Lady Nelson by vossiewulf - Amati/Victory Models - 1:64

[vossiewulf]

No glue yet, but Trial has them lined up all the way across. Or at least the outboard one on the port side lines up with the inboard section on the starboard side, which are the only two I can see on Tony's pics.

 

I knew about the nail trick, but wanted to play with Mikhail's chisels  It wasn't that hard, one of the chisels was exactly the right size and I matched a drill bit to it so the squaring required very little removal of wood. 

 

 

[Rick01]

I did some further checking and it looks as if it's a fifty/fifty choice, so I've learn't something. Can't really go wrong following "Trial" however (as long as you don't try dropping those centre boards in 😉 ).

 

Rick

[vossiewulf]

Pump handles and pump parts, and the small windlass that will go mid deck, I'm including one of Tony's pics to show what I'm trying to follow.

 

If the method to the madness isn't obvious, I've been making all the parts required for the deck furniture up to the point at which they need paint, and stopped there, the point being to minimize my opportunities to break things already installed. I've now made the final pieces and I will be painting most everything black or red, then each of the subassemblies will be installed bow to stern.

 

I've decided to not do much about the stern other than adding some thickness to the transom so it doesn't look like it will collapse at the first wave over the stern. If the transom was flatter I'd consider major surgery to cut it down and add a cap rail, but with it so curved we'd end up with a Seppings round stern on a cutter and that's just replacing one unrealistic thing with another. I wish I'd spent more time early looking at contemporary models instead of trusting to a reputable kit manufacture and kit designer for that matter, I don't think this is Chris Watton's greatest work.

 

One thing I've learned about ship modeling is that to be fully successful, you have to build the entire model down to every detail in your head before you build anything, including working out all the required processes and tools and materials. Assuming you will figure out something when you get there will result in the gods of ship modeling smiting you a good one.

 

 

[Rick01]

Love the work on the pumps and small windlass. I used a heavy black card to make my pump handles, sandwiched layers together to make a solid handle with a slot in the end for the plunger. You going to position the small windlass by one of the hatches? On the Trial they're actually for raising and lowering the centreboards. 

 

Rick

 

[vossiewulf]

I swore I had seen similar windlasses on other contemporary models, but I guess I was wrong. In this case I don't care, I made one and I like it so it's going midships near the pumps just like on Trial. Maybe on this boat they ran a line through some fairleads over the side and used it to fish for tuna

 

[Rick01]

Sounds good to me! Could also have run a line off it through a block up on the jib and used it to stow cannons in the hold (or possibly a ski tow rope). What I have seen a few times are those rollers that you can just see sitting on a bar mounted just behind the mainmast.

 

Rick :-)

 

[popeye the sailor]

very nice Vossie.....windlass looks the treat.  as long as it looks functional.....that's my goal  

[vossiewulf]

Rick did you use the guns from the kit? They're not bad, but I think we could do better with guns from Chuck. However, when I go check his gun offerings, all are much bigger than the 11/16"/17mm of the kit guns. I thought the kit guns were supposed to be 6 pounders, but maybe they're three pounders, only thing I can think of. The only thing he offers at that size is designated a swivel gun and won't have a carriage.

[Rick01]

I did use the supplied cannon and made (rough) carriages designating them as 3lb size. https://www.arc.id.au/ArmstrongPattern.html gives various dimensions and details if you want to turn a few on a lathe at 6lb dimensions.

 

Rick

[vossiewulf]

Getting ready for paint finally, using kneaded rubber eraser for my holder. It's much stiffer that plastic or polymer clay, and leaves no residue on your glue sticks or fingers.

I improved the pump parts, especially the handles that were too heavy, they've been thinned out and made a bit longer. Also drilled out the top pieces to take the circular bushing that goes around the main pump rod..bar... whatever.

I also added this boomsprit reinforcement that's on trial, this part of the rig has always looked flimsy to me and if I were the captain I'd like a more positive groove for the boom to sit in.

After painting all the red and black. Using some annoying polymer clay because I couldn't find another kneaded rubber eraser, need to order more.

Finally able to start gluing up sub-assemblies. The non-painted wood parts got a coat of Minwax golden oak.

Boomsprit support and anchor windlass in place, with pawl engaged.

