Enterprise by src - Constructo - 1:51 - or Lessons in Adapt Improvise and Overcome

[src]

All in good fun Sjors.

Wayne, thanks for the encouragement and for stopping in.

Sam

[src]

Brian thanks

 

No apologies needed. All in good fun.

That was mild compared to what flies back and forth at work.

And now to go vote.......

[src]

Hey All!!

Well tomorrow is the weekend and to avoid another "Assault with a Comfy Pillow" I think I better post an update!! :D

 

A couple of weeks ago was Memorial Day here in the States so instead of building I went camping with some old friends, many are former military. A great time was had by all but the drawback is no building. Several of the older generation who started the desert camping tradition long before I was first invited have passed on, a small memorial has been put up on the hill overlooking our camp area. One of them, Doc, was a prankster. Several years ago when he passed on we scattered his ashes up there. As his son was opening the bag up, the wind changed direction, gusted and we all got a mouthful of Doc! Only he could have pulled that one off!

 

 

 

As I mentioned a few days (weeks?) ago I decided to make built up masts. As is my norm I climbed to the highest board, took a running start and leaped right into the deepest water, only to realize halfway down I left my floaties behind.....

 

Carving the main portion of the mast was relatively easy and straight forward, taper to a four square, use a 7-10-7 template and carve to an 8 square. I spent a considerable amount of time making the transition from round to square at the top, only to realize it was all getting shaved off for the Hounds!! I cant seem to find any reference as to how thick the cheek should be in relation to the masts so after poking around several builds I did what any team of  engineer/rocket scientist would do and made a guess. After several attempts they came out OK although the Hounds could have been a bit thicker. I may have to add a light 32nd inch to them.

 

As I was planing the tapers I was marveling at how th shavings were coming off in such nice consistent curlicues and suddenly realized that might be a way to do the wooden bands on the woldings. I planed some Boxwood down to 1.5 scale inches thick and then set a low angle plane to give me a shaving about .020" wet the strip and planed away. Nice curly strips.

 

After marking out the spacing, numerous times - I just couldnt seem to get 6 evenly spaced bands on the Main and 5 on the Fore - I glued on the lower bands. Even after wetting the strips to plane them there is some blowout on the strips, a bit of shelac hardened everything up and they sanded out ok, they wander a bit and dont pass the macro test but I think they look ok from a normal viewing distance.

 

Last night I started wrapping the rope portion of the banding with the goal of finishing all of that as well as the upper wood bands in time for an update tomorrow afternoon.  I got two done and the spool I was working with ran out. Go to my Box-O-Goodies to get more and, well, remember the floaties? Wherever they are are where the rest of my .012" brown rope from Chuck is. I could swear I ordered some from him sometime back, my reciepts are in a file cabinet locked in the garage and I am too lazy to go look. Just for the record I am NOT implying Chuck shorted me, most likely I meant to order some and never did. So now, I have tomorrow until 5 or 6pm when the better half gets home and no rope to work with! :angry:GRRRRR!! Looks like I will be making trestle trees tomorrow. Not the end of the world but I was really looking forward to having the woldings done. I have p[laced an order for more rope, Chuck is very responsive with orders but I cant imagine an order placed on Friday at 6pm West Coast time, 9pm Chucks time I think, will get here before Tuesday at the very earliest. Oh well, Murphy is cementing his relationship with me.

Pictures below.

ONWARD!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sam

[mtaylor]

Good looking masts, Sam.  So Murphy is hounding you also....?   

 

P.S. I loved the campground photos. 

[mobbsie]

Hi Sam,

 

Those masts are coming on a treat mate, they'll look really good when you finish them.

 

There isn't a modeller alive who hasn't run out of materials of some sort and had to change tack halfway through a job, I can also relate to the laziness thing, it's a major fault of mine.

 

Ahh well, life's for living and we don't want to be a slave to out builds do we, i vowed to catch afew rays this year and I'm not doing to bad so far.

 

Take your time mate, life's too short to be rushing about.

 

Be Good

 

mobbsie

[src]

Thanks all who took the time to read and hit the like button it is appreciated.

 

Mark, Thank you. Murphy and I have become real "pals" on this build, other than the do and redo from not really knowing what I was doing it was very enjoyable.

You cant beat a good camping trip, even when the wind comes up and tears your brand new easy up out of the ground, lashings and all then wraps a car like it was a mummy!!

 

Mobsie, thanks for the good words. I think as we get older I think we are entitled to a bit of laziness. I am starting to look forward to the big "R" and being lazy as much as I want. Knowing my better half though, I wont be allowed much laziness, that woman could find a way to do errands on the way to her funeral! :P

[Sjors]

Hi Sam,

 

Thanks for the update   

Now I'm wondering, is it a update what about the masts or an update for a future holiday of us ?????

Please tell me 

 

Nice work on the masts btw .......

 

Sjors

[src]

Sjors, Thanks for the kind words. As for your question, Yes and Yes.

