Armed Virginia Sloop By captain_hook - FINISHED - Model Shipways - Scale 1:48

[Sea Hoss]

Your work is so precise, it's almost too perfect! Very nice...

[captain_hook]

Thank you for the nice words and the likes. Some more work on the carriage. The two skids are made of three layers of wood and the lower front and rear sides are rounded. Nothing is glued yet only dry fitted. Next will be installing all eyebolts.

Edited June 16, 2019 by captain_hook

[Dwight]

Every time I look at this build it takes me a day to get back to mine , I'm thinking about throwing mine away ! 

Beautiful work !

[captain_hook]

Hello Dwight, you shouldn‘t think about your model that way because you may get a bad attitude towards it and then it will get more difficult for you to get back on it. Although not every model looks clean, crisp or precise the same way they are all pieces of art with hundreds of hours spent into it. 

[Dwight]

Got themessage .

[John Cheevers]

Each build is an opportunity to learn, develop, and refine your skills. You don't have to be the best ship modeler, but you should set a goal to be better than your previous effort. Keep digging!

 

[captain_hook]

Some progress on the support timbers, I will use 12 of them. Still only dry-fit. The stop chocks are fitted on the carriage too.

[captain_hook]

Next time I should think twice of releasing every crazy idea. Three weekends have passed and I have finally finished the carriage. A small ship like the AVS wouldn’t have used that complicated type of launchway but it was a  good practice for future builds. Only some rope missing to secure the carriage to the bollards.

 

Next and almost final step is rigging. The kit-supplied rope is polyester so I decided to exchange it completely with cotton rope from Syren SMC - I wonder how many orders like that until Syren is out of stock. I need a ropewalk...

 

 

Edited July 1, 2019 by captain_hook

[JpR62]

Superb ! It was worth taking the time because the result is just beautiful !

A beautiful setting for an equally beautiful ship !

Wonderful work !

[captain_hook]

The summer holiday has passed and I have assembled the syren serving machine. I am a great fan of any kind of tool and the serving machine is a simple but very useful tool. Ordered some guterman dark brown cotton threat as well, it will fit the syren standing rigging rope very well. 

 

It is a pity that over the last years almost all modeling related hobby stores in Germany have disappeared. I remember a store in almost every shopping mall 20 years ago but nowadays they are all gone so I have to order almost everything I need from Amazon et al. But I think this is part of a more complex problem that only a few people left to accept a lot of time and patience for example to build a model ship (and a lot more modelling related like plastic modelling - I remember a lot of kits in hobby and toy stores but today only few kits are available there). Anyway I am very thankful that companys like syren are ,swimming against the stream‘ and provide useful tools, kits and assessoires to keep ship modeling alive.

Edited August 5, 2019 by captain_hook

[captain_hook]

Summer break has passed. Because of high temperature during the last weeks the humidity in my workshop has been so high that even white glue wasn‘t drying in time. So I took a break from building, but now back to work. The stopping mechanism of the windlass was done today. I copied the one Chuck Passaro used as a part of the bowsprit step for cutter cheerful. Basically three layers of boxwood with the iron part fixed inside with two pins on each side and brought to shape with a needle file. 

[captain_hook]

Some more updates. The small stuff takes lot more time than the major steps. I finished boom and gaff, simulated the rope parrel with blackened 0,7mm brass wire. Wanted to make some wood beads out of boxwood but decided to use the supplied brass ones and blackened them instead. That gives a nice contrast to the boxwood mast hoops. Assembled two closed hearts from syren that match the size of the kit-supplied ones. In comparison the two supplied walnut closed hearts.

Edited September 23, 2019 by captain_hook

[captain_hook]

Today I finally glued the mast in place. As I tried to put it in place I developed some sort of obsession whether it was upright or not - starting to mistrust my perception. Sometimes when I look at that ship I only see mistakes. But in the end I gave myself permission to leave it as good as it was then. Hm, Hope the mast keep staying in place until epoxy is cured or I will end up checking it every 15 minutes.

Edited September 28, 2019 by captain_hook

[GuntherMT]

Looks pretty straight to me!