Grates, bitts, windlass, and companion installed, pumps being assembled.

Was very careful to ensure perfectly straight alignment for the boomsprit.

 

 

 

 

[usedtosail]

Beautiful, clean work Vossie.

[Landlubber Mike]

Beautiful work.  Coming along really nicely!

 

Not sure if you figured out the cannons yet, but in addition to Chuck’s, check out the ones from RB Models.  A bunch of us working on the Pegasus went with them to replace the oversized cannons Amati threw in the kit.  I picked mine up from Cornwall Model Boats.  They are well done and come in lots of different sizes. 

[Rick01]

Looking great - not far to go now!

 

Rick

[BANYAN]

That's looking very good Vossiewulf - very crisp work.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[popeye the sailor]

yepper....deck layout is taking shape  

[vossiewulf]

So the little wood bushings for the pumps were pretty small. But they're in place now, I left the center rod brass for no particular reason. That marks us done with deck furniture, I need to repaint the cap rails now and shoot a clear coat over everything, and then I need cannons from Chuck. According to Rick's and Chuck's charts, his 1 11/64" guns would be right for 6 pounders at 1/64. However, it's darkly amusing that the guns will end up costing more than the kit did as I recall

 

 

[vossiewulf]

For Rick, this was my solution to the stern bits, but I still have to touch up the red. Everything I sailed was a racing boat and we had travelers and boom vangs but I don't remember the rod the traveler traveled on having a name, but I put one in there sort of like yours. Also with a traveler you have to cleat it in the center, so I put a cleat there. And I moved the two that were on the stanchions to the counter, outside the run of the traveler, which makes more sense to me. We're full on making up cutter fittings as we go here.

 

Also as you see I added a boom crutch. I made it somewhat tall as otherwise you'd have to bend low to get past the boom when it's lashed down.

Edited January 24, 2019 by vossiewulf

[Rick01]

Looks good - having it set up that way makes more sense (to me) than the plans.

 

Rick

[vossiewulf]

Short update, I finished the cap rails and cleaned up everything and painted a satin clear coat over everything, especially the deck. I really don't like how that polyurethane looked, so proving you can paint anything over anything if you let it dry enough, I switched to real nitrocellulose lacquer, the Mohawk brand used by luthiers. It's dried a week now, I need to hit it with 1500 and then shoot a final coat. The satin is still a tad glossy for my tastes, I may mix it down a little bit with matte.

 

Otherwise, when I've had time, I've been figuring out numerous creative ways for how not to make pintles and gudgeons. But I'm making progress now. Also I am still waiting for my boxwood square stock for the yards from Crown, and trying to figure out what I'm going to do with the guns. I thought I had measured everything but I forgot to measure the very important height above deck, and the 6 pounders from Chuck are just too big, I'll use them one something else later. But the 3 pounders in the kit are only 17mm and look tiny for the carriages. I've ordered some 20mm "swivel guns" and will see if they look better.

 

And I got likes from Chris Watton! Woohoo! (runs around the room high-fiving everyone)

[vossiewulf]

Also, where is the wood lock on this rudder? And I assume cutters had rudder pendants, right? The contemporary models don't show them but it's basically crazy to go to sea without some secondary rudder attachment. 

[Rick01]

2 hours ago, vossiewulf said:

Also, where is the wood lock on this rudder? And I assume cutters had rudder pendants, right? The contemporary models don't show them but it's basically crazy to go to sea without some secondary rudder attachment. 

Can't help with the technical side but personally I think it's crazy just going to sea in an armed 50ft row boat on steroids! 😉

 

Rick

[vossiewulf]

Been poking at LN every evening, but progress hasn't been stellar, although my boxwood for the masts and yards arrived, and I'm waiting on a couple more packs of 20.75mm guns from Chuck; it turned out they make much more convincing 3 pounders than the kit parts. Unfortunately that meant having to use the metal carriages, as you'll see below.

 

First though, I decided all of the satin finishes I have are too shiny, I just don't like shiny much on scale objects that have paint. I could probably go with satin for a pure wood finish ship but with paint, it starts to look plastic to me, so I decided to go full matte and in the end settled on Tamiya flat clear lacquer, I decanted it from the spray cans and sprayed it with an airbrush.