Sam

[src]

I is back!

I played hooky from work today and spent the morning and part of the afternoon finishing my Trestle Trees and the wooldings on my Main Mast. I was pretty pleased when I sat back and looked at what I had done. That is until the Gremlin tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Ummm, Sam, how on earth would they ever raise and lower the sails with those woodings in the way???"

)!(@(#$&^$&*#)#!!!!! :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry:

Ah the pitfalls of going off on your own when you really dont know what your doing ...... I think I should have treated both masts like a Mizzen Mast with just one woolding band at the Hounds

I think I am going to get a pizza and drink heavily tonight.

 

 

 

 

Sam

 

[russ]

Sam:

No big deal. We have all been there at one time or another.

 

Russ

[mtaylor]

Welcome to the Curse Loudly and Toss Things Across the Room and Against the Wall Club, Sam.    I'm a charter member.

 

I do feel your pain... as Russ said, we've all been there.  I still am if that's any comfort.

[src]

Its a relatively easy fix, the woolding ropes are not glued and the banding is held on with a fairly thin smear of glue. I just bought rope i didnt need at the moment. I still have the pizza and beer!!

Sam

[cog]

Glad there is an ocean of space between us right now Sam ... I could feel a distinct sudden air displacement ... Enjoy the pizza and beer!!!

 

P.s. be careful with that smear

[src]

Thanks Carl, there was some blue air here on Friday. The beer and Pizza were great.

Nothing worth showing at the moment. I have removed the wooldings and cleaned up the glue lines. On a positive note, I didnt realize how discolored the mast had become with all the handeling, it is now a nice bright boxwood again except where the one woolding that stays couldnt get in there. I think I am going to remove that one also, not really a big deal at this point, in the long run the mast will look better once the entire piece is sanded/scraped to an even color.

Sam

[src]

Ok then, I have had a few days to clean everything up, both lower masts are sanded, scraped and have a coat of clear on them. That should keep my errr, the Gremlins grubby finger prints and smudges off.

I started in on the Cross and Trestle Trees and have come up on another question that maybe some of the more knowledgeable can answer. Allenyed was kind enough to post a couple of pictures of the Enterprise in her later years that seemed to answer my query about Tops. There is what appears to be a top in one picture but I am going to leave them off.

 

Now on to Cross and Trestle Trees.  I am trying to figure out if two Cross Trees are in order or three? Apparently there were two cross trees under the Tops but we have decided that tops are not in order here, so, would a third cross tree be added similar to the Topmast Cross Trees? In my mind at least it makes sense as that would give an additional shroud to stabilize the Topmast. But, I cant seem to find anything definitive.

 

Below is a copy of one of the pictures Allenyed posted, I downloaded the high res files from US Naval History and Heritage Command Collections website and zoomed in. Its hard to tell, I dont know if I am seeing three because that's what I expect or what.

 

 

 

 

This is a blow up of the main mast area

 

This is what I think I am seeing. One of the reasons I think I see thre is the number of shrouds that appear to be visable

 

 

 

And then this is where I am today, I have made both fore and main cross trees in two and a second set for the Main mast with three.

 

 

 

Thats all the news that is fit to print.

 

Sam

Edited June 30, 2016 by src

[HIPEXEC]

Lookin' real good!

[src]

Thanks Rich, great to see you out and about again. How is the build coming?

Sam

[HIPEXEC]

Staring the rigging

Thanks

[SGraham]

Hey there Sam. I've been catching up on your build. Your work is meticulous. Those cross trees are so crisp and clean. What kind of wood did you use for those? It almost looks like teak. It's work like this that pulled me back into ship modelling.

 

Steve

[src]

Hey Steve! Great to see you again, thanks for the kind words and dropping by. It got a little smokey in your neighborhood again I see. I hope all is well.

The wood is Manzonia stained with Minwax Dark Walnut. They still need a bit of oil to finish.

 

Since I cant seem to find any reason other than my own thoughts,  think I am going to stay with 2 cross trees since I have built both the Fore and Main set already. I like the look of the three cross trees I made for the Main, but I havent found anything to tell me more than two is appropriate, so two it is.

 

It looks like it is back to soldering today, I need to make Mast hoops and the iron bands for the mastheads. Perhaps something to show by midweek. Who am I fooling?!?!? It will be next weekend at the rate I work!! :D

 

Sam

[src]

Small update. The two Cross Trees just kept taunting me every time I looked at them so over the last several weeks I bit the bullet and remade everything with three Cross Trees. Right or wrong, short of an act of god, drinking fit or space alien invasion they are done and I am pleased with how they turned out. Next build though I really need to look into a mill, I made every part at least twice not counting the finished set with two cross trees. Chopping those half lap joints correctly was....interesting.  It did give me a chance to use my new Dockyard Micro Carving chisels. The Deep Plow worked well as a micro mortising chisel. The Skew worked well for scraping away the coat of shellac I applied to the masts to keep finger prints off. When it came time to glue the battens on I was able to scrape the finish off without gouging the wood.