 

My method of making sure I could keep the mast straight was that I simply didn't glue it at all.  The shrouds and rigging hold it in place, and that way I could adjust it if needed after the shrouds were on before making all the deadeye adjustments mostly permanent (since the rigging is only secured with white glue, a bit of water would loosen them up for adjustment if I really needed to).

[captain_hook]

@GuntherMT: That is surely another possibility I haven’t thought of before. But the mast can still be adjusted by the rigging for minor corrections. 
 

The mast is now fixed permanently, makes the hull look pretty small in comparison. I have to attach the boom and gaff next but will add some ropework before that so that I don‘t have to do that later when they are already glued in place. Then I will have to determine the order of rigging the ship.

[captain_hook]

Gaff and boom installed. For the footrope I made a template with similar distances for the knots and made an eyesplice to each end. All blocks on the boom are prepared also. 

[captain_hook]

Started to rig the bowsprit. The bobstay and the bowsprit shrouds were served via the serv-o-matic. Took some time til I got them done. Also installed the footropes, wil bring them to shape later. 

[John Cheevers]

Truly, one of the finest pieces of craftsmanship I've seen in a while!

[captain_hook]

Thank you very much John for the kind words. The bobstay and bowsprit shroud seizings were way to large so I decided to redo them. Now they look more scale. Next time I will use my serv-o-matic to do the seizing but I have to make myself a fixing tool first. I wanted to bring the footropes to shape with some diluted white glue but as I put the glue onto the cotton rope it suddenly started to shrink 😱. But in the end I managed to bring them back into the former shape by hanging some weight at it. That finishes the standing rigging on the bowsprit except for the heel lashing. I will do that tomorrow.

[Dowmer]

Nicely done!

[J11]

Very clean work, truly a family heirloom in the making.

 

[captain_hook]

Thank you very much. I made some more progress, starting to do some running rigging on gaff and boom. As Chuck Passaro said in the cheerful build log, it is easier to do this at this stage as all areas are still accessable. Used some hooks on the gaff, a nice little detail I saw in the cheerful log. The tackles are done but the belay points are not available yet so I have to wait with the last step. Did the heel lashing too, almost forgot that. Next will be doing the standing rigging ... next weekend.

[captain_hook]

Started the standing rigging with the backstays. I‘m not sure if the gaff throat and peak halliards (I mean the part that goes down to the tackles) run inside or outside the backstays, the instructions and the plans give no hints. Any suggestions would be very helpful.  Fortunately I have used hooks to attach the blocks so I can change them if necessary.

Edited November 6, 2019 by captain_hook

[captain_hook]

@SpyGlass: thank you very much.

 

Today I did more work on the standing rigging and installed the spreader yard horse. The upper part is served over its entire length. The shrouds are next, I consider that the hardest part of the rigging.

[GuntherMT]

On whether stuff goes inside or outside of the backstays, I found that if I just checked clearances, everything fell into place.  If running it on one side would cause the ropes to interfere with each other, I'd just put it on the other side where it went without any interference.  I'm not sure of what specific lines you are working on, but the simple 'common sense' system based on how stuff fit is how I handled it.

 

Your build is coming along beautifully.  Sort of wish I'd thought to use hooks like you are using on my build now!

[captain_hook]

I‘m working on the shrouds, have installed the shroud clamps and the laynards but only dry fitted until later adjustment. The supplied shroud clamps are made of britannia casting and I substituted them with syren shrouds clamps - they look much more appropriate and scale. Decided to refit the backstays to a more common way so the running rigging now has a lot of space to run downwards.

[Blue Pilot]

Really Beautiful!

[captain_hook]

Installed the jeers and the forestay and then hang the lower yard on the hook for a test-fit. 🤗

[captain_hook]

More working on the shrouds..

[captain_hook]

Thank you for all the likes. After finishing the shrouds I started to do the ratlines. Lots of clove hitch knots. The plan calls for .021 rope for the ratlines - instead I used .012 brown syren rope. Else the ratlines would have looked way to heavy. I made a template in Corel Draw for the ratlines including the shrouds to avoid a hourglass effect. Took about 4 hours for the port side.