 

Since this is intended as the final coat for the hull, I spent several hours sanding everything down one more time, trying to reach as much as possible. Here you can see the hull bottom and the hull side sanded with some 1500 grit. The deck and fixtures were also hit with a large variety of sanding sticks and things to reach everywhere, the deck is very reasonably smooth now.

 

And now finished. I'm much happier with this.

 

Working on the rudder, the pintles were made with carbon fiber rod epoxied to annealed brass strips. The gudgeons are made again with annealed brass strip, bent into a tight U shape and soldered to a brass tube.

 

Various stages of making the rudder. I really didn't enjoy this, it reminded me why I don't like using brass unless you're going with merchanical connections, because the stuff never glues worth a damn. I've tried lots of glues and epoxies, and never found anything that won't pop free if you say BOO to it. For this and smaller scales, I won't be using brass moving forward.

 

The rudder bolts are carbon fiber, and turned into real bolts, going through both sides as I drilled the bolt holes once the strip was already glued in place. Except for the bottom strip, which popped off in that process and had to be re-glued.

 

The gun carriages have had their train tackle holes drilled out, casting plugs filed off, and seams sanded down. I then shot some Tamiya red primer over them, and drilled holes on each side for eyebolts for the breech rope and the gun tackles, but I don't think I will fit the latter.

 

Next is to finalize and paint and finish rudder, ditto gun carriages, then I start turning the masts.

Edited February 18, 2019 by vossiewulf

[Landlubber Mike]

That's really beautiful work.  Wow, very impressive!

 

Funny about gluing brass - if you find a solution, I'm all ears.  Gluing brass on my first model led to a lot of nasty words and visions of testing it out as a glider by throwing it out the window. 😳

[popeye the sailor]

I have a couple models where the rudder actually moves........but that's only because the Ca didn't hold     taking me a while to catch up.........nice to see your making good progress    never worry about speed in model building..........nothing kills a model quicker than rushing and making a mistake.

[vossiewulf]

Work on the guns, they're all painted, carriages have breeching rope and gun tackle rings, just need to add the middle piece to the trunnion cap irons (guessing that would be the name). Next they'll be mounted and rigged.

 

I also took a few days to make a knife for Gaetan, I felt bad about having talked him into knives rather than scalpels and then he couldn't find what he wanted. I'll show pics of that once he gets to see it, it just shipped today.

 

I used my favorite gun technique of painting the guns with Tamiya XF-1 flat black and then rubbing them down with my fingertip once  they are dry. This makes the high points shiny and leaves the low spots flat, much more realistic than dry brushing. I'm not aware of any other paint for which this technique will work.

To make the middle piece of those cap irons, I cut a styrene tube lengthwise on the Byrnes saw and then sanded and filed it a bit, slices off that will make the cap pieces.

Once the caps are painted and rubbed down, you have to get very very close to see that they don't actually connect with the pieces on either side.

[Jörgen]

Great Job. It looks really good. 

[BANYAN]

Very clean work Vossie; looks very crisp.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[vossiewulf]

Thanks Pat and Jorgen

 

I mentioned I stopped for a few days to make a knife for Gaetan, he's now received it so not spoiling the surprise. It's curly maple and macassar ebony, although the ebony is suspiciously black. But it weighs a ton like ebony and machines like ebony (rock hard) so who knows. The blade is a Hock blade that I had forgotten I had.

 

It's considerably bigger than the knives I've made for myself, but then again Gaetan is building a 1/24 74, maybe I should have made him an adze.

[Katsumoto]

2 hours ago, vossiewulf said:

Thanks Pat and Jorgen

 

I mentioned I stopped for a few days to make a knife for Gaetan, he's now received it so not spoiling the surprise. It's curly maple and macassar ebony, although the ebony is suspiciously black. But it weighs a ton like ebony and machines like ebony (rock hard) so who knows. The blade is a Hock blade that I had forgotten I had.

 

It's considerably bigger than the knives I've made for myself, but then again Gaetan is building a 1/24 74, maybe I should have made him an adze.

What a great gift Vossie! It’s a beautiful knife, really Sharp as well...so Nice. Well done sir!

[Landlubber Mike]

A beautiful gift!  Really kind of you.  

 

Hard to tell which looks better - your LN or the knife.  Both are works of art. 👍