and pieces, drilled the holes for the reinforcing pins and made the pins.  I am now ready to cement it all together and place them on the upper deck where they belong.  Next will be the anchor cable capstan and rig the cannons.  That should kinda complete all the deck stuff, except for the ship's boat.  The thoughts are also on the many carvings yet to be done.

 

Here are a few pics of the railing pieces.

 

This shows all the pieces for the railing.  I made the reinforcing pins from bamboo skewers, the thinnest ones for the inner stanchions are 0.3 mm thick and the pins for the outside stanchions are slightly larger to 0.4 mm.  These will also have brass pins to support them to the deck.

 

This shows where the railings will go.  Having seen the form of the cap in the pic above they'll go where the rounded part is on the upper deck.  With the camera lens this close the pic is slightly distorted and the mast is not yet permanently glued in place.  I still need some access below the deck.

 

Cheers, 

[*Hans*]

Piet,

 

The green you made is already much more in the right direction. It is personal taste of course, but I prefer the upper color.  Maybe you could extra add a bit of grey in it. 

[mtaylor]

Looking very good, Piet.  I had to do a double-take on that bottom photo, though.  I thought you were showing a real ship....   Ok... I'll get more coffee.  

Edited October 25, 2015 by mtaylor