 

I finished off the mast heads with card instead of soldered and blackened brass. I kept questioning my ability to make evenly spaced, close fitting brass straps. This was my first attempt at modeling with a paper product, they came out pretty good. Next time though I will choose a card stock closer to the finial color. As I was painting the white bands gray black it was quite a challenge to not get paint on the mast head. The end result looks fine from normal viewing distance, under macro or magnifying headset there is a distinct white band. Like I said though you cant really see it from normal viewing distance so I am ok with it.

 

Pictures below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SGraham]

That's simply spectacular mast work there, Sam. I really like the fancy woodwork. There is so much going on in those masts. The barely visible seam in the mast cheeks is also a really cool touch. Another thing that stands out to me is the contrasting wood colors, especially in the keel shoe and the gunport frames. Very inspiring work!

 

I can't see a hint of the white you mentioned. I was concerned about the same thing in my Shenandoah build when I was using card stock. My card stock was ugly institutional green, but hey it was free. One thing I did was to color the card strips on the front and edges with black marker. Then after installing them I painted them with black or dark gray on the front surface, leaving the edges with the marker only. That way I didn't have to worry about being too careful painting the edges after they were installed. The colors blended together to my eye just fine. I also applied a coat of thinned shellac afterward to give it more of a metallic look. 

 

Steve

[cog]

Beautiful work, Sam. I like the background ... it gives good contrast, but doesn't distract from the subject

 

Cheers

[src]

Thanks for the likes and kind words, its always appreciated.

 

Steve, wow, thank you, way too kind. (where is the blushing emoticon when you need it??) The quality of the wood Constructo provides is poor in my opinion, but the color choices, they do a very good job there. I never thought of an ink pen to color the paper edges......! Next time. As you saw, you cant see it from normal viewing distance. I comment about things like that both as a reminder to myself for the next time as well as anybody else who my be following along, Hopefully they can learn from my experiences. I painted the bands with a mixture of Vallejo Germain Grey and a drop or two of Glossy Black to try to give it a satiny sheen. if I place them against the gun barrels they are more of a semi gloss but I am really not to concerned about it.

 

Carl, Thank you sir! I dont know how much longer I will be comfortable with setting up a backdrop like that. I used my desk and some clamps to hold the towel up. but I have to take Her off the work bench and place her on the floor to take the pictures, that makes me nervous, I have big clumsy Hobbit feet.

 

OK, off to work now.

 

Sam

[cog]

Samwise Gamgee ...

 

To my recollection he was not that clumsy, he was, to my recollection, quite a solid anchor ... You could make a light weight frame for the backdrop, to put on your desk ... just a thought, though ...

 

Cheers

[mtaylor]

Lovely work, Sam.   Just remember, with a mill, you'll probably still have to make things twice.  But it is fun... so you get twice the fun re-doing things.  

 

Yeah.. I know.  I'll get my coat....  

[src]

Carl, a light frame is a thought. I may have to look onto that. I am not so sure about Hobbits as anchors though, I seem to recall one being dragged through a stream by a fish. More experimentation is required.

 

Thanks Mark. I am sure you're right about the mill. I will however be able to make mistakes much faster and with great accuracy though. :D

 

Currently fiddling with the Top Masts, figuring out how all THAT interacts and how to shape them. Allenyed pointed me to some drawings of the Enterprise - post 608 above - All the images i down loaded indicate that Top Gallant Mast are in order. Decisions decisions.

 

Sam

 

 

 

Sam

Edited July 29, 2016 by src

[cog]

Samwise,

 

I would suggest sunny weather, a shaded chair, and some mead to prepare for your deep thoughts.

 

P.s. Hold that thought about making mistakes faster and with great accuracy ... it may make the solution much quicker

[Sjors]

That looks real great Sam.

I wonder where you are when I was making those things....

I could need a few hands extra   

 

Sjors

[src]

Sjors,

Thanks for kind words and checking in. I am not sure where I was when you built yours, probably trying to lure your Masting Gnomes away from you!! THey are a very loyal bunch. They said to me "Nope! Sjores treats us well."

 

Nothing to show at the moment, between opening up our house so a friend could have their 50th birthday party here and then heeding the call of the trout stream I have done nothing since the last post. Caught -and released - a bunch of smallish German Browns. Made repeated sacrifices to the great fishing god Katuna in search of landing The One That Got Away. I know my sacrifices were accepted, I would leave a lure on a piece of brush in the stream and it would be gone the next day. Alas, they werent enough, I caught nothing larger than about a pound and a half.

 

I did receive a couple of small planes from Lee Valley. I am especially interested in the chisel plane for getting in to some of those areas that a regular plane wont reach. At the moment I am having trouble adjusting it to my liking, its either too course or wont cut at all. Ill figure it out though. The part in the back ground is my Main Top Mast V2.0

 

 

 

Thats all for now

Sam the not always so wise.